Panda Cub – Chapter 17
by Little PandaGermaphobe
Crawling all over the ground.
Pure white milk swayed inside the transparent glass, and from the moment He Ying carried it out, Jing Dan’s gaze never once left it.
Taking in that fixed, unblinking stare, He Ying arched a brow and set the glass down in front of her, rather amused by the reaction.
She looked exactly like one of those cubs who hadn’t been weaned yet.
Eyeing the glass before her, Jing Dan’s nose twitched. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this glass He Ying had brought out was somehow sweeter and more fragrant than the milk she’d drunk earlier.
She picked it up and took a sip, and her eyes flew wide at once. Another sip, and only then did they narrow in something like contentment; then she began drinking in small, careful mouthfuls.
It actually tasted better than the milk from before. Had He Ying added sugar? The ordinarily bland milk carried a faint thread of sweetness—not cloying, just barely sweet—exactly the degree of sweetness Jing Dan liked.
Watching Jing Dan this content over a single glass of milk, He Ying inexplicably felt that she looked like a panda cub just then—lying back with all four paws wrapped around a bottle, nursing away without a care in the world.
The thought amused her almost immediately. Why on earth was she comparing her to a panda?
“Tasty?” He Ying asked.
“Mm! Mm!” Jing Dan nodded again and again. She finished the glass and actually wanted a second; she looked up at He Ying with wide, hopeful eyes.
He Ying: “…”
What had gotten into this one? Not only had she stopped pulling faces at her—now she was looking at her with that pitiful little expression…
He Ying pressed a hand to her brow, and at the same time felt there was something wrong with her own head. The girl had stopped giving her attitude, and somehow she couldn’t get used to it.
She rose, went to the kitchen, and fixed her another glass of milk. “This is the last one. Any more and you won’t have room for lunch.”
Jing Dan: “…Oh.”
As she drank, she glanced around the room and asked, a little puzzled, “Hasn’t Hu Tu gotten up yet?”
By all rights, Hu Tu wasn’t one to laze in bed. She should have been up ages ago, shouldn’t she?
He Ying: “…”
Meeting those utterly pure, limpid eyes, He Ying found herself strangely reluctant to say what Hu Tu was actually up to right now.
“…She went out with some other friends. She said not to wait for her.”
Jing Dan blinked. “Oh.”
He Ying sighed inwardly. When would that girl ever grow a bit of sense, running off like that? Even He Ying couldn’t help worrying she’d get swindled by someone.
Before long, lunch arrived, and the two of them ate in He Ying’s room. After a short rest, He Ying left to join the program recording. Jing Dan tried calling Hu Tu twice—no demon picked up either time—so she headed back to Huaqing City on her own.
Back in Huaqing City, her first order of business was the company: she gathered some staff for a meeting and laid out her ideas.
“If we’re moving into variety programming, I know someone. She’s an old hand in the variety circle—knows the business inside and out. If we can poach her over, we’ll find our footing that much faster.” Production Director Xu-jie spoke up.
“Oh? Who?” Jing Dan lifted her eyes.
“Qiu Shuhuai.”
Jing Dan paused. That name carried real weight in the entertainment industry.
More than twenty years rooted deep in the business, an existence audiences had dubbed an evergreen—and over all those years, she had helped plenty of people build proper careers in the industry. A true senior, in every sense of the word.
“She can be poached?” Jing Dan asked, a little skeptical. That senior had been at her television station from the very beginning; plenty of people must have tried to lure her away over the years, yet no one had ever seen her poached by anyone.
Xu-jie smiled. “Then it seems President Jing isn’t aware of her current situation. The station’s top leadership has changed—and some things change along with it.”
Whether a person stayed somewhere wasn’t only a matter of pay. The climate mattered just as much.
Jing Dan deliberated for a moment. She knew perfectly well the benefits of bringing Qiu Shuhuai aboard. Weighing the pros and cons carefully, she nodded. “Then go make the attempt. She can name her own terms.”
Landing her alone would already be a resounding calling card for the company.
Xu-jie brightened. “Alright!”
……
Back at the office, Jing Dan took out her phone to find a message from Xu Zhihuan. Once she’d read it properly, her expression went colder by degrees.
【Jing Dan】: Spying on me?
If Xu Zhihuan wasn’t watching her, how would she have known she’d gone on a set visit to He Ying?
【Xu Zhihuan】: Don’t forget what I do. I have my people on that show—he simply happened to see you, that’s all.
She could say that all she liked. Jing Dan still felt an instinctive loathing for the woman’s behavior. It crossed the line far too much, leaving her with the creeping sense that she was Xu Zhihuan’s possession…
【Xu Zhihuan】: What is He Ying to you? The two of you seem quite close.
The moment the message sent, Xu Zhihuan stared at her screen with dark eyes, thinking of the pair at her banquet days ago—that wordless rapport of theirs. Every recollection of it curdled her mood another degree.
Reading that line, Jing Dan let out a cold scoff. She couldn’t even be bothered to reply; she switched her phone off entirely. Out of sight, out of mind.
What He Ying was to her, indeed—and what was Xu Zhihuan herself, then? What was she to Jing Dan? The gall of her, asking so matter-of-factly.
On her end, Xu Zhihuan waited a long while and no reply came. Staring at a screen gone utterly dead, she couldn’t help but laugh out of sheer fury.
Good. Just like that. All the more entertaining a conquest.
I’d like to see how long you can stay this stubborn in front of me!
Her face dark, Xu Zhihuan dialed the internal line and summoned her assistant.
Having ignored Xu Zhihuan, Jing Dan soon put the entire matter out of her head. When the workday ended, she drove straight back to the suburban villa she shared with her aunt.
Arriving home, she was startled to find her aunt wasn’t there. Granted, Aunt was, in human parlance, an iron lady—but she kept strictly punctual hours, absolutely never touching work during her off time. She should have been home.
Jing Dan showered first, and when she came out she found that Hu Tu had let herself into her room and was sitting on her bed, watching her with a brooding look on her face.
Jing Dan: “…”
Jing Dan lifted a hand and swept it through the air. A flash of white light crossed Hu Tu’s vision—and the next thing she knew, she was sitting on the floor.
Hu Tu: “…Well, well. Your demonic power’s improved again.”
Jing Dan huffed coldly. “How many times have I told you? Do not just wander into my room. Especially onto my bed!”
Then she walked to the bedside and smoothed flat the sheets Hu Tu had wrinkled, and only then did the sight sit a little easier with her.
Hu Tu: “…Where on earth did this germaphobia of yours even come from? What’s wrong with one little sit!”
Had this woman wiped every last memory of her own crawling-all-over-the-ground days as a cub clean out of her mind?!
That soft white fur of hers had picked up more than its share of dust and leaves back then, hadn’t it?
Jing Dan eyed her coldly.
Hu Tu hastily threw both hands up. “Okay, okay! I remember. Next time it definitely won’t happen!”
Inwardly, she rolled her eyes—then thought of the videos on her phone, the ones of little Jing Dan crawling all over the ground as a cub, and decided it was absolutely necessary to set aside some free time to take them out for a proper walk down memory lane.
The author has something to say:
Tutu: Embarrassing footage in hand—this is exactly why you never mess with a childhood friend!
0 Comments