Adopting a Puppy.
Yu Luo was accepted into B University.
Her grandmother had demanded she apply to S City Jiaotong University1, so she could attend school while working at the company in S City. But she had secretly changed her application.
The granddaughter had always been one to receive what comes adversely with obedience2, and with the temptation and constraint of inheriting an enormous family fortune, Yu He3 hadn’t become wary of Yu Luo, and thus failed to stop this sudden rebellion in time.
When the B University acceptance letter arrived at their home, Yu He was all smiles, basking in the glory of her business partners’ congratulations, but behind the scenes, she gave Yu Luo a harsh scolding.
“Not only have your wings hardened4, you’re even plotting against me? You used tricks to let all my partners know,” Yu He sneered. “If you dare not to come back after graduation, don’t even think about inheriting a single fen5 from the family.”
On a hot summer noon, Yu Luo was sent to the courtyard to be punished by standing.
The eighteen-year-old girl was at the stage where her youthful innocence was gradually fading. Her face, which had grown increasingly clear, cold, and otherworldly, was flushed red by the scorching sun, and fine beads of sweat trickled down from her temples.
A muffled sound came from the side. Yu Luo’s eyelashes trembled, causing a drop of sweat to roll to her chin before shattering on the ground, where it quickly evaporated.
She turned her head to look and saw a young girl getting up from the ground, her delicate eyebrows slightly furrowed as she patted the dust off her butt.
“…” Yu Luo’s lips twitched, but she ultimately suppressed her laughter and only asked softly, “Does it hurt?”
Qi Song turned her head to look at Yu Luo, not showing the slightest embarrassment from having fallen on her butt while climbing over the wall.
“Doesn’t hurt.” Her eyes curved into a smile, and she ran up to Yu Luo in a few steps, gazing at her without blinking.
“Quick, drink this. I just squeezed it myself. It’s soft peach juice, and it’s super sweet.” Qi Song pulled a bottle of chilled peach juice from the plastic bag in her hand.
As she twisted open the cap, she muttered under her breath, the usually well-mannered girl directly using the full name of Yu Luo’s grandmother out of dissatisfaction: “Yu He is so mean. What if you got heatstroke from the sun…”
The pale pink peach juice still contained some soft peach pulp, and as it swirled, the sweet and fresh scent of peaches wafted out.
Yu Luo didn’t refuse the girl’s kindness. She took it and drank a mouthful, a cooling sensation spreading from her throat throughout her entire body.
As she tilted her head back, the elegant curve of her long, fair neck was revealed. Qi Song accidentally glanced at it for a moment too long, then inexplicably and hastily pulled her gaze away.
“Yu-jiejie, when are you going to B City?” she asked.
Yu Luo said, “Next week.”
“So early?” Qi Song’s gaze slightly hardened, but it quickly brightened again. “Then Yu-jiejie can leave this pitch-black house soon, and you won’t have to be punished by standing anymore…”
In the girl’s light and cheerful voice, Yu Luo seemed to feel a touch of the freedom that her future self would soon be able to grasp.
“You think this house is pitch-black?” There was a smile in her eyes.
“Mhm,” Qi Song said. “I just always feel like you don’t belong here.”
“Go to B University and find the life you want.” Her clear and ardent gaze was fixed on her, filled to the brim with sincere blessings.
Yu Luo looked at her, slightly stunned.
She raised her hand, and this time, her movement was fluid as she stroked the girl’s head, saying softly, “Qi Song, you have to be happy too.”
She hoped Qi Song could differentiate successfully, so she wouldn’t have to walk a difficult path under the world’s scrutiny in the future; after all, she had tasted how bitter that was.
She hoped the girl’s eyes would remain as clear as they were at first sight, every time she saw them.
B University was an inclusive and open institution of higher learning.
Compared to learning etiquette in a repressive and rigid room, or being punished by standing in the courtyard regardless of season or weather, it now seemed Yu Luo only needed to study and develop herself.
A single, unprecedented act of brave rebellion had exchanged for a freedom she had once found unimaginable.
Passing by the lake, Yu Luo got off her bicycle, her gaze falling on a small cat in the grass.
The kitten was fluffy all over, and as it rolled around, it freely exposed its belly.
Yu Luo pressed her lips together slightly and approached with extremely light steps, wanting to observe this little animal.
But then she saw the kitten suddenly jolt and scramble into the nearby bushes.
“…” Yu Luo stared blankly at the empty lawn and, a beat too late, said to the already vanished cat, “I’m sorry.”
“Classmate, would you like to join the Cat Association?”
A female voice sounded from the side. Yu Luo turned her head to see a fellow student with a blush on her cheeks and a somewhat shy expression.
“I-I mean, our Cat Association is responsible for taking care of the stray cats on campus. We organize members to feed the cats along a route every day,” the girl introduced. “If you join the Cat Association, you’ll meet lots of kitties who will lie flat and allow petting!”
Yu Luo was slightly taken aback.
She suddenly remembered the soft, warm feeling of Qi Song rubbing the top of her head against her palm; she remembered patting Qi Song’s head on the day before she left, her eyes catching the joyful curve of the girl’s lips, and she couldn’t help but smile: “Do you like having your head patted so much?… Like a little puppy.”
She heard Qi Song’s matter-of-fact reply: “Only when it’s you.”
She also remembered the postcard Qi Song had sent yesterday, which mentioned: I heard there are lots of cute little animals at B University. Has Yu-jiejie seen one and loved one?
Yu Luo gave the girl in front of her a polite nod and declined the invitation.
There are many kittens at the school, but I chose not to join the cat association.
—That evening, Yu Luo wrote this on the postcard she sent back to Qi Song.
The reply was very subtle. Would Qi Song be able to understand it? At this thought, a small smile touched Yu Luo’s lips.
She faintly looked forward to the next reply, but…
Qi Song never wrote again.
Through a series of coincidences, Yu Luo joined the university’s drama club and performed in several plays. She, who rarely found pleasure in anything, suddenly felt addicted to performing.
Afterward, she participated in a campus audition, was noticed by a new director, and became the female lead of a movie…
All of these developments were completely unexpected, yet so natural.
When filming wrapped6, the weather was hot and the sun was blinding. Yu Luo accepted a cold drink from a staff member; it was a peach-flavored beverage.
She thought of the bottle of peach juice from that summer noon last year, the girl’s bright eyes, and the phrase, “Go to B University and find the life you want.”
“I think I’ve found it…” she murmured softly. “What about you?”
Why did you stop contacting me?
Yu Luo swirled the pale pink liquid in the bottle and bit her lower lip.
In a state of natural unease, she instinctively felt that she had been abandoned again—because I didn’t do well enough, you no longer care about me as a friend.
She couldn’t even stop herself from guessing that Qi Song had somehow found out about her pheromone scent and, like her mother, had left in disgust.
The way the girl’s gaze would always suddenly become bright and focused when she looked at her, and every unreserved, proactive approach she made, were still fresh in her mind.
Had she lost it all so quickly? Raising a hand to the gland on the back of her neck, Yu Luo’s nose tingled, and she shamefully held back tears.
During the summer break at the end of her freshman year, Yu Luo returned to S City.
As soon as she got home, Yu He ordered her to change her clothes and get ready.
“We are going to the Qi family’s home.” Yu He’s face showed an aged weariness.
The Yu family’s business was expanding internationally but was repeatedly hitting walls, and their domestic operations had also encountered many problems. In this moment of being left propping, right constrained7, the Qi family was faintly showing signs of crossing the river and demolishing the bridge8, seemingly intending to end their partnership.
Yu He wanted to salvage it.
She instructed, “Later you will meet the Qi family’s Little Young Master, his name is Qi Le9. Try your best to get on good terms with him.”
Yu Luo’s breath caught, and the name that had been tangled in her heart for so long slipped out: “What about Qi Song?”
“That ordinary person?” Yu He said with disdain. “She couldn’t differentiate. She’s nothing now. The Qi family settled for the next best thing and dragged back their free-range Beta waste of a son to be the heir.”
“…But Qi Song isn’t even fifteen yet. Maybe she can still differentiate later?” The color slowly drained from Yu Luo’s lips.
“The Qi family couldn’t wait. They wanted to make plans as soon as possible based on her differentiation status, so they pulled some strings to have her go through the differentiation process early,” Yu He said.
Forcing differentiation early was not only against the rules but also extremely harmful to the body.
Yu Luo was speechless for a moment. The image of the dense, red, swollen needle marks on Qi Song’s arm by the patch of weeds in the corner of the Qi’s property, and the girl’s tearful words, “I’m pitiful too, Yu-jiejie,” surfaced in her mind.
She imagined Qi Song being forcibly dragged to the hospital to differentiate early, and the image of her being discarded like a worn-out shoe by her family in her moment of weakness. She instantly felt so suffocated she could hardly breathe.
“The Qi family is having a headache over how to deal with that ordinary person…” Yu He said lightly. “Perhaps we can start our negotiations from here.”
Yu Luo’s heart began to ache sharply.
That such a bright and lovely girl was being pressed at the heart by a word as cold and sharp as “deal with,” used as a bargaining chip by Yu He to salvage a partnership.
Her throat was too tight to make a sound. Thoughts churned in her mind, and finally, she spoke in a hoarse voice: “I can help share grandmother’s burden.”
Yu He looked over.
In that instant, Yu Luo pushed the acting skills she had honed over this period to their absolute limit.
“Didn’t you say the Qi family finds an ordinary person unlucky, but they’re also afraid of handling it improperly and gaining a reputation in society for being no feeling, no righteousness?10” Yu Luo’s fingers, hanging by her side, trembled slightly, but her face was exceptionally calm. “Let her go to B City. I’ll look after her.”
Yu Luo’s excellent academic performance was common knowledge in their social circle, often used to compliment the Yu family or to lecture children. Having the Qi family’s child go to B City to live with Yu Luo, to be immersed in a strong academic atmosphere, seemed logically reasonable and not like a blunt act of abandonment.
Yu He didn’t speak immediately.
She stared at Yu Luo, her gaze deep and sharp.
Yu Luo met her gaze, her heart pounding like a drum and her palms sweating unconsciously, yet her expression remained composed.
Yu He’s expression gradually relaxed, and she let out a snort. “You go away for a year and don’t come back, I thought you no longer had the Yu family in your heart.”
This was an agreement to the proposal.
Yu Luo knew the reason Yu He wasn’t suspicious—and why the Qi family later agreed—was because they both assumed that Yu Luo would also despise an ordinary person. Therefore, this proposal was seen as her making a sacrifice.
Thinking of this, she didn’t know whether to feel sorrowful or fortunate.
At the junction of dusk and night, the twilight was dim.
In a remote corner of the Qi family’s property, the weeds grew thick, a few wildflowers had withered, and the pond was dry.
Qi Song was squatting beside it, holding a bowl, her head lowered as she ate quietly.
Ever since that day at the hospital, she was no longer allowed at the dinner table.
She tried her best to chew the food, but when she swallowed, a sore pain still shot through her throat.
Qi Song’s eating motions paused as she wondered if her throat was sick.
It wasn’t until her vision blurred that she, with later knowing, later realization, understood—oh, she was crying.
It was dinner time. She knew the Yu family had come to visit. Right now, Yu Luo should be in the Qi family’s brightly lit grand hall, dining elegantly with the others.
They were so close, yet already so far apart.
Just as Qi Song was haphazardly wiping away her tears with the back of her needle-marked hand, she suddenly heard footsteps behind her.
Her first reaction was that Qi Le had come over to mock her again.
But unlike Qi Le’s always swaggering and triumphant noises, these footsteps were light and slow, like a gentle sigh.
Qi Song’s heart suddenly trembled.
With a strong premonition, she buried her head even lower, almost plunging it into her bowl as tears dripped into her food. The hands holding the bowl and chopsticks began to shake, and a chopstick clattered to the ground.
A moment later, a warm weight settled on her head. Someone was stroking her head, the motion precious and gentle.
Yu Luo squatted down beside Qi Song, her hand sliding down the girl’s smooth, long hair to touch her chin.
With a gentle pressure, she lifted Qi Song’s face.
The girl’s once-bright eyes were dim, shimmering with a misty layer of tears. The rims of her eyes and the tip of her nose were red, making her look as pitiful as a homeless stray puppy on the side of the road.
The moment their eyes met, her gaze fled in panic and distress, and a low sob escaped her throat.
But it didn’t matter—
She was going to adopt her.
✨ Unlock Early Access to Chapters! ✨
Choose your perfect membership at bamboopandatl.net:
📚 Full Access ($4.99)
• Advanced chapters of ALL ongoing novels
• Access to complete finished novels
• Ad-free reading experience
📖 Single Novel Access ($1.49)
• Advanced chapters of ONE specific novel
• Ad-free reading for chosen novel
PayPal is the only current payment option!