Pet King

Chapter 398: Learning Without Thinking is Labor in Vain

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

During the day, the snow slowly melted at an invisible speed; at night, the melted snow condensed into ice. Such a cycle would last throughout the winter.

In northern China, there was a custom called "cat winter", and Zhang Zian felt like he was spending the winter just like a cat, while today, the real cat, Fina, was sleeping particularly longer than usual, for she instructed the four Abyssinian cats to dance ballet until midnight and she had exhausted herself.

Even the Abyssinian cats, known for their agile movements and graceful gaits, had a hard time learning the choreography arranged by Zhang Zian and Fina, which was more difficult than the previous figure eight.

During the teaching period, Zhang Zian and Fina had several disputes about the choreography. Of course, the disagreements eventually ended with the victory of Fina. This by no means indicated Zhang Zian's weakness, but he was unable to find grounds upon which to reason with Fina: when Fina said the cats could do such actions, the cats actually succeeded, and when she opposed the ideas, the cats failed to perform the movements…

The four Abyssinian cats were also miserable. They had just gone through a long, bumpy journey and they now had to learn the difficult dancing steps. They were all tired and were sleeping with the other three Abyssinian cats on the second floor today.

Zhang Zian was lying in the recliner, holding up and carefully studying the studbook left by Cathy. Richard was standing on his shoulder. If he encountered words he did not understand, Zhang Zian would ask Richard to explain to him. Despite being ridiculed by Richard, Zhang Zian had to resort to it, for it was way more useful than the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, and it always explained the meanings of words in the form of dirty jokes…

The studbook left by Cathy was more like a breeding manual. Not only were there detailed descriptions of previous breeding situations, but Cathy had also recorded the posture and fur color of each kitten when they were born, as well as Cathy’s outlook for the future. Cathy had written down every thought on Abyssinian cats in this diary.

Since Cathy had started the diary over a decade ago, the front parts of the manual had become somewhat yellowed, and the writing was clear and beautiful. But when Zhang Zian flipped to the latter parts, the writing was a bit scrawled, with confused and contradictory thoughts, as if Cathy had the premonition that her days were numbered, so she was eager to convert all her ideas into words.

Despite this, there was no doubt about the value of this handbook, presumably the most precious source for breeding chocolate-colored Abyssinian cats. Zhang Zian cherished the manual very much, so he made a copy out of the original, kept the original version safe, and started to write down his doubts on the duplicate.

Knowledge was always insufficient when in need. Cathy must have some knowledge of genetics, of which Zhang Zian was ignorant. He had already forgotten all the biology he learned in middle school. When he encountered some expressions that he was not sure about, he had no choice but to text Sun Xiaomeng, the only expert he knew. Although Professor Wei Kang was also erudite, his emphasis was on theoretical aspects.

The more Zhang Zian asked, the more doubts Sun Xiaomeng had, because a pet shop owner didn’t need this sort of knowledge, and for some questions, she even needed to look up information before she could provide exact answers.

In this regard, Zhang Zian just explained that he intended to systematically learn about cat breeding, since he was not very busy these days. No wonder Sun Xiaomeng suspected him, for she had never thought of him as a "studious" person.

Zhang Zian once considered putting these cats into Sun Yinian’s Pets’ Home Breeding Base, but then he decided to give up on this idea. Sun Yinian had no enterprising spirits. He would protect the cats well, but he would not be dedicated to breeding more Abyssinian cats. And in that case, Cathy's efforts would be wasted, and sooner or later, other breeders would catch up in this area. In addition, though Sun Yinian was a man of integrity, his employees might not be. Under the temptation of money, they might even steal and sell the Abyssinian cats.

So, even if Zhang Zian did not understand this breeding manual, he could only bite the bullet and read the book many times, hoping that he could figure out all the implications someday.

He had always thought that male cats that had been chosen for breeding purposes should be those that won in the cat show, but as it turned out, breeder cats were not equal to show cats. Only after reading this manual did he understand that many purebred male cats did not participate in competitions, and that he only needed to take into account of the male cats’ health statuses and bloodlines when it came to selecting breed cats. In fact, the kittens of show cats were often not as good as those of breed cats.

"Mr. Store Manager, I have already finished painting. Do you want to have a look?"

While he was reading the manual, Lu Yiyun sent him a message.

There was a soundproof automatic sensor door between the cashier desk Zhang Zian, and she did not want to talk aloud, so she often sent messages to Zhang Zian.

Zhang Zian put down the breeding manual and stretched. He felt tired after reading for such a long time. He went to the cashier desk, and Lu Yiyun turned the computer screen towards him, uneasily waiting for his evaluation.

On the screen, there were seven vividly-painted Abyssinian cats in diverse postures. Although they were all chocolate in color, she had accurately grasped the characteristics of each one.

"Fantastic!" exclaimed Zhang Zian.

Abyssinian cats were very cute, and Lu Yiyun was also best at painting cute girls in manga. It was not because she loved drawing them, but that drawing cute girls were the most common requests she received in her illustration work. She seemed to have applied the techniques of drawing manga in portraying the seven cats, by slightly exaggerating their eyes, adjusting their head and body proportions, and adding anthropomorphic and cute movements to the cats, making them look cuter as long as their images were not distorted.

Zhang Zian increasingly felt that he was lucky to have hired Lu Yiyun. For this painting alone, if he had asked a professional artist to draw it, it might have cost him over 1,000 Yuan.

In addition, he noticed that she had also added an exquisite watermark signature, indicating the name of the Amazing Fate Pet Shop and her pseudonym, Xinyun, to the bottom of the painting to prevent theft from unscrupulous people.

Lu Yiyun was relieved upon seeing that her boss was satisfied with her work. Fortunately, she had painted her cat Jasmine before, so she had experience in drawing cats, otherwise it was unlikely for her to finish drawing so soon.

"Mr. Store Manager, should I put this painting on our shop’s WeChat public account? What should we call it?" she whispered.

Zhang Zian had always suffered from headaches when he needed to name something. It took him a long time before he came up with a name for Galaxy.

"What do you think?" he shirked the responsibility to Lu Yiyun.

Lu Yiyun thought for a moment and proposed, "How about... ‘Abyssinian cats—the mysterious ancient elves’?"

"Yes," he decided, "That's it."

Lu Yiyun nodded and began editing the article for the public account, introducing the characteristics of Abyssinian cats, emphasizing that they were the latest members in the CFA family, and finally promoting that this shop had introduced this rare cat breed, and customers were welcome to buy them.

"Do not write 'buy,'" Zhang Zian pointed out. "These cats are not for sale for the time being. Change the word to 'visit'."

Lu Yiyun modified as he instructed, and let him review the whole thing. Determining that there was no omission or wording issue, she then published the first article in the pet shop’s WeChat public account.

Zhang Zian's mind had been drifting away. Looking at the shops across the road, he was thinking about the issue of a delivery room for breeding the cats.