Chapter 42 : Guanyin’s Underling (2)

As usual, Duan Jiaze took a look at Xiong Siqian’s animal form, and he specifically urged Xiong Siqian to pay attention in maintaining the body shape.

“Director, relax.” Xiong Siqian turned into a big black bear that was more than two meters long. Just a little bigger than an ordinary black bear, but still within an acceptable range.

Duan Jiaze reassured, “That’s all right.”

Xiong Siqian replied shyly, “Director, I have a request, I don’t know if it’s inappropriate to talk about it.”

Duan Jiaze said vigilantly, “What request? Talk about it first and you should know that our conditions are not very good.”

Before that, Luya clamored to paste gold leaves in his office before. He used to being a local tyrant after all. If Xiong Siqian also missed his past environment, what should Duan Jiaze do if he was asked to put a Golden Guanyin instead…

After being taught a lesson by Luya, Xiong Siqian could never be more polite to Duan Jiaze. He hurriedly said, “It’s nothing, I don’t have a lot of money. I just want to study well when I am on duty in the future. I want to ask if I can put a few books in the cage to read in the future.”

Duan Jiaze was speechless.

…This buddy can’t be joking, right? If he wanted to put books, Duan Jiaze might as well supply some clothes for him. At the same time, Bai Suzhen should also sit in a cage and give prescriptions, and You Su should count its tails instead. Do you not fear that tourists will not know how extraordinary you are?

Duan Jiaze answered, “No, Earth’s ordinary bears are not that smart.”

Xiong Siqian was disappointed, and said in sorrow, “If so, the days will be boring and golden time was wasted.”

Seeing how Xiong Siqian was so hard-working, Duan Jiaze could not help but felt slightly embarrassed. He hesitated and spoke, “You can’t read the books, so why don’t I install a TV on the opposite wall for you? You can watch some videos.”

You Su’s and Luya’s rooms were installed with TVs, so it did not matter to install another one for Xiong Siqian. If it was placed outside and was broadcasted with some civilized propaganda videos, it would not arouse people’s suspicion.

“That’s great!” Xiong Siqian was overjoyed, “Then, please broadcast the news channel at all times. I am very concerned about the affairs of the country and the situation in the world.”

Duan Jiaze replied, “…Yes.”

……

It was another usual routine for Duan Jiaze to hold a meeting between Xiong Siqian and the crew after finishing their work in the evening.

As the underling of Guanyin, Xiong Siqian was quite knowledgeable. Among those people, Luya and Yousu knew him. However, his qualifications were not as complete as the duo. He was fine with You Su, but he could only nod in front of Luya. As for Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing, they were long-time acquaintances, so they could at least have a chat and laugh comfortably.

Both Xiao Qing and Xiong Siqian had not seen each other for a while. Xiong Siqian did not even know that Xiaoqing was already a man.

Xiong Siqian looked at Xiaoqing, and said, “How did Xiaoqing change her sex? Now she is going to be called little brother.”

Xiaoqing exclaimed, “Urging my marriage is too annoying for me.”

Xiong Siqian nodded clearly, and after a while, his words were astonishing, “Then what if you are in love with a man in this state?”

The bear did have a point, Duan Jiaze thought, if there was a man who liked Xiaoqing, the man would definitely have the wrong sexuality. He was also clueless about Xiaoqing’s sexuality, and wondered if psychological same-sex love was accepted.

Of course, that situation could be considered. Modern society was different from the past after all.

Xiaoqing was shocked, “What do you know! Now man and man are holding hands while shopping.”

Xiong Siqian was shocked, “Is there such a thing? Oh, Xiong hasn’t enough understanding of this world. Anyway, Xiao Qing can rest assure now.”

Duan Jiaze sweated a bit and wanted to remind Xiaoqing, your Sichuan accent came out, but at that moment someone called him.

At that point of time, the employees were all off work. The person who called Duan Jiaze was the person in charge of the construction site next door. Duan Jiaze let him in, “What’s the matter?”

The person in charge answered, “I’m here to discuss with you about how to do greening and what trees to plant? I’m going to prepare for purchase.”

The green area of ​​the large piece of land was not small.

“Just follow the same style as before, unified style.”

“Wait,” Xiong Siqian stopped, “You want to plant trees? It just happens that Xiong has some seeds here. I loved to eat them, so I brought them. Why don’t you plant them?”

Black bears should be omnivorous, so they must have eaten many types of plants. If they were suitable, it did not matter if they were planted.

Duan Jiaze was still good in negotiating. As long as the animals cooperated, he would try his best to meet the requirements within his ability. After all, it was not easy for everyone.

He asked, “What plant?”

“​Phyllostachys nigra(black bamboo).”

Duan Jiaze was speechless again.

He took a deep breath, “Is it the one I’m thinking about…?”

“Of course.”

That’s great, can’t believe I forgot to pack the bamboos when I was punished to work as a volunteer. Now that we have the seeds of the Guanyin’s black bamboo forest, the greening of our zoo would definitely have a great impact. Duan Jiaze waved his hand and ordered with confidence, “Plant, plant them all!”

You Su spoke, “The black bamboos are great, but it takes too long to grow them.”

Xiong Siqian touched his chest and said embarrassedly, “Before I came, I’ve also ‘taken’ a few servings of Mango Pomelo Sago Dessert…”

It was quiet. Everyone stood speechless.

Duan Jiaze thought, why didn’t Guanyin skin you alive? It seems wrong for you to be here!

…

…

The progress of the construction team was actually relatively quick, but at present, it was only a rudimentary form. Duan Jiaze thought about waiting for them to plant the bamboos after completing the construction, otherwise the dust would be everywhere, which was not pleasant.

However, Xiong Siqian said, “If we have to wait to plant the bamboos till the project is completed, wouldn’t I be bored for quite some time? It’s fine, black bamboos wouldn’t mind this point of pollution.”

Duan Jiaze also thought about that before, that the bamboo species could withstand any sorts of conditions. Therefore, he gave the construction team a few-days break and took Xiong Siqian to the construction site where the cement road had not been repaired. However, the green area was already planned.

“Do you have enough bamboo?” Duan Jiaze asked.

Xiong Siqian answered, “It’s a trivial matter to be able to plant all these forty acres for you…”

It made Duan Jiaze suddenly assumed that Xiong Siqian was already prepared to be punished for hundreds of years.

Xiong Siqian sprinkled bamboo seeds all over, diluted the desert he got and irrigated it on the dirt.

Duan Jiaze watched the bamboo shoots emerge from the ground. As if pressing a fast-forward button, in the blink of an eye, the bamboo shoots grew upwards. When it reached a certain height, it began to flourish, lush and verdant.

In the end, a cluster of black bamboo trees with the thickness of the mouth of a bowl took shape. At that time, the effectiveness of the desert had not fade as it was slowly nourishing the black bamboo, making several bamboo shoots popped out from the ground from time to time.

At first glance, the black bamboos were not lacking in the human world. In other words, they were not any much different. However, as soon as the wind blew, the bamboo leaves rustled, making people involuntarily felt calm…

Xiong Siqian pulled out a bamboo shoot, peeled the bamboo, and began to gnaw.

Duan Jiaze: “…”

Xiong Siqian said to Duan Jiaze while eating, “Director, you don’t know anything. When I was far away from my hometown, I first arrived at Luojia Mountain. The nostalgia was painful and it was this black bamboo forest that accompanied me.”

Duan Jiaze: “…”

With Xiong Siqian’s hand leaning behind him, and the bamboo shoot in the other hand, and chanted a poem along the wind of emotions, “Eat the magnolia slices in the world, taste the freshness of the black bamboo.”

Two question marks appeared above Duan Jiaze’s forehead.

His sudden chant of poetry made the atmosphere more awkward somehow…

Duan Jiaze slapped his palms dryly, “Nice poem, nice poem.”

He knew that Xiong’s poem did not match either. On the contrary, seeing Xiong Siqian eating comfortably, Duan Jiaze felt greedy as he silently squatted down and dug two bamboo shoots. He held them in his hands, thinking about making slices of bamboo shoot meat tomorrow.

…

As a “newly introduced” animal, the big black bear was pretended to be transported by Hu Dawei in a truck.

—Hu Dawei was about to break into tears. He had not encountered such a weird thing in hundreds of years. It was enough for a few great gods to be animals in the zoo. Now, they were arriving one by one, not to mention it was another senior this time.

Duan Jiaze had been studying about welcoming new species recently, so it was not surprising that a new animal was brought in abruptly at the moment. Huang Qi also mentioned that the director had a lot relations, even all the formalities were done in a calm manner, and fast as well.

Nonetheless, this time, it was actually all from his own account.

That was a rare large animal in Ling You Zoo. The employees came to watch. Xiao Su took various photos with a mobile phone and prepared to publish a manuscript to inform the public to visit the new animal.

Xiao Su spoke, “Come on, look over here, Baby Bear.”

Black Wind King was clueless,”??”

“Sigh, the whole body of the black bear is too dark. It looks like a charcoal ball in the photo.”

Duan Jiaze replied, “I will set up some new lights…”

Xiao Su said seriously, “I think this is the cause of the bear. By the way, Director, when I passed the construction site, I found a lot of bamboos transplanted there?”

“Huh? Ah, yes, they were transplanted.”

“They looked pretty good. Bamboo shoots can still be used to feed bears,” Xiao Su was in her imagination again and said, “If our zoo grows larger in the future, we can still introduce pandas… However, I heard that pandas are pickier than ordinary black bears. They were all carefully selected and have quality requirements. Any zoos that introduce them must specialize in making qualified bamboo.”

Duan Jiaze was silent for a while, “It’s good for people to have dreams, but I think the quality of the bamboos we transplanted is quite good…”

Can a zoo without pandas be called an awesome zoo?

Although it was still a long journey to be able to raise pandas, Duan Jiaze could guarantee that there should be no bamboo, including the bamboo that pandas ate, that could be compared to the bamboo that his little bear had!

…

Xiao Su had taken enough photos, and then suddenly shouted Duan Jiaze, “Director, isn’t this one from our zoo?”

Duan Jiaze looked at it. It turned out to be a reposted feed in Weibo. It was filled with works that had just won the International Photography Awards. The first place was a work by a Chinese journalist, titled “Tai Chi”. In the picture, the delivery of light and shadow showed the scenery of a young Taoist priest and a lion looking at each other across the glass wall. The young man was silent, and the lion roared. It was a picture full of tension.

“It’s true!” Duan Jiaze said in surprise. He still remembered that scene. Luo Wuzhou passed by Lele’s residence when he came to inquire. At that time, he also took a picture with his mobile phone, but it was far from professional works. He did not even remember that someone used a camera to take pictures of the scene at that time.

Xiao Su exclaimed, “This shot is really good! Let’s repost and ask about it.”

“Yes,” Duan Jiaze said, “Hey, can you find the contact information of the author? This shot is really good. It would be great if we can wash it out and hang it in the zoo, we even won a prize.”

“Let me see.” Xiao Su searched the name from the original post and found the author’s Weibo, which was authenticated as a reporter. With Duan Jiaze’s instruction, he sent a private message to the author, stating that it was from the zoo and hoped to publish it by buying the photo.

When the reporter saw that the zoo’s department sent a message, he happily agreed. After asking how many inches the director wanted, he sent them a copy.

The photo was now hung in Lele’s exhibition hall by Duan Jiaze, and annotated.

Xiao Su later reposted it on Weibo, indicating that the lion in the picture was from the Ling You Zoo and stated that the Taoist priest was from a certain association.

All the comments were all about Taoist priests living the fairly great life, because they knew that they would visit the zoo during their free time.

Others were saying that the Taoist priest did not seem old, and maybe the Taoist temple organized minor Taoists to go…

Some netizens who knew behind the scenes commented: You all are really naive. The relationship between the zoo and the association of the young priest was not ordinary. They were technically brothers. Oh, it may be a bit wrong to say that brothers, but no matter what, they were at least had a cousin relationship. The two units also sell tickets together!

Netizens also exposed the ticket stubs, and the crowd onlookers were stunned.

Due to several hot postings in Weibo, and the hot search about Luya a few days ago, the number of fans on the official blog of Ling You had risen to a hundred thousand. They still had some followers, many of whom were not locals and had never been to Donghai City. Now, they just knew that there was such a thing.

“Living for so long, I never knew the zoo and the association of Taoist temple sold tickets together…”

“Although this is not prohibited by law, it’s still too weird!”

“Awesome, Ling You! Do the Taoists also believe in the majestic white foxes?”

“Hahahahahahahaha right, I forgot we have the majestic creature.  Has it really become majestically immortal?”

At that moment, there were also some posts at the official blog of the association.

In that era, even in religious units, many have opened official blogs and Weibo accounts, especially associations or tourist attractions.

However, the official blog of association was not very active and did not interact with fans. After all, Taoist priests were in charge of the official blog of Taoism. In addition to the Taoist culture, some leaders were usually sent to inspect the association. The committee responded to spiritual meetings or reminded believers and tourists to observe civility… They never responded to comments that require online fortune telling though.

In other words, association did not have much online interaction.

Now that they were mentioned in posts, the Taoist priest of the management office was stunned for a long time after seeing that. He ran to Shao Wuxing for instructions.

Shao Wuxing tangled for a moment, and said, “Share it…”

After much deliberation, he reposted in Weibo, but said nothing, just a gesture of admitting that he had indeed sold tickets with Ling You.

On the other hand, Xiao Su reposted the Taoist association’s remark: “Yes, we have a cooperative relationship with each other, and we will join forces [blush face emoji]. We welcome everyone to visit us in the East China!”

Netizens read the post and said:

“This sense of mashup is actually cute…”

“I have filled myself up with a lot of fantasies!”

“I’m shivering, the majestic white fox must be real, I must insist on this superstition!”

…

“I’ll add a dish for you today.” Duan Jiaze took a plate of bamboo shoot meat and put on the table, still biting a piece of bamboo shoot in his mouth.

Meat was from the human world, but the taste of the bamboo shoots was really… awesome!

The employees did not take it seriously at first, and after taking a bite, they started sobbing.

“How could these bamboos be so fresh? My God, I have never eaten such delicious bamboo shoots!”

“No, no, I think it has surpassed the category of bamboo shoots… it can be compared with my favorite braised pork.”

“Where did Director get them from?”

“Why are you suddenly giving something delicious… Isn’t this kind of treatment for Luya? Director, did you have a quarrel with Luya?”

When someone mentioned that the dish might be Luya’s food, everyone’s chopsticks stopped. It was a bit difficult to continue their meal. To be honest, Luya did not leave any shadows on them, but he looked particularly fierce in their eyes.

“It’s planted on the construction site over there, and there are many more.” Duan Jiaze said while eating, “It’s not Luya’s. Luya doesn’t eat bamboo shoots.”

Luya was disdainful of vegetables and bamboo shoots. There were a big number of them. Since Xiong Siqian did not dare to care so much about them, Duan Jiaze just boldly added their dish.

When the others heard that it had nothing to do with Luya, they continued to eat in joy.

I wonder if Guanyin knows that the bamboo shoots are so delicious… Or, maybe they grow this in the dojo because they were delicious?

Duan Jiaze cracked his brain for a moment, and he knew it was quite possible.

…

In the afternoon, Duan Jiaze went to the Reptile Exhibition Hall to clean the cage for Luya.

Thatwork was originally not his. He was uncertain about why visitors liked watching their interactions. It might be due to the fact that Luya did not do performances or he was not in the same cage as other bird species. The visitors could not interact with him and never dare to personally interact with him either, so they just enthusiastically watched the director feed the bird.

Duan Jiaze wandered in and pretended to clean. In fact, it was not dirty at all since Luya was never an ordinary bird.

Only that time, Duan Jiaze saw two red feathers on the ground and picked them up easily. Finding that there was still temperature on the feathers, Duan Jiaze was astonished and proceed to put it in his pocket after some thought.

Later, after they got off work, Duan Jiaze was blocked by Luya who turned back into a human form. “Don’t think I didn’t see it. At that time, I was afraid that the tourists outside didn’t say anything, but I saw you steal my feather!”

Duan Jiaze paused, and he urged, “Pick it up, I picked it up!”

His words were piercing. He did not steal anyways because he was not hiding. All he did was just picking up a bird’s feathers in public. It was already on the ground, why was he still against his actions? Of course, if Luya had his own purpose, Duan Jiaze would just give it back to him.

Lu Ya said indignantly, “That won’t work either, who knows what you want to do if you take it away?”

As he said that, Luya’s face blushed for no apparent reason.

Duan Jiaze felt strange, “??”

He slowly said, “Can you give me some hints? I don’t even know what three-legged golden crows usually do for picking up feathers… But in my own words, I just want to collect them. In a few years, I might be able to make myself a self-heating pillow. ”

Luya did not say a word, “…”