Pet King

Sihwa tossed her head, and what she swung away was not just her hair, but also two drops of glittering, crystal-clear teardrops. She had originally wanted to recall happy things––like the Korean drama she had watched and the delicate features of those handsome men and women––to make her mood better, but why was it that she often thought about minor happenings in the past and continued to cry unconsciously?

She really missed the white whale. She wondered if it was doing well now.

After hearing about whaling from Zhang Zian, she often worried that it would be pierced by a harpoon and dragged onto a whaling ship by a barbarian with a beard and waterproof clothes. The barbarian would raise a shining butcher’s knife up high, then a lot of blood would rush out from the deck’s drainage outlet. From then on, it would never be able to sing with its voice like a beautiful canary again.

She could indeed use low-frequency sound waves to communicate with the whale species over long distances, but the range at which she could communicate at was limited. With the current status of the sea, her low-frequency sound waves could only transmit over a few thousand kilometers, and the Baltic sea was at the other side of the earth.

She had no way of finding out how the white whale was doing.

When she was with it, she repeatedly talked about the Korean dramas she watched, but when Zhang Zian gave her the opportunity to go towards the east, she did not hesitate to accept his offer––just like how she did not hesitate to climb in through the villa’s yard gate. When she did that, she did not even consider the white whale’s feelings. She was action oriented, and had thought that even if it left her, it could still live well.

Currently, she was in the east, but she had begun to miss the white whale who was tens of thousands of miles away.

She had even begun to miss the girl curled up on the sofa watching television the whole day in the villa. Even though she could no longer remember what the girl looked like, she wanted to know if the girl and her parents got along now, or if was she still sullen and watching Korean drama alone every day…

She heard the sound of the shutter door being pulled up, the sound of talking downstairs, and the sound of the machine roaring, so she knew that Zhang Zian had already left the shop to drive to the sea.

After he left, she had a period of alone time in which she did not want to have disturbed.

She took up her phone, swiped on the phone screen a few times, then hovered over the shortcut to the live broadcast application. She hesitated and did not press down on it.

She had not done a live broadcast in a few days, as she had been troubled by many things over the last few days; she was in no mood to broadcast.

The small bit of popularity she had managed to gain––the pitiful few thousand fans–– could they all have gone away during the last few days?

She had actually wanted to continue to live broadcast two days prior, but she had been as cowardly as she was acting currently. She had not been able to press down on the application shortcut, so she could only give up and abandon herself to despair.

There was bound to be a second time after the first, and every time she thought about live broadcasting, she felt dispirited. Her lofty ideals and high aspirations had long been destroyed into a disastrous state. She had, for a very long time, not even wanted to see the application logo.

“Nevermind… It’s better if I go back to sleep. My head hurts.” She rubbed her temples, then put her phone back on the cardboard in the bathroom, perturbed.

Just as she had closed her eyes and sunk back into the bathtub to use the clean water to separate herself from the troubles of the outside world, she heard a scuffling noise at the doorway and immediately opened her eyes again.

Pi was squatting at the doorway––the monkey that spent the whole day in the living room typing. Sihwa was not familiar with it, and she had never seen it use the toilet before. She had often treated it as a part of the backdrop, and hence could not help but feel puzzled as to why it came to the toilet at this moment.

“Do… do you need something?” she asked.

“Zhi zhi?” Pi made some hand gestures as if it were asking her a question.

Sihwa could not understand what it was saying, and she could not interpret its hand gestures. While Zhang Zian might have understood what it was saying and its hand gestures, she did not have the ability to.

The shabby house was filled with different kinds of languages––cats meowing, dogs barking, birds chirping, and the whales song. There was also the soundless hand gestures of the monkey, so it was practically a small Pets United Nations in the pet shop.

“This… I don’t understand.” She hurriedly waved her hands, and pointed at her own ears. “The miser whose surname is Zhang has gone out. If you need anything, you can wait till he is back to tell him.”

“Zhi zhi.” Pi did not leave. Instead, it pointed at itself, then pointed at her.

“What? You want to talk to me?” Sihwa guessed. She could not help to feel even more puzzled. She did not have any interactions with it, so what was there to say? Furthermore, how could anything be said?

“Zhi zhi.” Pi took a tablet computer out from under its armpit. It opened up a document function and typed on the virtual full keyboard. “You have not broadcasted for quite a few days.”

After that, it raised the computer for her to see, and because it was worried that she could not read it, it even started up the text-to-speech function. The computer then read out the words with a voice that was devoid of emotions.

Seeing the line of words, Sihwa was taken aback.

In the daytime, the rest of the elfins were downstairs and rarely came upstairs. Zhang Zian had a lot of things to do between the two shops, and most of the time, only Pi and Sihwa were on the second floor. Only Pi knew that she had not broadcasted for quite a few days.

She had assumed that it would treat her broadcasting like a backdrop, just as she had treated its typing as a backdrop. Could it be that it was not like that at all?

“Um…” she scratched her head in embarrassment. “I haven’t been in the mood the last few days… Anyway, it’s all right. There’s barely anyone watching at all.”

Pi typed, “Don’t you have more than 4,000 fans?”

“What’s 4,000 fans? These days, those big live broadcasters have tens of thousands––hundreds of thousands––of fans. There are even those super live broadcasters with more than ten million fans! Compared to them, I’m nothing!” She became dejected and despondent as she complained.

Pi typed, “You have only done live broadcasts for a short time. Having 4,000 fans is already very amazing. When I first started writing novels, only a few people read them.”

“Only a few people reading and you can still continue writing? That’s amazing! For me, I can’t take it. I should be brilliant and shining in this world… I want everyone’s eyes fixed on me, not ignored by everyone.” Sihwa shook her head.

Pi typed, “I almost could not continue writing either, but every day when I wake up, I always tell myself, ‘Just write for one more day.’ Zhang Zian also told me that. If it was not for his encouragement, I probably would have already given up.”

Sihwa stayed silent and did not comment.

Pi typed, “Broadcast for one more day. There will definitely be people waiting for your new broadcast. If you really do not want to continue broadcasting, you must at least say goodbye to your fans.”

She bit her lip and thought about it, remembering the familiar IDs in the broadcasting room. Despite originally not wanted to broadcast, her heart wavered.

“All right, what you said was right. I’ll continue broadcasting for one more day,” she nodded and said.

“Zhi zhi!” Pi did not type, instead giving her a thumbs-up, as if being happy for her.

Sihwa showed a helpless smile. Perhaps it thought that her spirit was rejuvenated, but she truly just wanted to live broadcast for the last time––just like what it had said––to say goodbye to her fans. She wanted to tell them that in the future there would no longer be a mermaid broadcasting for them.

She had once separated from the white whale without saying goodbye, and she did not want to do that again.

Pi turned around to leave, but Sihwa suddenly thought of something and called it from behind. “Wait! Don’t leave!”

“Zhi zhi?” Pi stopped, blinked its eyes, and waited.

“That… you’re called Pi right? How did you know that I have 4,000 fans? I’ve never told anyone about that before!” she asked, puzzled.

Just before the last broadcast had ended, her number of fans had just barely reached 4,000. The number was very far from what she had hoped to reach, so she was too embarrassed to tell people.

Pi proudly patted its chest, then typed, “I know everything about life and the cosmos.”

“Really?” Sihwa thought about it. “There was once an ID called Watermelon that came into my live broadcast room and said a whole lot of rubbish, which made me so angry my chest hurt, and then never appeared again. Can you tell me if that person will come to watch my live broadcast today? I must give this person a proper scolding!”

“Zhi zhi.” Pi nodded, its face showing a meaningful smile.