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

  “So cold!”


  Zhang Zian got up and shivered. He opened the curtains to look outside. It had finally snowed.

  There would always be the strange phenomenon on a snowy morning that the ground was brighter than the sky.

  He pulled the curtains back down and went back to bed. With today’s weather, no normal people would probably come to his pet shop, so he could postpone the reopening for a few more days, enabling the shy and timid Lu Yiyun to familiarize herself with the situations in the shop.

  Then, he and Galaxy looked at each other.

  Galaxy was lying in its crib. It raised a forepaw and waved to him before it silently whispered, “Meow, Zian, good morning!”


  Zhang Zian smiled and waved at it. “Galaxy, good morning!”


  Galaxy jumped out of the crib and trotted to the door. With its two front paws alternately pulling at it, the door opened a narrow gap that allowed it to pass through, and then it went out, probably to go downstairs to see if there were other kittens awake, so that they could play hide and seek together.

  Zhang Zian wished every elfin could be as easy-going as Galaxy.

  Sitting up for a while with only a sweatshirt on, he felt like his arms were frozen. Although he felt he was getting near his goal of becoming invincible in this world recently, he hadn’t reached the level of “resistant to both the intense heat of summer and freezing coldness in winter”— Old Time Tea wasn’t there yet, let alone him.

  To avoid catching a cold, he tried to pick up his coat from the pillow, but found that the coat he neatly folded at bedtime was inexplicably bulged and something seemed to be moving beneath it…


  Was it a mouse?

  When he thought of the word, he felt nauseous. Did a mouse climb into my bed?

  No way?!

  This house was full of cats. With Fina and Old Time Tea guarding, which mouse would be so daring as to invade his house? Was it some kind of mouse elfin?

  His right hand picked up a translation of Rare Pet Illustrations from the bedside. This book was a hardcover version, which was full of coated papers and color pages, and was thick, heavy and expensive. He bought it online after comparing prices between different stores. One good thing about this book was that it could be used as a brick, a valuable weapon when travelling outsides.

  Zhang Zian was very satisfied with this book, which could knock out a human being, not to mention a mouse.

  He raised Rare Pet Illustrations high and stretched out his left hand to grab the corner of the coat. Suddenly, he pulled the book to the side and changed his mind. He wanted to take the damned mouse to Fina.

  As it turned out, beneath the coat was not a mouse, but Richard, who was asleep in an ugly posture with its legs twitching and kicking sometimes. Fortunately, he had stopped his right hand, otherwise this book might have beat the s**t out of Richard!

  Zhang Zian was disgusted thinking of the scene where Richard’s white feces was flying around in the air yesterday. He put the book on the bedside table, and threw the coat back on Richard. He couldn’t wear this coat today. He would wash it together with other clothes.

  Before he went to bed last night, he remembered Richard was squatting on the clotheslines in the room. Why did it go under his clothes in the middle of the night? Fortunately, it did not get into his bed…


  Most residential buildings in Binhai City had no supply heating — this applied to Zhang Zian’s pet shop. When the weather was bad in winter, such as yesterday and today, the washed clothes would be dried by the electric heaters in the room. Richard often squatted on the clotheslines to sleep, which was the general sleeping posture of most birds. But apparently this grey parrot could also fall asleep by lying on its back.

  However, today’s bedroom was really colder than usual, probably because of the snow that fell at midnight.

  All the other elves were still asleep, but their sleep was not as deep as that of human beings, so even the slightest sound of Zhang Zian getting up and putting clothes on made their ears move.

  Fina was lying in her princess bed, covered by a small blanket. A slight breeze entered through the gap of the door opened by Galaxy, blowing the drapes up and down like a tide. She opened her eyes when Zhang Zian walked out of bedroom, then closed them again apathetically.

  With its long fur, Snowy Lionet didn’t feel cold at all. It was lying next to the princess bed, and its body was like a pure white plush pillow, but Zhang Zian didn’t dare to pick it up, or it would definitely kill him.

  Old Time Tea was sleeping on the electric blanket, with the heating turned up to the maximum. It was sound asleep with stable breathing.

  As the shadows of light changed a bit in the bedroom, Famous also woke up. Seeing that it was getting bright outside, Famous lifted a paw to turn off the night light. Zhang Zian praised its power-saving mannerisms. Since the amount of food Famous ate was almost equivalent to the sum of Fina and Snowy Lionet, and Famous needed to have medium-well steak with red wine, Zhang Zian was pained that raising Famous cost him so much money.

  When he was dressed and had finished washing his face and brushing his teeth, he went downstairs with Famous, and he closed the bedroom door to prevent the heat from escaping from his bedroom, which might save some money in electricity bills.

  The ventilator on the ceiling was buzzing, and most of the kittens and puppies downstairs had woken up, meowing and barking. With the increase in the number of pets in the shop, the ventilator had to be open for 24 hours now, otherwise it was difficult to eliminate the smell of the excrements.

  Galaxy was chasing a few larger kittens and having fun.

  He walked to the front of the shop, opened the shutter door, and the cold wind blew in with the snowflakes. He shivered again and shut the door to the outside, looking out through the glass.

  Today was Monday, with a lot of people going to work and to school. The ground was slippery, covered with ice and snow, so everyone was driving very carefully.

  Zhang Zian went back upstairs and put on another coat, a pair of gloves and a hat. He also went into the storage room to find a broom and a shovel that hadn’t been used for a long time to clean the snow in front of his gate.

  The cat litter in the store could wait for Wang Qian and Li Kun to come and clean it up. But the snow at the gate must be cleared up immediately, otherwise if pedestrians passed by and fell because of the snow, he would have to assume responsibility.

  Outside, the air was wet and cold, and snow was still falling. Zhang Zian exhaled a white breath, and began to clear away the snow.

  One shovel… two shovels… three shovels…


  With the muscle contractions and extensions, a lot of heat had been generated, and his body was slowly warming up. He progressed by cleaning the entrance and then the roadside. When he encountered the solid ice that couldn’t be cleaned by the broom, he would resort to the shovel, until he thoroughly cleaned the ice and snow.

  He gasped and looked up at the grey sky with his hands resting on the shovel. There was no sign that the snow would stop any soon, so he might need to continue removing the snow later.

  Zhang Zian was going to go inside and put his broom and shovel at the doorway when just then, a short car horn was heard behind him.

  Looking back, it was Sun Xiaomeng’s car, stopping slowly by the roadside.

  He stuck the shovel into the snow pile and trotted towards her.

  Sun Xiaomeng rolled down the window and handed him something from the passenger’s seat.

  “The immunization certificate you asked for,” she said.

  “Thank you so much!” Zhang Zian took off the gloves and grabbed the paper. It was the immunization certificate for Famous with its photo on it. The photo was taken by Zhang Zian and sent over to Sun Xiaomeng before she stuck the photo on the certificate.

  Sun Xiaomeng was also wearing thick clothes today. The air conditioning was still on in the car, but the thermal energy was escaping quickly via the opened window.

  “Why do you want this? To get a dog raising license?” She stared at Zhang Zian and asked curiously.

  “Yeah,” he folded the paper and pushed it into his pocket. “Obviously.”


  “No, I mean… I’ve never heard of a pet shop that needs to get a dog raising license… is it necessary?” she rubbed her hands together and asked. To drive safely, she did not wear gloves.

  Zhang Zian shrugged. “I have no choice. The business license of trading canines is hanging on the wall in the shop, so it’s inconvenient to carry it with me… a dog raising license is more reassuring if some officials ask for such a document.”


  “This German Shepherd is the latest pet you bought?” she raised her chin and asked.

  “Yes, that’s right! My friend couldn’t afford it, so I brought it to my shop.” Zhang Zian came up with an excuse calmly, trying to fudge the origin of Famous.

  She frowned and said, “Why do you have so many strange friends?”


  “Anyway… thanks a lot. I owe you for this, and I will repay your favor someday.” Zhang Zian waved to stop her from delving further.

  “A favor…” Sun Xiaomeng’s eyes fell on the snow that he had just shoveled, and looked at the clean gate that had been swept by him, “How about today? I think you did a good job in cleaning the snow, how about cleaning the snow in front of my clinic?”


  Zhang Zian reluctantly sighed, “Well, I’ll go in a moment, since there are probably no clients today.”


  “Then hurry up. I’m leaving now — a client has made appointment of this morning.” Sun Xiaomeng drew up the window.

  “The weather is not good, perhaps your client won’t make it on time.” Zhang Zian waved his hand and said, “Drive slowly.”


  Sun Xiaomeng drove her car off. Zhang Zian looked again at this health certificate, confirming that there was no problem with it.

  Binhai City had relatively loose regulations on raising large and medium-sized dogs, unlike in some large cities where only dogs under a certain shoulder height were eligible to be issued with dog raising licenses.

  With the immunization certificate, he could go apply for a dog raising license in the police station nearby. Ever since he captured Famous, he had been thinking about this matter. He just didn’t expect that Famous could leave the pet shop freely so soon, and he was taken aback.