Pet King

The sky in the southwest was a dusky yellow, even a little hint of red on the far horizon. The red clouds looming over the city were like the foreshadowing in exploration movies, the few heart-thumping moments before some monster jumped out at the lead characters.

The incoming storm reminded Zhang Zian of the sandstorms in the northern parts of China.

Right then, Vladimir rushed over, complaining, “What the meow? What is with all the cats here? I had just gathered them all and was getting ready to inform them of the superiority of the Meow Meow Doctrine, and yet they all scattered into the wind the moment they saw the sandstorm in the distance!”

“You came back at the right time. The storm is coming, so don’t run off on your own,” Zhang Zian said. “The local strays must know how terrifying the storm is, so that’s why they all ran away.”

Vladimir had a whole lot of energy with nowhere for it to go, but there was nothing it could do about it anyway.

“What do we do now?” he asked Fina a little nervously. Amongst their group, only Fina truly understood storms like these.

He took his phone to open the live-streaming app, only to find that Sihwa was still live-streaming. If the storm started to get too violent, he could only forcefully end her live stream and take back her phone.

Fina was calm. “No worries. Even though the harmattan winds seem strong, they aren’t actually that dangerous. As long as we stay here and wait for it to pass, we’ll emerge unscathed. Expect a bit of dust and sand on us.”

Zhang Zian definitely wasn’t as confident as Fina was. On sight, this storm was enveloping everything it passed through, and it definitely wasn’t a “No worries” sort of thing.

Fina glared at him. “What are you worried about?” it asked. “The harmattan winds were blown here from the deserts in the red lands, accumulating a lot of sand along the way. That’s why it looks dangerous. The visibility drops significantly in a sandstorm, but it actually isn’t that strong. It won’t blow a person away, and it definitely won’t bury a city. It’s just the god of deserts and storms, Seth, showing off a bit of his strength to its enemies, but that doesn’t scare me. The idiots that die during harmattan storms die because they insist on walking around even if they can’t see anything, so they end up lost in the depths of the desert.”

“Red lands” probably meant the Sahara desert. The ancient Egyptians had called all the deserts outside of ancient Egypt “red lands” anyway.

“Oh.” Hearing the logic behind her words, Zhang Zian finally relaxed. “But how are you so sure that this was the work of that…Seth or something?”

Fina knew he didn’t believe in the existence of Seth and huffed, “The harmattan winds usually only blow in Egypt during the winter, and the khamsin winds blow once every fifty days in the spring. It’s already summer now, but the harmattan winds, which only blow in winter, are blowing right now. If it’s not a message for me, what can it be?”

Vladimir perked up then, clenching its fist tight. “Ever since storms have terrorized the world, there have been spirits rising from the graves! No matter what devil tries to fool around, they will have a taste of my Meow Meow Doctrine Iron Fist!”

Zhang Zian didn’t want to think about it too much. No matter whether this storm was a message for Fina or not, it was more important to deal with the storm before them first.

Wait! It had said that the harmattan winds wouldn’t blow someone off their feet, and they wouldn’t bury cities, which meant that there were other insanely strong storms in the desert that could blow people away and bury cities, didn’t it?

Now he definitely couldn’t be at peace. He could only pray to Bastet that the expedition team wouldn’t meet such a storm while in the desert…

But, the more urgent task at hand now was to let Nekhbet come back. Even though the storm wasn’t that dangerous to humans, there was no reason for a drone to bear the danger.

Before he landed Nekhbet, he took another look at the surfer in the sea. That man seemed to be focused on surfing and hadn’t noticed the dangerous harmattan winds. Even though the harmattan winds would decrease visibility, it couldn’t be too dangerous for a surfer.

“Let’s go back to the car first so we don’t get covered in sand,” Zhang Zian suggested. No one objected to that idea, and they all leapt off their chairs, running towards the SUV.

Zhang Zian stayed to keep the chairs and the parasol. If the winds blew their parasol away, they wouldn’t be able to get their deposit back.

Only Galaxy and Sihwa were outside now. The other elfins had all entered the car.

“Sihwa’s in the cave, so the sandstorm won’t reach her. I’ll go look for Galaxy. You guys stay here,” he said, almost closing the car door.

But where was Galaxy hiding? It was already a challenge to find Galaxy in the pet shop, and now they were on the endless shoreline.

“Galaxy! Where are you? The storm is coming! Let’s pause hide-and-seek!” He cupped his hands by his mouth, shouting through them so his voice traveled farther.

The storm hadn’t reached them yet, but the howling of the wind could already be heard. His voice didn’t go too far with both the wind and the waves interfering with it.

Galaxy didn’t respond, nor did it show up. Maybe it really hadn’t heard him, or it was too immersed in its game of hide-and-seek and thought he was just trying to trick it to come out.

Famous pushed open the door and jumped out. “I’ve already said that you guys take hide-and-seek too seriously. Forget it. I’ll look for Galaxy with you.”

With the military grade sunglasses, Famous wasn’t afraid of the wind and sand. This was, in fact, a great chance to test how well they worked. It wasn’t afraid of water either, so even if its entire body was full of sand, it could just get it all off by rolling in the sea.

Famous’ help was definitely much-needed. Its sense of smell was much better and would bring better results than Zhang Zian, running around like a headless chicken.

Vladimir and Old Time Tea would’ve liked to help as well, but Zhang Zian felt they wouldn’t be of much help, and it would be even more troublesome if they got lost in the sandstorm, so he asked them to stay in the car. As for Pi, Snowy Lionet, and Richard, they would definitely only create more trouble in the sandstorm, so they were better off in the car.

Fina just felt that they were being too paranoid. It was just a small sandstorm. Having grown up here, it was more than used to something like this and didn’t think that there was any reason to overreact like they did. Besides, Galaxy didn’t need them to look for it, did it? If they all got separated, Galaxy was probably the one least likely to get lost.

But this was the first time that Zhang Zian had seen such a huge storm, and he still felt unsettled about not bringing Galaxy back.

He discussed with Famous. As they didn’t know which direction Galaxy had run off to, it would be better for them to go separate ways. Using the car as their anchor, Zhang Zian would look to the east, while Famous headed towards the west. No matter whether they could find Galaxy, they had to come back to the car before the storm reached them. Their visibility would be extremely low in the storm, and smells would be blown away, too. There would be no reason to stay in the storm.

With their decision made, they went their separate ways, shouting for Galaxy to stop hiding as they walked.

“Galaxy! Where are you?”

“Woof woof! Woof woof!”

Zhang Zian moved east along the coastline, watching his surroundings carefully, not missing a single reef or bush. He got closer and closer to the car that the surfer had driven over. Famous’ barks were getting further and further away, until he finally couldn’t hear any of it anymore.

“Galaxy! Where are you?” he continued screaming. “We lose! Come out!”

The storm was getting closer and closer. The forefront of it had already reached the coast, and Zhang Zian’s clothes billowed in the wind. Every time he opened his mouth and closed it, he could feel his mouth lined with sand. He spat it all out, but he received another mouthful of sand when he opened his mouth again to shout.

The sand that harmattan winds carried were different from the sands on the beach. This sand was extremely fine, only marginally coarser than dust, and was very hard to deal with. Thank goodness he was wearing sunglasses too, or he would’ve been blind by now.

He took a white scarf out of his pocket, covering his nose and mouth like Arabians did, and immediately felt relief. It looked like there was a reason the nomads of the deserts could survive in such harsh conditions.

If he couldn’t find it, he could only head back first and hope that Famous had better luck than him.

He turned past a promontory only to suddenly find Galaxy. It was just sitting between two rocks, not hiding itself at all.

“Galaxy, the storm is here. Let’s go back to the car first.” He finally relaxed. He didn’t have the time to ask why it was just sitting out in the open. The more important things had to come first.

Galaxy turned its head to look at him before turning back to the sea. “Meow! That man might be in danger.”

Zhang Zian was stunned, looking out at the sea. The surfer was still surfing and didn’t seem to be in any sort of imminent danger at all.