First Meeting Café.
This café, quite famous in Su City University, was located on the pedestrian street in the university town.
Shao Zifeng had passed by here countless times but had never gone in to spend money.
After all, the café, from its signboard to its posters, evinced the scent of dog food everywhere, which was really not friendly for someone single like him.
Really didn't understand why the snake buyer chose such a place.
Ding-ding-ding~
He pushed open the glass door, and the wind chimes collided, making a pleasant sound.
Perhaps because it was not a weekend, the entire café seemed empty.
Shao Zifeng glanced around and saw a tall young man sitting near the window.
Hearing the chimes, the young man stood up and looked towards the door: "Hello, I'm Wang Hao from the third-year combat training department. You must be Shao Zifeng, the junior, right?"
As he spoke, he revealed two rows of shiny white teeth.
So dazzling.
"Hello, senior."
After sitting down, Shao Zifeng observed the young man in front of him.
Hiss.
This senior Wang Hao really had such unique looks.
He had short, withered yellow hair and was about 1.9 meters tall.
His tanned face still bore the marks of youth, and the only bright spot on his body was his full set of large white teeth.
"Student, can you order now?" The soft-voiced waitress came over, her gaze sweeping oddly between the two of them.
"What would you like to drink? Order anything," Wang Hao said with a hearty laugh.
Shao Zifeng looked at the waitress holding the drink menu next to him and, for some inexplicable reason, asked: "Can you add goji berries to your coffee?"
The atmosphere turned a bit silent, and the waitress's gaze became even more subtle: "Student, this is a café."
"Haha, just joking." Shao Zifeng laughed it off and casually ordered a latte.
"It seems the junior is quite knowledgeable about health preservation at such a young age. Health preservation is good, very good."
While talking, Wang Hao subtly touched the marks on his face, as if recalling the youthful years, and suddenly felt a bit jealous of the fair-faced handsome guy before him.
Feeling somewhat uncomfortable under the gaze, Shao Zifeng coughed lightly: "Senior, why did you call me here today?"
"Oh." Wang Hao snapped out of it and, after organizing his thoughts, said: "It's like this, the national university cup is about to be held, and the school plans to hold a team selection at the end of the year to form a team to participate in the regional qualifiers."
"I have some ideas, so I've been looking for relatively rare mutant creatures." Saying this, Wang Hao put down the coffee spoon in his hand and took a sip of the coffee.
"You also know the situation in the summer. Slightly rare mutant creatures are basically in protected areas. We in small places can't even get the qualifications to enter, so I pulled some strings and found many people, and later found Zhang Fatty in the Su City reptile circle."
The Zhang Fatty Wang Hao mentioned was the greasy uncle who had handed his stock over to Shao Zifeng when he first got involved in the reptile circle.
"Student, your latte."
"Thank you."
Taking the latte handed over by the waitress, Shao Zifeng stirred it with a coffee spoon, gesturing for Wang Hao to continue.
"I also know you reptile enthusiasts like to play with artificially bred stuff. I don't care for those defective genes, but still wanted to try my luck. Who knew Zhang Fatty had already left the circle."
"But he told me, he had reserved a pet beast egg for you, a rare piece. It should be hatching around now, right?"
At this, Wang Hao looked at Shao Zifeng expectantly: "So, junior, do you think we could go to the identification bureau together? If the pet beast's quality is outstanding, the price will surely satisfy you."
Hmm, the acne scars were clearer now.
Shao Zifeng leaned back inconspicuously, digesting Wang Hao's words.
Suddenly, Shao Zifeng reacted.
Egg?
No way, I remember he clearly said it was a hatched round spot viper. How did it turn into an egg with him?
Shao Zifeng tried hard to recall, and suddenly, his vision blurred as frames of images flashed quickly before his eyes.
Finally, the image froze on a cylindrical-like snake egg. (Snake eggs are not regular ovals and are soft.)
Egg.
This time it really was a snake egg.
Shao Zifeng frowned.
Recalling the events from yesterday to today, it seemed to him that the two timelines were progressing under the same main quest, but with different side quests.
The general direction was the same, but the details had changed.
Tsk, this was not good.
At this rate, I wonder if my grand prize hopes still hold.
What's the price of selling a round spot viper? The grand prize is...
Wait, right.
He had no idea how much a three-star quality round spot viper was worth.
This was really awkward.
"Junior."
Seeing Shao Zifeng somewhat distracted, Wang Hao waved his hand in front of his eyes.
"Sorry, Senior Wang, I got lost in thought. The identification bureau you mentioned is?"
Shao Zifeng came back to his senses, looking at Wang Hao half-leaning on the table.
So close, the spots were so clear.
He silently moved his chair back again.
As for the identification bureau Wang Hao mentioned, Shao Zifeng was somewhat interested.
If the so-called identification institutions mastered the identification techniques, then his Golden Finger would be half useless.
Trying to think about the identification institutions, no memories surfaced in his mind, indicating that he knew very little about mutant creature identification in this timeline.
"Junior, don't you know the identification bureau?"
"No."
"Oh..."
Under Wang Hao's explanation, Shao Zifeng gradually understood what the so-called identification bureau was.
In the nearly 20 years since the "Unknown Recovery Incident," the current technology was still not sufficient to accurately identify the qualities of mutant creatures. There were machines to detect the energy levels of mutant creatures, but they were useless for juvenile mutant creatures.
After all, the energy strengths of juvenile creatures were roughly the same.
So, in the years of exploration, people here had found alternative identification methods.
That was to distinguish the quality based on the number of skills a mutant creature mastered.
Although the juvenile mutant creatures with more skills did not necessarily have high quality, those without any skills certainly had low quality.
After all, Shao Zifeng had seen too many weaklings without any skills.
If it were just to identify the qualities of mutant creatures, it could be done privately without establishing a separate institution.
In fact, the full name of the identification bureau was "Mutant Creature Identification and Registration Management Bureau," commonly referred to as the identification bureau by the public.
For people in the summer, contracting mutant creatures as their pets was not such an easy task, as it required not only identification but also strict and detailed review and registration.
After all, some countries without a management registration system were already in chaos, with various organizations popping up like mushrooms after rain.
Just thinking about it made Shao Zifeng feel chills.
As someone who thrived under the red flag, guided by the principles of five etiquettes, four beauties, and three loves, he couldn't accept a chaotic country.
After agreeing on the time to go to the identification bureau with Wang Hao, he bid farewell and left.
He bought dinner and the eagerly awaited lottery tickets on the way back to the rented house.
There was a bunch of ancestors at home waiting to be fed.
After returning to the rented house, he breathed a sigh of relief, looking at the small snakes and lizards in the snake cages, unloading a heavy burden.
He smiled at everyone outside because childhood experiences taught him to greet people with a smile.
But deep down, he resisted getting too close to anyone.
For example, with today's conversation with Wang Hao, moving the chair back every time wasn't because of how ugly he was...
Okay, that was part of the reason.
Besides that small factor, it was mainly because he wasn't used to close contact with people.
Perhaps this was why he had few friends.
After having dinner, he packed and mailed two albino corn snakes to a client.
600 yuan earned.
After confirming no more orders, Shao Zifeng began feeding the little ancestors in the snake cages.
Due to the misplaced notebook, he had to endure the high-latency display status to feed them.
Time passed minute by minute, and the night breeze gently moved the curtains, bringing a bit of coolness.
The radio program on his phone was coming to an end.
"Dear listeners, before we know it, it's time to say goodnight. As usual, before wishing goodnight, Xiao Xin will announce the latest lottery winning numbers for the two-color ball. The winning numbers for this period are..."