Panda Cub – Chapter 15
by Little PandaScamming the Bear
No need to pay tuition to anyone else.
She was this close to laughing in sheer exasperation. Looking at that utterly earnest face, she shook her head and sighed.
Who knew if this kid was this painfully straight-shooting with everyone else, too? If so, had anybody actually died of annoyance yet?
“All right, go on. Ask.” He Ying was resigned. She’d already made up her mind to have a word with Hu Tu and get her to properly coach Jing Dan. How had someone as slick as a fox ever managed to befriend a blockhead this straight-laced?
“Oh.” Jing Dan complied, entirely unaware that her earlier conduct had just carved some new, deeper impression of her into He Ying’s mind.
After that, the two of them ate and chatted — and before Jing Dan knew it, she’d learned quite a lot from He Ying, and picked up no shortage of ideas from her as well.
“If you want to approach things from the variety show angle, go do some research on what audiences most want to watch. Just remember — the program has to be interesting.”
“A bit more interesting.” Jing Dan nodded. “Is watching other people date interesting?”
He Ying: “…”
Forgive her — she genuinely could not comprehend it. What was supposed to be fun about watching other people date?
“…Why do you ask?”
Jing Dan pushed a skewer of grilled meatballs over to He Ying of her own accord and said, with the utmost seriousness, “Don’t people love CP shipping these days? Isn’t that basically the same as watching other people date?”
Personally, she wasn’t much for dragging on-screen couples into reality, but she couldn’t deny the sheer momentum of netizens in full shipping mode — or the wild, unbounded variety of pairings they shipped.
He Ying fell silent for a moment. That was… annoyingly solid logic. She’d shipped two CPs herself, after all — mostly because the chemistry those pairs gave off just standing next to each other was simply too intense!
“You could give it a try.” He Ying nodded earnestly. This girl had money anyway — plenty for her to squander on a few attempts.
“Really?” For a moment Jing Dan could hardly believe it. She’d agreed that easily?
He Ying kept nodding, her face dead serious. “Of course it’s true. You’ve got the money, and honestly, I think the idea is sound. Nobody’s touched this space yet — there’s no harm in you being the first to try.”
Somebody had to be the first to eat a crab1. And what if she bit into a big, fat one — and the whole thing blew up overnight?
Hearing this, the more Jing Dan turned it over, the more workable the idea seemed. Once the thought clicked into place, her cool, frost-set face took on a faint smile, and she felt considerably lighter.
He Ying quietly watched that little smile from the side, unable to help thinking: See, this child looks perfectly lovely when she smiles. Why does she insist on keeping that stiff board of a face on all day?
Lightened of heart, Jing Dan tossed a few kernels of grilled corn into her mouth and looked down at her phone.
Jing Dan: “…”
More than two hours had already slipped by…
She hastily stopped the timer and stared blankly at the number frozen on the screen.
Had she really talked with He Ying that long? Why did it feel like only a short while, gone in a blink?
Seeing the movement, He Ying pressed her lips together in a soft laugh and asked, entirely on purpose, “How much time, hm? Let me see.”
Jing Dan’s whole spirit drooped. If she’d been in her true form just then, that lone tuft of hair atop her head would surely have drooped flat right along with it.
Two hundred-odd thousand RMB — that was four hundred-some late-night snacks!
She didn’t move, so He Ying reached over and took the phone herself — and even her eyes rippled with astonishment. It had really been that long?
The number blazing on the timer was 02:34:28.
Yet even as she marveled, she couldn’t help laughing again. She handed the phone back to Jing Dan with something of a spectator’s relish, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Do the math. Let’s see how much you owe me.”
Jing Dan: “…”
And in the end, she truly, genuinely pulled up the calculator and started chugging through the numbers.
He Ying watched her do it and finally lost the battle, laughing outright. How could a kid be this adorable? Dumb and blunt, yet pure through and through.
And at the very, very end, she actually, truly transferred 257,444.44 RMB to He Ying’s account — rounding executed to strict and exacting standards.
He Ying looked at the deposit and grinned like a money-obsessed miser. Right now, gazing at Jing Dan was like gazing at a gleaming golden statue — a treasure from head to toe!
Nor did she feel the least bit like she’d swindled a child out of the money. She took it with a perfectly clear conscience.
Better scammed by her than by someone else, right? If she could teach the girl her lesson herself, there was no need for her to go paying tuition to strangers.
“Our President Jing is magnanimous indeed.” He Ying gave her a thumbs-up, her smile the very picture of sincerity.
And yet, something about that smile struck Jing Dan as strange. No matter how she looked at it, it didn’t resemble genuine praise.
She gave a light hmph and decided not to press the matter.
He Ying chuckled — then saw her accidentally bite into a Sichuan peppercorn and hurriedly got up to pour her a glass of milk. “Eat slower. It’s not like someone’s going to steal it from you,” she said, half exasperated.
Jing Dan took the milk and gulped it down, and only then did the numbing in her mouth gradually dissolve. Her lips puckered faintly. She felt a little wronged.
How was that fair! She’d already spent two hundred-odd thousand, and she couldn’t even eat in peace!
“There, there, there. I’ll pick them out for you.” He Ying couldn’t stand seeing her look so small and aggrieved. She shook her head, resigned to her fate, and began picking the Sichuan peppercorns out of her food — with her eyes already rimmed red like that, one more accidental peppercorn, and He Ying feared she’d burst into tears on the spot.
“You love eating that much?” she asked while she picked. Whenever this girl encountered food, forget her legs — even her eyes refused to budge from it.
Jing Dan gave a soft snort, face stiff, unwilling to admit it.
Her aunt had scolded her plenty over this exact habit, so she’d simply assumed He Ying was about to lecture her too.
“If you love it that much, shall I cook for you next time?” He Ying said.
Hmm?
Jing Dan froze on the spot. She looked up at He Ying and sized her up from top to bottom. Perhaps it was all the dance training — her posture was tall and elegant, her bearing exceptional, and those hands above all, slender as tender reed shoots2, were unmistakably the hands of the thoroughly pampered. And someone like that knew how to cook?
“Hm? What, you don’t believe me?” He Ying laughed softly. Catching the dubious look in her eyes, her smile deepened a shade.
Jing Dan nodded with complete honesty. However you looked at it, He Ying did not seem like anyone who could cook. Besides, she was busy earning money to support her dance troupe — where would she find the time to learn?
Faced with such candid disbelief, He Ying shook her head with a faint sigh, shot her a glance, and didn’t insist she believe it this very moment.
“Then just wait. The moment I’m back, I’ll cook it for you.”
With that, she pushed the peppercorn-picked food back in front of Jing Dan — and watching her lower her head and eat in earnest, a strange, delicate feeling suddenly rose in her heart.
What she was doing right now was basically feeding a little animal.
That realization abruptly called to mind the panda cub she’d met a while back. She’d fed that thing for the better part of a night, and the ungrateful little wretch had turned around and forgotten her clean.
She’d gone back to that bamboo forest twice since, but she never again ran into that panda baby who came creeping out in the dead of night to dig up bamboo shoots.
Jing Dan accepted He Ying’s service with a perfectly clear conscience. It was halfway through the meal before it hit her: “You didn’t call Hu Tu?”
She lifted her head, rather bewildered, and looked at He Ying. Wasn’t she friends with Hu Tu?
He Ying’s hand, mid-way through picking bones out of her fish, stilled. She raised her eyes and regarded Jing Dan for a long, wordless moment. She’d never imagined this girl’s reflex arc could stretch quite this far — a little food, and she’d forgotten her own friend for over two hours?
If this person ever landed a partner someday… surely the partner wouldn’t lose out to a late-night snack, too?
The author has something to say:
Hehe: Only I get to scam her!
Footnotes
- 第一个吃螃蟹的人 | di yi ge chi pangxie de ren | A Chinese saying popularized by the writer Lu Xun, honoring the courage of whoever first dared to taste a crab; it describes a pioneer willing to risk trying what no one has attempted before.
- 柔荑 | rou ti | A classical allusion from the Book of Songs likening a beauty's hands to tender young reed shoots; it became a stock literary compliment for delicate, pampered hands.
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