Pet King
chapter-16

Another beautiful morning.

"No. 9 Broadcast Exercise Series, let’s begin. Walk in place… Go!"

"Stretching—ready… Go!"

In front of the store, Zhang Zian connected his bluetooth speaker to his cell phone, performing the exercises while listening to music.

Next to the glass entrance door squatted a black and white kitten, curiously observing his movements: stretching, kicking, bending, jumping...

The pedestrians passing by were staring at him as well.

"Chest exercises… One, two, three, four..."

Exercising was not just a sudden idea Zhang Zian had; he had known his body was too weak after he chased that street cat a few days ago. If he didn’t begin to work out, he would probably be weaker than those seniors who worked out in the park every morning.

Right now, he was interested in the game "Pet Hunter." Were there any more poor pets like Galaxy, suffering unimaginable lives alone in an endless life cycle in that database? If so, he wanted to rescue them all.

This game tested the players IQ and knowledge base, but basic physical strength was essential too.

He had asked the navigation elf and it said that the appearance locations of the pets were unpredictable. Some would stay where they were and transform into mythical creatures, and some would wander around aimlessly; it mostly depended on their features and backgrounds.

Without an observer, Schroginger’s Quantum Cat, Galaxy, stayed in an unpredictable random probability status. That is to say, it could be anywhere on earth or even at the end of the universe, such that it was one of the "most uncatchable pets." The probability of it being picked from the lottery was infinitely small.

The lottery was a kind of observation as well, so the probability function converged to "Chosen" or "Not Chosen."

"Obtaining Galaxy was the luckiest thing, even if that was all the luck in my life," Zhang Zian thought.

He never expected Galaxy to bring him any luck. He only wished that it could stay with him forever.

"Kicking… One… Two… Three… Four..."

"Mr. Manager, what are you doing?"

He knew it was the girl that visited the little hamster by hearing her steps. He didn’t even need to turn around.

Today was Monday. She hadn’t come over the weekend.

"See, I am doing exercises. Do you want to join me?"

"Uh..." The girl hesitated, looking back and forth between the store and Zhang Zian. Time was pretty tight in the morning, so she didn’t want to waste any of her hamster-playing time.

"Do you know why there is a rolling wheel in the cage? Because life is movement! The little hamster works out every day!" Zhang Zian said with a grin.

"All right, I will do it!" The girl put aside her backpack, followed Zhang Zian, and started exercising too.

"Turning… One… Two… Three… Four..."

Zhang Zian was a little proud of his intelligence, as now people were staring not just at him, but at the two of them. "How clever I am!"

"Cooling down… One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven… Stop!"

"Well done! Give me five! Yeah!" Zhang Zian felt quite relaxed.

Without realizing what happened, the little girl gave him a high five and picked up her backpack. Then she entered store to play with the hamster.

When he picked up the speaker, he suddenly realized that someone was standing behind him, looking at him coldly.

"Hello? 911? There was someone luring a little girl..." Sun Xiaomeng spoke into her phone.

Zhang Zian rushed to grab her phone, only to find out that she had just entered the number without dialing.

"Oh my God, you almost gave me a heart attack! Do you know you will be fined for submitting a false report?" he said with a bitter face.

"Hey, Mr. Zhang, you really can do anything to attract customers. I am surprised you were acting like a monkey in front of your store... Anyway, that’s your idea, but why did you let that innocent girl act like you?" Sun Xiaomeng had a sharp tongue.

However, Zhang Zian was more shameless than anyone.

"Act like a monkey? Chairman Mao said, ‘civilize the spirit and brutalize the body!’ Since we are neighbors, if you want to try some brutal things, I can offer you 20% off."

"Go to hell!" Sun Xiaomeng said with disdain.

"Galaxy! Come here, I brought treats for you!" She waved at Galaxy, opened a can of food, and placed it on the ground to attract the cat.

"Your favorability level is… far behind," Zhang Zian sneered in his mind.

As expected, Galaxy was frightened and hid itself behind the wall, spying on them with one eye.

"Humph..." Sun Xiaomeng was annoyed. "Did you spend the whole day talking bad about me to the cat?"

Zhang Zian was speechless—people were always obsessed with what they couldn’t obtain. For example, Sun Xiaomeng. She had so many cats in her breeding base, but she was only interested in Galaxy. The funny thing was that the cat ignored and disappointed her every time.

"Come on, Galaxy, let’s go back inside and take a rest."

Zhang Zian stepped into the store, followed by Galaxy. Although it still kept its distance from him, it was much better when compared with their first meeting.

"Zhang Zian, do you want to annoy me on purpose?" Sun Xiaomeng stomped and left.

Zhang Zian poured him a cup of tea. "People always say that fortunate people enjoy watching unfortunate people get tired out, is that the truth? "

"Meow?" Galaxy tilted its head to the side, wondering.

That little girl fed the hamster with several unshelled nuts. "How lucky to be a pet! You don’t need to work, just play and be cute and someone will give you food."

Zhang Zian was jealous. "You don’t have to unshell the nuts, or you can feed them raw beans," he said.

"Really? Isn’t that too rough for its teeth?" the little girl asked worriedly, turning around.

"Hamster’s front teeth grow all its life, so it needs something tough to wear out. If it always eats soft food, its front teeth will be too big to close its mouth," he explained to the girl while knocking on his own front teeth.

"Oh..." The little girl seemed to understand.

"Your parents don’t allow you to have pets?"

The little girl nodded sadly.

"I agree with them. Although I own a pet shop, when I was a kid, maybe even twice as old as you, I had never owned a pet," he said.

"Really?"

"Absolutely. You are young, you’d better focus on your studies. Your parents’ concern is that you cannot control yourself. Having a pet is very time consuming, and they don’t want you to spend too much time on this."

He was serious when he said these words. At that moment, he understood how much his parents had cared about him before.