Chapter 73: The Issue of Marriage
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Cats were nocturnal creatures, and would spend two-thirds of their lifetime sleeping or napping. Humans rose up upon hearing the crow of a rooster to practice the sword [1], and would spend two-thirds of their lifetime studying, working, living, and laboring. When humans fell asleep at night, it was the time of the day when cats were their most energetic and vigorous. The two types of living creatures with the complete opposite work and rest times would actually attract each other. Wasn’t forming an unbreakable ally a marvelous thing? The relationship between cats and humans were similar to marriages, needing protection and patience from both parties. Humans spent time shoveling cat feces, spent money to treat cats’ illnesses, gave a lot of care and effort to provide comfortable living environments for cats, and mocked themselves with terms like "feces scooper" and "cat slave."
At the same time humans were sacrificing, cats also worked hard to change their habits in order to accommodate the work and rest times of humans: they completely gave up the happiness of leisure that the wild ones of their kind had, and were even deprived of the ability to procreate. They could only spend the rest of their lives with one family in a lifetime. Even within married couples and partners, how many people could do this?
However, many people could only see their own sacrifices, think that cats should be so, and casually mistreat and abuse cats. Then, if cats chose to end this relationship and run away from home, they shouldn’t be criticized for doing so. After all, cats and dogs were different. One was righteous, and the other was loyal. Righteousness was that if the king was bad, then the minister would go to a foreign country. Loyalty was that if the king wanted a minister dead, then the minister must die. If unrighteous, then the relationship could only be broken off and demarcated. Zhang Zian thought about this topic on the morning bus.
The slap struck by Aunt Liu, who was humiliated, was very hard. It was not a rare sight for the American shorthair to bite her in return and then run away. But it was not normal that this event happened in front of Fina. Fina had absolute power over domestic cats, and ordinary cats did not dare to act hastily in front of her. Therefore, after the American shorthair had run away, Zhang Zian knew that it must have been at Fina’s instructions.
For a cat to run away and get rid of a middle-aged aunt was nothing, and Aunt Liu could not possibly have thought that the American shorthair would circle back and return to Amazing Fate Pet Shop. After all, the golden cat had frightened the American shorthair. Common sense would say that the American shorthair should be very scared of Fina, and would have hidden far away. Aunt Liu was stingy and greedy, but definitely not a fool—even smarter than the average person. But in the event that things surpassed common sense, it was easier to think too much.
When the American shorthair had escaped back to Amazing Fate Pet Shop, she was still limping on the leg that was slapped. Zhang Zian could not find fault with Fina for this. He suddenly thought of a question: "What kind of attitude did Fina have towards the stray cats of the cities and villages?" If Fina summoned all the stray and wild cats into the shop, it would be big trouble.
He quickly estimated that all the strays and wild cats of the country would probably total a few billion. They would close the shop in one day by eating so much! Even the top five hundred companies would not be able handle it! Binghai City would become occupied by wild cats of all colors, the city government would be surrounded, the rescue forces would fail, Amazing Fate Pet Shop would appear like the image of a big devil in front of the world, a company under umbrella protection, followed promptly by panic-stricken global political emergency consultations, and the final decision would be to drop a nuclear bomb.
B…b…boom! A huge mushroom would rise up.
Game over!
Heroes, please start over to come back!
How come it seemed like a biochemical crisis? But before that, he and Fina would probably already have been sent away to be sliced into pieces…
The bus braked, the loudspeakers rang to indicate they had arrived at a stop, and Zhang Zian awoke from the middle of this vigorous daydream. His thinking could move from a fleeing American shorthair to a biochemical crisis; and he felt that he probably couldn’t be counted as old and was still far away from getting dementia. Forget it; don’t think about this much, just stop at this point. Fina seemingly does not have plans to change this novel into, "Crisis of the Cat," thank heavens!
That American shorthair was, for the time being, up on the second floor; there was still a risk after all to put it on the first floor. It was better to lie low until the wind blew over.
After initial physical examination, its leg was not a big problem, except that it was just a little thin. It might have been malnourished—Aunt Liu certainly would not spend money to buy special cat food nor make separate food for it, but would only feed it leftovers.
Aunt Liu probably wouldn’t deliberately come to look for it, and he wasn’t worried even if she did. If worst came to worst, he could hide the American shorthair in the pet bar that had been provided by the game Pet Hunter at that time. Who would’ve thought that cats could be hidden in a phone? In all seriousness, Zhang Zian had come to the breeding base of Pets’ Home to purchase merchandise. He had come with Sun Xiaomeng the first two times, but this time he had come by himself after familiarizing himself with it. This time he wanted to introduce a few more pets.
Besides small hamsters and lopped-ear bunnies, all the other pets in his shop had been sold. Actually, there were people who asked about the price of these two rodents, but Zhang Zian had told them that someone else had already requested them.
Over time, he learned to be smarter, and pretended to be careless and asked the customers how they had come to know about his shop. One customer said it was from BBS—probably from that Binghai BBS or something, and unlikely from Altar 1024. Another customer said that it was from watching Snowy’s live broadcasts, and another customer said she heard from a friend—Zhang Zian did not have the nerve to ask who the friend was. His business prospects couldn’t be counted as small change anymore, but as a huge opportunity!
The store’s sales on a particular day had already exceeded the highest daily turnover record when his parents ran the shop. Moveover, profits were even higher than was standard, and the extent of hard labor wasn’t even worth mentioning! This wasn’t saying that he was already familiar with managing the shop, nor was it saying that his professionalism had already surpassed his parents’. It was just that he had a little more luck than his parents had.
Who said luck wasn’t needed for a business’s success? That would have been a huge mistake! Most of the current success should be attributed to Galaxy and Fina. Fina’s recent performances seemed to be even more eye-catching, but Galaxy was the source of all that. If not for Galaxy, then the first domino, namely "Zhao Qi," would not have fallen, and would not have caused a series of follow-up reactions. He could finally be sure that he had a firm foothold in this business, and that he would not tip over due to some waves and storms.
With the demographic dividend here, China’s pet market potential was nearly as unlimited as the bottomless ocean. There were fish and shrimp in the sea, big sharks, and maybe even dragons; all creatures moved freely in the autumn light.
First set a small goal: Set a firm foothold—this goal had already been reached.
Then set the next goal: Save some money to ensure a certain cash flow under the assumption that he would remodel.
He had not considered further goals before. Meals had to be eaten one mouthful at a time, roads had to be taken step by step. It was easy to choke if meals were eaten too quickly, and it was easy to pull a hamstring if steps were taken too big.
His parents’ spirits in heaven would definitely bless and protect him.
Footnote:
[1] A Chinese saying that describes waking up early to do work.