Husky’s Side Chapter 24

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Life-Saving Days by the Husky’s Side
Jumping online

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Song Yingshi didn’t recognise Lin Ye but since they suddenly ran into Zhou Li, she happily led the husky to go over.

Lin Ye observed the newcomers and felt that this dog looked a little bit like the one in the photo, so he walked forward, ready to check its paws. Zhou Li knew he will have to jump over this hurdle sooner or later and calmly led the little golden retriever over.

Three humans and two dogs met up, but it was neither Song Yingshi nor Lin Ye who reacted first. Instead, it was the little golden retriever. 

Little Golden Retriever* was very happy to meet someone of its same kind, and joyfully leaped towards the husky with its short legs. Ji Shaoyan didn’t even bother to move. When it jumped towards him with full intent to sniff his body, he squashed its head back with one paw.

[T/N: sticking with this for now and not pinyin name (小金毛/xiao jinmao/little yellow fur) since it will get its own name later in this chapter]

Zhou Li: “……”

Little Golden Retriever: “……”

Little Golden Retriever was a warm little angel. After being confused for one second, it continued to move forward, but was squashed again, and then squashed again. Staring blankly at the husky, it finally reacted, running back to Zhou Li’s side with an “ao wu” and hugging the boy’s ankles. It shrank into a ball, feeling terribly wronged.

What a pitiful sight.

Zhou Li couldn’t help but pick it up to rub its fur. Then he saw Uncle Dog watching him with a raised head, so he put the dog back on the ground with shaky hands.

There was a slight weird feeling.

He knew that the thing occupying this husky’s shell was actually a human soul and he also knew that Young Master Ji’s cold heart may not care about him, but he was still the husky he had raised for many days and he even put in his best effort to raise this guy. Right now, under the eyes of this husky, he couldn’t help but have a slight guilty conscience.

Little Golden Retriever didn’t know it was being despised.

It settled down after being petted twice but still didn’t dare to walk over, pasting itself onto Zhou Li’s feet and refusing to move.

Song Yingshi looked at this pitiful and cute appearance, and curiously asked, “Where did you get this little one?”

Zhou Li suddenly felt that she was a person worthy of ascending and quickly took the opportunity to explain, “My friend’s. He left this one with me temporarily, to raise for a few days.”

He wanted to highlight the words “temporarily” and “raise for a few days” to make it clear that this golden retriever wasn’t his own dog.

But Ji Shaoyan was even more unhappy after hearing this reason——he initially thought it was Lin Ye’s dog, something he gave to Silly Fool for him to lead around on a walk. So, it turns out that it was something to be kept at his home?

He continued to stare at a certain someone and heard Lin Ye say from the side, “This is your dog?”

Song Yingshi replied “yes” and glanced at him, then looked at Zhou Li with a question in her eyes. 

Zhou Li said, “This is my friend who asked me to take care of his dog. His friend lost a husky, it is about the same size as yours.” 

Aftee he said this, he looked at Lin Ye. “She is the classmate I told you about before.”

Song Yingshi understood the meaning behind his words and kept calm, saying, “I recently saw some missing-dog posters stuck up around here. Was it you guys?”

Lin Ye said, “En, is it okay for me to have a look at your dog?”

“Of course you can.” Song Yingshi picked up the husky, holding out one of the front paws, saying with a smile, “Someone’s already asked me about him yesterday, but there’s no black spots on my Happy’s paws. He isn’t that dog, you can take a look for yourself.” 

The concealer was a little conspicuous when it was directly wiped on. In order to make the colours on its paws look natural, she looked through several instructional videos bought a bunch of cosmetic products to try on, and even changed four or five ways of application until the black spot was perfectly hidden. Only when she tested if the makeup wouldn’t fade when stepping on the ground did she dare to take the dog out for a walk.

[T/N: small PSA: don’t apply make up on your pets]

Following up on her claims, Lin Ye saw that there was no black spot on its paw, then carefully inspected the other paw before nodding at her.

Zhou Li and Song Yingshi calmly breathed out a sigh of relief, knowing they had successfully pulled off their heist.

Song Yingshi put the husky on the ground and followed them into the park.

Little Golden Retriever seemed to have learned nothing from its lessons* and after a while, it began to approach the husky once again.

[T/N: literally, ‘remembered you ate, forgot you got beaten’]

Ji Shaoyan saw it moving towards him from the corner of his eyes and ruthlessly smothered its face with his paw while Zhou Li pulled on its leash at the same time. With a “squish”*, he sent the other running away crying “wu wu wu”.

Zhou Li: “……”

Unlucky child, just how did you think provoking him would be a good idea?

Lin Ye looked at their pitiful dog, feeling that it was pretty good.

This little girl had a good appearance. Both of them were classmates and both of them had dogs. If they stay in contact for a while longer, maybe their relationship will develop further. He said, “They’ll get into fights easily if they’re together, let’s go walk somewhere else.”

Zhou Li had no objections, wishing for Lin Ye to stay away from Uncle Dog.

Seeing a small fork in the street up ahead, he planned to split away from Song Yingshi. Before he left, he suddenly remembered the events earlier that day and turned around to call out to Song Yingshi, pulling out the game advert from his pocket to hand it over to her. “I got this from that study tyrant meet up. Here, for you.”

Song Yingshi looked down and was instantly drawn to the bright red headline: Studying is so boring, lets hi together ya!

[T/N: not sure what the hi/hai (嗨) means, could mean feeling high when you’re doing something fun]

She was rendered speechless for two seconds. “…They handed these out at the study god get together?”

Zhou Li smiled. “Yes ba, I thought this thing was quite interesting.”

Song Yingshi recalled what he had said. “Why did you go all the way there?”

Zhou Li said, “The venue was next to the pet competition. I wandered around for a bit, since they say you can gain the aura of a study tyrant through osmosis. Anyway, absolutely do not throw this away. I’ll tell you more about it when I go home.”

Once he said his goodbyes to Song Yingshi he took Lin Ye to walk around somewhere else.

Lin Ye snuck a peek at this boy and asked, “Classmate from the same class?”

Zhou Li: “We’re not in the same high school.”

Lin Ye: “Middle school?”

Zhou Li: “That’s not it, we’ve never been in the same school before.”

Lin Ye raised his eyebrows. “Can she still be called your classmate?”

“Can ah.” Zhou Li pointed out as if it were obvious, “If you go outside and call out classmate, everyone can be your friend.”

Lin Ye smiled and asked, “Then how did you guys come to know each other?”

Zhou Li secretly ridiculed ‘why don’t you investigate yourself, Master?’ while his mouth briefly explained Song Yingshi’s situation. It was important to highlight that she wasn’t a permanent citizen living in Xiangman Town, and would only come for a few days during their winter and summer holidays, so the repeated visits led to them becoming familiar with one another. During the days when she had something on, she would leave her dog with him because she only had one acquaintance here.

Lin Ye was very much relieved at his answer and asked one more question: “Then, does she have a partner?”

Zhou Li paused and suddenly realised, “Does Master Lin have ideas towards her?”

He stopped in his steps and said in an overzealous manner, “She doesn’t, she’s still single. Go go go, let’s go back. If I just push your WeChat ID to her, it’ll be too obvious. Let’s go back and you can chat with her some more.”

Lin Ye suddenly laughed, jokingly reprimanding him. “Come back. How old is she, how old am I, do you think I can have any ideas towards her?”

How is age a problem. After all, don’t you still have ideas towards me?

Zhou Li laughed “hehe”* in his heart. Seeing that the man’s attention had finally moved away from Song Yingshi, he didn’t follow up on the topic anymore and patiently walked beside him for a while, then asked, “What did Master Lin do at the pet competition today? Did your company have business there?”

[T/N: a mocking laugh]

Lin Ye was amused by his antics. “What business would we have?”

Zhou Li had a foolish look on his face. “Just…pet-oriented business ah. Why else would you go there for?”

Lin Ye said, “Naturally, I had some other business to attend to.”

Zhou Li tried to inquire about specific matters but seeing that the man only replied with a word or two, he understood that there was no way he would be getting an answer out of this guy. Once he thought about it, he didn’t think there was a reason to keep something like this a secret from him… No, there was one. There was the possibility that Lin Ye felt working for rich second-generation boy in his teens was something that made him lose face and reputation, so he was not willing to mention this to him.

He immediately lost any interest in walking the dog and managed to cope with it for ten more minutes, then made an excuse to go home.

He walked in on Qian Duoshu watching TV. The man saw him return and was instantly taken aback, asking, “Where did you get the dog?”

Zhou Li said, “My friend’s, he asked me to raise it for a few days.”

“……” Qian Duoshu said, “Why do they all look for you when it comes to dogs?”

Zhou Li said, “Maybe because I look good ba.”

Qian Duoshu was speechless at first, then took in a few more glances.

Speaking truthfully, his son was indeed more like the boy he was in the past. At least he was willing to learn. It’s just that his son held no feelings for him, and he didn’t know if they will be able to get along harmoniously after treatment. He let out a sigh in his heart.

After Zhou Li answered his questions, he took the little golden retriever into his room and pulled out the box that Uncle Dog previously occupied, recycling it to make another nest, then poured some water into a bowl. Seeing how the little guy didn’t feel like drinking, he soaked a small towel and cleaned its paws and fur.

It was at this time that the little golden retriever revealed the differences to raising Uncle Dog. It refused to obediently stand still to let him wipe its body down, constantly hiding back and forth, and even squeaking “ji ji” when he forcibly held it down.

Qian Duoshu heard the racket came over to look, saying, “This one’s not as obedient as the last one.”

Zhou Li said, “En, Eggy is the best in the entire world. Not only was he willing to let me clean his fur, he even played games with me.”

What a pity that he had to be sent away. Just thinking about it made him feel a little melancholy. He whispered, “So dim, so dark, so dense, so dull, so damp, so dank, so dead…”*

[T/N: 寻寻觅觅，冷冷清清，凄凄惨惨戚戚: phrase from Song Dynasty poet Li Qingzhou titled 《声声慢·寻寻觅觅》, translated (close to) literally is: Lonely and lonesome, bleak and bitter, deep in drery thoughts I missed you terribly so (translations taken from Baidu)]

“……” Qian Duoshu turned around and went back to the living room.

“Ai.” Zhou Li finished his lament and looked at the little golden retriever. “From now on, I’ll call you Cubby ba. Your big brother is an egg, you are a cub, first you have an egg then you get the cub. How about it?”

[T/N: 崽崽/zai zai/cub cub (a young animal)]

The little golden retriever could not understand and continued its attempts to squeeze out of his clutches, twisting and turning as it “hnggg”ed.

After Zhou Li cleaned the last paw, he released it for it to go play around. He stood up to go wash the towel, then came back and opened Song Yingshi’s contact. He saw that she had just arrived back home, and asked: You didn’t throw the handout away ba?

Song Yingshi hugged Happy as they sat on the sofa, and replied: I didn’t.

After sending the reply, she took out the flyer and had a closer look.

The content and the title were rather consistent. The title said that studying was useless, the content focused on how boring studying was, how studying too much would dull your personality, and so on. Then it said that the opportunity for change had arrived. Right now, a game was soon to be launched, and the ones who can pass are the ones chosen by heaven itself. Let’s put down our textbooks together, come and hi hi hi ba!

Ji Shaoyan didn’t get to read what was on the flyer earlier, so he disinterestedly glanced over the content at that moment. He immediately paused.

He had long heard that Mr. Wei* was keen on hosting an event. This theme and name seem to be his style of work. To hand out this kind of irksome* rubbish at a get together for study tyrants, the fingers obviously pointed to that old man.

[T/N: 老爷子/lao ye zi, polite term to call an elderly man]
[T/N: literally, in need of a spanking]

As this thought flashed past, a voice message came out through the phone. With what appeared to be a consistent smiling tone, the voice said, “I asked around today, that study tyrant meeting was voluntary and there weren’t many schools that had been notified, only five major ones and two private high schools in the city. Moreover, in the five stand outs, only the top classes were informed. There were two stalls selling various materials, but only this flyer was handed out. Understand?”

 Song Yingshi speechlessly out: Understand what?

Zhou Li smiled and said, “This kind of event was most likely organised as an official gathering. Not everyone can come in to sell or hand out whatever. I watched these guys walk back and forth under the eyes of everyone for several rounds without getting kicked out. Can you guess why?”

Song Yingshi was stunned.

There is no need to think about the answer. It was obviously because they were in cahoots with the organiser.

Zhou Li said, “I’m guessing they’re looking for smart kids, since they wrote how only the ‘ones chosen by the heavens’ can clear the levels. It’s probably not just for entertainment. Don’t you want to know what kind of game this is?”

 Song Yingshi didn’t really want to before, but now she did.

Zhou Li typed: The server will be launched at eight-sharp tonight. See you in game.

Song Yingshi: Ok.

Ji Shaoyan couldn’t see Song Yingshi’s reply, but when he saw her scanning the QR code on the flyer, he knew she had been convinced.

It was somewhat fortunate for him that the flyer was collected by Zhou Li. If it were changed to Song Yingshi, she would’ve absolutely chucked it in the rubbish the moment she turned around and he would have also missed an opportunity to gather information——provided that Song Yingshi was willing to play in the living room and not while she was in her room, lying on the bed. 

If it was Silly Fool, he would not need such concerns.

If it was Silly Fool, getting on the bed will be no problem, and the boy would basically take him wherever he went. As long as he showed any little sign of interest, Silly Baitian might even be able to do things like ‘push his phone under his paws to let him play games’, while with Song Yingshi, not everything was certain.

Oh, right, now it is the golden retriever who gets to enjoy this treatment.

Just thinking about it made his mood plummet, but this time there was a little more self-examination.

Young Master Ji has always been calm and rational.

He weighed his own unhappiness and felt that getting angry over a little golden retriever was basically deliberately provoking himself and also just incredibly stupid. He was raised for only a few days and now he actually considered himself a pet.

So he adjusted his mindset and suppressed this bout unhappiness.

At the same time, he came to a conclusion: everything Silly Fool did had the potential to be despised by him.

Currently, the silly fool who was being despised was also tinkering around with the game.

Zhou Li left the app downloading in the background while he opened the WeChat group and typed a line of words into the speech bar. Then he thought about it and backspaced the sentence.

This game only selected a certain group of people for to participate in their offline activities*, and the players primarily consisted of people in Ji Shaoyan’s circle.

[T/N: in real life events]

Song Yingshi was able to come in and make friends, but it wasn’t necessary for his little brothers to join in because the gap was truly too big. He himself was someone from that circle, so he knew that no matter how calm and peaceful some people appear to be, their attitude will be horribly arrogant. A teenager at this age was sensitive and one misstep can easily be a blow to their self-esteem.

What’s more, he never got to read the second half of the book, so he didn’t know the specifics of this game event. It was enough for him to have the strong connections with his little brothers. There was really no need to mix in with this crowd.

After he pondered over it, he clicked off WeChat without ever telling them to play the game.

The app quickly finished downloading and he waited patiently until it hit eight o’clock, then tapped in.

After entering the verification code, he watched a cartoon old man appear on-screen. A blank dialog box hovered in front of the old man, asking the player type in an ID, the limit being 1-3 characters; numbers, letters and Chinese characters were all OK.

Zhou Li simply wrote in a single “Li”, pressed OK, and entered the game successfully. Then there was silence.

Even if this was a one-off thing, the quality was way too rough. The graphics were comparable to the games you buy with an old video game console. If the characters were enlarged by just a little, they will most definitely turn into a pile of mosaics.

But thinking about the personality of the designer, he was not surprised at all.

It was said that the old man was a mischievous individual who disliked people who were well-behaved. It wasn’t enough to find players by sifting through a study tyrant get together. He wanted to use this game with horrendous graphics to rule out another unworthy group of teens.

Zhou Li spontaneously came up with a reason for the graphics quality, then began to look at the content and rules.

On the screen was the entrance to a maze. The lower right corner had a simple direction control centre, and the lower left corner displayed a box for the chatroom.

The game structure was very simple. There were five floors in the maze and reaching the fifth floor meant you would have cleared. It was worth noting that there was no direct path to lead you to the next level in the maze. There were two options for how to go from one floor to the next; one is to get 10 points, the other is to be blessed by the goddess of luck* and obtain a key from some treasure chest, which will directly send you over.

[T/N: literally, ‘big outbreak of character’. Internet term for when you accidentally pass a level/puzzle]

Zhou Li pressed the arrow keys to move forward and saw someone bubbling* in the chatroom box.

[T/N: jumping ellipses]

This shoddy* broken little game had no private chatrooms or the function to add friends. These additions will not be updated in until the later levels. At present, all conversations were shared on the public screen, which can be clearly seen with a glance.

[T/N: to churn out large quantities without regard for quality]

Liu Xiao Wei: Hi everyone~

Zheng San: Ok, who has eaten the two big melons* of this summer holiday?

[T/N: eating melons means watching news or gossip that has no relevance to you (so basically there for a fun time)]

Quan Jie: How can we not eat it?

Jing Shao: Hi everyone ya.

Tang Xin Tian: Wa, Jing-shao appeared, what about Yan-shao?

Jing Shao: Should be coming in soon, don’t panic [wink]

Zhou Li carried a gossipy heart in his body, walking forward as he watched the messages roll in.

According to the original narrative, their circle of friends already knew that the old man was hosting an event, and only brought people aged 15-20 in to play. The invitation was sent directly to their hands, but the old man later thought it wasn’t fun to just have a group of acquaintances playing together, hence, the handing out of flyers. But after two fierce screenings, not many strangers were willing to stay around, so in the end most of the players ended up being in the same group of acquaintances anyway.

These second-generation teenagers all knew this, so in order to get along well and avoid unnecessary misunderstandings that will hurt their peaceful atmosphere, they all registered IDs that their acquaintances could understand at a glance. Only passerbys who didn’t know the truth behind the creation of this game would take a screen name.

Ba Zhong Ba: You guys all know each other ah? What school are you from?

Tang Xin Tian: Mingying.

Ba Zhong Ba: Oh oh, great, me too.

Jing Shao: [Applause]

Ba Zhong Ba: I thought this game was weird, so I wanted to play around. What do you think of it?

Jing Shao: It’s a little weird. Jiayou, let’s play.

Tang Xin Tian: Jiayou*, wow, look at you.

[T/N: be strong/work hard (literally, refuel)]

Zheng San: Let’s go back to the two melons ba, will the protagonist come to play today?

Liu Xiao Wei: Let’s just play this game ba, don’t talk about melons.

Zhou Er: I’m guessing one of the melons is about me.

The last two messages were sent almost simultaneously, and the public screen went silent instantly.

It took quite a few seconds to see that “Zheng San” had sent another message. Maybe because they weren’t in direct contact with the other party, or perhaps it was due to confidence, but he asked his question very bluntly.

Zheng San: You came just at the right time ah, Er-shao. I heard that you aren’t the biological child of the Zhou family, is that true?

Zhou Li’s hand paused, and he raised his eyebrows.

Oh, I was just playing a game, yet there are unexpected gains.

Zhou Er: It’s true.

Zheng San: Then where is the real Second Young Master Zhou?

Zhou Er: We’re still looking.

Zheng San: You’re a sinner ah. The real young master has been wandering outside for so many years while you, the fake young master, get to live a smooth sailing life. Sudden live interview here, how do you feel?

As soon as this sentence was thrown out, the screen remained silent for another few seconds.

There were one or two who wanted to interject, but before they were able to send out their messages, they saw the interviewee reply compliantly. It turns out that they were in the middle of typing just now.

Zhou Er: How I feel is my business, there is no need to tell others. With things already escalating up to this point, we can only find him as soon as possible. If the Third Young Master wishes to contribute to the search, our whole family will be grateful. You* do not need to worry about other aspects.

[T/N: honourable form of you (most likely sarcastic)]

Zheng San: Still “your” whole family?

Xiao Yan: San-shao, that will be enough. It is fate that deceived people, this is not the fault of Zhou Er-shao.

Zheng San: Fine, I’ll give Yan-shao some face. Then, let us talk about the other melon. Yan-shao, please be kind and satisfy my curiosity: how is Ji-shao doing right now? Ever since the car accident, we have not seen anything from him, and this summer holiday is almost over.

Zhou Li raised his eyebrows again. He deeply felt that this game was truly worth playing.

While waiting for the reply from that player named “Xiao Yan”, he dilly-dallied around a corner and found a treasure chest. Tapping on it to open, he saw two options pop up on the screen.

1. Get a random item (there’s good, there’s bad)

2. Give all online players a star of love (there’s good, there’s bad)

Young Master Zhou had eaten a very satisfactory meal of melons and chose ‘2’ without even thinking, wishing to give everyone a star.

In an instant, he saw a golden announcement take over the chatroom: The meteor is falling, the beauty is transient, player [Li] presents a [Star Spur] to all players. Congratulations to all players for returning back to the starting point.

Jing Shao: ……

Xiao Yan: ……

Tang Xin Tian: ……

Liu Xiao Wei: ……

Ba Zhong Ba : ……

……

Zheng San: Damn!

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The author has something to say:

Young Master Zhou: Father’s love is like a landslide.

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Why do modern novels always have a gaming arc? At least I won’t need to search up PUBG terms for this made up game

I forgot if I’ve already mentioned this (I think I have?), but I will be using (NAME)-shao for ‘Young Master (NAME)’ since ‘shao’ is a shortened version of the address. It’s like a nickname. I will also most like forget what consistency is… Also also, the chapters from here on out are often longer than the first 22 ^-^