Chapter 324: Gift for Reopening Ceremony
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Holding his feather duster, the old man slowly came out from the store, "My young guest, have you made your decision?"
"Yeah!" Snowy nodded definitively, "I am buying it!"
The old man kindly reminded her, "Although you said you are not buying it for yourself but for another person, let me remind you that the Cat G.o.ddess Statue was buried with the Pharaoh and served as the guardian of the mausoleum. The Cat G.o.ddess in the Egyptian myths was absolutely the symbol of Goodness and Guardians.h.i.+p, but the statue had been buried in the ground for a long time, just like other funeral objects. It had been carrying Yin energy more or less, so it’s not suitable to place it in one’s home, and is especially unsuitable for the rooms of women and children."
He euphemistically warned her not to give the statue of the Cat G.o.ddess to women and children. Even he could not handle the powers of the statue, let alone women and children with weaker auras.
Snowy waved her hands and said, "Don’t worry, the person to whom I’m sending this gift is a man who doesn’t care about Yin energy. In fact, he might feel glad that the chilliness brought by the Yin energy can help him save costs in air conditioning."
The old man said, "... Well, in that case, the gift really suits him. Also, people who are fond of statues of the Cat G.o.ddess are cat lovers, but as I observe, cats are afraid of this statue. Did you take this into consideration?"
"It"s none of my business," Snowy smirked. In fact, she had sprung up an idea to play pranks on Zhang Zian. If the statue really caused troubles to his pet shop, it should be a big punishment for his saying, "I will take anything".
The old man was at first startled by her answer, and then couldn’t help but laugh. "Well, this statue is very heavy. You are a little girl, and I am an old man, so I am afraid neither of us can move it easily. I"ll help you call a taxi."
"Thank you."
The old man walked out into the alley to stop a taxi on the street, trusting Snowy to the extent of leaving her alone in the store.
Instead of walking around to touch the other items in the store, Snowy just stood where she was, and raised her head to observe them.
A few minutes later, a taxi drove into the alley and parked in front of the store, followed by the old man.
The tall and strong driver got out of the car, and looked at the statue of Cat G.o.ddess, "All right, is this the thing?"
"Yes, please help us move it, with the board beneath it, to the trunk," said the old man.
The driver rolled up his sleeves and bent over to put his hands through the armpits of the statue. He whispered, "Up!"
The statue of the Cat G.o.ddess seemed to be solid-cast from bronze and was extremely heavy. The driver held his breath, and exerted all his strength, so much so that he got red in the face and neck. He finally picked up the statue, carried it into the trunk, exhaled and closed the door of the trunk.
Snowy transferred the money via her cell phone to the old man, who was quite familiar with the network transfer process just like young people nowadays.
"See you later!" Snowy got into the car and waved goodbye to the old man.
The old man smiled and watched her leave before he returned to his store. He closed the door, and the already dark interior became even darker.
...
Along the way, the driver was very curious about the statue of the Cat G.o.ddess in his trunk, and kept asking Snowy whether it was an unearthed relic. Snowy knew that for her safety, she shouldn’t tell him the true value of it, but she didn’t want to lie either, so she just said it was a replica with little value.
To prevent the driver from prying further information, she took out her cell phone and started the live broadcast.
"h.e.l.lo, everyone, I am Snowy, welcome to my live broadcast! Our slogan is: Having fun in Binhai City!" She smiled at the camera, then posed with a peace sign.
"Wow! Sister Snowy, you are finally here!"
"Snowy, say my name! Kiss me, hug me, hold me high!"
"You"re a new fan, right? Even if you pay thousands of dollars to Snowy, she won’t say your name! Acting cute is useless, because after all, Snowy is the cutest!"
"Snowy, weren’t you on the way to the store ‘Back to the Old Days’ before? You are not there yet? What happened?" A keen-eyed audience saw and pointed out that she was sitting in a taxi.
"Well..." Snowy explained, "Change of plans. I’m going to visit the talking parrot at the Amazing Fate Pet Shop."
"Why? Snowy, so there’s only one broadcast today?"
Snowy smiled and said: "I"m sorry everyone, but the owner of ‘Back to the Old Days’ didn’t allow me to host any live broadcast there…What could I do?"
"We don’t care! You should make up for that broadcast!" By no way would the audience agree to suffer the loss.
Pestered by the audience, Snowy promised she would try to make up the scheduled live broadcast.
The taxi arrived at the pet shop soon, and stopped roadside.
Zhang Zian was sending the decoration workers away. Seeing Snowy was getting out from the taxi, he went to greet her.
"Yeah! Mr. Store Manager! Here I come to disturb you again!" Snowy cheerfully raised one hand.
In front of a beautiful girl who was ready to high-five, a normal person would be happy to oblige and would also scream "yeah" excitedly. But Zhang Zian was not a normal person. His eyes were not looking at Snowy at all, but were looking into the taxi. "Where is the gift?"
"..." Snowy lowered her hand embarra.s.sedly.
Her audience became furious!
"F**k! The pretentious store manager is getting way out of line!"
"That mother f****r!"
"The perverted manager is insane!"
Snowy asked the driver to open the trunk, pointing to the statue glowing bronze and said, "The gift is here, but it is very heavy!"
Zhang Zian thought it was an ordinary gift, but seeing the vivid statue, he was surprised for a moment, and asked seriously, "This is for me?"
"Yeah," Snowy nodded, "A gift for celebrating the reopening of your shop."
"How much was this thing?" he asked.
He had to make this matter clear. Though he was just joking that he would be glad to accept anything, he didn’t want to owe her a favor that cost her too much.
Snowy thought for a moment and said, "It"s just a very cheap replica, the owner has given me a huge discount." This was not a lie. When it came to the true value of the replica, 5,000 RMB would not be able to buy one leg of the cat statue.
"If it was not expensive, then I’ll be glad to take it."
Hearing that it was a replica, Zhang Zian felt relieved. According to his common sense, replicas shouldn’t be very expensive.
But it didn’t occur to him that even replicas had different qualities. Unlike ordinary replicas, this statue of Cat G.o.ddess was not produced on the process line.
He took for granted that, since it was a replica, the nose ring and the earrings on the statue were probably just made from cheap copper.
"Mr. Store Manager, do you like this gift?" Snowy observed his face. She thought Zhang Zian would like such a gift, but she asked anyway, just in case.
"Yes, I like it very much," said Zhang Zian, looking at the statue.
Although he didn’t know that the original statue was in the collection of the British Museum, at his first glance, the line and the design of the statue was exactly the same as that of the murals which Professor Wei Kang had shown him, so the statue was definitely related to ancient Egypt. It didn’t matter if he liked it or not, the most important thing was that Fina might like it.
"w.a.n.g Qian! Li Kun! Come out to move this thing!" He shouted towards his shop.
"Yes! Coming!" w.a.n.g Qian and Li Kun hurriedly ran out.
"Bring this in." Zhang Zian pointed at the statue of Cat G.o.ddess and said, "Be careful, if you cause any damage to it, you will never get paid."
Although the old man had also attached a board beneath the statue, the sidewalk was not flat, and Zhang Zian worried the statue would fall.
"Wait!" Snowy hurriedly pulled Zhang Zian by his sleeves and whispered, "I heard that this statue has supernatural powers that might frighten cats. Mr. Store Manager, you should be careful…"
Zhang Zian didn’t mind at all, "Don’t you worry. Even if the statue suddenly becomes Sadako the ghost, I will catch her and make her my wife!"
The audience from the live broadcast became speechless.
"Turning Sadako into your wife? Perverted manager, how h.o.r.n.y are you?"
"I see the two morons again!"
Ignoring the comments, w.a.n.g Qian and Li Kun just kept moving the statue as their Master told them to. Even if it was the end of the world, their Master would come up with solutions. A moment later, they had moved the statue into the pet shop.