Pets Chapter 11: The Banana Tragedy

 

Chapter 11: The Banana Tragedy

Translated by Crystal of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Kuneho/Kate/UA

 

To relieve some of King’s study stress, Xie GuanZe decided to add a bathtub to the washroom. 

One of the few hobbies of the Great White Parrot —— taking a bath.

“Come on, let’s go buy a tub.”

Xie King’s hair raised way up once again. This time, it was due to happiness. 

Once they arrived at the mall, and looked over their selection of tubs, Xie King pointed at a massive, two person tub. With certainty in his voice, he said, “I want that one.”

“Why?” Xie GuanZe questioned, “Once you fill the bathroom with that, there’s not going to be much room left.”

Xie King raised his chin, “You can wash me.” 

Xie GuanZe replied with full sincerity, “King, you’re a big bird now, you have to wash yourself.”

Xie King simply waved his wings around and said confidently, “Wings can’t grab towels.”

Xie GuanZe: …

Once Xie King passed the drivers test, he became too lazy to turn back into a human. Now, he was even using it as an excuse. Xie GuanZe just sighed, rubbing his temples. 

“You still have claws.”

“Bird claws can’t grab towels either.” Just a moment ago he was still feeling pride-hurt when the officers said he was weak. Now, he was using it as an excuse, “I’m weak, I can’t hold onto it.”

What could Xie GuanZe do against his pet’s wishes (tantrum). Just like being with a deliberately-acting-cute girlfriend, he could only give the default answer, “I’ll buy it for you.” 

Xie King was happy. He even made sure Xie GuanZe paid and hurried the salesman to deliver it by the end of day. 

Once they were back, he also eagerly got in, first as a bird, then as a man. He even dragged Xie GuanZe along, getting him to wash his body. 

Like a professional, Xie GuanZe pulled out his fatherly attitude of washing pets and patiently washed Xie King wings. He also washed his back and head in human form. 

(t/n bathhouses in Asia have people who scrub you down. Refreshing and painful) 

Then, Xie GuanZe’s gazed froze, “King, you’re not in your estrous cycle, are you?” 

Xie King was dumbfounded as well, “No… and I’m not thinking of female birds either…”

The pair of eyes locked onto Xie King’s little birdie. Xie GuanZe thought to himself, of course, with King’s feathers being white, his hair, eyelashes and this…was white. 

“We’re all males! What’s there to look! Shameless!” Suddenly, King got embarrassed to the point of anger and tried to push Xie GuanZe out, while covering his little birdie. 

Xie GuanZe was saved by his phone suddenly ringing outside. 

When he got out of the tub, Xie King quickly scanned over and said with glee, “Heh, not as big as mine!”

Xie GuanZe: …

“The water’s getting cold. Once you’re done, remember to wear your clothes.” 

Xie GuanZe threw a towel on Xie King’s head. The latter simply looked at him as if he had won a war and started singing. 

Xie GuanZe casually wrapped a towel around his waist and walked out to pick up his phone. 

The one who called was Mr. Hou FangHua. He called to announce something really important: the start of pet university. A real estate agency owner invested money to have the school built on top of an abandoned one. It’s likely that the school will start by the end of the month. 

Xie GuanZe turned to Xie King, who was still singing happily in the bath, and uttered two words, “School’s starting.”

“Huh?” Xie King’s singing stopped abruptly. 

“Pet school’s officially starting. Specially made for pet-humans.” Xie GuanZe emphasized the ‘specially made’ part. 

Without much surprise, upon hearing the news, Xie King protested in violent moments and words.

“School?! I’m not going!” Xie King turned back to a parrot and jumped on top of the shower head. He then shouted towards Xie GuanZe, “I’m not going, not going, not going, not going——“

Xie GuanZe: …

“Calm down, there’s still a month.”

“Even if it’s a month later I’m still not going!”

“They’re not asking you to go as a student, but as a teacher.” Xie GuanZe joked, not thinking it was going to come true later…

The moment the news spread of the school, the first pet-human protest arrived on the streets. 

When Xie GuanZe arrived hurriedly at the scene with a call from his supervisor, his mouth twitched looking at who was in the forefront. 

The banner carried by pet-humans at the forefront wrote, ‘We are only pets, why do we have to go to school!’. As for the one shouting into a megaphone in front of the banner, it was his supervisor’s monkey, Hou XiuCai.  

Xie GuanZe turned around to see his old supervisor with an indescribable expression. 

“Stand back a little, I still want to save face.” His old supervisor said after seeing the protest was still orderly and peaceful. They both backed into the crowd. 

If he got recognized by his fellow traffic policemen, the supervisor felt like he was going to lose all respect from them. 

“What’s going on?” Xie GuanZe said while dragging Xie King back. The latter was looking at the protest with excitement, clearly wanting to join them in the shouting. 

“Sigh, I gave her too much homework…” The old supervisor said with melancholy and told his story. 

When Hou XiuCai was still a monkey, the old supervisor would have her supervise HouChe in his studies, since he liked playing video games. 

Once Hou XiuCai became a human, she went to HouChe’s school in curiosity but all of that died down once she saw the tests and homework. She gave up in a week’s time. During that time, she got pulled into a few fights and single-handedly turned HouChe from an overachiever of the school to a school ‘bully’ covered by his big sis. 

As the pet school was announced, the supervisor brought up Hou XiuCai’s study plans and had his grandson tutor her, hoping for her to get into the ‘advanced’ class. Thus, it became HouChe supervising her studies and every time she got a wrong answer, a banana was taken. That’s what broke her heart. 

After three days of having her banana taken from her, Hou XiuCai finally exploded. 

“This morning her banana milk got taken as well… When she angrily said she was going to protest, we thought she was just joking…”

Who would have thought she would really gather up a protest, of this size too.

Xie GuanZe stared at the impassioned Mrs. Monkey with a complicated expression. What could he say, she truly was at the top in terms of studying and taking action. 

Protesting because she got her bananas taken away due to writing homework… this truly was a banana case. 

From Xie GuanZe’s observation, there were no sea creatures in the original protest, as they believed they didn’t have to go to school. 

When they heard that a special sea creature school was created and even divided into a freshwater and seawater section, they were furious!

With the addition of the sea creature pets, the protest grew larger and larger. In the end, the streets were filled with pet-humans and their owners. The traffic was completely blocked off as well. 

With great haste, the situation was reported to the higher ups and the government sent a specially created team to facilitate the talk with pet-humans. Xie GuanZe and his supervisor were quickly called over into the meeting room with representatives from both sides. 

As one of the representatives for the humans, the supervisor felt his face heat up in embarrassment as he faced his monkey. 

Hou XiuCai clearly didn’t share his feelings of awkwardness and said coldly, “Still going to ban my bananas?”

The supervisor glanced over at the government representative and said slowly, “I won’t.”

“Still going to ban my banana milk?”

“No.”

“Still going to force me to do homework?”

The supervisor straightened his expression and said, “You still need to write your homework.”

“Wahhhhhhhhh——“ Mrs. Monkey, who looked wild and intractable just a moment ago, started bawling her eyes out. “You liar! Once I start writing homework, aren’t you going to take my bananas away again?!”

“No, no, it’s different.” The one sent by the government was the head of the education department. After all, the new pet school was still under them. 

“Our plan this time is to split the school into co-curricular courses and vocational courses. Underaged pets will attend co-curricular courses while matured pets will take vocational courses.”

With tears still on her face, Hou XiuCai replied, “Speak monkey.”

Too complicated, this monkey didn’t understand. 

The chief: “Cough, cough. Essentially, you can take courses you like and learn skills that are suitable for you.”

The supervisor added on, “I won’t ask you to write the NCEE prep anymore.” 

(There is an infamous set of practice booklets for the Chinese national college entrance examination called 五年高考三年模拟. Super difficult, super effective and a running joke to send as presents to students as torment) 

Ah, that.. that’s truly cruel. Even Xie GuanZe felt sympathy for Mrs. Monkey. What he gave to Xie King was at the elementary school level, it even had pinyin~

“Cough, cough. We need to adapt to our audience. We won’t force the human standardized test upon the pet-humans.” The chief said while looking at the supervisor. Then, he introduced the two other people at the meeting. 

“Let me formally introduce you. Mr. Xia is the one who invested in the pet school. The golden-horse pet-human, Xia KuangFeng is the principal of the pet school. Humans will only help in managing daily activities, most of the teaching will be done and decided by pets. After all, pet-humans know themselves best.”

Xie GuanZe’s eyes brightened upon seeing the other two. It was two familiar faces.

The investor, Mr. Xia, was the middle-aged man who was riding his horse and went over the speed limit. Beside him was the horse in human form. His reddish brown hair glistened under the sun. He had a natural idol aura around him. 

In the meeting room, many girls were throwing secretive glances over at him. The horse stood still and smiled politely without wavering at all.

“Golden horse!” Hou XiuCai said with sparkling eyes. In an instant she was on top of him like an octopus, grabbing onto his neck and attempting to climb up his back. She did this while squealing, “Ahhhhhh, I loved riding horses!”

“XiuCai! You’re a young lady! Keep your composure!”

The old supervisor went red in shock and rushed over to pull her down. As he pulled her down, he apologized, “Sorry, she watched too much ‘Journey to the West’ and kept thinking she was the monkey king.” 

(They had a white horse, who was actually a dragon during their journey west) 

The owner didn’t mind at all, “Don’t worry, I like riding horses too. Hahahaha.”

The golden horse had a great attitude as well. With an elegant smile, he replied, “Everyone likes me, they want to ride me the moment they see me.”

Xie GuanZe: …

Something feels off about that.

Seeing that the protest and schooling issue was resolved, everyone started leaving. Mrs. Monkey couldn’t let go of the horse and had to be dragged out by her owner in a very uncharacteristic manner. 

Once the government representative left, Mr. Xia and his horse walked over to where Xie GuanZe was. 

“Good to see you again.” Mr. Xia turned towards Xie King, “I remember last time you said your pet liked cooking? We plan on setting up a pet cooking class. The teacher would be a pet-human and we are still short on teachers.” 

Mr. Xia was referring to the last time at the driving test center. They talked about this outside the building. Not only that, the golden horse was the only one who got an A certificate, truly perfect inside and out. 

At the same time, both Xie GuanZe and Xie King’s eyes lit up, “You mean…?”

“You have a month for preparation.” Mr. Xia said while looking at Xie King. After he finished giving his clue, he left with the horse principal. 

Xie King was above excited and pulled Xie GuanZe along, urging him, “Quick, sign me up for cooking lessons!”

He wouldn’t be a student, but he could attend school as a teacher!

Now he could finally assign other people homework and tests!