Pet King

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Grandma Gu hurriedly pulled Zhang Zian to the door of the street office.

Zhang Zian was quite resistant. He didn’t want to face the unpleasant Deputy Director Yan. He stood at the door and didn’t go inside. He said, “Grandma Gu, what do you want to say? Please say it. If there is no need, I will not go in with you. I still have things to do in my store…”

“We are already here! What’s the point of standing outside? Come on, let’s go in! Let’s go in!”

Grandma Gu took advantage of the fact that she was a senior and deliberately did not hear him out. She forced him into the office.

The office had not changed, and Deputy Director Yan was there. However, she did not look all that normal. Her face was swollen from crying, and she was packing up. It was not as simple as getting things to leave work. After all, it was just the beginning of the workday. She was packing all her personal belongings into a storage box.

Grandma Gu gently pulled Zhang Zian aside and whispered, “Hey! Nowadays, it is important to know when to shut your mouth! Little Yan’s work ethic is still okay, but she just doesn’t seem to know how to shut her mouth. It finally got her in trouble…”

“Huh?” Zhang Zian didn’t understand what was going on.

Grandma Gu whispered, “It was just that day. Weren’t you here? Xiao Yan ran outside, stopped a telecom engineering vehicle, and prevented the telecom workers from going to Donghua Community for construction work… The issue was what she said then. She told the workers that she represented the public opinion of Donghua Community. A staff member from that team recorded what she said with a mobile phone. The video was then posted online. It created a massive discussion online… A lot of netizens ridiculed her for saying what she said, claiming that they were being misrepresented…and then…this morning, our boss informed her that she was to go through the formalities of leaving the company… Oh, what a pity. She was only a few more years away from her pension. So that is why I say that you must watch what you say. God knows when you may be deliberately recorded by someone…”

The office was not huge. Even if Grandma Gu lowered her voice, former Deputy Director Yan would have heard what she said. However, she was already like an empty shell who had lost her soul. Faced with other people’s remarks and comments, she was unfazed. Even when she brushed against Zhang Zian as she packed, it did not seem to matter. She did not make eye contact with him and quietly placed everything into the storage box before leaving.

When she was out of the office, Zhang Zian did not know if it was an illusion or not. However, the young civil servants in the office seemed relieved.

It seemed that sharing an office with her was an unpleasant experience.

“Xiao Zian, don’t worry about her. Let’s talk again about whatever you told me the other day. I have to record it. Our superior has ordered everyone to act on this issue immediately and kill off those pests!” Grandma Gu instructed Zhang Zian to sit down and put on her reading glasses. She took out her small copybook.

“Cypermethrin,” he replied. “Didn’t someone check that online that day?”

“Hmph! That person is on vacation today! His computer has a password, and the others can’t turn it on, so they can’t read the record!” Grandma Gu shook her head and sighed, “Cyper… What is it?”

Zhang Zian simply took the small book and wrote the word out for her.

Grandma Gu looked at it. “Oh, so this is how it is spelled…”

“Yes. After proper dilution, put on protective clothing and a gas mask and then spray it on the bugs.” He nodded.

“That… What is the proper dilution?” Grandma Gu was cautious and afraid of making a mistake. She was constantly asking questions.

“The instructions should be there in the instruction books.”

“Okay…”

Zhang Zian felt that there was nothing else to say, and he planned to get up and leave.

“Wait, Little Zhang Zian, don’t rush to go.” Grandma Gu pulled him back and said with a joyful look, “If I had listened to you that day, it would have been fine. However, now it is too late for regrets. The person in charge has already…been dismissed, so, Little Zhang Zian, please do not feel so indignant from now on.”

For Zhang Zian to feel no sense of indignation about what he had experienced before would be a lie. He was kind and had voluntarily shared a way to prevent the insect outbreak. However, when he’d done so, he had been verbally attacked for no reason.

However, as Grandma Gu said, the chief culprit in obstructing this matter had been dismissed. This could be considered some kind of karma.

Moreover, as soon as the pests were eliminated, his pet shop could also operate normally as soon as possible. If that did not happen, he would soon lose everything.

“I know, Grandma Gu. I won’t take it to heart,” he said.

“Okay, that’s good…” Grandma Gu smiled with satisfaction. “Little Zhang Zian, from how you spoke the other day, you seem to be very knowledgeable about these caterpillars. From what I heard, everything you spoke of was very logical.”

“I have a slight understanding of it.” He didn’t want to over-report his credentials.

Since he’d discovered that an insect disaster may happen, he had checked for a lot of relevant information.

“These are caterpillars outside? Where did they come from? What kind of caterpillars are they? When our superiors asked us, we were all unable to answer their questions…” Grandma Gu smiled bitterly. “Little Zhang Zian, if you know, you have to tell Grandma Gu.”

Zhang Zian had taken notice of this on his way to the office and immediately replied, “Grandma Gu, I don’t mean to hide this information from you, but there are too many types of caterpillars outside. I can’t finish telling you all their species now… I can only say that here, near the street office, the most abundant caterpillars are the larvae of the oak processionary moths, which used to cause great trouble to London and Belgium in 2018 and 2007 respectively. On the bodies of each moth are sixty-three thousand strands of poisonous hair. The poisonous hair is very toxic and will drift around with the wind. The Belgian government had to send twenty-four soldiers with flamethrowers to destroy all of them…”

Grandma Gu was shocked. She hadn’t expected the small caterpillars to be so resistant, forcing foreign governments to dispatch armed soldiers to deal with them.

“What? So powerful?”

“Because the larvae of the scorpion moth have evolved strong resistance, the general insecticides have no effect on them.” Zhang Zian nodded.

“Even that… Cypermethrin is useless?” Grandma Gu asked.

“I don’t know, but we can try.” Zhang Zian was not confident. After all, he could only confirm it after he had experience using it in a practical situation. Nevertheless, he felt that it would not be effective. This was because cypermethrin had not been invented in recent years. If it were useful, Belgium would not have sent in their armed soldiers.

May and June of every year was the larval development stage of the oak processionary moth. After this, they would emerge and turn into moths.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Grandma Gu frowned.

Zhang Zian thought about it, wrote a phone number down, and handed it to her. “This is Professor Wei Kang from the Department of Biology at Binhai University. You can try to call him. Maybe there is some special research being done in the research laboratory on some really strong insecticides. Alternatively, we can try some form of biological control.”

“Good, good! It makes sense!” Grandma Gu was delighted with what she’d heard and carefully wrote it down in her notebook. “I will explain it to my superiors, but Grandma Gu is old. If there is something I can’t say clearly, I may have to ask you to tell it to my superiors instead.”

“Sure, no problem,” Zhang Zian immediately promised her.