Chapter 284: A Summer Without Seeing You, Let Me

Is it reasonable for there to be pandas in Changancheng?

It’s perfectly reasonable—there are eight Qinling Panda Ecological Conservation Areas surrounding the Qinling Mountains.

The Nongke Academy where Yu Xueqing and Mo Yiqing study has a Qinling Panda Conservation Area at its back mountain, and due to the spirit beast Fat Cat, the number of Qinling pandas there has nearly reached fifty.

In the past, when students were on campus, the school would communicate with Fat Cat to have it keep an eye on its little siblings.

But Yu Xueqing and the others returned to campus too early—the school hadn’t yet begun retrieving the Qinling pandas.

The entire campus’s experimental fields, ornamental ponds, and seniors’ agricultural assignments now all belong to the Qinling pandas as playgrounds or food.

Therefore.

The unsuspecting Ling Ren, dragging her suitcase through campus, was robbed by pandas.

“Ling Ren, don’t panic—I asked, and the panda over there says you smell like panda milk. It’s looking for its cub, just wondering if you’ve seen it, and also hoping for some food.”

With Mo Yiqing’s money power, the taxi driver from Changancheng instantly became a yellow Ferrari driver, speeding at ten percent over the limit all the way to the new Nongke Academy.

Meanwhile, in the backseat, Yu Xueqing, across signal base stations, used her innate ability to enhance the pandas’ brains from afar.

From the panda mother’s account, Yu Xueqing finally understood the full story and explained to Ling Ren:

“The situation isn’t dangerous—the panda mother is just looking for her cub. They’ve all gotten used to humans, treating them like granaries; when hungry, they just come to campus begging for food.”

Yu Xueqing and her group weren’t the first students—the Nongke Academy’s Qinling campus had already seen prior students interact with pandas. Before the juniors knew anything, the seniors had signed a non-aggression pact with the pandas.

The core term of the agreement was that when the pandas faced famine, the students must offer aid.

In return, the pandas promised not to steal the students’ assignments and to provide them with feces.

The panda that “attacked” Ling Ren merely intended to hug her leg and beg for a bite or two.

“Wahhh, so scary, come quick!”

Even though Yu Xueqing had already negotiated with the pandas, Ling Ren, seeing the two-hundred-plus-pound predator climbing a tree, still felt deeply uneasy and dared not interact with the panda casually.

She grew up in Sichuan-Chongqing; though she understood how cute and shameless pandas could be, she was also acutely aware of the danger of wild pandas and the vast physical gap between humans and bears.

In past years in Sichuan-Chongqing, tourists occasionally saw wild pandas eating crops, grew bored, and tried to pet them—though attacks were rare, nine out of ten of those foolish tourists ended up as pillows.

Being turned into a pillow by a bear, locked in a bear hug, or crushed under a two- or three-hundred-pound panda’s butt as a seat cushion, feeling the crushing weight of a bear.

Pandas are bears, not cats!

Ling Ren knew this very well—even though she had just petted a baby panda at the zoo with her family that morning.

But those were tiny ones, small enough to lift with one hand like a bowling ball—not these adults, especially not a mother panda with cubs.

Ling Ren nearly peed herself.

“Ling Ren, we’re here—where are you?”

“Follow the internal road inward, turn left—that’s our parcel pickup station!”

Although the new Nongke Academy had multiple campuses, their layouts were nearly identical. Upon hearing the voice from her phone, Ling Ren quickly called out her location.

Yu Xueqing rushed over with the little fox in hand and saw two adult pandas, looking bored, lying under a large tree, slapping their bellies, while Ling Ren clung to the tree like a sloth, eight meters up.

What was truly astonishing was that the panda-climbing Ling Ren was holding a small suitcase in her hand.

It was hard to imagine how a girl of just 1.63 meters managed to climb an eight-meter tree while carrying a suitcase.

“Yu Xueqing, isn’t your roommate’s family running a Mercedes S-Class? Otherwise, I really can’t picture how a little girl carried a suitcase up a tree.”

Seeing Yu Xueqing’s roommate climb the tree, An Sheng couldn’t help but exclaim in amazement.

Climbing the tree was one thing.

But why did the suitcase climb too?

Either your family drives a Mercedes, or you’re a monkey spirit from Emei Mountain.

“Ling Ren, it’s okay! Come down!”

Yu Xueqing placed the little fox on the station table, then grabbed the napes of the two pandas and dragged them from the grass beneath the tree to the front of the station.

“Wang?”

The two pandas glanced at Yu Xueqing, then looked at the little fox sitting on the table and barked, “Wang.”

“I was so scared…”

Ling Ren, still gripping the tree trunk tightly, sighed in relief after seeing Yu Xueqing drag away the two pandas with her bare hands.

Then, Ling Ren bit the suitcase’s handle in her mouth, swung the belt around the tree trunk half a circle, and gripped the metal buckle with her other hand.

She tightened both arms around the belt, kicked hard against the tree trunk, then slightly loosened her grip—Ling Ren slid rapidly down the trunk, and when she was three meters above ground, she yanked the belt taut.

The belt rubbed violently against the trunk, instantly slowing her rapid descent.

She released her grip on the belt, pushed hard against the trunk with her foot, using the reaction force to propel herself away from the uneven roots and land gracefully on the smooth grass, absorbing the impact.

“?”

The little fox stared, dumbfounded, at Ling Ren—who had gone from tree to ground in mere seconds.

“Phew.”

Ling Ren tugged up her sagging pants, re-tied the belt, and looked at Yu Xueqing with a look of relief, muttering:

“Can’t our school be normal? Every day of class feels like playing a jungle version of CS:GO. First-year we got dumped in the wilderness, second-year we fought snakes and insects, now third-year we’re facing wild beasts.”

“If I encountered alien life forms during my internship in Jingcheng, I wouldn’t be surprised anymore.”

“It’s not that bad?”

Yu Xueqing stroked the brown panda’s belly and turned to Ling Ren: “The little animals are so cute! If you say that, Xiao Bai and Xiao Hei will be mad.”

Xiao Hei, in Yu Xueqing’s words, was the silver-ringed snake senior they met in their third year.

Xiao Bai was an elephant—thanks to Xiao Bai, their third-year terraced field work became much easier.

“Eww.”

Recalling the black-mouthed silver-ringed snake, Ling Ren involuntarily shuddered—she had no fondness for slippery things or cylindrical objects.

“By the way.”

Watching Yu Xueqing pet the panda, Ling Ren smirked, wrapped her arms around Yu Xueqing’s neck, and pressed against her back:

“Xueqing, we haven’t seen each other all summer—did you miss your little Ling?”

“Stop it, I haven’t turned into neodymium copper.” Yu Xueqing said, looking at Ling Ren who hugged her.

Hmm.

Among the three roommates, Ling Ren had never lived in dorms before and suffered from severe homophobia.

She constantly feared being persecuted or “re-educated.”

Though her fears were unnecessary, Yu Xueqing patiently explained her sexuality.

(End of chapter)