Sophia and Linus simultaneously sucked in a breath of cold air.
Carmen, however, was still prancing around with glee. “Camel! Big camel! A big, big camel!”
It certainly was… a huge camel.
No wonder Michael’s glowering.
This time, no matter how they persuaded her, Carmen insisted on keeping the camel at home.
Michael was so worried that he was sure his hair was going to turn white.
Rearing a pig in Villa No. 1 was fine, but rearing a camel… That would be a pain in the *ss.
Raising a child was truly exhausting.
Thankfully, Linus had the idea of quietly donating the camel to the zoo. They could then tell Carmen that her grandpa had bought the zoo, so she could go there to visit the camels every day if she wanted to.
Michael really wanted to donate Sophia’s pair of alpacas as well, but the zoo seemed to be uninterested, and Sophia would certainly disagree, so he had no choice but to give up that notion.
Coincidentally, the giant pandas that Michael and Sophia adopted had been sent to Bayside City Zoo to be exhibited.
Michael had been one of the people in charge of making this happen. A year ago, he managed to establish a collaboration between Bayside City Zoo and Panda Foundation. Once the zoo was done with the renovations for the new panda pavilion, only then did Panda Foundation feel comfortable sending the two pandas to Bayside City to ‘work’.
Bayside City Zoo only had six pandas, so welcoming another two was not a big deal. Not to mention, Taylor—a man with extraordinary popularity—was one of the adopters of these two pandas, so it had caused quite a commotion throughout Bayside City. A grand opening ceremony was held, in which the president as well as Michael and Sophia, the two adopters, attended.
These two ‘working pandas’ were so popular that they nearly caught up to Michael’s popularity. On the first few days of their arrival, Bayside City’s panda pavilion was crowded daily. Everyone came to see the pandas, and the panda pavilion would receive tens of thousands of visitors in just half a day.
Upon the pandas’ arrival, Asco Pictures, a subsidiary of Asco International, announced that they would launch a series of film and television projects called ‘The Supreme Panda’, in which Michael’s two pandas would be used as prototypes for the production of an animated film that tells the story of a panda. They joined forces with Hollywood to create an international intellectual property that belonged to Cethos, so that it could be promoted to the world. Moreover, Taylor was responsible for the bilingual dubbing of the main characters in the movie.
Michael was kept busy as soon as he returned.
The panda pavilion was packed with visitors six days a week, closing for only one day a week to take a breather.
On one of their days off, Michael finally managed to go over with Carmen and Sophia to see the pandas.
The family of three entered the panda pavilion and watched them through the glass.
The two pandas were grown-ups, and they were extremely lazy. They would sleep in their luxurious two-hundred-square-feet bedroom where they would stay spread out in two large piles eating fresh bamboo that was shipped from out of state the night before. They paid no attention to the president, and they even dared to pee and poop in front of him.
It was usually hard for anyone to enter the pavilion, as there were tons of tourists every day—sometimes even hundreds of thousands. They would queue for hours, only to catch a glimpse of the pandas for several seconds. Michael’s relatives and friends heard that he was visiting today, so they hurried over to catch a free ride, which was why there were many people present at this moment. After all, no one could resist the charm of the national treasure!
Besides Michael and Justin’s families, there were also Harry’s family, Stanley and Sean’s family, Sam’s family, Hale’s family, Joel’s family, Casper and Alice, as well as other Mitchells and Fletchers.
Carmen went off with Lorelei & Co., who looked impressive in their matching uniforms. Nathan had brought Lorelei with him, and although she appeared cold, she was extremely clingy, following Nathan wherever he went.
Meanwhile, Sam and Nicole had brought the children from the orphanage to see the pandas.
Everyone brought a panda hat, and all the children had panda backpacks.
As they watched the pandas eating bamboo through the glass for nearly an hour, a silly smile surfaced on all their faces.
Michael looked at the pandas and sighed as he thought back to when he first adopted them. He was still filming ‘War Dragon’ then, and Sophia had joined the crew. After they were done filming, they went to visit the pandas.
When they adopted the pandas, one of them had just been born, and it had been a premature baby. It weighed only a few dozen grams and barely survived, but here it was, all grown up now.
Oh, how time flies…
He wrapped his arms around Sophia, who was beside him.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: My Dreamy Old Husband