Pet King

Sihwa’s head went down and her tail went up as she rushed underwater. Her large tail reflected the sun’s light.

She opened her eyes underwater, then opened her mouth and sang the whale song to her heart’s content. Bubbles floated up from the corner of her mouth and burst at the surface of the water.

The warm sunlight made them sleepy.

Vladimir had, for the most part, not slept the night before night, and that morning, it had woken up very early. After enjoying the scenery, it laid down at the bottom of the boat, enjoyed the sunlight, and slept.

Not long after it fell asleep, a splash sounded at the surface of the sea. A water pillar sprayed out, reaching a height of about ten meters before falling back into the sea like a waterfall. A large grey back separated the water’s surface and floated up, like a solo island that had risen out of nowhere.

There was no need to question: 52 Hertz had heard Sihwa’s call and had used its fastest speed to swim over.

Sihwa happily climbed onto its back, but she could not stabilize herself. She changed herself around and laid on its pectoral fin, letting it swim her around at its fastest speed. For such a large creature, Sihwa was about the size a seashell on its body.

Zhang Zian was also a bit sleepy. The cell phone signal was not very good and the Internet kept lagging, so he could barely look at QQ and WeChat. The photos would occasionally not load, so he didn’t even think trying other websites.

He laid against the side of the ship and used his hand to support his lower jaw as he watched the humorous scene between Sihwa and 52 Hertz. He then yawned again and used his binoculars to watch for movement nearby.

From his vision, he could see that the sea was very calm. He was nervous that another boat would pass by, but that did did not happen. If someone witnessed a mermaid playing with a large whale, it would not be easy to explain… Perhaps he could say that she was a normal girl that wanted to be a mermaid at the Underwater Sea Word and she was diligently practicing?

The mother and son minke whales came over to them as well. They passed by the assault boat to say hello, sometimes swimming too close. They even bumped into the assault boat, causing the boat to shake left and right, but it did not affect Vladimir’s sleep; it just turned its body and continued to sleep.

After around an hour, the sun began to rise higher and higher, and Vladimir turned its body and woke up. It rubbed its eyes and asked, “What time is it?”

Zhang Zian looked at the time. “It’s only around nine o’clock. It’s not even 10 o’clock yet, you can sleep a little while longer.” They had come out in the early morning. Even though they had played for a long time, it was still very early.

It shook its head. “I don’t need to sleep anymore. If I sleep too much, I won’t be able to sleep at night.”

Zhang Zian raised his hand to the side of his mouth and shouted, “Sihwa! Are you done playing?”

Sihwa was laughing and only heard him after he had yelled a few times… Perhaps she was purposely pretending not to hear him.

“It’s still so early! I left that pitiful snail’s home after much difficulty. I want to play a while longer!” She said angrily.

Zhang Zian agreed. “All right, you can play for half an hour more, then we’ll head towards the shore.”

“Tch! Petty person!” She gave him a rude face, then continued to play with 52 Hertz.

After around half an hour, Zhang Zian rushed her to leave. She was only willing after Zhang Zian agreed to bring her over often to play. She said goodbye to 52 Hertz, not willing to part.

Sending 52 Hertz and the three minke whales off, she slowly swam back to the side of the assault boat. “Really! You don’t let people play to their heart’s content when they come out to play?” She placed both her hands on the side of the boat, throwing a tantrum. She used force, causing the top half of her body and a part of her fish tail to appear out of the water like she wanted to flip into the boat.

The assault boat tilted and almost lost its balance because of her weight, scaring Zhang Zian so much that he moved his body to the other side to let the assault boat regain its balance.

“Haha! Look at how scared you are!” Sihwa pointed at him and laughed, loosened her hands, then her body returned back into the water.

“There’s no end to your playing! No matter how long I give you, it’s not enough,” Zhang Zian picked up his phone and urged, “Stop causing trouble. I’m putting you back into the phone now.”

Sihwa seemed to have noticed something. Her small, yet sharp, nose twitched in confusion, and she turned her head to look towards the direction of the shore. “What’s that smell?”

“What smell? It’s just the smell of the sea,” Zhang Zian said casually.

However, Sihwa shook her head seriously and covered her nose. “That’s not right. It’s not the smell of the sea, it seems to be… a very disgusting smell.”

A very disgusting smell? Thankfully she did not say that while looking at him, otherwise he would think that she meant that he was very disgusting.

“Why is it that I don’t smell anything?” He tried to take a few deep breaths but did not notice any disgusting smell.

Sihwa glared at him. “Because your nose is ugly and no good!”

He took out his binoculars and pointed them towards the direction of the shore.

The wind was blowing west from the shore towards the sea. Perhaps was some neighborhood’s property management group had gone on strike and the wind had blown the smell of stacked up rubbish over? But there did not seem to be any neighborhoods nearby… How strong was the smell?

It was exactly because it was a west wind that was blowing that the wind blew the assault boat into a position that was further out to sea. The boat’s position was even further from shore than when they came, and now, when he used the binoculars, he could practically not see the shoreline.

After looking for a while, he did not see anything at all.

He was not worried about not being able to go back, because he had a better grasp on the boat’s battery power. He had confidence that he could go back to shore before the battery totally ran out, and at worst, all he needed to do was paddle a few times.

“You really smelled it?” He put down his binoculars and confirmed with Sihwa. He wondered whether she made it up because she wanted to play for a while more.

“I definitely smelled it! Stop thinking that I’m that kind of sh*tty woman who only knows how to say flowery words!” Sihwa pressed her nose. It did not seem like she was lying; her acting skills were not that good.

Zhang Zian was speechless. Must your hearing be so good?

“Vladimir, did you smell anything?” Sihwa asked Vladimir.

It shook its head. “Nope.”

Sihwa placed her nose closer to the sea and came to a sudden realization. “It’s the sea! The smell is from the sea water. It’s much stronger than in the air!”

Zhang Zian was speechless again. He did not have the ability to smell anything from the sea water, and Vladimir couldn’t, either.

He waved his hands to say, “It’s all right. If you can’t even tell what kind of smell it is, and you can’t tell where the smell came from, the scale of the shoreline is too big. Even if you want to find it, you can’t find it… I think that someone probably poured some dirty water into the ocean, or some company poured polluted water from their production. While this is unethical, it’s very hard to find out who did it. Let’s just give up and go back home.”

Sihwa pouted in disappointment.

Vladimir raised its head, squinting its eyes to look at the sky. “Actually, if you want to find it, it wouldn’t be that hard,” it said.

Zhang Zian was shocked. It could not smell that scent, so why was it so sure they could find it?

“How do we find it?” he asked.

It pointed a front paw at the sky. “Look at those seagulls in the sky. They all seem to be going in the same direction.”