Last night before going to bed, he repeatedly confirmed several times that the doors and windows had been locked, in fear of other so-called players coming to his shop.
One night passed, and nothing happened.
In bed, tossing and turning back and forth until the middle of the night, Zhang Zian was just getting into a deep sleep... When he had just barely fallen asleep, he heard the voices of pedestrians who got up early, greeting each other on the street, through his back window. He opened his eyes quickly, the day not yet bright, much earlier than his regular wake up time.
He scratched his itchy head and picked up his phone to start the "Pet Hunter" game.
"Navigation Elf, may I ask whether or not the other players know my location?"
[Navigation Elf]: No. In order to increase the fun, the players do not know each other's name, identity or location.
The players didn’t know each other's position. How could they easily connect if they were located everywhere in the world?
Now knowing the game and still in a foggy state, Zhang Zian's heart had been put ease a lot. As long as he was more careful when he captured elves in the future, he would be able to avoid encountering other players.
"May I ask whether there is a time limit in the pet king war?" he asked.
[Navigation Elf]: No. Until the final winner appears or the game experiences an outage, the battle will not end. Two players who have been fighting for over a decade are still fighting.
"What is the winner's reward when they finish the game? Are they also able to upgrade a designated pet to a legendary level or is there no reward?" he asked curiously.
[Navigation Elf]: Of course there are incentives, but the difference is that the winner could make any designated pet die immediately. Please note: Legendary pets can be exempt from this death effect.
Zhang Zian was so scared that his phone almost fell to the ground. What kind of reward was that? Invoke legendary death with one finger? No wonder the two fought all day long... He decided not to provoke the two big brothers. He’d let them continue to beat each other down; at least one was better than two.
Suddenly, his worry disappeared, and he immediately became excited.
Yong Chun... do I really want to become a master of Yong Chun Kung Fu?
Why bother running a pet shop? He could go directly to the bar, be friends with the second generation of the wealthy, and date the prettiest women. Was that being on top of life?
But where would he practice it?
In accordance with the routines in martial arts novels, the protagonist must find a very secret place where he couldn’t be seen by anyone. The common choice was generally on top of mountains, in deep mountain caves, on the edge of iceberg cliffs, and so on... The problem was that there was no such place in Binhai City!
Mt. Hidden Fog was not a high mountain, plus it was too far away; that would waste time if he went there to practice.
He got up from bed and put on clothes that were easy for him to move around in. Fina, still sleeping in her princess bed, opened her eyes a little and closed them again.
It was too early, and still dark outside. There was no difference in pulling the curtain open or keeping it closed.
He stood in front of the window and looked out. Where would he find a secret place? Now there were people everywhere in this city. Where was his secret place?
If his bedroom was spacious enough, he could possibly practice there.
He left his room and walked into his parents’ room next door, where the furnishings had not changed, remaining exactly the same as when his parents left.
Zhang Zian gently stroked his mother's dresser and rubbed his fingers together, now very dusty, feeling the texture brought by the dust. The makeup in front of the mirror was covered with some dust as well, and even the mirror itself was somewhat blurred.
He sat on his parents' double bed and looked down at his feet on the floor.
Except that time when Fina was occupied his bedroom, he rarely entered his parents’ bedroom, not to mention clean it. Half a year had passed, but he had not completely come out of the shadow of his parents' death just yet.
He knew that he needed to look forward, no matter how much he missed the past.
The two bedrooms were connected through the living room. If he moved his parents’ bed and the sofa into the living room, and put the dresser, TV, side cabinets and other things into the storage room, the second floor would become very spacious.
Because Fina seemed to hate that Old Time Tea did not kneel in front of her, Zhang Zian feared they would have conflict. So he separated them, letting Fina sleep in his room and letting Xinghai accompany Old Time Tea on the first floor. After the store was renovated, they obviously could not stay on the first floor any more. His bedroom was relatively small and there wouldn’t be room to stand after putting Xinghai’s crib and Old Time Tea’s tea electric blanket in the room.
He gently sighed. If he was a millionaire, then there would be no such worries... Wrong! These years, millionaires were not rare, and one would need to be at least a billionaire to buy a large house. But the question came again: even if he was a billionaire and bought a big house, he still meant to move away from this home.
What was more important, past memories or today's partners?
The answer was easy, but the decision was not so easy to make.
Well, his parents’ bedroom could wait to change. Since the shop was going through a renovation, he would connect his bedroom and living room. The total space of the two rooms together was not smaller than the master bedroom. He decided to put the sofa in the living room to sell or just give away, as it occupied too much space. He would feel guilty keeping Xinghai and Old Time Tea on the first floor with those noisy pups and kittens.
After making this decision, he stood up from the bed, taking a big stretch.
Returning back to the previous question, in order not to cause suspicion from Captain Sheng or other people, he must find a secret place to learn a few strokes of Yong Chun Kung Fu, at least to look like the real deal. But where could he find a secret place?
He went to the window again.
It took him a while to think and recall. Now, the East slightly exposed the bright light and the visibility outside had greatly improved.
His eyes fell on the greens behind the pet shop.
That piece of green land had existed for a long time, even when he was a child.
Dongcheng District was the cultural and educational district and had an old residential area, unlike the business district, which had a high cost. In fact, there was a rumor that the city wanted to demolish and transform the area, but it never happened, probably because the demolition costs were too expensive and some stubborn seniors boycotted too badly, so it was not worth it for the city to implement this.
This piece of lawn was sandwiched between the two residential areas, but coincidently, there was no pathway connected to it from the two residential areas, so few people usually passed through the land. Sanitation workers seemed to always be lazy and ignored cleaning the lawn.
Should he go to that place to practice?