Chapter 653 - 543: They Don’t Know How to Do It

Chapter 653: Chapter 543: They Don’t Know How to Do It

After getting smacked, Meng Lan scurried behind Shen Xin, looking aggrieved.

He peeked his head out, secretly watching Ma Tao and the others.

’Bad.’

’You won’t let me come find you.’

Those were Meng Lan’s true thoughts.

Shen Xin sighed and affectionately rubbed Meng Lan’s head. Then he crouched down, pointed at Ma Tao and the others, and said, "Meng Lan, you can’t act like this."

"Think about it, they’re so good to you, especially Grandmaster Xu."

Shen Xin pointed at Xu Haisheng. "Have you forgotten? When you were very little, wasn’t it Grandmaster Xu who took care of you? He prepared your food every day and played with you. They’re not bad people."

’Once this case is over, I’ll have to leave. What will happen then?’

’Will he just escape every day?’

Shen Xin’s gift seemed to forge karmic bonds. It had happened with Teddy, and Meng Lan was showing the same tendency.

Teddy was easier to handle; he was just a Hunting Falcon.

But Meng Lan was a giant panda. There was no way Shen Xin could be tasked with raising him.

Shen Xin couldn’t afford to raise him anyway. The bamboo Meng Lan ate every day was specially supplied and cost a fortune.

So, it was crucial to guide him properly.

’My gift has affected Meng Lan, making him smarter, but he needs to understand who his long-term companions are.’

Shen Xin was like some flashy new guy who had stolen away the young, playful Meng Lan’s heart with all sorts of novelties.

But Ma Tao and Xu Haisheng, diligent and hardworking, were more like Meng Lan’s parents.

Meng Lan found them annoying now, but only they would genuinely, wholeheartedly care for him—for his entire life.

Meng Lan peeked his head out, looking at Ma Tao and the others.

’I know.’

’But...’

"No buts," Shen Xin said, shaking his head. "Every single one of us cares about you and wants you to be happy. So, Meng Lan, you have to be good. You can’t just run off like this anymore."

"Go on, apologize to them."

Shen Xin patted his head and gave him a little push toward Ma Tao.

"No, no, that’s not necessary," Xu Haisheng said quickly.

Ma Tao also tried to stop him. This was like disciplining a child; could a giant panda even understand?

Unexpectedly, after a moment’s hesitation, Meng Lan actually walked forward.

He first hugged Xu Haisheng’s leg, then rubbed his head gently against it before looking up and letting out two low calls.

Xu Haisheng’s eyes widened.

In an instant, an indescribable feeling welled up inside him, bursting forth like a flood breaking through a dam.

"Good boy. I wasn’t mad at you."

Xu Haisheng quickly crouched down, gave Meng Lan a gentle hug, and said, "It’s not that I don’t want you to go out. I’m just afraid you’ll get hurt."

He knew in his heart that staying in a small yard of less than two hundred square meters was like being in prison.

Yesterday, he had seen how happy Meng Lan was, playing freely at the Waterfowl Lake.

Xu Haisheng knew that nature was Meng Lan’s true home, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Meng Lan called out twice more and even raised a paw to pat Xu Haisheng’s head, as if comforting him.

Then he turned and hugged Ma Tao’s leg.

Honestly, when a creature as adorable as a panda hugs your leg to apologize, even a heart of stone would melt.

What could they do but forgive him?

After all that fuss, Meng Lan was hungry.

Shen Xin kept him company while he munched on some bamboo. Once he was sound asleep, Shen Xin went to say hello to Meng Meng.

’This mother doesn’t seem to care about her son at all.’

Shen Xin then headed to the Olympic Hall to see Walnut.

Workers were installing extra fencing, and the noise was too loud, so he hadn’t been let into the outdoor enclosure.

When Shen Xin arrived, Walnut was contentedly munching on bamboo. Upon seeing Shen Xin, he froze abruptly.

He glanced at Shen Xin, bit down hard on the bamboo shoot, and chewed viciously.

His reaction seemed to say: ’Why are you here again?’

"I missed you."

Shen Xin picked up a broom and began sweeping, trying to curry favor.

Walnut shifted his rump and turned his body to the side, not wanting to see Shen Xin.

Shen Xin didn’t mind. He kept chattering away to Walnut as he cleaned.

As their Affinity level increased, he was able to understand some of it.

"Walnut, it’s time for you to find a mate."

Based on past experience, finding a partner was a great way to raise Affinity.

"Look how cute Meng Meng is."

The plan from the zoo and the conservation base was to pair Walnut with Meng Meng to pass on Walnut’s unique Baishui River population genes.

Meng Meng was fine; after all, she had plenty of experience and was an old hand at this.

But Walnut was not. He had no experience; he was a virgin.

Shen Xin had learned from Ma Tao that this was a major difficulty in giant panda breeding programs.

It was rumored that giant pandas have such a low sex drive that they would play themselves into extinction.

In reality, it wasn’t that exaggerated.

Because of their weak digestive systems, they must eat constantly, which leads to a relatively lower reproductive drive.

But that aspect wasn’t the main issue.

Ma Tao had explained, "Just think about it. How long have humans been intervening in the survival of giant pandas?"

"Giant pandas have been reproducing for eight million years without going extinct. That proves they have no problem breeding under natural conditions."

"The main problem with these captive-bred pandas now is that they don’t know *how*."

"Their reproductive drive isn’t like a cat’s, where they just get the urge when the time comes."

"They need a trigger, some kind of stimulus to spark their mating instincts."

Ma Tao explained that under natural conditions, when a panda cub is around two years old and about to leave its mother to live alone, the mother also starts looking for her next mate.

At this time, the panda cub will witness several male bears fighting to compete for a female.

Once a male emerges victorious, the female, driven by an instinct to seek strength, will actively cooperate to complete the mating process.

This entire process happens right before the cub’s eyes.

So, it gets an immersive experience of surging hormones and primitive instincts.

This is, in effect, the final lesson a mother panda teaches her child.

Then, as an adult, when mating season arrives and other pandas in the nearby population are getting busy, it stimulates them to feel the same urge.

Moreover, through this process of male competition, the strongest wins. Survival of the fittest ensures that good genes are passed on.

But under artificial breeding conditions, such situations don’t exist.

That’s why the conservation base will even show pandas "movies" to stimulate them.

But the effect isn’t actually that good.

Some male pandas grow up around humans and have never seen their parents mate, so they naturally don’t know how. When they encounter a female, they simply don’t think along those lines, and thus have no desire to breed.

Walnut was likely in this situation.

The chattering was useless; Walnut completely ignored him.

Shen Xin couldn’t help but think of Yuexiao.

’Take that dolphin, for instance. He doesn’t need any stimulation in that department. He’s a natural and even enjoys it.’

Back in Anjing, he was staying in the same old place.

That evening, news of Meng Lan’s latest escape spread across the entire internet.

Although the zoo was closed to visitors today, there were reporters.

So, the internet was flooded with videos of Meng Lan joyfully running toward Shen Xin and hugging him.

While netizens celebrated the return of "Prince Shen," some conspiracy theories also began to surface.

[See, it has to be Prince Shen. That’s true love.]

[The zookeepers must have been bullying Meng Lan while Prince Shen was away. That’s why Meng Lan escaped to find Prince Shen.]

[Think about it, if the zoo treated Meng Lan well, would he keep escaping over and over?]

[Anjing Zoo is just greedy, forcing Meng Lan to perform. If he were a person, he wouldn’t be happy either.]

There were quite a few comments like this, skewing the online public opinion.

Fabricated rumors even appeared on the trending topics list, claiming Anjing Zoo was abusing giant pandas.

They claimed Meng Lan’s "dancing" was actually a stereotypical behavior, like a cat pacing in a cage.

The topic was impossible to discuss rationally.

A highly-viewed question even appeared on a Quora-like site, debating whether it was appropriate for Anjing Zoo to use Meng Lan’s performances to attract visitors.

It also presented a lot of data, claiming how much money Anjing Zoo had made off Meng Lan over time.

And was therefore forcing Meng Lan to do all kinds of performances.

It said that listening to loud, high-energy music while "dancing" was damaging the giant panda’s hearing.

It also claimed that Shen Xin was actually an accomplice and not as great as the internet made him out to be.

There were also so-called "inside sources" revealing that Anjing Zoo was preparing to raise its ticket prices.

The direction of public opinion was clearly wrong.

Fortunately, however, Shen Xin could sense between the lines that most people were still more concerned about Meng Lan’s physical condition and hoped the zoo would take good care of him.

The key was Meng Lan himself.

He was now at Stage Three, so Shen Xin could hear his inner voice and see his thoughts.

Shen Xin sensed a change in Meng Lan.

He was thinking about the colorful world outside his enclosure, and he had developed a keen interest in it.

During their time together that afternoon, Meng Lan had even been chattering to Shen Xin about it.

He said he saw a solid black bear.

’So amazing!’

And so many other things he had never seen before.

He was yearning for freedom.

But what could be done? Could they really just let him go?

Even releasing him back into the wild seemed difficult.

He was born in a conservation base and had grown up in the human world. Nature was just as much a foreign world to him.

Releasing him rashly might not necessarily be a good thing for him.

「The next day.」

The zoo wasn’t closed today. It was the New Year’s holiday; closing for a day would mean losing so much money.

But Meng Lan’s enclosure, of course, could no longer be open to the public.

When Shen Xin arrived at the keeper area with a colleague, before they even entered the changing room, they heard someone inside vividly talking about a haunting or something.

They went in and asked, and found out what had happened.

There were keepers on duty at night.

Last night, it had been Xiaoli and Xiaowang, each responsible for one hall.

Xiaoli was in charge of the Olympic Hall area.

There wasn’t much to do at night, just making rounds every so often.

Then, in the middle of last night, he was in the break room scrolling on his phone when he suddenly heard a noise.

A CLANGING AND BANGING, and he didn’t know what was causing it.

It wasn’t the workers; they hadn’t been working last night.

He came out and walked a lap, and the sound immediately stopped.

When he went back, the sound started again.

He went out again, and it was gone again.

He called Xiaowang over, and after listening several times, they confirmed he wasn’t imagining things—the sound was real.

But they could never find the source of the noise.

And as soon as they appeared, the sound would instantly vanish.

It made them think the place was haunted.

After fussing about it for half the night, they finally discovered a clue.

It was Meng Lan. He had broken off a piece of bamboo and was using it as a stick, trying to reach the padlock on his enclosure gate.

The CLANGING AND BANGING was the sound of the padlock being struck.

But as soon as Xiaoli and the others came out and got close, he would immediately pull back.

He even knew how to pretend to be asleep.

That’s why Xiaoli and the others, making their rounds, never discovered that Meng Lan was the one making the noise.

"So he’s still trying to run away," Ma Tao said, his face a mask of helplessness.

They pulled up the security footage. Feigning sickness yesterday, feigning sleep at night... this little guy was getting way too clever.

"The problem is, there’s an old saying: you can spend a thousand days as a thief, but you can’t spend a thousand days on guard."

In their daily routine, they inevitably had to open the gate to clean for Meng Lan and tend to his food and water.

Just like when he feigned illness to escape yesterday, if they weren’t careful for even a moment, he could seize the opportunity to run out.

This couldn’t go on.

As he spoke, he looked toward Shen Xin.

’You have to think of something.’

Shen Xin couldn’t come up with a good solution for something like this right off the bat.

But after a day of work, an idea suddenly sparked in Shen Xin’s mind.

’Channeling the flow is better than blocking it.’ Since they couldn’t stop Meng Lan from always thinking about escaping, maybe it was better to guide him appropriately and let him get familiar with the outside world.

’The forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.’ Once he was truly familiar with it, once the novelty wore off, he probably wouldn’t try to run away anymore.