Panda Cub – Chapter 19
by Little PandaUp to No Good
Just a tool person’s lot in life.
The demon gaped at He Ying in shock, then whipped around to flee — only to find herself nailed to the ground by several bands of white light, unable to move an inch.
“Oh? You know me?” He Ying read the look on her face, a faint smile curving her lips.
So it seemed she wasn’t entirely a nameless nobody in the entertainment industry after all.
“Let me go! Or are you not afraid everyone will find out you’re a demon?!” the demon snarled.
The bluster didn’t frighten He Ying in the slightest. She shook her head, eyeing the demon the way one eyes a moron — mediocre in strength, and apparently none too bright in the brains department either.
“I’ve already caught you. Why on earth would I let you leave?” White light flashed at her fingertip, and a soft pale beam streaked upward, vanishing into the dark sky.
“Just you wait. Whether you ever get out again is another question entirely.” He Ying’s tone stayed light and easy as she laid a further restriction over the demon, sealing away her last hope of escape.
“What are you doing, running off on your own again?” He Ying looked down at the panda cub nestled in her arms, half exasperated. Don’t tell me she’d come running over with another craving for bamboo shoots?
That sheer enthusiasm for eating — just like a certain someone.
“Mm! Mm!” Jing Dan wriggled in protest. Why did that tone make it sound as if this were her fault?
“Hold still!” He Ying steadied her, palm smoothing gently over her head, giving the silly little tuft of fur a flick. Her voice sank half a shade. “I saw everything just now. Even without me there, you’d have come out fine — but you can guard against ten thousand chances and still be undone by the one. What if, this time, you’d run into something far stronger than you?”
Demons who butchered their own kind were admittedly rare these days — but rare was no excuse for dropping one’s guard. If that demon had been a little stronger today; if He Ying hadn’t come… she didn’t dare imagine how it would have ended.
Jing Dan ducked her head and buried it deep in He Ying’s arms, refusing to be seen. Part of her bristled, stubborn and unconvinced; another part squirmed under the guilty knowledge that every word had been true.
Seeing her like that, He Ying couldn’t bring herself to say anything more. She kneaded the cub’s head and asked, deliberately light, “Still want shoots? I’ll dig you the tender ones.”
So soft, so squashy — she felt so good to hold that He Ying honestly didn’t want to put her down.
Jing Dan gave a cold little snort through her nose and went on refusing to lift her head.
He Ying laughed despite herself. She’d only scolded her a little — and this was the grudge she held? That sulky little look put her strangely in mind of that kid Jing Dan; the two of them sulked in almost exactly the same way.
Of course, the cub currently had no face to show — no readable expression at all. If her face could be seen, would she be flinging about the same sour scowl as Jing Dan?
The thought tickled her all over again. Since the cub wouldn’t grace her with a response, He Ying simply carried her off toward the far side of the grove, leaving the trapped demon to wait at her leisure for the Demon Realm Administration to collect her.
He Ying carried her along, searching slowly for shoots — and they had to be the tender kind. Perhaps it was the experience of last time, but the hunt went far more smoothly now, and before long she’d found one, crouched down with a broken branch, and begun digging out the soil around it.
At the sounds of digging, Jing Dan’s head stirred, wanting to rise and take a look. It had barely lifted a fraction before she remembered: she was still angry. She could not cave this quickly! Her head promptly buried itself right back down.
A smile hovered on He Ying’s lips. She’d only just wrapped tonight’s recording and come here to unwind, thinking she’d test her luck and see whether she really might run into that little panda. Well — she had. And the sight of it had very nearly scared her to death.
With a twist of her wrist she snapped the shoot free, then settled the cub on her lap and began peeling it for her. Once every last husk was stripped away, she waved the shoot in front of the panda’s nose and teased, “Not eating? It’s very tender. Very, very tender.”
Even as she said it, she was laughing inside. A perfectly good demon, and she had gone and lived herself straight into the role of a tool person.
Peeling shoot husks for this panda; peeling shrimp shells and picking out Sichuan peppercorns for Jing Dan. It was simply a tool person’s destiny.
Jing Dan’s nose twitched. The clean, fresh fragrance of bamboo shoot was already drifting into her nostrils. She wanted to eat it so badly — and yet her heart was at war.
If she ate it now, she’d be contradicting the very huff she’d only just staged!
Perhaps He Ying understood her standoff between pride and appetite. She lifted the cub, turned her around, held the shoot to her lips, and said with a smile, “Open up.”
Jing Dan: “…”
The pose — anyone who didn’t know better would swear she was holding a baby bottle.
But with food presented at her mouth — touching her lips, no less — what possible principle could justify not eating now?
She raised a paw to cradle the shoot and gnawed away, eyes roaming everywhere as He Ying rose with her in her arms, on the lookout for more.
Soon she was making urgent little “mm, mm” sounds, one paw raised to point at a bamboo stalk nearby, patting He Ying’s hand in excitement.
“All right, all right. No rush — eat slowly, and I’ll go dig them for you.” Amused, He Ying hurried over a few quick steps. At the spot Jing Dan had pointed out, she found not one but several shoots in a row.
She shook her head inwardly, more and more inclined to laugh.
Digging away, she asked, “You can’t talk yet?”
Jing Dan kept happily at her tender little shoot, ignoring the question entirely.
He Ying: “…”
The same familiar recipe, the same unmistakable ungrateful bear1 taste.
“We’ve met twice now, at the very least. Doesn’t that make us friends?”
Jing Dan finished eating and craned her neck out to watch her dig.
He Ying: “…”
Fine. Who could blame her? She was a panda, after all.
After He Ying had dug tender shoots for her for the better part of the night, a white light flashed over the thoroughly stuffed bear — and she vanished from He Ying’s arms.
He Ying lowered her arms, expressionless. Wonderful. She had thoroughly committed this ungrateful bear to memory.
Back in her room at last, Jing Dan gave herself a thorough cleaning, rolled onto the bed, and dragged the blanket up over her belly. Drowsiness finally descended, and she slept, cozy and sound.
By the time she woke again, the morning was already half spent. Jing Dan sat up in bed — still in panda form, she looked especially tiny against the enormous mattress, sitting up like a pillowy soft cake, or a black-and-white zongzi2 that made you want to take a bite.
But Jing Dan was dumbfounded. A whole night had passed — why could she still not take human form?
While she was still reeling, elsewhere, Hu Tu looked at the He Ying seated before her and just wanted to laugh.
“What were you doing out there — stealing chickens and snatching dogs?” And those dark circles of hers! Good grief. Tell people she was a panda, and they’d believe you.
Demons, in truth, had no need of sleep. But with most demons living in the human world these days, many had adjusted their routines to seem as reliant on sleep as humans were — which meant that one sudden all-nighter could now carve dark circles under a demon’s eyes just like anyone else’s.
He Ying held her face stiffly blank. She hadn’t been out stealing chickens or snatching dogs. She had merely dug bamboo shoots for an ungrateful bear for half the night.
“What did you come see me about?” Hu Tu refused to believe the woman had sought her out first thing in the morning just to glare at her.
He Ying’s expression turned grave, and she said to Hu Tu with earnest, heartfelt weight, “How exactly has Jing Dan managed to survive this long? Why haven’t you taught her more?”
Honestly — how had those two pulled it off? One of them had grown a full eight hundred scheming minds; the other couldn’t keep hold of a single one without it leaking out through two holes.
The author has something to say:
Hehe: One single mind — and even that one leaks out through two holes.
Luan Luan: Let me translate, let me translate! In plain terms, that’s what’s commonly known as being dense! Dandan, she says you’re dense!
Hehe: …
Footnotes
- 白眼熊 | baiyan xiong | A pun on 'baiyanlang,' the white-eyed wolf — Chinese slang for an ingrate — with 'wolf' swapped for 'bear' to suit a panda.
- 粽子 | zongzi | Pyramid-shaped glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves and tied; a Dragon Boat Festival staple whose plump bundled shape suits a roly-poly cub.
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