Zhang Zian still didn’t have any customers, as usual. He didn’t know that a war was happening on the internet or that he was about to get hunted in that war.
"Now, the ninth broadcast exercise series starts…"
Today was Saturday, so the little girl who liked the hamster didn’t come. Maybe she slept in on the weekends or her parents sent her to all kinds of tutoring classes. Anyway, anything was possible.
Zhang Zian did the exercises alone with music while Galaxy sat in front of the shop and looked left and right.
Zhang Zian felt a lot better recently. When he first started the exercises, he had some shortness of breath, but now he could even do two sets.
Packing up the speaker and walking back into the shop, he sat down in the reclining chair and saw a flash at the door, and Sun Xiaomeng came in.
As a new shop, Sun Xiaomeng’s pet clinic was much better off than his shop. There were already some returning customers, so she didn’t have time to come around every day.
On the other hand, Zhang Zian didn’t expect any returning customers. Who would buy pets all the time?
"Hey, what’s happening with the British Shorthair? Where did you hide it? Or… did it die already?" Sun Xiaomeng asked, eyes wide open, as she walked around the shop and found a pet was missing.
Zhang Zian responded lazily, "As a normal person, the first reaction would be ‘has the British Shorthair been sold?’ Why are you different from a normal person? Would you like to go to the hospital and get checked out?"
Sun Xiaomeng stared at him angrily and said, "You? Forget it, check your attitude. Plus, you're so lazy. Do you treat customers like that? There must be something wrong with that customer who bought your pet!"
He immediately retorted, "The problem is that you are not my customer and you will never buy any pets from me! Why should I waste any of my time and energy on you?"
She didn’t argue, instead looking left and right. "Galaxy? Where is Galaxy?"
He told her the cruel truth. "Galaxy must have hid somewhere when it saw you come in."
At this moment, a new notification appeared on his phone.
He thought the message was from his WeChat or push ads, but after he unlocked his phone, he saw a message from the game
[Game Hints]: A rare pet was detected in your city. It is up to the player whether to go hunting or not.
[Game Hints]: The following is the pet’s information.
[Pets Type]: Mythical Creature
[Rarity]: Epic/Legend level
[Hunt Difficulty]: Uncertain
[Risk]: Low
This was first time that he had received a pet detection message from the game; he stared at the screen for several seconds.
Sun Xiaomeng noticed a strange expression on his face and asked suspiciously, "What’s up? A breakup message from your girlfriend?"
Zhang Zian stood up from the reclining chair, walked behind Sun Xiaomeng, and pushed her out of the door with both hands, saying, "Excuse me, do not disturb my business."
Sun Xiaomeng wanted to resist, but she was only a girl and was now abruptly pushed out the door.
"Zhang Zian! Keep this in mind!" Sun Xiaomeng stormed out.
He watched her walk far away and thought for several seconds. "There are no customers in the shop, so I can just go out for a walk." What’s more, he had just sold a British Shorthair, so he didn’t need to worry about this month’s living costs. Plus, he didn't have a girlfriend, so there was no other money to spend. How sad a story it was!
"Navigation Elf, if I leave home, what about Galaxy?" he asked.
[Navigation Elf]: Because your favorability level was improved, you can bring the Lucky Cat with you. Besides, it is a mythical creature, others can’t see it. Another way is that you could temporarily put the Lucky Cat back into the pet bar.
"Great! Come, Galaxy, let’s go out for a walk!" he said and locked the glass door, leaving the pet shop.
As a matter of fact, in addition to ordering meals from a bistro across the street, he was a super male otaku[1] now. He almost never left the pet shop, even if he was sometimes sick of the bistro’s take-out food.
Galaxy timidly followed him, keeping three or four meters from him and looking around carefully, trying to avoid pedestrians from a distance.
During the time Zhang Zian had been getting ready for his shop’s opening, the street had changed a little bit. A fruit shop had changed to a fried chicken restaurant that was 50 meters away from the pet shop. An internet cafe seemed to have been growing its business, as it was doing renovations. Some old computers were on sale outside the cafe. The pavement on the street was broken down again, as if someone was fixing underground pipes. The municipal development meant digging, filling, and building, as the GDP of city was growing.
The game hinted to Zhang Zian that the pet’s general location was downtown. It would be much easier to take a bus to get there.
They went to the bus station. When Galaxy saw the crowd at the station, he hesitated to go over.
"Meow… Many people… Galaxy is scared…" Galaxy said.
Zhang Zian had no choice but to put it back into the pet bar.
"Navigation Elf, if I don’t hunt this new pet, or if I don’t have time now, will that pet stay there all the time?" he whispered to the phone, as if he was talking over WeChat.
[Navigation Elf]: No, this pet is a stray type, so it will only stay there for a short period of time.
Zhang Zian didn’t feel that it was a big deal whether he could catch the pet or not, but he wanted to give it a try.
In the morning, the bus ran smoothly without any traffic.
For years, Zhang Zian had rarely returned to Binhai City, since he went to school and found a job in another city. Even if he came back on holidays, he left a few days after visiting his parents. This time, his parents had an accident, and he went to the hospital, arranged the funeral, and reopened the pet shop, so he didn’t even have any time to stroll through downtown. Binhai City was considered a new city to him now, as he only saw some old buildings at historical sites that he could still remember.
The sun rose from the clouds. The bus ran though the mottled shadows. The seabirds soared in the eastern sky. The salty sea breeze passed through the opened window of the bus, playfully brushed Zhang Zian's hair, and then left through the skylight again and circled the municipal building in front of the flagpole, setting the national flag aflutter.
Quiet and casual, Binhai City might not have been a big international city, but it was absolutely a good place for people to enjoy their lives. Even pets appeared on the streets more frequently than in other cities.
Dogs of all shapes and sizes were the dominant type of pets on the streets, but this didn’t mean there were more dogs than cats. It was only because dogs needed to be walked, while cats could be kept in a cage, as they didn’t require walks.
There was a saying that dogs were tamed by wolves, while cats were tamed by stray cats. In terms of body shapes and appearances, dogs had more distinctive features and were far more different than cats. They had variety, from Mastiffs and German Shepherds to butterfly dogs, Teacup Teddys, and Chihuahuas, the big difference seemed not to be the same species, so the dogs were relatively easy to recognize.
The cats were different. It was hard to identify a cat’s species, so shoddy, deceptive behavior in cat business was more common than dog business.
There was another saying that the cats were tamed by people. What? Obviously they tamed human beings! A cat was such a proud and independent animal. Dogs treated human beings as their owners, while cats made friends with human beings.
Owners were like brothers, while friends were like clothes… Well, no problem!
Today, Zhang Zian would face the most proud cat in history.
[1] Otaku is a Japanese term for people with obsessive interests, commonly the anime and manga fandom.