Chapter 72 p1
“Xiao Yu, do you think it’s possible for a small animal to become a person in this world?”
From a young age, most people receive a scientific education, and the concepts that are thus gradually formed are as naturally integrated into life as breathing, guiding, and pushing, but also restraining thought.
Just as before hearing this question, Xiao Yu had never suspected that a small animal could become a person.
After a moment of quiet thought, she said:
“Perhaps it is possible. What does Jiejie think?”
Ye Zhao took a deep breath.
She closed her eyes, and the scene she had seen tonight appeared in her mind—
In the dressing room, the agile black panther had instantly transformed into a black-haired woman.
And this black-haired woman was one of the main characters of tonight’s engagement banquet, and also a member of Pei Rong’s studio.
Was it that she was so anxious for her daughter that she was having strange hallucinations?
Or… was a certain heart-trembling truth already close at hand?
Ye Zhao’s eyelashes trembled slightly, and she slowly opened her eyes.
“Did you know? Before I was in charge of the Ye family, I was just an ordinary little veterinarian.”
Xiao Yu looked at her back. “I vaguely know the general idea.”
Ye Zhao chuckled lightly. “Then you probably don’t know that I have two precious daughters.”
“…”
Xiao Yu’s heart tightened. “Mmm, indeed I don’t.”
The evening breeze blew in from the lake, carrying a thick dampness.
Ye Zhao blinked her eyes, which were wet from the wind, and spoke calmly:
“When I was born, I was named Ning Yindi.”
“I was quite intelligent and showed talent from a young age. But even though my reputation as a child prodigy was well-known in the town, the Ning family never let me enter the ancestral hall or be on the family tree.”
“Later, because I liked animals, I secretly changed my major to veterinary medicine while studying abroad as a companion. After I came back, I broke off with the Ning family because of this.”
“The day of the break, I changed my name to Ye Zhao.”
Speaking of this, Ye Zhao paused slightly and smiled.
“That evening, the sun and the moon were indeed in the sky.”
“Later, I was hired to work at a large zoo and became the only veterinarian in the park…”
In that era, people’s understanding of animals was lacking.
They were mainly just novelties, without much genuine care.
Even a large zoo was poorly managed and did not pay much attention to the animals.
The position of veterinarian had also been vacant for a long time, and it was with great difficulty that they had hired Ye Zhao.
In the months she had worked there, the zoo’s various actions toward the animals had gradually disappointed Ye Zhao, and she had wanted to leave several times.
But if she left, this zoo would have no veterinarian, and those sick animals would be directly abandoned by the zoo.
Ye Zhao ultimately chose to stay temporarily, doing her best to treat the animals while looking for a way out.
Soon after, due to a shortage of staff, the zoo asked her to also be a keeper, responsible for the red panda enclosure next to the clinic.
On the day she became a keeper, a pregnant red panda in the enclosure happened to give birth.
This was the first time Ye Zhao had delivered a small animal on her own.
She was put on the spot and, in a simple and crude environment, did her best to help the red panda give birth.
One, two…
The third one just wouldn’t come out.
That night, in a room filled with the thick smell of blood, Ye Zhao was so nervous that her back was covered in cold sweat, and her eyes were red from staying up.
After a full three hours, she finally delivered the third cub.
It was pink and tender, its fur short and sparse, its whole body almost transparent.
It lay limply in Ye Zhao’s palm, like a little mouse.
Compared to the first two, which were whimpering and crying, this one was clearly born weak and couldn’t even make a sound.
Its movements were also subtle, as if it were on the verge of dying at any moment.
But its two paws managed to hug Ye Zhao’s fingertip.
The moment her finger was hugged, Ye Zhao’s heart trembled, and she unconsciously curled her lips into a smile.
The three little red panda cubs were nestled in her arms, and the weak mother licked them one by one.
After lovingly licking the eldest cub, she then carefully licked the second cub. When she licked the weak youngest daughter, she suddenly paused.
As if she were completely startled, she kicked with her hind paw and fiercely kicked the youngest daughter away.
The little red panda cub was kicked so hard it almost rolled to the ground. Fortunately, Ye Zhao was quick and caught it.
It had happened so suddenly. She looked closely and saw that the weak little red panda cub’s body was covered in blood, and it was no longer moving.
This was a little life that had taken half a night of hard work to deliver.
For a moment, she forgot to blink her dry eyes and looked down at the motionless little cub, feeling a heart-wrenching pain.
“With the hygiene and medical conditions at that time, this little red panda cub had a very high probability of not surviving. The zoo was unwilling to bear the treatment costs and told me to just take her and bury her.”
“It was I who couldn’t bear to give up and applied to treat her at my own expense.”
“I set up a small bed in the clinic and lived there, taking care of her all night. Her condition in the little nest was sometimes good, sometimes bad, and she was on the verge of dying several times.”
“Once, I even thought she had died. I held her and cried for a long time, but then she suddenly and tremblingly hugged my finger.”
“…Twenty days later, she let out a faint ‘ying-ying’ sound for the first time. That was the happiest moment I had ever had since I started studying veterinary medicine.”
The little red panda cub had stubbornly survived on the edge of life and death.
She gradually grew some soft fur, her whole body a grayish color, but the palms of her paws were pink.
She loved to hug Ye Zhao’s finger the most, contentedly nuzzling and moving in the woman’s palm. If she didn’t see her for a while, she would whimper and cry, very clingy to her keeper.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long.
The zoo was poorly managed, and the number of visitors was decreasing. They were eager to find a selling point.
One day, the zoo director suddenly remembered the little red panda cub and sent someone to the clinic to check. Learning that the cub had survived, he decided to widely publicize this little red panda’s tenacious vitality as a gimmick to attract tourists.
The director demanded that the cub be immediately returned to the red panda enclosure for display.
Ye Zhao’s strong opposition was rejected and suppressed.
As a veterinarian with a meager salary, that was the first time Ye Zhao had deeply realized the powerlessness of not having power.
With no other choice, the poor little red panda cub, not yet fully recovered, left the clinic and returned to the outdoor enclosure.
Just as on the first day of her birth, when she had been kicked away by her mother in disgust—
All of her own kind in the enclosure inexplicably rejected her and showed a high degree of vigilance and aggression toward her.
Ye Zhao was worried and spent most of her time watching her carefully, so she wouldn’t be bullied.
But as a veterinarian, there were times when she couldn’t.
That day, she was urgently called to another enclosure for treatment. Ye Zhao placed the little red panda cub in a transparent display case alone, and also put in a toy, before carefully locking the door.
After finishing the treatment, she immediately rushed back to the red panda enclosure.
But she saw that the door of the transparent display case had been opened by someone, and the little red panda cub was lying in the grass outside.
It must have been bitten by its own kind. Its body was covered in fresh red blood.
The zoo director “tsked” at the sight.
“How can it be so fragile? Get this little thing out of here quickly!”
“The higher-ups are coming to inspect our zoo tomorrow, and that big leader is also celebrating his sixtieth birthday. We can’t have any mishaps and offend the old man!”
Ye Zhao silently walked over and carefully picked up the little red panda cub.
The little cub smelled a familiar scent, and its injured, blood-soaked paws hugged her finger, whimpering weakly.
Ye Zhao turned her head and smiled faintly at the zoo director, her eyes deep and dark.
“Okay.”
The next day, in the clinic.
In front of the inspecting big leader, Ye Zhao held the little red panda cub, which was covered in dark red blood, in one hand, and pointed to the small animals in the pen next to it, which had not yet been treated, and also smiled faintly at the zoo director.
“Director, this one, this one, and this one all have treatment costs. Should we just drag them all to the back mountain and bury them, like we used to?”
The big leader was an old woman with white hair, but she was full of spirit.
Hearing this, she narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on?”
…
The unscrupulous zoo had been poorly managed for a long time and had committed many heinous acts.
After a thorough investigation, it was directly and forcibly closed down.
The animals were temporarily left in the park, waiting to be relocated.
It was said that on the day the park was closed, the zoo director had been wandering around the park, unwilling to give up, and had been torn apart and eaten by a large black bear that had suddenly rushed out. The scene was tragic, and no one came to help.
And when Ye Zhao heard this news, she was in the middle of a rush.
At that time, red pandas were only considered wild animals. Their endangered level had not yet been assessed, and they had not yet been included in the category of protected animals.
As a person with a veterinary license, Ye Zhao had a certain possibility of successfully applying for a breeding license for a red panda cub.
Ye Zhao, with her veterinary license and a series of documents needed to apply for a breeding license, went to the local forestry bureau.
She was repeatedly questioned and inspected, and was made to suffer by the staff.
Those people were clearly trying to get bribes.
Just as the situation was at a stalemate, the big leader who had previously gone to the zoo to inspect happened to pass by.
She was the director of the forestry bureau.
The director’s white eyebrows relaxed, and she smiled kindly. “Little doctor, I remember you. You’re a kind-hearted person.”
That was the second time Ye Zhao had felt the importance of power.
Because with a wave of the director’s hand, the young Ye Zhao had legally gone home with her little red panda cub in her arms.
“I named her ‘Rong’.”
“She was bitten and bullied in the zoo and was covered in wounds, and her fur was all gone. And ‘Rong’ means lush fur, and it also means vigorous life. I hoped that she would soon recover and become a healthy and lively, fluffy red panda.”
