Astral Pet Store (WN)
chapter-42

Su Yanying was glad to see the signboard of the “Pixie Pet Store.” She was excited and looked forward to coming to this mysterious shop again. She had been missing the place.

She had been separated from her pets for three days. She could not wait to give those little darlings a hug.

Even though…

Those guys were not little. They were so huge that she had to hold her head up high just to look at them.

But to her, those pets were her babies. She bought some of the pets when they were cubs and raised them. Some of the pets grew up quickly. They reached adulthood in three to five years and grew from a size where she could pick them up easily to one that she could ride them.

“I wonder if the owner has been taking good care of your pets.”

Lan Lele came with Su Yanying as her escort again and to supervise. After all, they had spent a fortune last time they visited. They couldn’t afford to be fooled by that owner.

Su Ping stopped cultivating when the two stepped into the store. “Wait here,” he said with a poker face.

With that said, Su Ping went to the pet room in the back to wake up the Lightning Rat and the other three pets.

“Come on out.”

Su Ping told the pets to step out of the nursing pens.

The pets dawdled their way out from the nursing pens reluctantly as they sensed Su Ping’s determined will.

As soon as they stepped away from the nursing pens, the pets were reconnected to Su Yanying’s astral power contract. They could feel each other’s presence.

“It’s them.” Su Yanying’s eyes glowed. She was happy that she could tell her pets were just in the back, a wall away from her.

She stood on tiptoe, looking with anticipation.

After several minutes, she finally saw her pets slowly step out from the pet room; they would stop every now and then to look back as if something behind them was appealing and they were unwilling to be away from it.

Su Yanying was surprised.

From the astral power contract, she could sense vividly how reluctant her pets were. They had not seen each other for a long time. How could her pets be attracted to something else and not become excited to see her?

Had they become attached to this place?

“Go on. Go.” Su Ping waved his hand impatiently.

Those pets were intelligent. They looked at him with their watery eyes, begging.

Su Ping was not in the mood to gaze into their eyes. He hurried them on.

The pets were sad. They returned to Su Yanying, down in the dumps. When they saw their own master, they rubbed against her as a welcoming sign and then lay prone on the floor, feeling blue.

Su Yanying was surprised since she could sense the frustration in her pets.

This wasn’t the meeting she had pictured.

Shouldn’t they run to her, wild with joy?

Shouldn’t they dance and hop around her in happiness?

Why would they be depressed when they saw their master?

Su Yanying darted a look at the Lightning Rat by her foot. Last time she had visited, the Lightning Rat was overjoyed to see her. It was also in a bad mood at the moment.

“Why…?” For a moment, Su Yanying did not know what to say. She felt that the situation was unfair and an urge to cry was bubbling up.

Su Ping was surprised to feel how upset and reluctant the pets were but he could understand.

The elementary nursing pens were built with spirit stones. The pets were being nurtured by the anima at all times. What the pets felt in the nursing pens was similar to what people felt when soaking in a hot spring during winter. It was already nice that pets were not furious after being dragged out all of a sudden.

Lan Lele noticed something was off about the pets. She questioned Su Ping, “Sir, why are they so lifeless?”

Su Ping pulled a long face. “Why should I know?”

“You took care of them. Why don’t you know?” Lan Lele’s face was clouded with anger.

Su Ping put on a sarcastic grin. “So, if I take care of you for a couple of days, I should know all your emotions as well?”

“You!” Lan Lele stomped her feet in fury.

Su Yanying came back to her senses. She put herself between the two arguing people and apologized to Su Ping. “Sir, I am sorry. My friend has a short temper.”

“Yingying, something is wrong here,” Lan Lele cautioned her.

Su Yanying shook her head. “I just feel that they are unwilling to be parted from here. It means that they like the place. That is to say, instead of treating them unfairly, the owner is taking good care of them. I should thank the owner.”

“What?” Lan Lele did not understand. “Unwilling to leave? They are unwilling to leave here?”

This was hardly imaginable. How could the pets become emotionally attached to that place after a couple of days of boarding?

Su Ping did not enter into contracts with the pets. Even if they had emotional bonds built with the astral power contract, at the very beginning, the pets and their masters would not be close. The pets would only be following orders. Once the contract was removed, the pets and the masters would be completely unrelated.

“It’s true.”

Su Yanying forced a smile. She could not understand it, either. Only if Su Ping treated the pets extremely nicely would the pets become attached, which implied that this was a reputable pet store!

Lan Lele stood there, stunned. She believed that Su Yanying would not lie to her and would not defend the owner. Lan Lele knew that she must have misunderstood the owner.

Lan Lele cast a glance at Su Ping whose face was still grim. The apology stopped on the tip of her tongue. She pretended that nothing had happened and shifted her look toward the pets.

“Their wounds seemed to have healed.”

Lan Lele was sure that Su Yanying did not lie to her upon a closer check. Except for the fact that the pets were in a lousy mood, their wounds had recovered, and they seemed to be healthier than before. Their fur was in a brighter color and the flames on the feathers of the Fallen Phoenix were burning with more intensity. She could tell that the pets were taken good care of.

Su Yanying nodded. She had noticed this before. The healer told her that her pets would recover after three days. But she could tell that the pets had not just recovered. The pets were healed at the store. They weren’t just fed.

As for what Su Ping mentioned about improving their power of understanding and bettering their constitution, for now, Su Yanying could not find out. She was satisfied with the fact that they had recovered.

“I wonder how the training went.”

Su Yanying cast her looks at the Lightning Rat by her foot. She crouched down to pet its head to comfort it.

While she was patting the Lightning Rat, she noticed that its fur’s color was deeper, having shifted to a blackish color from that dark purple.

Besides, maybe this was just in her mind, but she felt that her other pets were unwilling to come near the Lightning Rat who was the nearest to her. The other three pets were two to three meters away from her, unwilling to come close. They weren’t like this in the past.

“Sir, is it quite different from before?” Su Yanying lifted her eyes to him.

Su Ping answered coldly, “Its strength has been improved by several folds, at the very least.”

While the rating for combat strength was only doubled, that was a digit only, not the Lightning Rat’s true strength!

Improving from the third rank to the seventh rank represented an increase in strength of more than a dozen times. Not even a hundred third-rank pets or more could defeat a seventh-rank pet!

That was why he thought the system’s quests were unreasonable…

“Several times stronger?” Su Yanying did not believe this.

Lan Lele opened her eyes wide, wondering if Su Ping had chosen the wrong words.

The Lightning Rat was much stronger than before after merely three days of training?

Did Su Ping consider himself a master trainer?

Not even master trainers could boast such things, unless some secret ways were applied to the Lightning Rat. But who would make such a big fuss with a Lightning Rat? What they paid did not deserve that increase.