Pet King

Liu Ying still didn’t know what had caused her to be infected with Tetanus. Was it the old fish hook that she bought for twenty cents from a small shop, or was it the dirty soil that got on the fish hook when the carp was struggling on the ground? In short, it was the most serious illness she had ever had since she was a child. Fortunately, she did not have any sequelae and grew up healthy.

In fact, to a certain extent, she was quite grateful to the little fish hook. If it wasn’t for the sickness, her Grandma would not have cared for her, and she would have been too afraid to spend every afternoon alone with only the fish tank, carp, and loach as a company.

As a small coastal fishing village, fish were both food and commodity for the villagers—big fish were food for the people, while small fish and shrimps were food for the chickens and ducks. Not many people treated fish as pets, of course, and they also did not normally cure fish of their sicknesses.

Grandma was unable to see well with her old eyes, and it was Little Liu Ying who first discovered the white film on the clownfish. Both of them did not know what the white film was, and initially, Grandma even said that the fish was shedding its skin and there was no need to worry.

Did fish shed their skin? It seemed very unlikely.

The conditions of the clownfish started to worsen; they no longer ate anything––no matter what they were fed, they just wouldn’t eat.

Previously, they liked to feed on minced shrimp, because the small fish and shrimps in the fishing village were not worth much––they were mostly used to feed poultry. Grandma would peel the shrimps and mince them with a kitchen knife before feeding it to them. They would always happily snatch the food from one another, but now they didn’t eat them anymore. They just let the shrimp sink down into the bottom of the tank and soak in the water, causing the water to become turbid.

Little Liu Ying had raised her carp and loach for some time, so she was aware that the fish would not starve to death even if they didn’t eat for a few days. Sometimes, the fish would die if they were overfed, so she stopped feeding them and told her grandma not to feed them, either. She felt that they might have been eating too much.

Both grandmother and granddaughter looked after the weak clownfish; they were at their wit’s end.

“I didn’t think to change the water at that time because I was used to raising my carp and loach. To me, it didn’t matter if the water was turbid or not.” Liu Ying had a complicated smile on her face, sweeping her gaze over at the clear and transparent aquarium tanks in the aquarium.

Grandma had said that the fishmongers selling fish at the temple fair all raised their fish in very clear water. She thought that the hot weather might be causing the shrimp meat to turn bad from soaking in the water. So she proposed to change the water.

At that time, the rainy season had arrived, and it was raining outside. Since the rain was not light, it was not easy to walk on the road, and there was no way to get seawater back from the seaside.

So, Grandma thought of a solution: First, she poured out half of the water in the fish tank, then she filled it up with well water. It was a temporary solution while they waited for the rain to stop so that they could bring back fresh seawater.

They lived in a small courtyard with their own well, which would be dry during the dry season. So, during the rainy season, they would basically not use running water.

Little Liu Ying was very worried about the life of the clownfish. She wondered if it would be okay to fill the tank with half fresh water and half seawater as the clownfish live in seawater. But she couldn’t think of another way, so she helped her grandmother change the water in the fish tank.

They first scooped out the clownfish.

Usually, the clownfish were very clever and were not easily caught, but now they were slow moving like patients, and it only took a few moments to catch them. They were then placed in a separate container together with the clearer seawater from the upper portion of the fish tank, then they drained away the seawater from the lower portion of the tank, which was particularly turbid. Next, they added half a tank of running water and poured the remaining seawater in with while stirring it, then they returned the dying clownfish back into the fish tank.

After changing the water, both grandma and granddaughter waited without any expectations. They waited for the clownfish to get better and waited for the rain outside to stop.

However, a miracle appeared.

The clownfish that they thought were definitely going to die started to recover, and the white mucus faded.

During that period, the oxygen pump that grandma had bought from the temple was left operating, injecting strings of bubbles into the water.

Zhang Zian nodded and said, “You’re really lucky; you managed to chance upon the right method. Indeed, you can use fresh water to improve the condition of clownfish that are infected with the Brooklynella disease. The method is to put the clownfish in a fish tank with half seawater and half fresh water. The salinity of this mixture of water would be about 1.01, and it can cause the bacteria that is not used to the low-salinity seawater to die. As for the clownfish, they are able to tolerate the low-salinity seawater more than the bacteria, but the effect also varies from fish to fish. This method cannot be used for a very long time, otherwise the clownfish will die, too.”

“That’s also possible?” It was Jiang Feifei’s first time hearing that saltwater fish could be placed in a half seawater and half fresh water environment.

Liu Ying turned and looked at the camera. She smiled bitterly and said, “At that time, it was really by chance––my grandmother and I didn’t know anything; we were just blindly raising them. But somehow, we really managed to cure the clownfish of their Brooklynella disease…”

She and her grandmother did not know that it was because of the fresh water; they had thought that it was because they changed the water.

In the evening, the rain stopped. Rushing under the last rays of the setting sun while the sky was not completely dark, they ran to the seaside and brought back some sea water. They then placed the clownfish back into the seawater again, and they were almost fully recovered after two to three days.

She and her grandmother happily cheered when they finally saw them open their mouths and eat the shredded shrimp.

Zhang Zian analyzed. “In fact, it’s not necessarily useful to treat the Brooklynella disease through low-salinity seawater since the effect varies depending on the fish. If the fish is too weak, it may even accelerate the death of the fish. In addition, you quickly replaced the water with fresh seawater and didn’t leave the clownfish in the low-salinity water for too long. You were really quite lucky.”

“What happened next? Why did the clownfish die?” Jiang Feifei asked.

Liu Ying sighed. “As mentioned before, the rainy season had arrived…”

After the clownfish recovered from their Brooklynella disease, they had been very healthy. She and her grandmother would periodically change the water. Later, she heard that the clownfish were suitable to live with anemones, so she bought them anemones and decorated the small fish tank, making it look rather nice.

During the Summer and Autumn seasons, there would often be a typhoon that passed through the small fishing village, and although the villagers were used to it, they were still unable to avoid suffering certain losses.

It was a particularly hot summer afternoon. The air felt dense, and it was very hard to breathe. The shirts of her and her grandmother were all soaked, and the sweating did not stop even while they were in front of the fan.

The weather was too hot and there was no air conditioning in the house. The water in the fish tank felt like it could cook the fish, and the clownfish were in a bad state.

Grandma went out to look at the sky in the southeast direction. She comforted little Liu Ying that it was going to rain soon, and the temperature was going to drop after the rain.

Sure enough, before her grandmother’s voice died out, there was a broadcast that sounded out from the central part of the village. The village chief informed everyone that they had just received an urgent notice from the superior meteorological observatory that a typhoon was about to pass through and there might be thunderstorms and winds in a short period of time. He requested for the villagers to prepare for the wind and disaster.

The villagers went home in groups, including her grandmother’s former gambling friends. Everyone was complaining about the typhoon, and all kinds of swear words went over the walls of the courtyard and into little Liu Ying’s ears.

Grandma sighed. Whenever a typhoon arrived, there was a drop in production in the fishery contracted by the family. The fence could be torn or blown by the typhoon, and if that happened, they were going to lose everything.

At that time, Liu Ying was still unable to know much. She kept staring at the clownfish, worried about them.

Her parents called to inform that they would stay in the fishery to try to reduce the losses and told both grandma and granddaughter that they must pay attention to their own safety. They told them to shut the doors and windows of the house, and to lift the electrical appliances and food to higher ground, just in case water flooded in.

Grandma complied with their every instruction, and in turn, told them that they needed to be careful, too; she told them to pay attention to safety, and to not risk their lives just for money.

After hanging up the phone, Grandma got busy. She placed all the valuables in the house––such as banknotes, passbooks, and jewelry––into plastic bags before tying them well. She then taped the window glass in a “米” shape to prevent stones and tree branches blowing in the wind from shattering the glass and injuring someone. She then used the red brick to raise the bed and the cabinets, and placed the rice, noodles, and vegetables on higher ground.

Little Liu Ying also tried her best to help; she passed around the tape and stuffed red bricks under the bed legs when her grandmother lifted the bed.

The weather was already hot, and the two of them worked out a whole body of sweat. They were not far from a heatstroke.

When they were about to be done, the sky had quickly darkened. A moment earlier, it was still sunny and hot, but the next moment, the sky was filled with clouds. As if they felt something coming, the seabirds all flapped their wings and flew away from the small fishing village. The air was filled with a tense atmosphere.

Grandma took a last glance towards the southeast direction and closed the window; it was black as night inside the room.

They did not turn on the lights, as Grandma would be turning off the electric box as the final step of preparation for the wind and disaster relief. She wanted to prevent an accidental electrical leakage.

Little Liu Ying watched as the air bubbles from the oxygen pump stopped abruptly.

Grandma lit a candle and took out two popsicles from the fridge. Both grandmother and granddaughter sat around the candle and listened to the whistling sounds of the roaring winds from the outside world while they ate their popsicles.

The clownfish hid in the anemone. Her grandmother was worried that little Liu Ying would feel afraid, so she told her old stories that Little Liu Ying had heard countless times.

The glass of the small fish tank reflected the image of the candle, and little Liu Ying also saw her own worried face.

The typhoon was approaching.

The heat was swept away almost instantaneously.

The storm and hailstones struck. Huge raindrops and the dense hail slammed onto the roof; the sound of the impact was louder than the firecrackers during the New Year.

Grandma’s storytelling voice was drowned out by the noise that came from all directions.

Everywhere in the house shook and made a disturbing squeaking noise, as if they would all be turned into dust by the typhoon.

The village’s fragile drainage system was overwhelmed, and the accumulated water quickly passed the threshold and poured into the room.

Little Liu Ying and her grandmother both sat on the bed with their feet up. They watched as the water rose higher and higher at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Grandma tried to use the phone. She wanted to ask if her son and daughter-in-law were safe and if the fishery was safe, but the phone was silent. It was obvious that the telephone line from somewhere had been torn off by the storm, which was expected.

Everyone except for them seemed to have disappeared, leaving only two of them trapped in the house.

As time passed by, the wind started to lessen, but the water was still rising.

The water was pitch black and they couldn’t even see the bottom. It left one with the feeling that there was an unknown danger hidden inside.

The bed became less stable and wobbled around; it seemed like it was going to float.

Pong, pong, pong!

Just then, something knocked on the door, and a voice called out hurriedly.