“I wish I could be a popular star like you,” the polar bear said. “Just lounging around all year long in an air-conditioned room, with crowds of people visiting just to catch a glimpse of you.”
“Do you really want to be like me?” the panda asked.
“Oh, absolutely. I sure do.”
“Well, you could become a panda too, you know. Want to know how?”
“Can I really get black and white patches just like you?”
“Yes. But I wonder if you can endure the grueling ordeal.”
“Is it painful? Does it hurt? Do I need surgery?”
“No, nothing like that,” the panda replied. “Actually, I used to live in the Arctic too, and just like you, my fur was entirely white at first. But then I was captured by the Eskimos, sold to the Russians, and the Russians sold me to the Chinese. I was taken to a secret ranch deep in the mountains of China, where they forced me to eat nothing but bamboo, day after day. Most bears ruin their stomachs or die of malnutrition, but about one in a hundred—like me—develops black patches. When that happens, you’re worth hundreds of millions of yen. You get sold to a foreign zoo, and you’re set for a life of luxury.”
“Wow. I had no idea,” the polar bear gasped. “You really are the elite of the elite.”
“No, I was just lucky. I happened to be born with a body that tolerates bamboo.”
Deceived by the panda, the polar bear decided to eat nothing but bamboo from that day on.
Day by day, the polar bear grew gaunt and wasted away. Yet, driven solely by his desire to become a panda, he kept forcing the bamboo down.
“Hey, Panda,” the polar bear whimpered one day. “I don’t think I can make it. My fur is falling out in clumps, and I’m going bald.”
“Just a little longer, hang in there! That’s where the black fur will grow in.”
“I see… Alright, just a little more patience.”
The zookeeper was deeply worried about the polar bear, who now lay completely limp.
“Why have you been eating nothing but bamboo lately? Do you really love it that much?” the zookeeper asked.
“There is nothing harder or more disgusting than this stuff,” the polar bear muttered.
“Then why? If you keep this up, you’re going to die. You have to eat something with more nutrition.”
Then one day, a miracle happened.
The polar bear had transformed into a panda with white and golden patches.
The polar bear thanked the panda.
“Thanks to you, I’ve become a golden panda. I bet I’ll be even more popular than ordinary black-and-white pandas like you.”
It was the panda’s turn to be shocked.
“How on earth did you become a golden panda?”
“Oh, well… nothing special,” the golden panda mumbled.
“Did you really eat nothing but bamboo?”
“Well, actually, I was so starving that I ate something else too.”
“What did you eat?”
“The zookeeper gave me this golden apple, so I ate it.”
“Could you give me one of those apples too?”
“Sure, why not?”
However, that apple was a poisoned apple that the polar bear had crafted himself. The panda ate it, fell ill from the poison, and died.
The polar bear had realized the panda was tricking him after listening to what the zookeeper said. So, he had deliberately dyed his own fur gold to exact his revenge on the panda.