Pet King

Sihwa had originally been immersed in the fairy tale story, but upon hearing the sound coming from downstairs, she could not help but feel curious. She knew that Zhang Zian made a trip down to the sea practically every morning. Sometimes he would return after half an hour, while other times he would return a bit later. It was a common occurrence in the pet shop, but something seemed to be different that day.

She opened the small window by the toilet and quietly peeked downstairs.

Li Kun heard the sound of talking and came out from the aquarium next door. He saw that Zhang Zian’s clothes were wet, and his hair was sticking to his forehead. He had originally thought that Zhang Zian had, unfortunately, fallen into the water, as it was his first time driving a ship out to sea. After carefully observing him, however, it did not seem like that was what happened. If he had fallen in the water his clothes would have been totally wet, but only Zhang Zian’s jacket was wet––mostly just on his chest and shoulders. Furthermore, they were already slightly dry. It almost seemed like he had been rained on or someone had poured a bucket of water over his head.

He lifted his head to look at the sky. It was cloudy, but it had yet to rain.

Jiang Feifei heard that Zhang Zian was back and came out as well. Upon seeing how Zhang Zian looked, she immediately thought of a possibility. “Store manager, could it be that you… got sprayed by a whale?” she asked, a hint of jealousy in her tone.

“Ga? A facial?”

Jiang Feifei forgot to say ‘water,’ and Richard managed to hear it acutely from afar. “Ga ga! I heard that a whale is very big down there… The amount it can spray is also very large. Don’t clean it off, though! It’s all good essence, and it can be used for skin care!”

“Master! You really met a whale?” Wang Qian and Li Kun asked at the same time.

They knew that Zhang Zian took the boat out to sea to admire whales, but they were shocked that he had actually managed to see a whale. After all, the sea was so large, and a rubber boat could not travel that far. How was it be possible that he just so happened to meet a whale?

Zhang Zian pointed at the Wuling Hong Guang MPV’s trunk. “We can talk about that later. First, help me to bring the battery into the house to charge.”

“How heavy!” Wang Qian almost sprained his back when he lifted up the battery. His face contorted in agony as he signaled for Li Kun to quickly come over and help. The two of them carried the battery into the house, then found a corner to plug it in to charge.

There were some familiar customers in the shop. After they saw Zhang Zian’s rather flustered look, they could not help but cast glances at him.

Zhang Zian took off his half wet and half dried jacket, picked up the hair dryer, and used it to dry his limp hair into shape. Otherwise, it would have been quite detrimental to his image.

“Master, that hair dryer is used to dry dog hair,” Wang Qian reminded him, having good intentions.

Zhang Zian glared at him. “No one will think you are mute if you don’t say anything!”

Wang Qian stuck out his tongue, not daring to speak anymore.

“Ga! Your hair and your body are all wet. Be careful to not catch a cold!” Richard hypocritically expressed its care, raising up a wing towards the automatic dog washing machine. “Do you want to have a hot bath? 100 yuan for small dogs, 200 yuan for large dogs, and free of charge for single dogs!”

The automatic dog washing machine had a few customers queued. Some had heard of it and wanted to try something new, while others were old customers that thought that the automatic dog washing machine was very convenient for washing their own dogs. They were all young people, so they found it easier to accept such new things and would come over from time to time to use it. Upon seeing the situation, they all expressed that they could let Zhang Zian be washed first and that their dogs could wait.

Zhang Zian instantly declined their good intentions. He conveniently picked up a towel and tossed it at Richard. It covered its head, forcing it to hold back what it wanted to say next.

“Store manager, did you really meet a whale?” Jiang Feifei asked, unable to hold herself back. She had already bought a life jacket online, and if he had really met a whale, she planned on asking Zhang Zian if she could go with him the next time he went.

Wang Qian and Li Kun were also very concerned about her question; they perked their ears to listen.

“I really did meet whales,” Zhang Zian admitted.

“Whales? Where can you see whales from?” Some of the customers also heard what he said and were curious about it.

Binhai City had no large, underwater aquariums. Even for the big cities that did have large, underwater aquariums, they normally did not have whales. They would have dolphins, and at the most, there would be a few killer whales or white whales––the smaller kinds of whale species. Actually, killer whales were of the Delphinidae class, and calling them large dolphins would not be considered wrong. It was not easy to see really large species of whales in the country, and even then the cost of doing so would be very high.

Even for world famous whale watching spots, it was not guaranteed that one would definitely see whales if they went. Most of the time, one needed to stay multiple days and patiently wait out at sea for the whales to appear. Some whale watching spots had even come up with insurance policies that they would return the customer’s money if they did not see any whales.

Zhang Zian did not reveal the specific location. He casually pacified them by saying, “Just near to the shore––sometimes whales will swim in shallow waters. Today I was quite lucky, so I just happened to meet them.”

“It’s not simply a ‘meeting,’ right? Store manager, you must have been very close to the whales, right?” Jiang Feifei asked. “Otherwise, how would you have gotten sprayed?”

“Erm, whales normally travel in groups, so I met a few whales today,” Zhang Zian explained vaguely. “They were very close to my boat, so when they came out of the water, I was shocked. My clothes got wet from the water they sprayed out.”

In order to be drenched by the water the whale sprayed out, how close would he have to be?

Jiang Feifei and the rest of the customers were all very jealous; they wished that they were the ones that had been there, and continuously asked him for more details.

Zhang Zian spoke carelessly, opening his mouth and talking some nonsense. It was not entirely nonsense, though. Instead, he intentionally kept some details to himself, satisfying the curiosity they had about whales in their hearts.

In the eyes of ordinary people, whales were both fat and cute animals––in most situations that was true, especially when they were portrayed on the television. However, when one saw a whale close-up and in real life, the sense of awe was even greater than seeing them on the television. There was the condition, however, that one could not get too close. Otherwise, there was the possibility of danger. Zhang Zian had been entirely too close to them that time around.

In the era of information overload, many young people did not pay attention to the nearby local news. Many people did not know that any whales had come to Binhai City, and after they heard Zhang Zian tell his story, they were all confused and enlightened by the situation.

“Store Manager Zhang, you should come up with a business that charges people to go whale watching. There would definitely be a lot of people willing to spend the money. That is, as long as it is cheaper than taking a special trip to a big city’s large, underwater aquarium or going overseas to whale watch!” a customer suggested.

“Exactly. Anyway, people go to whale watch just to take photos or videos to share with their friends to be pretentious. It’s not like you can differentiate whether we’re in the country or overseas. All you need to do is write some english words on your boat and pretend that you’re overseas, then share them with your friends and you’ll have a lot of face!” Another customer went straight to the heart of the matter and analyzed it.

“I want to be the first customer!” Jiang Feifei said as she happily raised her hand.

The truth was that their suggestions did indeed have some merit… As long as they used Sihwa’s special song to call the whales over, it would not be hard to operate.

It was just that it was not an urgent matter, and he could wait and think it over. Anyway, no one could steal his business. First, Zhang Zian needed to solve the giant whale problem.