Chapter 501 – A Lively Zoo
Located in the center of the city, the Dong Shan city zoo is the largest public zoo in the city. Because the zoo director has a knack for business, he was able to diversify the business and remain profitable even when zoos across the country are currently in a slump. He even has spare resources to rent pandas from Beijing zoo to attract more visitors (especially foreigners like Ai Mi).
I wasn’t particularly interested in pandas, my dad already took me to Beijing Zoo when I was in the fourth grade. It was disappointing when I saw the national treasure stick its dirty a.s.s to the tourists while eating bamboo, it never even looked back when called.
In addition, the Dong Shan city zoo charges a separate entrance fee for the panda pavilion. I didn’t feel it was worth the extra ¥20, it only cost ¥15 to see all the other animals.
“Do you like pandas?” I tested Xiao Qin when buying tickets at the ticket counter.
Before Xiao Qin could reply, the middle-aged woman ticket seller said with disdain, “You’re not even willing to take your girlfriend to the panda exhibit?”
She didn’t even ask me before she tried to sell a panda ticket to me as well.
I was disgusted by her forceful sales behavior. Even if you were right, you should still let the customer choose. If I changed my mind in the zoo and wanted to see the pandas, I could still buy tickets in the zoo and it’s not necessary to buy it from you.
Or do they get bonuses based on the number of tickets they could sell.
So I waved my hand and told the ticket agent I didn’t need a ticket to the Panda exhibit, then I pointed to the sign next to the ticket office that said “¥10 for those under 1.4m”, and said to Xiao Qin.
“You should go measure yourself, maybe we can save ¥5…”
“Don’t bully me.” Xiao Qin huffed and grabbed onto my arm, “I might be shorter than you, but I’m not that short. Nowadays most elementary school students are taller than 1.4m.”
That’s true, I don’t really know many people under 1.4m, Ai Mi would be the only one who fits the criteria. But she doesn’t need to save that ¥5 and she would never admit she has a child’s body.
After spending ¥30 for both our tickets excluding the panda exhibit, Xiao Qin and I began our date and walked along the river of people into the zoo.
We stopped in front of the sika deer cage for a while, I suddenly spotted the gang members Xiao Qin’s father sent, fat tiger and skinny leopard, staring at us.
They didn’t have to follow us into the zoo, what could possibly happen inside? But with your nickname… be careful of getting caught by zoo employees and not being let out.
I realized Ai Mi probably had the same feeling when being followed around by 004 and 005 all day.
Xiao Qin seemed to have discovered their presence a long time ago, but didn’t reveal it, so I will pretend they don’t exist.
Ever since I began Spartan training, the zoo, a place I often visited in childhood, also gradually became an unfamiliar place.I made many new discoveries this time going down memory lane and my mood also got better.
There were a lot of visitors because it was the weekend, and we were able to watch a lot of performances that you usually couldn’t see. For example, two monkeys performed a boxing match where the winner gets a bunch of bananas and their performance made everyone laugh. A male elephant performed a spin with its hind feet lifted off the ground rotation, it was a bit clumsy and was more gap moe and still received everyone’s fervent applause.
But after watching the elephant spin a few times, Xiao Qin covered her eyes, as if she was embarra.s.sed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked curiously.
“It’s… the elephant’s elephant~~~” Xiao Qin said in an unclear manner.
I turned back to see, and saw when the elephant was spinning, its p.e.n.i.s was also spinning with it. It’s just like the elephant song (NSFW) sung by crayon shin-chan, which refers to the p.e.n.i.s! A real elephant’s p.e.n.i.s was very exaggerated and over a meter long when in heat.
“Ye Lin cla.s.smate is the same as an elephant…”
Stop, if a human had one that was over a meter long, he would be a freak. And if someone had over a meter of erectile tissue, they would definitely be impotent, where would they even get enough blood to pump it?
In order to prevent Xiao Qin from saying anything else, I took her hand and led her away from the elephants and came to the nearby “alpaca” cage.
The “alpaca” was one of the ten mythical creatures also known as the “gra.s.s mud horse“. Ever since the gra.s.s mud horse was popularized on the internet, zoos around the country added alpacas as a way to attract visitors. Dong Shan city zoo in particular, not to be outdone, had no fewer than ten alpacas in captivity.
Since alpacas aren’t very threatening, they didn’t add a tall railing. But they still hung a wooden sign that says: “Animals currently in heat, cross the railings at your own risk.”
I didn’t take it seriously and thought it was the same as KFC’s “caution: slippery when wet” to clear their responsibilities and they use it all year, but imagine my surprise when I took a look inside.
They really were in heat! A gra.s.s mud horse was f.u.c.king another gra.s.s mud horse! Why couldn’t they wait until the park was closed, there were a number of children next tot me asking their parents: “What are they doing?”
“Fighting.” This is what parents usually say to fool their children. The children don’t realize they were born into the world because their parents were also “fighting”.
After retreating from the alpacas, I decided to go see some more ferocious beasts, after all, it would be more in line of the interests of the saber-tooth Xiao Qin.
As it turned out, the tiger was undergoing weird training.
The tiger that was locked behind a cage with tempered gla.s.s, had its front paws pressed against the gla.s.s, while expressionlessly staring at the people outside.
There was also someone dressed in a tiger costume outside. He didn’t show his face, and his whole body was covered with tiger stripes.
However, he didn’t seem like a real tiger at all, but more like Tigger from “Winnie the Pooh”.
This Tigger sneakily hid behind some tall gra.s.s for a while, then he stood up and walked out, looking around as if he just escaped from prison, which drew laughter from the crowd.
At that moment, a gunman wearing a black security uniform ran out and aimed at Tigger. He fired a tranquilizer dart without the needle, Tigger collapsed and was then was carried away on a stretcher.
“I heard my mom say that j.a.pan has done similar drills to teach gorillas not to escape.”
Xiao Qin said.
So they were trying to train the tiger? A tiger isn’t as intelligent as as a gorilla, so it doesn’t understand your “performance”. And couldn’t you have found a more realistic tiger costume? Other than using the Tigger costume, you even walked on two legs. The tiger might think you failed to escape because you only had two legs to run with.
The spectators also thought that the zoo’s behavior was meaningless. At this point, the best part came, Tigger was sent back, and with him came… Wu Song.
Everyone was astonished, only to see Tigger repeat the same trick trying to escape on two legs, when Wu Song jumped out and repeatedly punched Tigger. Tigger dropped down again and was carried away on a stretcher.
Wu Song stared at the real tiger behind the reinforced gla.s.s, as if to ask: “Did you understand?”
The spectators naturally laughed their a.s.ses off and said that the zoo directors were foolish. They also called and sent texts to their friends and colleagues, so that they could also enjoy the performance.
Later I found out the performance was a marketing ploy created by the zoo director to deliberately attract public attention. To be honest, it worked quite well, several news stations reported about it and even my Dad mentioned it to me on the phone.
After that, I took Xiao Qin to see the white peac.o.c.ks that refused to open their tails and the monkeys that didn’t like peanuts and only ate pistachios.
Xiao Qin was nervous at first because there were a lot of boys our age in the zoo, but she had more and more fun as her attention gradually shifted to the animals. When she was feeding fish to a seal in the oceanarium, she naughtily took advantage of the moment when the seal jumped up to eat the fish to pluck one of the seal’s whiskers as a souvenir (so fast). We fed our remaining fish to that seal as compensation.
Xiao Qin also really enjoyed the dolphin performance. We purposely waited for half an hour just to get a front row seat in the next act. We didn’t care about being splashed with water when the dolphins. .h.i.t the ball or jumped through hoops.
I thought I might run into Ai Mi and Xiong YaoYue when I ate at the restaurant in the zoo, but they probably had better food, so they didn’t show up.
Instead, when I went to the washroom after the meal, I ran into Tigger in the men’s room.
That’s right, the one performing for the tiger.
He had his costume draped on his body and it looked like a ridiculous half-man, half-tiger abomination. The guy inisde was actually an acquaintance of mine.
It was Xiao Ding from the pet hospital.
“d.a.m.n, why are you here to act as a tiger?” I laughed and asked him.
Xiao Ding shrugged, “Everyone who graduates from the China Agricultural University might end up working at a zoo. I came to meet one of my advisors today, and he asked me if I was interested in earning some extra income… so I acted as a tiger.”
After a few jokes, Xiao Ding suddenly asked me: “Who’s the girl you were with?”
I immediately had a feeling of guilt: Xiao Ding and Dr. Zhao already acted as the matchmaker for me and Shu Sha multiple times. If I admitted that Xiao Qin was my girlfriend, then I would really be a womanizer.