Those Years I Opened A Zoo

Chapter 53 Does Owner of Encampment know something

Duan Jiaze’s mind flashed through the word “deceiving.” That Mural Martian was getting revenge for his misidentification, right?

Duan Jiaze was a little sorrowful when he asked, “Then you just said that she was playing with water. Could it be that she’s…”

Zhu Feng said, “Does your zoo have a lake here?”

That was right, the waterfowls’ lake. Duan Jiaze could only guess that. It was awkward enough for him to call Jingwei an aquatic animal. Even if she was hydrophilic, then how could crying after knowing the truth make her hydrophilic?

“I’ll look for Royal Highness Jingwei first. Later, I’ll get off work soon. I will bring you to meet my colleagues.” Duan Jiaze did not know Jingwei either, so he asked Zhu Feng to accompany him to find her.

However, when he arrived at the waterfowls’ lake, Duan Jiaze recognized Jingwei immediately even without Zhu Feng’s indication.

He saw a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl seated by the lake, hugging her knees. She was wearing a white long-sleeved cardigan with a black dress and a pair of dark red leather boots. The inner layer of her hair was in light gray, grayish green, grayish red and other colors. The colors were exposed when her hair was tied up.

It was impossible to see her appearance from behind. There was only the sight of some stones piled up on her hand. She played stone skipping as watched the stones cross the water one by one, bouncing up and down on the surface of the water.

Tourists passed by, looked at her and praised, “Hey, that young lady is really good at skipping stones across water!”

Duan Jiaze: “…”

How could she not be good? That was exactly what she practiced for so many years…

Duan Jiaze walked over and murmured, “Are you The Royal Highness Jingwei?”

Jingwei raised her head and glanced at Duan Jiaze. Her hand movement did not stop. Even if she did not look at the stone, the stone also leaped up on the water surface, going very far away, “Yes, hello.”

Her hair seemed to be dyed with an inner layer of gradients, like Luya’s hair, which was slightly like people who liked dressing their hair. However, her face was a classic beauty. Her brows were slightly frowning, as if there was always a sorrow enveloped in her heart.

“I’m Duan Jiaze, the director here.” Duan Jiaze reached out a hand and shook it with Jingwei’s hand, “Since I heard the news that you’d be here, I am indeed… honored by your presence. In a moment, the staff shall be off work and I hope to invite you to meet everyone.”

Jingwei did not continue to throw stones as Duan Jiaze imagined, but she stood up and said softly, “Alright, I’ll go.”

Duan Jiaze carefully struck up a conversation with Jingwei. The girl looked fourteen to fifteen,  but her actual age was older than the whole existence of the City of the East Sea. He thought about it, in those years the city was once a vast ocean. Perhaps where everyone was stepping now was the area where someone threw stones back then…

“Your Royal Highness, do you play stone skipping in your spare time?” Duan Jiaze asked.

When Jingwei heard the words “stone skipping”, she was slightly distracted before realizing that Duan Jiaze was euphemistically asking about her reclamation in the oceans.

She said with a hint of worry, “Since the separation of the Three Realms, I have been filling the Milky Way daily in the world of the immortals. Although it’s not the East Sea, it’s still better than nothing. After being complained several times, I can only forcibly quit this hobby.”

Zhu Feng smiled and voiced authentically, “So this time, Your Royal highness came down to enjoy?”

Jingwei: “Yes.”

Duan Jiaze: “…”

…

Zhu Feng told Duan Jiaze that Jingwei’s existence was a little complicated. She was the daughter of Emperor Yan. After the emperor’s daughter drowned in the East Sea, her hatred and desire for revenge persisted, so she turned into a bird to reclaim the sea. After that, with the help of her father, she was transformed from bird to human.

It could be said that the whole definition of her existence was to get revenge. The specific and direct manifestation of the myth was about her to reclaim the sea. In fact, she could not be regarded as the same person as the previous girl she once was.

She lived on just to reclaim the sea. If she could not play stone skipping, then she would certainly feel depressed. It was not just about liberating hatred, but it was simply because it was her nature.

The more Duan Jiaze listened, the more he got familiar with it. He could not help saying, “It would be great if His Majesty Yan studied Enrichment & Animal Welfare…”

For instance, the emperor could have prepared a huge playroom for enrichment by making an environment that indirectly imitated the scene of East China Sea, so Jingwei would not be so melancholy because of her long-term depressive nature. Fortunately, her strong mentality restrained her from initiating self-harm, like the ordinary animals.

Jingwei curiously asked, “What is ‘Enrichment & Animal Welfare’?”

Duan Jiaze explained to Jingwei and gave examples of Lele and Chu Guo. He then said, “The immortal world has a lot of magic, right? I believe that by making an artificial model of the East China Sea to imitate your previous environment helps your situation. If not, Your Royal Highness can take some holographic equipment back home from the human world…”

Jingwei was very curious and decided to learn about that enrichment method, so she could return to set a place up for herself.

Duan Jiaze came with two more people. Huang Qi, who caught sight of the scene and asked, “This little lady has nothing to do with Luya, right?”

Duan Jiaze gave a serious glance, “You didn’t even start asking about this man.”

Zhu Feng: “??”

Huang Qi: “…”

After getting showered with the appearance of You Su and others, the employees altogether knew how to recognize the appearance of Luya’s relatives. Therefore, Huang Qi subconsciously felt that Zhu Feng, who had quite a weaker kind of body figure management, was not Luya’s relative.

Duan Jiaze really wanted to say that even he was considered to have a good figure in their race…

“Ahem,” Duan Jiaze draped Jingwei’s shoulders and said, “This has nothing to do with Luya. She’s my god-sister. Her parents are always not at home, so she will be staying here with me. You can just call her Xiao Wei (Little Wei).”

Huang Qi greeted Jingwei, “Xiao Wei ought to still be in junior high school, right? There is another little sister here. You can bring her along to play.”

He noticed that Duan Jiaze’s god-sister was young and her face always had a touch of slight melancholy. Maybe it was due to her parents, who were always away, so it was better for her to play together with a lively child, like You Su, often.

“She will, she will.” Duan Jiaze gave an awkward laugh and changed the topic, “This is Big Brother Zhu Feng. He’s my friend who will be staying here too.”

The more they stay, the more they are prone to not leave…

Huang Qi shook hands with Zhu Feng to greet him. He felt that it was not easy to be the director’s friend either. Once the friend knew that the director slept at a place that was incomparable to the animals in the zoo, what would his thoughts be?

…

Huang Qi left after work, and Duan Jiaze took Jingwei and Zhu Feng into the lounge to wait.

Duan Jiaze used his mobile phone to search for pigs’ information for quite a while. A large part of the search results were entirely similar to a sow’s postnatal care. Finally, he found that there were also zoos that raised pigs, but they were mostly wild boars, which were also classified as ferocious beasts.

Although wild boars were not protected animals, they were classified under the “must have” wild animal categories, which were due to three reasons: “Beneficial, economic importance, and for scientific research of terrestrial wild animals.”

Many animals that a lot of people were familiar with, were listed there, such as Chinese toads—— commonly known as lazy toads, as well as sparrows, geckos, hares and so on. It was illegal to capture them privately and it would be an offense to own more than a certain quantity.

It was just that his country was insufficiently strict in that aspect of management. Not to mention being arrested, many people failed to realize that they should not act that way.

Duan Jiaze showed Zhu Feng a picture of a South China wild boar. Zhu Feng morphed himself according to the picture. His body type was very big, weighing seven to eight hundred catties. The whole body had dark brown hair and was exposed with long canine teeth in his mouth. It looked wild and completely different from domestic pigs.

“Yes, just like this. Take a look at the habits of wild boars too.” Duan Jiaze said to Jingwei next, “Your Royal Highness, when the moment comes, I will arrange you in the waterfowls’ lake. Your appearance will have to transform as big as this.”

Duan Jiaze did not even think about the aquarium, which was his favorite.

Duan Jiaze gave Jingwei a gesture of the size he hoped for, but Jingwei did not necessarily have to change into it.

Her original appearance was like a crow but with more patterns on her head. Her cry was not as croaking as a crow’s (certainly not being compared to Luya!). Instead, her call was “Jingwei, Jingwei.”

Jingwei glanced and nodded without comment.

“There are so many stones next to the construction sites, you can go ahead and use them.” Since that was Jingwei’s nature, Duan Jiaze tried to a great extent to make her get along a little more comfortably. Otherwise, he could pick up the stones underwater after a period of time.

At that moment, You Su and others also came back. They had a face-to-face meeting with Zhu Feng and Jingwei.

Zhu Feng transformed back into a human. He knew long ago who those people were. Although it was normal for everyone not to take an approach, since they were there to spend a vacation, it was not necessary to maintain a stiff relationship with everyone. He politely bowed and reached out his hand to everyone to greet them, as if he knew them well.

Jingwei could not be well-acquainted with anyone, so she vaguely bowed to everyone.

There were several people there who were quite savvy and had quick brains to discover that they were a Martian and Jingwei, one was an experienced civil servant in the heavens while another was a royal of the second-generation. However, they did not seem to be the type who would be punished.

Then, the truth was very obvious.

Zhu Feng told them what had happened in the immortal realm. Several immortals, who were also being punished and were descended to the zoo to learn the spirit of serving mortals, all listened with different expressions.

Luya’s expression was disdainful, You Su’s expression was a bit playful, Bai Suzhen and Xiao Qing’s were calm, while Xiong Siqian’s expression seemed joyous, as if the bear got an advantage.

Zhu Feng felt that everyone would be good neighbors in the next few decades.

You Su rolled her eyes and said to Duan Jiaze with a grin, “Director, do you know the interpretation of the word ‘encampment’ by Martian?”

Duan Jiaze was stunned for a moment. Not only did he not know, he did not even think about it before. Did that ‘encampment’ symbolize anything?

You Su continued, “Encampment is one of the 28 mansions of the Chinese constellation, which involves construction of houses. The owner of encampment can construct fortresses and build for swordsmen affairs. But, the most important thing was mainly about the word ‘encampment’. It ranged from a small room for a whole family to a huge palace that is smoothly constructed to the level of livability.”

“Moreover, this is the power of the constellation. It is innate and natural. The system of the hope project can’t restrain it either. Alas, it’s a pity that you, the director, are not in the real estate business, or it’ll also be hard to not make business boom.”

——To put it simply, Zhu Feng not only could quicken and improve constructions, he could also allow the constructed thing to exert its strengths to fit its purpose. The building would be more livable and the pavilion would be more sophisticated.

Duan Jiaze also felt depressed upon hearing her explanation. He could not help thumping his chest and stomping his feet, “That’s right! Why aren’t I a real estate agent?!”

It was difficult to predict what would happen in the future. If it was predictable, the zoo director would have been the wealthy owner of a real estate tycoon!

At first, Zhu Feng was still upset that Duan Jiaze did not recognize him, but now that Duan Jiaze appeared to look regretful, he felt a lot happier and was secretly proud of himself, “Hehe, a pity indeed, a pity indeed.”

Zhu Feng seemed a little dispensable as an animal. Unlike the others, You Su and Luya were in charge of the business flow, Qing, Bai and Xiong could more or less attract tourists. Furthermore, the black bamboo brought by Xiong helped greatly.

As for a wild boar, it would apparently not be that cute anymore. The same was for the Jingwei bird. Duan Jiaze had already accepted the fact that they were precisely taking vacation and did not expect any huge effect.

It was after You Su’s enlightenment when Duan Jiaze realized how there could be genuinely useless dispatched animals! Even if they were on vacation, they were also descended from the world of immortals!

Zhu Feng was of a small status, yet he could make their current place more comfortable to stay in. If he had a higher status, he could…

“No, I’m not satisfied! I want to open a hotel!” Duan Jiaze said with high fighting spirits, “We want branches all over the East and charge into the whole country. When the time comes, foreign tourists will rush forth to come. We can develop a vacation guest house within the zoo. With the Martian here, our guest house will surely be packed with customers!”

If he could not be the owner of a real estate tycoon, then he could not put the Martian’s capability in vain. Wouldn’t that be a waste of natural resources? Let’s not mention others first. The dormitory building is necessarily to be built…

If Zhu Feng did not know that the human world could be played that way, he would surely think that You Su was bluffing with him just now.

You Su took the lead to applaud Duan Jiaze, “Very glad that you have such aspirations. Director, we support you.”

She glanced at Zhu Feng and Jingwei. Since they were there, they could not be let off so easily. Could a nine-tailed fox be any kinder?

You Su smiled and said to Jingwei, “Your Royal Highness is the daughter of the Agricultural Emperor. At this time in the immortal world, didn’t the King of Agriculture give anything?”

Her intentions behind that statement were even more obvious than the previous.

Jingwei stared blankly. She slowly took out a silk brocade bag from her cardigan’s pocket and said, “I was only provided with some crop seeds. My father was afraid that I would not be used to eating in the mortal world. But, I’m afraid that these are probably only enough for me alone to eat occasionally.”

Duan Jiaze almost forgot the second generation immortal also had a father, who was the Emperor of Agriculture, because Jingwei always gave the impression that she was only concentrating on stone skipping.

“Isn’t this a coincidence?” Luya took the silk brocade bag from Jingwei, weighed it in his hand once and passed to place it in Duan Jiaze’s hand. After that, he stood on the same side as You Su, which was really rare, “We still have a few remaining poplar twigs nectar (Mango Pomelo Sago Dessert). It is enough to generate some life.”

Only a little poplar twig nectar was needed to bring back life of humans or fruits. The black bamboo in Ling You was also fed with poplar twig nectar, not to mention the ordinary crops.

Zhu Feng and Jingwei understood. Taoist Luya and nine-tailed fox had shown clearly that they wanted to support that human being. They were there just for a vacation, but aside from avoiding trouble, they still had to make contributions.

Zhu Feng could not help taking a long glance at Duan Jiaze again. It seemed that he still underestimated that person.

Jingwei did not care about that. She even had a good impression of Duan Jiaze because Duan Jiaze had given her some information about enrichment. It could also be said that Jingwei was born with a little single-minded nature. All her main thoughts were to reclaim the sea and she did not care much about foreign matters.

As for Zhu Feng, with Luya alone, he dared not oppose. He was a “porcupine” who was not afraid of anything.

Therefore, just when Duan Jiaze was still a little embarrassed that Luya had forcibly taken Jingwei’s silk brocade bag away, Jingwei had already said gently, “Then, I’ll just give you all the seeds.”

Zhu Feng also said with great smiles, “Although I have been entrusting these tasks to my Martian subordinate for a long time, I still can’t forget my past job. I’ll await the director’s command.”

.

Duan Jiaze obtained Zhu Feng’s promise along with Jingwei’s silk brocade bag. The space inside the silk brocade bag seemed to be huge. Even so, the five grains of seeds poured out were only able to fill a bucket. Jingwei really did not exaggerate, because it was only enough for her occasional cravings.

“There are no seeds for vegetables, are there only five grains?” Duan Jiaze rummaged through to look at it and he also hoped for vegetables and fruits.

“Isn’t it enough to have five grains?” Luya rolled his eyes, “This came from the Agricultural Emperor’s hands. Even your human species will not be able to plant delicious crops after thousand years of modification.”

Duan Jiaze said, “Don’t look down on our current human race. We have researched how to eat for so many years, not only did we make improvements on five grain varieties but also many vegetables, fruits and derivative products that you have never seen before.”

“Do you know fried potato chips? Do you know about spicy sticks? For us now, no matter how delicious the simple five grains are, we still have to prepare some dish to go with it, or manufacture them in other forms.”

However, it was a little troublesome to manufacture them in other forms. If a restaurant or hotel were operated, there were still a few more processes needed to be done.

Luya said disdainfully, “You know nothing at all about the Agricultural Emperor’s strength.”

Duan Jiaze: “…”

Duan Jiaze took a book from the shelf, which was left behind by the previous owner, “I know nothing at all? See this? “Traditional Chinese Mythology Stories”! There are also stories about your family, and it’ll scare you to death!”

Luya: “…”

“Fine, just don’t quarrel with each other.” Bai Suzhen helped to ease the matter. “Director, shall we manage a restaurant first?”

“Of course, currently the advertising effects are not out yet. Furthermore, a hotel is also important to have food and beverage services. Therefore, the priority is to start with a restaurant.”

Duan Jiaze thought for a while. During that period of time, he had learned a lot about the surrounding areas, so the way he shared his info was relatively smooth and simple, “There is a lot of arable land in several nearby villages. Some parts of the land are relatively slanted too. The land is not fertile and nobody really does plantation there on the barren hills. We can take over the hill to plant the five grains and enlarge the dilution ratio of the poplar twigs nectar according to the requirements. We just have to make sure it’s done in secret. Isn’t there some sort of a distraction spell? Use it.”

Regardless of whether it was the early or later stage, those five grains were already not possible to be supplied in sufficient quantities. They could be eaten casually just like the cooked rice at the dining hall, but could only be limited during meals. The limitations were just because the growth would be slower if the poplar twigs nectar were finished in the later stage, which resulted in providing lesser supplies.

After all, their main business was managing the zoo and there was no need to undertake too much land to grow grains. However, since they needed to farm, they could plant more black bamboos to be a side dish.

In the past few days, they had a lot of manpower. No matter if it was farming, or managing a restaurant, everything had become easier at once.

There were quick ways for farming, and the monks could help operate the restaurant—— There was a monk who studied the secret method at an elite place before.

However, they had to start building from scratch by themselves. There was no reward for the task but with Martian to oversee it, Duan Jiaze had no worries of any improper construction. Martian could add a halo to the restaurant to yield a virtually suitable dining place. In the meantime, he could also build the dormitory and office building.

Therefore, he did not have to worry about the rest. Once he handled the procedures and completed the relevant information, it would not be too late to pay the costs. If the money was insufficient, he could borrow some, and pay it back when profit was earned.

Duan Jiaze was in an excellent mood and held a notebook to make records, “In that case, the oceanarium is under construction in the early stage. I will hand over the fish’s introduction to Huang Qi and withdraw myself to handle the matter of land-planting and the opening of the restaurant. After the matter is accomplished, I will take care of the remaining work of the oceanarium.”

“This restaurant will be in the same ecological style as the exhibition hall. As for its name… since there may be several themes to open in the future, we won’t make it the same name as the zoo. Maybe we can call it…”

Everyone looked towards Duan Jiaze.

Duan Jiaze was under great pressure all of a sudden. He felt that You Su and Luya’s eyes were full of oppression. The two of them looked at each other, unintentionally brimming with sparks.

T-shirts could be made into two styles, but restaurants should not have two names.

After all, who was really the TOP of Ling You Zoo?

…

“Then, it will be called Restaurant Jiajia,” announced Duan Jiaze, “I, the director, will always be the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time)_(:з」∠)_”