Pet King

the longest message she’d ever sent him.

His mind was running at lightning speed.
If there was a fan installed in his brain, the fan had to be overheating.
He then asked, “I don’t know how to get along with pets… well, never mind, I will put it back where I found it.
Maybe some nice people will adopt it… Oh, the weather forecast said there might be rain tonight.
The nightly fall rain… it might be cold.
I hope someone will pick it up before the rain.”

Shi Shi replied immediately, “Don’t do that! That is too cruel! It will die from the cold.”

Liu Sanlang’s plan worked.
He responded with unspoken excitement, “What should I do then? May I send it your way? Do you want it?”

After a little while, Shi Shi said, “No, I can’t take it.
I don’t have the time, and most importantly, my lease stated that I couldn’t have pets.”

Did she dig out her lease just now? Otherwise how come she could be so sure? Liu Sanlang thought.
He hoped so.
At least that meant that she cared.

He said, “I have time…”

Shi Shi replied, “Because you are a male Otaku!”

Ouch! That hurt, girl!

Liu Sanlang then responded, “I mean, I am quite introverted so I have the time to take care of it… Could you share your knowledge of dogs with me? I will raise it.
You only have to tell me what to do.”

The clock was ticking.
He looked at the cell phone nervously.
All he could hear was his own heartbeat.

The labrador walked around, returned to him and looked at him, full of expectations.
It looked like it was saying, “Come! Let’s play!”

“Wait,” He said to it seriously, “The next message is going to determine the fate of two dogs… No! No! No! I am not a dog! Damn! I’ve started to talk like the pet store owner now.”

10 minutes passed.
There was still no response from Shi Shi.
Liu Sanlang was patient when it came to Shi Shi.
The average wait time for Shi Shi’s response was 53 minutes, so 10 minutes was nothing.

His cell phone chimed.
The monitor lit up.

Shi Shi said, “I did some research online.
You’d better take it to the vet for vaccines because it was a street dog.”

Liu Sanlang paused.
The silly pet shop owner told him that the Labrador already had all the vaccines.
However, he could not tell her the truth.

He replied, “Okay.
I see.
I will take it to the vet tomorrow.
And?”

Shi Shi, “And you can treat it like family.”

He responded, “Where do I begin with that?”

Shi Shi replied immediately, “Silly!”

He then thickened up his skin and wrote, “I am not that smart.
Please tell me.”

Another long wait.

He was patient, but the Labrador wasn’t.
It turned around and played somewhere on its own.

20 minutes later, his cell phone chimed.

Shi Shi had replied, “Oh NO! Annoying!”

Looking at her words, he felt as if his heart had dropped through the ice.

So, it was a no-go? Shi Shi never had been passionate towards him anyways.
However, this was the first time she had said he was annoying.

Desperately, he threw away the cellphone, lay in bed, buried his face into the pillow and quietly took the hurt alone.
Never mind.
Shi Shi is out of my reach.
In my next blind date, I will take whoever wants to date me.
It doesn’t matter how she looks and whether or not I like her.
As long as she is a girl, I will take her.
Maybe I should forget about Shi Shi like that… he thought to himself, sadly.

His cell phone chimed.

He knew it wouldn’t be Shi Shi.
Lying in bed, he was too lazy to move.
All he wanted to do was to fall asleep.
Maybe in the morning when he woke up, he would find that it was only a heart-breaking dream.

Suddenly, he felt something lick his foot.
He sat up, frightened.

It was the puppy! It was licking his foot while looking at him.

“Oh… I forgot all about you…” He laughed, as if he was laughing at himself, “I couldn’t sleep like this.
I should take you back to the pet store… I am sorry I am not an owner with pure love to give you.
Please forgive me…”

He sat up, and put his cell phone in his pocket.

Thinking about the chime just now, he pulled out the cell phone to check if someone from work needed his support.

Shi Shi, “It is so annoying! It took me so long to type everything and I deleted it by mistake! How about this? Where do you live? I can come to your apartment to show you about dogs.”

Frozen like a statue, Liu Sanlang couldn’t believe a word he saw.
He knew every word on the screen, but together, the sentence seemed so unbelievable.
He felt like it was the first time he discovered coding.
The magnificent magic behind the simple words was astonishing! Shi Shi’s words also had the same power, if not higher!

The phone chimed again.
He woke up.

Shi Shi, “What? Is there a problem? Never mind then.”

Whipping his fingers, Liu Sanlang was thrilled.
He sent his own address and said, “Sorry, I was looking up vets near me.”

Shi Shi responded, “Oh, you live quite close to me.
Just wait there.
I may come any day when I have a chance.
I don’t need any advance appointment, right? You are a male Otaku anyways.”

He quickly replied, “That’s right.
You are welcome anytime.”

Shi Shi stopped talking then.
Liu Sanlang was on top of the world.

The distance between desperation and happiness was only one message away.

Looking at his simple apartment, he was so excited.
For the first time, a cute girl was going to visit here.

The labrador tilted its head, looking at its new owner who was sad in a minute and thrilled the next, confused.

He rubbed its head.
“That’s fine.
When you grow up, you will understand the pain of being a damn single dog.”