Pet King

The second floor of the pet shop, in a dark room.

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The surroundings were quiet.
Every once in a while, there was the sound of the elfins breathing, and bubbling sounds from the bathroom.

Most of the elfins had good sleep habits, but there were a few elfins that made people speechless––like how Snowy Lionet liked to chatter its teeth and grind them in its sleep, then mutter “tasty”; Sihwa would be scared awake by nightmares sometimes, then she would make a lot of noise and cause everyone else to wake up; Famous often kicked its legs while it slept, so nothing movable could be put near it; Richard was the most dangerous… It would suddenly urinate or poop while it slept…

Vladimir slept under Zhang Zian’s bed.
Ever since it decided to sleep there, Zhang Zian often cleaned up under the bed so that it was not dirty.

It heard a creaking sound and knew that Pi had turned over in its sleep.
The basket hammock chair was shaking a bit.

What time is it? Even though its eyes could see very clearly in the dark, there was no clock in the house.
It did not know the exact time, and could only guess from the slight light through the window that it was the later half of the night.
It would be morning soon.

The rest of the elfins did not care about the time.
After Zhang Zian woke up, they would get up one by one.
If Zhang Zian woke up later, they would happily sleep longer.

Swish… swish… The sound of the cleaners sweeping the floor came in through the window.

Vladimir did not really sleep that night.
It kept opening its eyes to stare at the ceiling––or the bottom of Zhang Zian’s bed––in the dark.
It had a lot of things on its mind, and kept thinking of detailed ways to deal with them.

Its work with the stray cats had already advanced to a vital point, and every move it made from then on out would be impactful.
It could not afford to be careless.

But it did not have anyone to discuss its plans with, and everything could only be decided after it had thought about it multiple times.
If a single move went wrong, it was possible that everything would be ruined.

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There was another soft, creaking sound.
But that time, the sound did not come from the basket hammock chair; instead, it came from Zhang Zian’s bed frame.

He had probably turned his body in his sleep, pulled out his phone from under his pillow to check the time, then gone back to sleep.
After all, it was too early for him to wake up.
Although it could not see his exact actions from under the bed, Vladimir could roughly guess.

However, the bed shook a bit, and two legs came down from the side of the bed as he tried to find his slippers in the dark.
He was getting up to go to the toilet? That was probably the only explanation…

After that, he was probably going to walk to the doorway, push open the door, then go to the toilet next door because Sihwa had taken over the bathroom that was connected to the bedroom.

That was what Vladimir imagined, but it was shocked when Zhang Zian did not walk towards the doorway.
Instead, he walked towards the window with light, careful footsteps.

Could it be that he did not close the window before going to sleep the night before? That was not right… If that was the case, it would have felt the wind.

Was there something by the window?

Its continuous wrong guesses made it a bit depressed, so it decided to just stop guessing.
It pulled up a corner of the blanket, then looked towards the window in the dark.

There was a desk in front of the window, and there was a laptop on the desk.
Next to it was Pi’s basket hammock chair.

Zhang Zian, who was wearing his sleeping clothes, yawned, and lightly pulled out the chair and sat down.
His movements were purposefully slow so that he would not disturb the elfins’ sleep.

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Was he sleepwalking?

Vladimir had been in the pet shop for a while, and it did not know that Zhang Zian slept walked.
It had never heard any of the other elfins talk about it before.

Zhang Zian really did not have any reason for waking up so early, and even if it was to open shop, there would not be any customers at that time… That would make Fina angry.

Vladimir stared at him, both confused and curious.

Zhang Zian opened the laptop and pressed the “on” button.
The old computer exuded the soft whirring sound of the fan.

Taking advantage of the time it took to power the computer on, he closed his eyes for a couple seconds until the light from the screen shone through his eyelids.

Could it be… Vladimir thought what Richard had said to tease Zhang Zian.
Could it be that he wanted to use the quiet of the night to enter a mysterious website called “Zong Duo?”

Before dawn was when people were the most sleepy.
He was really dedicated to visiting Zong Duo…

However, after Zhang Zian lowered the brightness, he did not open the web browser.
Instead, he opened Word.
Vladimir recognized this symbol because, every morning after Pi woke up, it would also click on the same symbol.

Could it be that it wanted to help Pi correct its mistakes in its story?

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That confused Vladimir.
Everyone had their own specialties… Zhang Zian sold pets and fooled customers.
If he was changing Pi’s story, then he was causing unecessary trouble… It wasn’t like he was trying to show off.

If it was just changing a wrong word here and there, why didn’t he do it in the daytime?

Then something out of its expectations happened: Zhang Zian did not open the document that Pi normally used, but instead created a new, empty document.

It couldn’t be, right? Could it be that he was jealous of Pi, and also wanted to write a novel?

He stared at the monitor and thought for a while, then started to type.
He typed very softly, and besides the whirring sound of the fan, all else was silent.

Vladimir emerged from under the bed.
Zhang Zian’s face reflected the light of the screen, and he was very attentive.
He not aware of Vladimir’s movements.
That was good…

Vladimir wanted to talk to him, and did not really want to let the other elfins hear.

It wanted to tell him that the storm––and chance––was coming.
If Zhang Zian wanted to survive the unprecedented storm safely, it was better to close the shop and hide in the countryside or in the wilderness.
He would have time to stockpile some supplies.

No matter what, he had taken Vladimir in for so long… It did not want to owe him too much, so it decided that was the best way to pay him back.

That was one of the questions it was thinking about last night.
After making its decision, it became a lot calmer.
It nimbly jumped onto the desk and landed next to the laptop.

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Zhang Zian was shocked, and his fingers stopped typing.
Vladimir’s golden-edged, green eyes, which seemed to be burning with fire, startled him.

Using the light from the screen, he saw that it was Vladimir, and he let out a breath of relief.
“Did I wake you up?” he lowered his voice to a whisper and asked.

Vladimir shook its head.
“I woke up by myself.
No one woke me up.”

“Then continue to sleep for a while more.
It’s still a while until daylight,” he said.

Vladimir did not say anything.
It looked sideways at the Word document on the screen and asked, “Are you an insomniac? Why did you get up so early?”

“It’s not that I’m an insomniac.
I just can’t sleep, so I woke up,” Zhang Zian smiled and said.

“Oh, then what are you writing? A novel?” it asked again and saw that the document had a few paragraphs on it.

“Stop joking.
How could I write a novel?” He laughed mockingly at himself, then scrolled to the top of the document.
He pointed at the large words written at the top of the document: “A proposal calling for the establishment of an effective Small Animal Protection Act.”