Pets Chapter 19: Escape from death

Translated by Crystal of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: UA

 

Xie Guanze frowned as he looked around. Was it sent by the young man in black from earlier? 

Was ‘he’ that Pomeranian?

The stray dog didn’t attack the female owner personally, instead, it let the Pomeranian take revenge for itself. The stray then took the Pomeranian away. 

So, the Pomeranian chose to be a stray over staying with it’s previous owner?

But more importantly, how did they know his phone number? Were they that smart, that they could hack into computers now?

That’s when Xie King cursed, “Shit, where’s my phone?”

Ah. 

What happened was, when Xie King turned into a bird, his clothes dropped onto the floor and his phone was in his pocket. When Xie GuanZe picked them up, he didn’t realize that the phone had disappeared, probably taken by the nearby strays. 

There were only a few people in Xie King’s contacts and only one in his recent contacts, so it wasn’t hard to guess his identity.

With that, Xie Guanze let out a sigh of relief. If strays really were smart enough to hack into the internet, then he wouldn’t be the only one worried.

Everyone kept to themselves on the way back. 

Of the pets present, HuaHua got sent away by Cao Jun before. In a sense, he/she had been thrown away. NiuNai (milk) was abandoned by his previous owner and given to Chu JiangQing. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have stayed angry at Chu JiangQing for so long. To be honest, he still hadn’t gotten over the fact that he was thrown out. 

Cao Jun was reminded of how he sent HuaHua away when he saw how the female owner treated the Pomeranian. Thus, he asked with a guilty conscience, “HuaHua, did you hate me for sending you away?”

“Nope.” HuaHua laughed while slapping Cao Jun’s shoulders with his massive hand, “I just remember how ugly you looked crying LOL. You were crying and saying how I’m too heavy and there wasn’t enough space for me.”

Cao Jun’s tiny frame shook from HuaHua’s massive pats. He had a strong suspicion HuaHua actually did care and this was his revenge. 

But he did feel guilty, so he couldn’t refute or dodge…

HuaHua continued laughing, this time patting his stomach, “Actually, your grandma fed me well, buckets and buckets, so now I’m even heavier!”

Cao Jun looked at HuaHua’s build and thought about how much his grandma must have served… he felt his mouth twitch. 

But then, his thoughts strayed elsewhere. According to the old generation’s way of thinking, weren’t they super frugal with food? So, wasn’t he fed to be killed later?

“Grandma never thought about eating you?”

Hearing that made HuaHua smile harder, “Heh, your grandma used me as a horse, and we went to the mountains to pick mushrooms! I even helped with keeping beasts and snakes away!”

Cao Jun: ……

Xie Guanze: ……

A white haired old lady riding a pig up a mountain to pick mushrooms… what a scene.

Cao Jun felt the corner of his mouth twitch. He had forgotten that his grandma wasn’t ‘normal’. She was a retired Calvary who used to ride cows as a kid, then horses as a soldier, and cows as a retiree… Her hobby sure hadn’t changed. 

“We should visit her someday.”

“Okay, but grandma probably isn’t lonely. At that point she adopted a cat and grew to love it. She didn’t even ride me anymore, so I could only come find you. Sad…”

Cao Jun: So if grandma hadn’t found a new pet you wouldn’t have come to find me?! 

 The whole way through, NiuNai was looking super down in Chu Jiang Qing’s arms. Chu Jiang Qing looked at him with concern as he had stopped wagging his tail and his body was covered in blood. 

“I’m going to bring NiuNai to the hospital, what about you guys?”

“I’ll go too.” Xie Guanze answered with Xie King in his arms. His wings got bitten by the black cat’s sneak attack.

Hearing that, Xie King grumbled, “My arm’s going to hurt for tomorrow’s class.”

His words made Xie Guanze nervous. Luckily, the vet confirmed there were just scratches. So, compared to the bit-off-feathers and bleeding wounds, NiuNai’s emotional state was more of a concern. Chu Jiang Qing could only carry him home in his arms to comfort him later…

They didn’t spend much time resting. During the next few days, it felt as if a hole had opened up, leading to more and more incidents involving stray animals. 

Both at home and in the office, Xie Guanze was bombarded with news of new pet-related incidents. 

There were more and more cases of pets harming owners, to the point that it became a local social issue. There were plenty of cases where the pets had harmed their owners and then disappeared. Sometimes, they would be seen later with a bunch of strays, roaming the streets. 

With the number of strays growing larger and larger, those who weren’t fond of pets became scared and disgusted. 

Xie Guanze saw videos posted online, clearly taken by peoples smartphones, of a group of strays crossing the streets in the middle of the night. With the help of the street lamps, you could see them coming in and out of the bushes. 

The one filming could be heard in an exaggerated tone, saying, “This is the group! See the big dog leading them? It just recruited a Labrador from our neighbourhood. I don’t know how it did it, the Labrador’s owner even fed it sausages and chicken. Even then, it went along with the strays. Animals are animals, they can’t be domesticated…”

“Ah—–“

The filmmaker was cut off as he led out a scream. The video showed a black silhouette quickly passing by and with a claw swipe, the phone camera turned to the sky and then landed downwards, turning black. 

Xie Guanze could tell that the black dog in the video was the one who took the Pomeranian away. As for the black silhouette, that was the black cat that attacked them as well. 

Labrador? That black Labrador looked familiar. 

 

Xie Guanze quickly flipped through his files. He had made one for this Labrador before, except as a normal pet, one that hasn’t turned human. 

If it could talk, maybe he could ask what happened to cause it to bite its owner and leave with the strays?

Xie Guanze felt as if he understood what the young man in black was trying to do. 

The strays were targeting humans and had no ill intent towards their kind. Sometimes, they even acted as protectors or saviours of sorts. 

To this day, humans have yet come up with a well refined legal code to protect pets, and since owners couldn’t guarantee the health of the pets, the pets will help themselves. 

— And that’s probably why the black dog didn’t go to school and instead went helping other abused pets. 

Xie Guanze thought to himself, maybe now was the time to bring up the bill to his superiors. 

From that day forth, Xie Guanze made it his duty to look for evidence of abuse in cases where pets harmed humans. He did it all in his free time, so he could get the higher ups to notice it. 

Xie King flew through the air, using his talents to trade information with other pet birds.

The day was still bright and seeing that Xie King was getting the hang of things, Xie Guanze moved to investigate one of their targets. He managed to spot it with a trash bag, one that was leaking blood. 

The silhouette of the bag marked out a decapitated corpse, or rather, it looked like a cat curled up. 

— the target had just been bitten by their pet cat. 

Pointing to the trash bag, Xie Guanze said to Xie King, “I’m going to have a look.” Making a hand signal to King, he left. 

Once Xie Guanze made sure the target was gone, he pulled out the trash bag to find a gruesome corpse of a dead Dragon Li cat.

Before this, Xie Guanze had specifically checked the adoption history of the target. He saw the most recent cat they adopted to be a kitten of this pelt. 

As he was taking photos and trying to deduce the cause of death, he was inwardly cursing the owner and trying to contain his anger. 

“Hey, what are you doing?!” Behind him came an angry voice as they tried to take his phone. “Stop taking photos!”

 

Xie Guanze turned around to find the target coming downstairs with a new outfit. He was dressed all prim and proper as if going on a date. Who could’ve guessed that such a person abused their pets in secret?

“What am I doing? Capturing your consciousness!” 

Just as the man threw an angry fist at his face, Xie Guanze faced it head on, making sure to tuck away his phone first…

As Xie Guanze was facing danger, Xie King was also facing his major nightmare. 

When he was investigating, he accidentally went too far. 

Just as he was chatting up with a lovely female, the female suddenly fled. By the time he sensed the danger, the black net above him had already dropped down, securing him whole. 

“Hahahaha, we caught one! Such a plump parrot, what a meal!” A man in a construction hat said laughingly to his coworker nearby, “We can have an extra dish tonight!”

King screamed. “Fuck off! I have an owner!”

His pretty coat, and his number tag both pointed towards him being a house pet, but to the bird catchers, he was just another dish. 

“Pff, you’re just an animal, what’s the use of having an owner. Once we strip your feathers, no one’s going to know it’s you.” 

“Hurry up, let’s leave before anyone notices. I can’t wait for parrot soup.” His coworker said, rushing him along. 

King was now panicking. He just realized he had flown out of the housing area and was near the construction zone. Here were a bunch of workers waiting for a little more meat in their life. 

King felt as if this was the end. The net had secured his wings and he was then covered with a jacket. It seemed like they were afraid of him calling his owner and wanted to suffocate him. 

All King could see was darkness. He flapped harder, trying desperately to escape. He wanted to turn into a human, but his whole body was secured and the air was thinning. He was suffocating, with no strength left to turn into a human. 

King was starting to despair. Xie Guanze, where are you? Come save me. I’m going to end up on the dinner table before you see me again…

Just then, he heard the screams of the workers who tried to suffocate him. 

King felt energized, did Xie Guanze come?

The net fell abruptly, crashing to the ground as well as the jacket. 

King finally saw the light and quickly took in a few deep breaths. Then, he saw a furry, black face that wore a mocking expression. 

King: shit, why is it you?!