Pet King - Chapter 990
Chapter 990: The One Who Spots the Long-Distance Running Horse
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Knock! Knock, knock!
In the early morning, Zhang Zian was woken up by the faint sound of knocking. He yawned and sat up. Rubbing his eyes that were still sleep-ridden, he got down from the bed and walked to the window in confusion. He pulled up the curtains and saw Vladimir sitting outside, so he opened the window for it. After it jumped in, he closed the window lightly, trying not to disturb the other elfins that were still asleep.
It was not a ghost calling outside his door at midnight, but a cat knocking on his window in the early morning.
The last few days, Vladimir had frequently gone out at night and slept during the day. When Zhang Zian and the elfins wanted to sleep, it would go out by itself, then return in the early morning.
It opened its mouth widely and yawned. Its face was full of tiredness as it said, “God d*mn, I’m so tired. Time to hurry and sleep!”
“Why do you keep running out late at night? Is there anything that you cannot solve during the day?” After the morning wind blew at him through the window, Zhang Zian was slightly more awake.
After a few days of interacting with it, he knew that Vladimir actually did not need to eat. That showed that it was likely not a cat that existed in real life, and instead, it was just an imaginary elfin. Despite that, however, it still needed to sleep.
Vladimir did not care much and just laid on the mat. He answered in a way that did not actually answer Zhang Zian’s question. “Yeah, I’m almost done settling it. In the future, I’ll try to work during the day and sleep at night.”
Zhang Zian saw that it seemed to not want to say, or perhaps it felt that it was not the right time. It picked up a cloth and covered its body with it like a blanket.
Its fur had a lot of small stems and thorns on it every morning when it returned. It was like it had been running about the whole night with no feeling of exhaustion.
Actually, even if it didn’t say anything, Zhang Zian could roughly guess that it definitely went out and fought with the stray cats outside. It seemed to not have any realization that it was an elfin and did not think that it was better than the ordinary cat. If it met a stray cat on the road, it would always raise a front paw and automatically greet the other party. Even if they ignored it, it was not angry.
He sat next to the bed and took up his phone to look at the time. Even though it was slightly earlier than his normal wake up time, he was awake already. He probably would not be able to sleep even if he laid back down.
There were a few unread notifications on his phone. They had been sent over late the night before by the [Collapse The World], whom he had met on the forum. It seemed like they were also nocturnal.
[Collapse The World]: “Did you see the newest data from the crawler program? In the last two days, the capital had its first cat abuse case. It seems like the peace was only a probability-wise, occasional occurrence.”
Zhang Zian saw that Pi was still sleeping in the basket hammock chair, so he sat in front of the computer and opened the screen of the laptop.
After coming back from the capital, he had been running the Internet crawler program that [Collapse The World] had sent in the background. He had been searching for information on cat abuse cases around the country on the local forums in different countries. The computer was practically never closed, anyway, so it did not interfere with Pi’s writing.
He changed to the interface of the Internet crawler, and based on the occurrences of the cat abuse cases, he sorted it them lowest to highest. As expected, he saw a new record: The capital, which had never been on the list, had a new entry.
Opening the new entry, he quickly looked through the capital forum snapshots and saw that the cat abuse cases were around the same as other places.
It looked like as soon as Vladimir left the capital, the capital immediately fell into trouble.
[Collapse The World] had guessed wrong, but that was also good. It would save Zhang Zian the trouble of him being suspicious every day.
Zhang Zian replied: “My trip to the capital has yielded some results, and cat abuse cases may be over in the near future. If you want to ask the reason, it’s probably… The construction of socialist spiritual civilization has achieved periodic results.”
He sent the message over, and as to whether [Collapse The World] believed it or not, it had nothing to do with him.
“Meow! Zian, good morning!” Galaxy energetically whispered.
He also replied quietly, in order to prevent disturbing the other elfins’ rest.
He went downstairs and opened the shutter door, then started to clean up in preparation for the shop’s opening.
Not long after, Wang Qian, Li Kun, Lu Yiyun, and Jiang Feifei came in one by one, taking up the cleaning equipment and chatting as they did their daily activities.
Uncle Li and Aunt Li had opened up shop earlier than he had, so now the door of the snack bar already had a lot of people lined up outside of it.
“Mr Shop Manager, good morning!” Masanori Suzuhara held onto Snoopy’s leash and quickly ran past his shop.
“Good morning,” he replied, holding a broom.
Everything was normal.
“Store Manager Zhang! Store Manager Zhang! Are you here?”
Zhang Zian’s back was facing the door as he helped place the plastic bottles Wang Qian and Li Kun had spent the day before collecting into a plastic bag. He suddenly heard someone call him from behind; the voice was quite old, but it sounded familiar.
He turned to look. An electric bicycle was stopped at the door of the shop, and Electrician Wu hurriedly jumped off the vehicle and quickly rushed into the shop.
“Store Manager Zhang!” Electrician Wu’s throat and tongue were dry. He pulled on his arm, not able to say anything for a short while.
“What happened, Master Wu? Don’t be too flustered. Speak slowly, the sky won’t fall,” Zhang Zian signaled for Wang Qian to give Electrician Wu a cup of water in a disposable paper cup.
Electrician Wu gulped down the water in the cup quickly. He wiped his mouth and said, “Store Manager Zhang! You’re finally back! Where have you run off to these few days? I couldn’t find you at all!”
“Oh, I’ve been a bit busy. I was in the capital the last few days,” Zhang Zian explained. “Master Wu, why were you looking for me? Are you going to introduce me to someone? Is the girl pretty? Is it a worker in your factor? I can relax my criteria. If it’s not a fair-skinned, rich, and gorgeous girl it’s all right… as long as she’s either pretty or rich. After all, we know each other quite well, and I trust Master Wu’s judgment…”
Electrician Wu almost choked. He coughed a few times before regaining his breath. “Cough! Cough! This… I’ll make sure to keep a lookout for Store Manager Zhang next time––keep a look-out… Store Manager Zhang, you’re a fine-looking man, you still haven’t found a girlfriend yet?” Electrician Wu said awkwardly.
“Sigh, I must first have a person who can spot the long-distance running horse before I can find a long-distance running horse. Now the problem is that it is easy to find a long-distance running horse, but it is hard to find someone who can spot it…” Zhang Zian held his wrist and sighed.
“Master, why are you taking things to heart? Is it that the novels are not nice, or the game is not fun? Why must you find a girl?” Wang Qian came over to them. “Women are the most troublesome.”
“Ga ga! That’s right, men can still play with men,” Richard said, a hidden meaning to its words. “If you are really bored, how about finding a wrestling training camp to sign up for? You can be the next King Billy!”
“Leave! All of you leave!” Zhang Zian glared. He picked up a feather-duster and chased them all away before he turned to Electrician Wu and asked, “Master Wu, please don’t forget to do that… Right, what are you here for today?”
Chapter 991: Various Methods of Inviting Trouble
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Zhang Zian brought a chair over and gestured for Electrician Wu to sit down. Electrician Wu wasn’t young anymore, and there would be trouble if he were to have a panic attack. Zhang Zian didn’t want to have an ambulance visit the pet shop again.
However, Electrician Wu’s body was still in good condition, and in terms of mental health, he felt younger than people the same age as him; however, that was due to his stability in life, his open-minded nature, and his spiritual sustenance.
Electrician Wu took a moment to catch his breath and said, “Actually, it isn’t an urgent matter. I was just anxious because I was afraid that you would disappear again. I visited your shop about two or three times a few days ago, but you weren’t around… I rushed down today in a hurry, afraid that you would head out again…”
Zhang Zian was surprised and thought to himself, He’s been here two or three times to look for me? But no one said anything about this.
Zian had gone to the capital a few days prior, and after his return, he had been busy taking Famous to a series of media activities organized by Binhai City––which included leaving its paw prints on the Star Avenue in Binhai Studio. It was normal for Electrician Wu to miss him, as Zian had been heading out early in the morning and returning late at night.
Zian had notified the staff members ahead of time that if someone were to look for him specifically, they needed to take down the visitor’s details. That way, when Zian returned at night, he would be able to call the visitor back depending on the situation. There hadn’t been any records of Electrician Wu stopping by over the last few days.
Electrician Wu observed Zian’s facial expression and noticed that Zhang Zian gave Lu Yiyun a questioning look. He quickly added, “Oh. During my visits, all your staff members were very busy, and there were a lot of customers in the store. I just took a look around and left without coming in because I didn’t want to bother you guys or affect the business.”
Zhang Zian nodded and expressed that he understood. “So, your reason for coming here…”
“Cough! It’s all because of Welder Zhao, that old child… I’m almost like his father now, worrying about him all day!” Electrician Wu said as he sighed and slapped his own thigh.
In fact, when Electrician Wu came in through the door, Zhang Zian had already guessed about 70 percent to 80 percent of the reason he was there. After all, Electrician Wu was a steady old man. Although he was as ordinary as one could be, he stood out by being a very steady person. He didn’t cause trouble, and wouldn’t do anything stupid just because he had nothing to do. Such people generally did not encounter anything particularly urgent.
Electrician Wu’s longtime friend, Welder Zhao, was a classic example of someone who had various methods of inviting trouble. He continuously went to great lengths to save money, yet he had extremely bad luck. For example, the reef rocks that he brought back from the sea had a bobbit worm in them. After that, he had planned to ask Carpenter Wang for a few fish while he cleared his tank, but he got infected with Palytoxin. He wanted to save money on fish, but he got charged for the hospital bills instead… No one knew how he survived until the age of retirement.
From listening to Electrician Wu’s tone, Zhang Zian wondered if Welder Zhao got into trouble again after he had just been discharged from the hospital only a few days ago…
With all that said, Electrician Wu felt very embarrassed for this longtime friend. His retirement salary was not very large, and an ordinary family wouldn’t spend so much money on fish alone. Welder Zhao was always trying to save money, only to lose more money in the end.
Electrician Wu thought about leaving Welder Zhao alone––letting him suffer alone so he would learn how to be honest after learning a lesson the hard way––but he just couldn’t harden his heart. Especially after the last time, the Palytoxin incident had scared Electrician Wu so bad. He feared that Welder Zhao had implicated other people because of his own foolish actions.
According to Electrician Wu, after Carpenter Wang caused the Palytoxin incident, he became the target of criticism for the whole community. Everyone was gossiping and criticizing him until he no longer had the face to remain in the community. After being discharged from the hospital, he didn’t even return home, but directly escaped to his relative’s place to recover. He was probably intending to sell his old house and never return to Binhai City.
Welder Zhao was discharged much earlier, and without Carpenter Wang to lead him along, he was quiet for a few days. Having been reprimanded by his family members, Welder Zhao claimed that he would change his ways and no longer touch dangerous things in the future… However, when his family asked him to not raise saltwater fish ever again, he didn’t agree to it. But after taking into consideration that raising fish was Welder Zhao’s only hobby––and it wasn’t a bad hobby like drinking, prostitution, or gambling––they no longer tried to force him to stop.
Carpenter Wang had previously added Welder Zhao into a local marine fish culture group. There weren’t many people in the group, and for most of their chats, they mainly bragged about things; they would only occasionally exchange information about marine animals. For example, they had information about which aquarium had a new batch of fish. From there, they would call on everyone to organize a group purchase so they would be able to ask for a discounted price from the shop owner.
Once, Welder Zhao had seen people in the group talk excitedly about a local aquarium that was having a clearance sale. It wasn’t because the boss was running away with his mistress, but because the store was jointly sealed by the industrial and commercial taxation public security departments. The store was the shop that had accidentally sold the Palythoa Corals to Carpenter Wang, so it was under investigation for buying and selling dangerous goods.
The shop was already destined for doom, so the owner and staff of the shop were secretly selling off their products for a low price during the middle of the night; they were trying to recover as much as they could before they lost everything.
After the people in the group caught wind of the information, they all hurried down at night to snatch some good buys. There were aquarium tanks, aquarium equipment, and aquarium creatures––they got everything they could, and after they got back, they started posting all the discounted prices. The prices were really ridiculously low; they were about one-third of the usual market price. Plus, the quality of the equipment and aquarium creatures were very good. Welder Zhao was very envious from hearing about it.
Welder Zhao looked at the heated discussion in the group and the photos that were taken by members of the group, then he looked at his own fish tank that only had a few fish in it. The more he thought about it, the more unfair he felt it was… Why were they the only ones getting to enjoy it? Was he just supposed to watch all of them?
That kind of mentality was very common, unless it was a person of great wealth. Otherwise, few people in their middle and old age would be able to avoid it. Not to mention the great discount… Even if eggs in the supermarket were to suddenly go on sale, it would attract a bunch of old ladies to queue up from the early morning just to get them…
Welder Zhao made the calculations himself and confirmed that it was the best opportunity to buy high-end aquarium creatures for a low price, and although that kind of opportunity did happen occasionally, it was very rare. If he were to miss out on the opportunity, he might never have one again! If he didn’t go, all the products would have already been snatched by the others, or the store might have been completely sealed up by the joint law enforcement agencies. If any of that were to happen, he would definitely regret it for the rest of his life!
Of course, to say that he hadn’t learned any lessons from his past experience was an accusation. After all, he was not the kind to just forget about a lesson learned.
He had learned his lessons, but he felt that the danger had stemmed from the live rocks and corals, so he decided to only buy fish. He would not touch live rocks and corals no matter how cheap they were. So after getting the fish, he would come back and build a fish tank with only fish. That would definitely be okay… right? It was not a violation of his promise to his family.
He made a decision to take an indirect approach, so he casually lied to his family, and right after dinner, he told them that he was heading down to Electrician Wu’s home and might be returning late. He told his family to go to sleep and not to wait for him, then he snuck out to pick some cheap fish.
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