Pet King

“How’s everything? Are you ready? Is anything missing?” Zhang Zian asked after walking into the aquarium.

“Master, everything is set. Just rest assured!” Wang Qian and Li Kun assured him in confidence.

“I should be fine. Maybe I’m not quite familiar with certain tasks… I’m afraid of making mistakes.” Jiang Feifei seemed a bit nervous.

“Don’t worry. It’s the first time for everybody. All you need to think is––If there is a mistake, it must be the customer’s fault. That will do,” he said to comfort them.

“…Fine.” Jiang Feife didn’t know if he was joking or not; she nodded in agreement anyway.

The big clean-up started early in the morning. The aquarium was squeaky clean––but since the lighting was dark, the dirt would not show regardless.

Colorful lights brightened up rows of aquarium tanks. Newly installed chillers directed cold and hot water to their appropriate tanks through different water tubes hidden under the tanks, completing the heat exchange.

“Store Manager, I have a question,” Jiang Feifei said. “Why not keep the corals and the fish in the same aquarium tank? Wouldn’t that save both work and materials––not to mention look better?”

With the exception of a few aquarium tanks, the fish and the corals in the shop were kept separately.

Zhang Zian nodded. “You are right; it would save us work. But you need be aware that we sell the fish––we don’t keep the fish forever. It’s indeed prettier when fish and corals are kept together. But after the fish and corals have formed a stable ecosystem, then someone suddenly buys the fish away, how can you refuse to sell them? If a crucial link is missing in a stable ecosystem, things can easily go wrong. Therefore, it’s better to keep them separate––except in the display tanks, which are not for sale.”

Both the fish and the corals in the tanks were very dynamic. Usually a new batch was brought in before the older batch had been sold out. It was very hard to keep fish and corals together, as it was not as simple as dumping fish into a coral tank. For an aquarium, it was not worth the trouble.

“There’s another reason. Fish often get sick and medication is needed. Sometimes you even have to disinfect the entire tank, scrap the entire ecosystem, and start over again. This is called ‘restarting the tank.’ If we mix the fish with the corals, it would be too expensive to restart the tank,” he explained further. “It’s indeed nicer to keep the fish and corals together, but it’s not a good way to do business.”

“Oh, I see.” Jiang Feifei understood everything.

Zhang Zian toured around the shop and didn’t find anything wrong.

“Oh right. I wanted to ask––do you watch live broadcasts?” he asked.

“We do!” Wang Qian and Li Kun suddenly had their spirits boosted after hearing this.

“I don’t watch live broadcasts. I don’t have time, nor any interest.” Jiang Feifei shook her head.

Zhang Zian asked again, “What kind of broadcasts do you watch then?”

“Games!” Wang Qian and Li Kun answered in one voice.

“There are a lot of gaming broadcasts. Whom do you follow? Does it have anything to do with how pretty the host is?” Zhang Zian continued to ask.

“Emm…” The two of them hesitated and didn’t answer right away. “I don’t think so? We follow the funniest hosts. It doesn’t have anything to do with their faces… Most game broadcast hosts are ugly, while the hostesses abuse the retouch function. We only watch the game, anyway. It doesn’t matter how pretty or ugly they look…”

“Fine. You both are very straight.” Zhang Zian expressed his admiration.

“Thank you, Master, for the compliment!” The two of them shook their hands in contentment.

“I’m not complimenting you guys!”

Jiang Feifei interrupted them. “Actually, I’ve watched live broadcasts once or twice in the past, mainly with my roommates. We watch male hosts sing, dance, or simply chit chat… In fact, I find it boring. If you want to watch people sing or dance, just watch the variety shows or concerts. They are not that good anyway. But my roommates like watching it.”

“Why do your roommates like watching it?” Zhang Zian asked.

“Because the hosts are handsome. Besides, my roommates often spend money on tipping, just so that the hosts will smile and say ‘thank you, sweetheart,’ or ‘thank you, my little angel,’ etc,” Jiang Feifei complained. “I don’t understand it. My imagination is limited by my poverty!”

“Okay. I see.” Zhang Zian nodded.

He had watched Sihwa’s live broadcast the other day. She didn’t do anything except sit in a bathtub and answer the audience’ questions, while occasionally acting silly. Yet the audience number kept growing. There were people tipping all the time. Someone even tipped a bear claw… That was equivalent to 1000 yuan. It also posted notifications in other live broadcast rooms, thus redirecting the audience.

That caused more and more people to join her live broadcast room. At the peak hour, there was nearly 1,000 people!

Sihwa wanted to continue with the broadcast, but her phone battery was dying. Unable to charge the phone in the bathroom, she had to, regretfully, end the broadcast.

Zhang Zian felt as if he were dreaming. He could not understand, by any means, how a newbie hostess, who didn’t know anything, could attract so many audience members on the first day. Was it only because of her pretty face?

Sihwa’s beauty was beyond all doubt. It was not beauty from the world; it had too much loftiness and distance from the earth. It was almost as impeccable as an ancient Greek goddess statue… But despite so, it didn’t make sense!

After asking Jiang Feifei, he had more or less realized that men were not the only ones with sperm running through their brain. Many women also fancied the handsome hosts in front of the screen. They were willing to pay big bucks to make them smile.

Besides, Sihwa’s beauty was so much beyond those coquettish hosts…

After finishing the live broadcast, Sihwa showed off in front of him in pride, asking him to keep his promise to fully charge her phone.

Of course, Zhang Zian could not break his promise; otherwise he would have been a bad example for her. However, he warned her seriously that she could never show her tail, or body, in the future. The audience was only allow to see what was above her shoulders.

Sihwa was very dissatisfied and asked him why.

He provided an unquestionable reason: The government was imposing more and more regulations to live broadcast platforms. The platforms responded with more and more restrictions. Doing live broadcast in a bathtub was already borderline. If one posed in front of the audience in a bikini, their account would be suspended sooner or later.

Sihwa had nothing else to say. She had to agree in anger.

Ever since that day, the name “Mermaid Cosplayer” had spread within a small range. Audience members thought that she was cosplaying a mermaid, and did an excellent cosplay job. In fact, it was not hard to fabricate an artificial fish tail to cover the legs––it was much easier than duplicating the ornamental armor and sophisticated weapons in animations.

Zhang Zian exclaimed that it seemed like Snowy was such an innocent hostess in the live broadcasting business…