“A dog can’t change its habit to eat shit”

“A dog can’t change its habit to eat shit” is Shen Tang’s caustic verdict on Wang Brother’s inability to abandon exploitative behavior. Spoken after he urges her to publicly describe a serious injury as an accident, the expression crystallizes her refusal to let an old professional relationship continue defining her as a resource to be used.

Immediate Context

Wang Brother tells Shen Tang to go online, explain that what happened was accidental, and provide a letter of understanding. Shen Tang is incredulous because her face is visibly injured, and she points out that, without her unusually strong physique, the assault could have left her completely disfigured or even killed her. Wang Brother nevertheless presents the proposal as being for her benefit, arguing that retaliation would be meaningless and that she should use the incident to obtain advantages for her future.

The language of protection therefore conceals a bargain. Wang Brother wants Shen Tang to absorb the cost of the injury while converting her public statement into a professional opportunity. His appeal recalls the entertainment industry’s earlier logic that even malicious publicity can be valuable: the company had paired Shen Tang with male celebrities to exploit attention, while her scandal-driven public image made her a convenient source of traffic. The expression identifies continuity beneath the changed circumstances. The immediate crisis is not an isolated misunderstanding but another version of the same pattern.

Shen Tang’s Refusal

Shen Tang rejects Wang Brother’s request outright. She asks whether he can even see the condition of her face, then refuses to become a stepping stone for another person’s advancement. Her objection is not limited to the proposed letter; it reaches the distribution of benefits behind the proposal. She wonders whether the promised advantages would actually belong to her, exposing the unequal arrangement that his reassuring language attempts to hide.

When Wang Brother insists, Shen Tang withdraws the familial respect implied by calling him “Brother.” She says that she used the title because she looked up to him, not because he was truly her brother, and contrasts him with the conduct expected from an actual family member. In her formulation, he clings to her and sucks her blood dry. His sharp change in expression and insult confirm the relationship’s underlying hostility: once Shen Tang stops cooperating, professional familiarity gives way to entitlement and abuse.

Meaning and Function

The expression operates as both diagnosis and dismissal. Its animal image is deliberately undignified, reducing Wang Brother’s polished claim of professional concern to a repeated instinct that cannot be trained away. Shen Tang is not merely saying that he made one bad recommendation; she is declaring that his conduct is habitual. The phrase also gives her a compact way to interpret the entire exchange without accepting his framing of himself as a helpful elder or manager.

Its force comes from the contrast between Wang Brother’s solemn justification and Shen Tang’s contemptuous reply. He speaks in the vocabulary of strategy, benefits, and future opportunities; she answers by naming the behavior beneath that vocabulary. The proverb thus becomes a speech act of separation. It marks the moment when she ceases negotiating within his terms and denies him the authority to define what counts as her interest.

Aftermath and Recurrence

After another confrontation, Wang Brother threatens to boycott her and complains that Shen Tang has become disobedient. She answers that he should not call her in the future, whether or not he considers a matter important. Her response converts the proverb into a practical boundary: if his conduct is structurally repetitive, continued contact only creates another opportunity for the pattern to recur.

The expression also resonates beyond Wang Brother. Shen Tang’s entertainment career is surrounded by systems that turn scandal, hostility, and staged association into attention and revenue. During an agricultural livestream, black fans flood the room and sharply increase its popularity, yet Shen Tang maintains a professional smile because the stream’s proceeds will be divided with the company. In gaming, she asks a jungler to help her after repeated attacks, only to receive a misogynistic insult, while later matches again reveal how quickly teammates can become abusive. Against these recurring forms of extraction and humiliation, her proverb functions as a compact rule of recognition: changed circumstances do not necessarily produce changed conduct.

Narrative Significance

The expression helps define Shen Tang’s emerging independence. Earlier, she is prepared to leave the entertainment business after relentless rumors and a company strategy that treats her as a scandal-producing object; Wang Brother reminds her that she once wanted money for a house and a better life for her siblings. Later, however, she no longer accepts financial opportunity as sufficient compensation for bodily harm or betrayal. Her professional smile in public does not mean private surrender.

That tension gives the expression its larger significance. Shen Tang can perform composure for an audience, cooperate with a commercial livestream, play games with Miao Miao and Gu Huaian, and even tolerate the strange restrictions of her marriage agreement, including a three-meter distance clause and a prohibition on unnecessary physical contact. But performance has limits. When Wang Brother asks her to turn injury into someone else’s advantage, she abandons politeness and names the recurring structure directly. The proverb is therefore a small but decisive emblem of her refusal to confuse endurance with consent.