At this moment, the doctor grabbed by Shen Miao was pushing a trussed-up Shiba Inu toward the operating room.
The Shiba Inu, spread out and tied flat like a pancake, was trembling uncontrollably. Upon hearing Shen Miao’s words, it immediately let out a pitiful whimper.
“Save doggy, save doggy! Doggy promises never to randomly act again, woof!”
“What nonsense are you talking about? This dog is in critical condition and needs surgery immediately! Get out of my way!”
The bespectacled male doctor impatiently tried to shake off Shen Miao’s hand, shouting at her. Beside them, the dog’s owner quickly ran over.
“What’s wrong? What happened? Is my Dou Dou in trouble?”
Shen Miao turned to look at the young woman and gave her a friendly smile.
“Your Dou Dou is fine. This doctor just wants to make a few extra thousand yuan, so he deliberately made it seem like the problem was serious to trick you into paying for surgery right away.”
“What? Really? Dr. Li, what exactly is wrong with my dog?”
Suddenly, everyone turned to look at the bespectacled male doctor, eyeing him with suspicion.
Being questioned, Dr. Li’s face flushed red with anger. He glared at Shen Miao and roared.
“What do you know? Are you a veterinarian? Spouting nonsense here—if something happens to this dog, I’ll make you pay for it!”
“Who says I don’t know?”
Having listened to this dog yapping away earlier, Shen Miao had finally heard everything the dog had to say. She turned to the Shiba Inu’s owner.
“Miss, your dog didn’t eat or drink at first, and looked all listless, right? It’s been going on for about ten days now, hasn’t it?”
“How do you know that? Yes! That’s exactly right!”
She had even gotten the dog’s symptoms right!
He Rou was startled at first, then immediately believed what Shen Miao said.
“So what exactly is wrong with my dog? Is it serious?”
Dr. Li at this pet hospital had taken a CT scan of the dog and said it had a tumor that needed immediate surgery, or its life would be in danger. The moment she heard that, she panicked.
She hurriedly paid ten thousand yuan and told the doctor to operate right away.
“It’s not that serious at all. This dog has nothing wrong with it—it’s just acting. This doctor is deliberately trying to swindle your money. Claiming illness when there is none.”
“What?!”
He Rou was stunned, her eyes wide with shock as she looked suspiciously at Dr. Li beside her.
Dr. Li looked a bit guilty, but quickly retorted loudly.
“Little girl, I’m warning you—don’t talk nonsense. If this dog isn’t sick, then tell me, why isn’t it eating or drinking?”
“That’s because it wants its owner to spend more time with it. It says its owner leaves early and comes home late every day, often not at home, and it gets really bored being home alone.
Then one day it discovered that when it acted pitiful, you would be especially receptive and even take it out for an extra half hour of play. So it got addicted to pretending.”
Who knew that pretending would lead it all the way to a pet hospital, where it happened to run into an unscrupulous doctor who claimed illness when there was none…
And so, a perfectly healthy dog, through all its acting, nearly ended up in the operating room and on its way to the afterlife…
“Is that true? Dou Dou?”
He Rou looked down at her Shiba Inu, and Dou Dou immediately nodded its doggy head and barked.
“Woof woof woof, doggy is sorry, woof woof woof, doggy shouldn’t have faked it! Doggy doesn’t want surgery, woof woof!”
“What nonsense are you spouting? This dog is clearly very sick! If we delay treatment, it’ll die soon!
He Rou, are you going to trust this outsider or us professional doctors?”
After hearing this, He Rou looked at her poor dog and hesitated for a moment.
Seeing this, Shen Miao immediately said to the dog.
“If you’re faking it, bark four times right now. If you’re really sick, bark only once.”
“Woof woof woof woof!”
“Hmph, that’s just a coincidence. What does a dog know!”
Dr. Li was still trying to argue, but Shen Miao patted the dog’s head and said.
“If you’re faking it, curse this doctor with four words: unscrupulous doctor.”
“Woof woof woof woof!”
At this point, He Rou was completely convinced by Shen Miao’s words. She realized that the doctor had deliberately scared her earlier, which was why she had paid without hesitation and prepared for surgery without thinking twice.
“Give me the scan. I’ll take it to another hospital for a second opinion!”
“…No, that’s not necessary.”
“Indeed, it’s not necessary.”
Shen Miao snatched the scan that Dr. Li had been trying to hide. The comprehensive medical knowledge she had acquired earlier allowed her to read the dog’s CT scan. She immediately explained it to He Rou on the spot.
“That thing in your dog’s belly isn’t a tumor—it’s a lump of stool. It’ll pass once it poops.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. My dog hasn’t eaten for ten days—how does it still have undigested food in its stomach?”
“Then you should ask your dog what it’s been eating outside.”
Shen Miao narrowed her eyes, and the Shiba Inu, which had been hemming and hawing, was so frightened that it confessed everything. However, after hearing it, Shen Miao’s eyes widened in utter shock.
“It says it hasn’t been eating at home every day and hasn’t starved itself while faking illness, because it’s been filling up on crunchy ice treats outside.”
“Crispy ice? Where did crispy ice come from?”
He Rou was very confused, and the onlookers gathered around were equally puzzled. Shen Miao hesitated for a moment before finally telling the truth:
“It’s the cat litter your neighbor put outside their door for their cat. The dog probably thought the texture was crunchy…”
He Rou: !!
“Ahhh! Dou Dou, you’re eating crap outside again! I’ll kill you, ahhh!
And here you are pretending to be sick when there’s nothing wrong with you! You’re done for! Get your ass over here right now!”
He Rou slapped her dog twice hard, then finally picked it up with a sigh of relief and thanked Shen Miao. Then she glared at Doctor Li and said:
“You heartless quack! Refund me! Refund me right now! Or I’ll report you!
You charged me so much money and almost made my dog get cut open for nothing! What kind of person are you? Pfft!”
“Exactly! You’ve lost all decency! Charging whatever you want for small animals!”
The people who hadn’t been seen yet heard this and immediately picked up their pets and left.
In no time, the pet hospital that had been packed moments ago suddenly became empty. Doctor Li was frantically trying to keep people from leaving, but He Rou grabbed his clothes and demanded a refund.
Damn it! Business was gone. Doctor Li immediately shot Shen Miao a vicious glare, but Shen Miao treated him like air and walked straight out of the hospital with her two black-and-white spotted cats in her arms.
So Two-legged Beasts not only trick pandas, they trick their own kind too. Bad, bad!
Better find another place for the shots.
“Shen Miao! Stop right there!”
At this moment, Zhou Xingyao, who had been standing there watching the whole thing unfold, suddenly felt a pang of panic when he saw Shen Miao’s indifferent expression toward him.
Seeing Shen Miao walking further and further away as if she hadn’t heard him, Zhou Xingyao quickly stepped forward and grabbed her, saying:
“Shen Miao! You’re just leaving like that?
You hit me last time and never even apologized! Aren’t you afraid I’ll be angry?
Wen Jiaojiao told me you haven’t been going home lately and you’ve been fighting with your parents. What exactly are you doing?”
“Stop bothering me. You’re so annoying!”
Shen Miao frowned and said this coldly, shaking him off.
Zhou Xingyao was stunned, unaccustomed to her cold attitude.
In the past, it was always Shen Miao clinging to him. Whether at school or at home, she’d stick to him like a little tail.
But now, that little tail seemed to no longer have her eyes on him.
“Xingyao gege, I heard you got bitten by a cat. Are you okay?
Oh, Miao Miao, you’re here too. Little sister, do you know how angry Mom and Dad are? Come home with me now!”
Wen Jiaojiao’s tone was gentle and soft, but it made Shen Miao think of a tiger trying to mimic a cat’s meow with its throat squeezed. The fake sweetness was truly grating.
“I’m never going back. Aren’t you happy about that?”
As a panda, she couldn’t be bothered to beat around the bush with humans, so she said directly:
“What are you pretending to worry about here?
After all, you watched me fall down the hillside that day with your own eyes, and you never even said a word to your parents.”
“What?”