Super Zoo

After returning to the zoo, Suming encountered several employees along the way, all of whom looked over at him with a strange, smiling gaze, leaving him utterly confused.

When he passed Whisperwind Pavilion, Nangong Huang was squatting at the entrance waiting for mealtime. Seeing Suming, he gestured towards the door with his mouth.

It seemed that Ding and Hong Feifei were once again chatting about life and dreams inside. Had these two really started treating Whisperwind Pavilion as a dating holy place? However, the door of Whisperwind Pavilion was half-open, indicating that their conversation wasn't too deep.

Feeling hungry, he pushed the door and was ready to head inside.

"Bro-in-law, are you just walking in like that?" Nangong Huang looked at Suming with a puzzled expression.

"Huh? How else should I enter? Should I shout 'Room check' at the top of my lungs?" Suming was mystified. Why was everyone he met today acting so oddly? After a trip to the back mountains, had all the zoo staff lost their minds?

While talking, he had already walked in, just in time to see Hong Feifei carrying a plate of stir-fried bamboo shoots and pork from the kitchen. Ding Jing followed behind, a white apron tied around her waist, suggesting she had been helping out in the kitchen.

"You've arrived just in time, let's see how it tastes. We've come up with a few new dishes, wild boar and bamboo shoots, all from Sun Town..." Ding Jing said while setting the table and arranging chopsticks.

When she walked past Suming, she suddenly stopped, surveying him from head to toe with a slowly forming playful smile on her lips.

"What are you looking at..." Suming asked, feeling uneasy under her gaze.

Wiping her hands on the apron with an enigmatic smile, Ding Jing said, "Nothing much." She continued setting the table, then added in a low voice, "By next month at the latest, Hong Feifei's father will come to see his daughter, so you'd better be careful."

"Careful about what?" Suming was even more bewildered. I stand tall and sit straight, a man of integrity with a clear conscience—what is there to be careful about?

He coughed, then turned and shouted towards the outside, "Nangong Huang, come in for a meal!"

"Oh, coming..." Nangong Huang walked in, cigarette in mouth, sat down at the table, grabbed the chopsticks, and eagerly started eating a piece of meat, his face greasy with delight.

"Mmmm... delicious... so delicious..." Nangong Huang's handsome face scrunched up as he mumbled praise for the flavorful meat.

"Eat slowly, there's plenty of meat today." Hong Feifei brought two more plates to the table, one with braised pork trotters and the other with chilled pork head meat served with shepherd's purse.

The wild boar breeding program in Sun Town was beginning to bear fruit; the first batch of wild boars had reached the proper size to be served, and two were sent specifically to the zoo for Suming to try.

Today's meal was all about wild boar meat as the main ingredient: fried, steamed, boiled, grilled, chilled, radish and pork meatballs, iron plate wild boar fillets, deep-fried pork chops, chestnut-stewed wild boar, along with a pork stomach and mushroom soup, and an oddly-charred sow's trotter.

Apart from the wild boar meat, the remaining side dishes like chestnuts, shepherd's purse, wild radishes, and bamboo shoots were all gathered by the villagers of Sun Town.

A chef like Hong Feifei, of her caliber, actually specializes in home-cooked dishes, and it's her skill to make ordinary dishes taste extraordinary.

Leaving aside Hong Feifei's culinary skills, the wild boar meat was tastier than common pork, with a more satisfying chew. One might not discern the nutritional value, but the distinctive taste was excellent, without the greasy feel of domestic pork. Hong Feifei herself gnawed on a small trotter.

As they ate and chatted, Suming learned that both he and Nangong Huang had misunderstood; Ding Jing and Hong Feifei had been meeting up at Whisperwind Pavilion often not because they turned it into a secret base but because the pavilion was on the verge of opening for business. They were discussing the menu, having devised a grand menu of 78 hot and cold dishes, more than enough to meet the future restaurant's needs.

Moreover, next month, after dealing with the affairs of Hong Family Cuisine, Hong Bo would visit the zoo to inspect the working environment of his children.

Suming knew very well that Ding Jing's comment was intended for Nangong Huang to hear. It wasn't about some doggone work environment; it was to inspect him as the prospective boyfriend.

Hong Feifei looked worriedly at Suming and whispered, "When that time comes, can you take a shower and change into a new set of clothes?"

"Huh?" Suming became even more puzzled. What exactly had I done? Do I really look that dirty?

Unable to figure it out, absolutely clueless.

Wandering back to the office, he lay on the big sofa and took a nap. Around 3:30 in the afternoon, the office door was pushed open, and Nangong Yan walked in wearing an extremely short pair of hot pants.

"Why are you in such a rush to call me here? It's so hot, I'm dying!" Nangong Yan threw her bag on the table as soon as she entered, and grabbed a bottle of ice-cold cola from the little fridge to drink.

"You should drink less cold stuff, or you'll end up with a stomachache," Suming yawned as he got up.

"Oh, is that so, then you drink it..." Nangong Yan handed the half-finished bottle of cola to Suming.

As Suming walked over to her and took the cola, Nangong Yan's expression suddenly changed, and her eyes narrowed.

"What's wrong?" Suming shrugged his shoulders and gulped down the rest of the bottle.

With a look of confusion, Nangong Yan moved closer like a little cat, sniffing around his clothes. After sniffing for a while, she suddenly let out a cold laugh.

"Why are you laughing like that? It's kind of scary," Suming said, feeling frightened.

"The perfume is of a very high quality, isn't it? Which brand's new release? When will you give me a bottle?" Nangong Yan continued to smirk with her arms folded.

"Huh?"

In that moment, Suming had an epiphany, no wonder everyone on the way was acting so strangely!

He had spent the previous day in Hundred Flowers Valley and even held two Queen Bees, so his body was covered in fragrance!

He was initially sensitive to the scent, but soon became accustomed to it, just as a smoker can't detect their own smoke smell and those who wear perfume also tend to ignore it. Naturally, the staff wouldn't dare to make random comments upon smelling it, and undoubtedly Nangong Huang and Hong Feifei must have thought he was with another woman and were too embarrassed to bring it up face-to-face.

Nangong Yan, however, had no such reservations!

He had been too careless, far too careless! Now things had turned awkward. Suming, a man seasoned in such battles, understood all too well that such a strong scent on his body wouldn't seem like just casual contact to most people; it would be impossible without having someone in his arms for at least half an hour.

"I'm telling you, this was an accident!" Suming hurriedly pulled out a somewhat crude small wooden bottle from his bosom, "I specifically called you over to give you this perfume!"

"Don't try to bluff me. What kind of perfume is this? I've never seen it before, and it's in such a shabby bottle..." Nangong Yan took the wooden bottle doubtfully and pulled out the wooden stopper.

Immediately, a sweet and cloying fragrance drifted out.

"Wow, it smells good! Where did you buy this?" Nangong Yan's eyes lit up.

Of course, it wasn't bought.

Before leaving Hundred Flowers Valley, the two Queen Bees had taken him to a small forest inhabited by the smallest bee tribe, and that was when he discovered his prior misconception. The fragrance on the bodies of the two Queen Bees was not from consuming royal jelly all year round.

Out of sheer boredom in Hundred Flowers Valley, they actually concocted 'perfume'.

The most abundant thing in Hundred Flowers Valley was all kinds of flowers. With blossoming flowers naturally came wilting ones, and fallen petals were everywhere. The small tribe, with fewer than ten thousand bees, collected various petals and mixed them with dew from the petals, placing them in several large tree hollows. The process was somewhat similar to fermenting Monkey Wine, eventually producing perfume.

"Trust! What's the most important thing between people? It's trust!" Suming flipped the script in a second, teaching Nangong Yan with his hands on his hips.

Nangong Yan had already dabbed a bit of perfume on her wrist and was rubbing her wrists together. "What brand is this, anyway? I've never smelled anything like it."

"Never mind the brand, just tell me what you think? Give me some professional input," Suming said.

"I think... mmm..." As Nangong Yan rubbed the perfume on her hands to spread the fragrance more quickly, she didn't finish her sentence when her emphasis suddenly changed, and a soft, sappy hum came from her nose, sounding like she was... you know.

"What's with the weird moan all of a sudden?" Suming was startled.

Nangong Yan looked up, her cheeks slightly flushed, her large eyes watery, shining with an animalistic glint.