Pet King

When it comes to gossip, most people are nosy, no matter their gender. It’s just that some people are more open about it, while some keep them hidden.

Zhang Zian was interested in the fresh dog poisoning news that Lu Yiyun’s area just had. Wang Qian and Li Kun were even more curious, and came crowding around her, pressing for more information.

Jiang Feifei was cleaning up next door, and know nothing.

Lu Yiyun gave it a thought before saying everything she knew of the situation.

After closing shop at the pet shop last night, Wang Qian, Li Kun and Jiang Feifei sent her back to her area just like usual, and she asked them to just drop her off at the entrance so as to not bother them for too long. It’s quite late now, so probably nothing will happen.

She entered the neighbourhood herself, her head lowered as she entered her own rented apartment quickly. She could actually afford a place better than this apartment, but this place is close to the pet shop and she’s too lazy to move. Even though her place right now is small, it’s more than enough for one human and a cat.

A few familiar faces walked by her, they’re all residents of the area. She has been staying here for some time, and basically knows everyone, but since she’s naturally shy, she would almost never proactively greet other people. Even if others greeted her first, she would only lower her head shyly.

Usually at this time, it’s exactly the time where the working class had just finished their dinner. Some of them are playing the computer, some of them playing on their phone, some of them guiding their kids at their homework, and some of them walking their dogs.

No matter the season, she would always meet people that are walking their dogs on her way back from work.

After working in the pet shop, she got a lot more familiar and knowledgable about dog behaviour and dog mentality, and no longer gets afraid when she sees dogs. In fact, most of the time, dogs calm her down more than humans do.

She may not know the owners of the dogs, but she’s extremely familiar with the dogs in the neighbourhood.

“Good evening.”

When she walked to the lobby of her apartment, she heard a greeting while her head was still down, and a husky rushing towards her in its glee — though it was restrained after a few steps by its owner.

She recognizes the husky, the owner’s a woman in her mid-thirties living right below her floor.

She raised her head slightly, it really was that woman walking her dog.

There’s no one around her, the greeting was for her.

Lu Yiyun had conversed with this woman once, last year end. This woman was walking her dog back then too, but she hadn’t put her dog on her leash. When Lu Yiyun walked past her, she couldn’t help but blurt out “Huskies like to bolt, if you don’t leash them, you will lose them.”

It was the year end back then, and the dognapping cases were getting more and more common, Zhang Zian was also busy settling it. That’s why she had initiated the conversation despite her quiet self.

Her reminder was soft, she couldn’t even hear herself properly, and she ran off like a bolt immediately after that, not confirming whether the other had heard her.

But, from the next day on, the woman would always leash her husky when she brings it out for a walk, and would always greet Lu Yiyun when they meet even if she had never replied once,

She hadn’t replied last night either, and they were used to it, walking past her after only dropping a greeting.

But what she had never thought would happen, was for this to be the last time she would see the husky,

This morning, Lu Yiyun had woken up and washed up as per usual, eating her breakfast and preparing Jasmine’s. She seemed to hear a commotion happening outside, but ignored it, assuming it was just another couple having one of their spats.

After packing up, she carried Jasmine out on her back like she always had. When she walked to the entrance of her neighbourhood, she realised that there was a bunch of people blocking the entrance and stopping everyone from moving in or out, most of them just spectators.

Actually, if they really wanted to squeeze their way out, they could. But Lu Yiyun didn’t want to brave the crowd for fear of squeezing Jasmine in her backpack. So, she decided to take a detour, and walk from the side door instead.

Right then, she heard a vaguely familiar voice. That voice had furiously shouted, “My dog was poisoned in your neighbourhood, how can you not take responsibility for it? Trying to push it clean off of you?”

The tiptoed to look over, realising that the person that’s shouting was the woman that lives below her.

Then the dog that was poisoned, could it be that husky that she had seen last night?

Her footsteps stalled, watching from a distance from where she was, trying to understand what had happened from the bystander’s gossiping and the people involved.

Apparantly, when this woman was walking her dog last night, her dog seemed to be sniffing at something, or had eaten something from the floor. It was too dark at night to see clearly, but she had dismissed it since her dog does this regularly. It had even picked up shit to eat before.

After walking the dog, she had brought it back home. It still hadn’t shown any weird signs yet.

Back home, she went ahead to take a shower. Women usually take really long showers, blowing their hair dry, moisturizing, putting on their masks. During this period, her usually noisy husky was unusually quiet, but she thought it was just tired, and didn’t think much of it.

After an hour later, she had finally finished her routine and was planning to watch television for a while. She called her dog’s name, expecting it to come bolting towards her at the speed of light, leaping onto the sofa to snuggle with her like it always did, but there was nothing. No matter how many times she called the husky, there was nothing at all.

She felt uneasy, and went to look for her dog in the other room, only to find her dog’s body lying on the floor, white foam coming out of its mouth, its breath stopped.

She had nearly broken down completely, hugging her dead husky, wailing for its life.

Only after her sobbing had gradually stopped, did she start to think about the reason for its death.

Foaming at the mouth clearly showed that it had been poisoned to death. She has seen enough old palace shows to know that, that’s how everyone that was poisoned to death was shown.

But, what it had eaten today was all what it had eaten before, there’s no chance of poisoning.

In the midst of her pain, she quickly remembered the unknown object that her husky had eaten during the walk, and confirmed that that was the source of the poisoning.

She was quick to act, and immediately ran to the police station in their neighbourhood and asked to see the CCTV footage to find the culprit that had put the poison down. But, the person in charge of the police station had already finished their shift, and the policeman on shift now couldn’t make that executive call, so they rejected her request.

Early morning the next day, she felt that she was too weak alone, so she made some calls to gather her family and friends to block the opening to the neighbourhood to find the person responsible for the poison. And if they couldn’t, or the police were not willing to cooperate, they would escalate this to the manager in charge of the neighbourhood.

The person in charge of the neighbourhood police station came to work, seeing that the other party is here and extremely aggressive, he didn’t want to carry a blame that wasn’t his. So after checking with the owner of the neighbourhood, he agreed to show the CCTV footage.

Lu Yiyun only stood to watch for a while before leaving. Even until her departure, the crowd standing at the door still hadn’t left. Most probably, they still hadn’t found the perpetrator from the CCTV.