Pet King

[Collapse The World] did not continue to send new messages. He was probably asleep.

Zhang Zian temporarily borrowed Pi’s computer to delete the web crawler used to search for cat abuse and replace it with the new one used to search for the dog poisoning incidents.

Whether it was cat abuse or dog poisonings, the newspapers and the media always reported just the tip of the iceberg. Most of them stopped in the local forums of small and medium-sized cities. A stay-at-home man who suffered from idleness posted in the middle of the night, “Posting out of boredom. Our neighbor’s dog has been poisoned,” or something similar to this. The following posts were two or three kittens expressing their feelings. Most of them were mocking, saying that it deserved to be poisoned to death.

These kinds of random posts lasted for a day or two at most. They might have even been drowned out by other posts in the daytime, provided that no dog owners could let it go, and clicked on it to quarrel with the original poster, and then it would evolve into cursing at each other, mutual greetings to each other’s female relatives, and finally an invitation to fight at the door of the school… That was generally the process.

The main reason for the popularity of isoniazid was that it was in the grey area of the law.

When Zhang Zian and Famous were filming the movie before, the pyrotechnician Guan Biao had tried to poison Famous and the two other police dogs with props and cigarettes. The principle was that sulfur dioxide produced by sulfur burning was heavier than air. People with their heads at a higher distance from the ground would hardly inhale it, but dogs with a lower head distance from the ground would inhale it. In addition, sulfide would cause a hidden hemolytic reaction when it entered the bodies of dogs.

Finally, Guan Biao, who had failed in his quest to harm the dogs and was harmed instead, was transferred to the public security organization as he was suspected of putting dangerous substances in public places. This was his deserved end. It was not controversial because sulfur dioxide in any country was a dangerous substance.

But isoniazid was different. It was a real anti-tuberculosis drug with very few side effects. It was harmless to people even if they took it by mistake. Whether putting it in a public place could be judged as putting dangerous substances in public was highly controversial.

There was a ‘judicial precedent principle’ in the law, which meant that the legal principles in previous judgments were binding on similar cases in the future. This was to safeguard the authority of the law, so that in the same case, if City Court A convicted and City Court B acquitted it, that would make it such that the law is not valuable, and whether a decision of guilty was reached or not depended on whether City A’s judgment or City B’s judgment came first.

The key to the current dog poisoning case was that no dog poisoner had been caught and prosecuted for the crime of putting dangerous substances in public places yet. If there was a first case, and in the court statement, isoniazid could be qualitatively defined, all subsequent similar cases could follow the principle of the first case.

No amount of legal education was as effective as the actual judgment as a precedent. For example, when the news that the person privately rearing and illegally selling grey parrots was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment came out, it shocked many previously uncaring bird-keepers, who then washed their hands and no longer raised grey parrots without a license. This was the power of the law.

Large and medium-sized cities were full of surveillance cameras. Was it difficult for people to catch dog poisoners? It wasn’t difficult.

The problem was that there were too many people who kept dogs—many more than those who kept grey parrots. Both the dog captors and the dog owners had a lot of anger. The authorities concerned did not want to offend anyone, so they adopted an attitude that was to settle the difference by compromising, making the matter from something big to a small one, then making it not a problem from something small. They were reluctant to set a precedent.

To be honest, this matter could not be entirely blamed on the relevant departments, because whether it was convicted or acquitted, a lot of other issues would arise.

But could this kind of thing really be made into nothing? Not necessarily.

History had proved countless times and would continue to prove that contradictions were always accumulated in places that people did not notice, and might erupt at any time.

Unlike the cat abuse incident, Zhang Zian had no clue about it and did not feel that he could have any impact on this kind of thing. Although he felt regret and pity, he did not have too high a sense of urgency.

The regret and pity were because dogs biting, hurting, scaring, disturbing people and other acts were indeed wrong, even violating the law, but this did not mean that evil was the right way to control evil. Superheroes who acted as punishers should only exist in the capitalist world—this did not conform to the core values of socialism.

At present, the storm caused by cat abuse and Pi’s novel had temporarily subsided, the date of going to Egypt was approaching, and the poisoning dog incident could only be left till later. He would think about it after returning from Egypt.

And it took time for a web crawler to collect, analyze, and collate information about related events. After all, his was an old laptop and a home broadband network with limited performance.

He went downstairs. The store employees went to work like normal and did not wait for his instructions before they began their own work. While working, they made impromptu comedic remarks.

Lu Yiyun was the last to enter. She hurriedly stepped through the shop door and placed her backpack on the cashier counter, taking out Jasmine from her bag and letting her enter the shop by herself to play, then hurriedly apologized, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I was late!”

Her rental place was in the neighborhood opposite the pet store, and she was the nearest to the pet shop—the distance was only a few steps away. Usually, she arrived on time or in advance, but today she was a little late. Of course, pet stores did not have fixed working hours, so they did not deduct money. After all, Zhang Zian boasted that he was the conscience of the industry.

“Don’t worry, it’s still early. There are no customers this early,” Zhang Zian said. “Everyone has times they wake up late. I woke up late two days ago too.”

Wang Qian held his broom and coughed, wanting to say something, but looking at Zhang Zian’s face, he swallowed it back.

“I didn’t get up late, but something happened in the community and blocked the door. I couldn’t get out. Finally, I had to go around to the side door.” She picked up a rag and wiped the desktop and monitor, explaining. She didn’t want to be misunderstood by everyone, and did not want them to think that she was deliberately late and pushed all the work to others.

“What happened?” Li Kun came over, very gossipy. “Is it that the adulterer or the adulteress were caught and found in bed with a third party? Or is there a master who comes to the community to light up the women who have lost their shine?”

He had given too much information in one sentence, and Lu Yiyun could not react for a long time. She shook her head and said, “That’s not it. It seems like some owner’s dog was poisoned. The owner was so angry that he blocked the guard room at the entrance to the community with relatives and friends and asked the security guard to show the surveillance video.”

Zhang Zian had originally not been listening, but when he heard that it was actually another dog poisoning incident, and one in his vicinity, he could not help but be alert again.

Although he had heard [Collapse The World]’s description, he kept feeling like the dog poisoning incidents were far away from him. He did not think that he would actually instantly meet a real-life incident.

“What happened? Say it out loud for me to hear,” he said.