Chapter Nineteen: The Real Parvenu Hamster
Yan Jin picked up a necklace that was on the table, slid the golden walnut through the chain, and hung it around Xiao Yu’s neck.
When Xiao Yu looked down, he could easily see that golden walnut. The walnut was small in the first place, and with its insides hollowed out, it was not heavy at all. He could easily lift it up with his paws.
Chu Ge, who had the tendency to sport his filthy mouth, decided to make inappropriate comments at this decent occasion: “Don’t accidentally swallow that thing. Otherwise, not even G.o.d can save you.”
“The measurements were appropriately made, it can’t be eaten,” Yan Jin replied as he took out another chain in his hand to compare to the one on Xiao Yu’s neck. He asked, “Which one’s more suitable?”
“What’s the difference? The colors almost look the same, all whitish-looking.”
The ex-designer, Xiao Yu, shot a despicable gaze towards Chu Ge. By differentiating the materials just by their color, one could tell with a glance that he was an amateur outsider.
“One is silver embedded with diamonds, and the other is platinum.”
Chu Ge really couldn’t tell the difference, but he thought for a moment and asked cleverly, “Is there platinum embedded with diamonds?”
“There is.”
Yan Jin then picked that said piece of chain from the whole bundle of chains.
In the end, Xiao Yu received a costly golden walnut necklace, matching gold with silver. At first glance, he looked like a parvenu hamster.
Or should he say, a hamster owned by a parvenu.
Xiao Yu’s gaze towards Yan Jin became slightly complicated. He did not expect Yan Jin’s taste to be so bad. As an ex-chief designer, Xiao Yu’s current outfit was unbearable to look at.
Hence, without any hesitation, Xiao Yu mercilessly shook his body and swung the necklace away.
Chu Ge did not hold back his laughter as he commented, “Hey, it seems like your Fishy doesn’t like it that much.”
Yan Jin replied solemnly, “He probably feels uncomfortable with the necklace around. I wonder if a harness would work better.”
“Who the h.e.l.l puts a harness on a hamster?” Chu Ge replied.
Earlier, Xiao Yu saw that the table was scattered with a whole bunch of chains and little gold rings. It was just that he did not realize that those were for him to use.
He did not want to become a parvenu hamster at all. He thought that he looked good in his ‘fur coat’, so there was no need for other accessories.
Yet he did not expect for Yan Jin to be such a determined person who would not give up. Despite the fact that Xiao Yu did not cooperate with him at all, Yan Jin continued to hold up chain pieces one after another as he tried to find and match the appropriate ones. In the end, Xiao Yu surrendered to Yan Jin’s perseverance when Yan Jin picked the most inexpensive chain that was an adjustable red band. Xiao Yu did not tug the walnut off like he previously did before.
Yan Jin heaved a sigh of relief, then said something that Xiao Yu could not immediately understand: “This way you won’t get lost.”
As Xiao Yu thought about it, he finally understood what Yan Jin meant. This hollowed walnut probably had a GPS installed inside it.
No wonder Yan Jin was so determined to put the walnut on him.
Xiao Yu suddenly recalled the time when he was picked up by Yan Jin. He wondered if Yan Jin still remembered what happened back then, after Xiao Yu fell off the kitchen table and became a wet and dirty hamster – how Yan Jin wanted to ignore him yet ended up taking him in. Now, Yan Jin even tagged a GPS onto this hamster that he had picked up.
Not that it was touching – he was a cute thing and hence all this was meant to be – but Yan Jin’s concern did affect Xiao Yu.
No one would dislike being cared and concerned for.
These few days, Xiao Yu had been anxiously waiting for that mysterious designer to appear, while he considered if he should get himself involved in the events that were about to happen.
Initially, he always wanted to exact revenge on Yan Jin. But now, he knew very well that Yan Jin was not responsible for the plagiarism incident.
Although the memory of getting told off by Yan Jin still made his heart tremble in anger, at least Yan Jin had his reasons. So now, Xiao Yu was no longer resentful towards Yan Jin.
When he successfully logged in to human Xiao Yu’s QQ account, he once thought of telling the human Xiao Yu the entire truth to warn him to be careful of the people around him. Or maybe he could directly tell Yan Jin that Lin Zhou was a liar and that the drafts that he presented had all been stolen. Yan Jin could just conduct a search and the truth would be revealed.
But now, he no longer had such thoughts.
Because if he did that, first, he could not guarantee that the human Xiao Yu would believe his words. Knowing himself, he regarded his senior as his benefactor, and hence he would not tolerate a single bad comment about his senior. Second, by doing that, he would be affecting the upcoming compet.i.tions between YL and SI. The moment YL lost, the ultimate winner that would win would not be the human Xiao Yu, but Lin Zhou instead.
Regardless of whether it was because of the care that he received from Yan Jin during this period of time or because of his hatred towards Lin Zhou, Xiao Yu would not make such choices now.
This whole incident was indeed an interesting matter. After going around in circles, Xiao Yu realized that not interfering would probably lead to the best outcome.
Despite plotting everything so meticulously, Lin Zhou still did not obtain a single benefit – that was his biggest retribution. As for Yan Jin gaining a.s.sistance from the mystery designer that allowed YL to powerfully overtake SI – that was Xiao Yu paying back his grat.i.tude towards Yan Jin.
The only person he had let down was himself, the human Xiao Yu.
Xiao Yu swatted the golden walnut hanging on his neck and successfully saw a change in Yan Jin’s expression.
“Fishy, stop messing around.” Chairman Yan carefully tightened the red band.
Watching Yan Jin’s nervous reactions, the last bit of unwillingness in Xiao Yu gradually dwindled away.
Fine, seeing how he still had to bother Yan Jin for quite some time in the future, he decided to be the losing party this time. In any case, he was just a hamster now, he should not interfere with human Xiao Yu’s fate anyway.
Xiao Yu’s ‘birthday’ concluded with a picture of Yan Jin and Xiao Yu together with Chu Ge as the photographer.
After the picture was taken, Yan Jin said, “Let’s go.”
Go? Go where?
Unlike the ignorant Xiao Yu, Chu Ge immediately guessed the answer, “You’ve organized the second floor? So fast? You even ordered the cage?”
“Nope. Fishy likes that cage you gave him. I don’t plan on getting a new one. The one upstairs will be his other cage.”
Xiao Yu caught a keyword and was instantly excited.
The second floor! They were finally going to the second floor?
As an adventurous hamster, Xiao Yu had long wanted to take look at the second floor. However, something had been stopping him from doing so. That obstacle was the stairs.
The stairs in this villa were one of those types of spiral gla.s.s staircases that were leveled with gla.s.s panels, but not directly connected to one another. For humans, the fifteen centimeters in between two gla.s.s panel steps were not a big deal. But for Xiao Yu – a hamster that was at most ten centimeters in length – probably couldn’t reach the higher panel even if he jumped. Plus, he dared not risk his own life, which was why he had not ventured to the second floor.
Now that he finally had a chance to visit the second floor, Xiao Yu’s spirits immediately perked up.
Didn’t Yan Jin just say that he prepared another cage for him on the second level?
Xiao Yu expectantly looked at Yan Jin as he stretched his paws and tapped on Yan Jin’s palm.
“Squeakkk.” Quick, bring me there.
Yan Jin got the message as he grabbed a handful of melon seeds from the table and then headed to the second level with Chu Ge following behind him.
The second level’s arrangement was different compared to the first level; the initial design was made with the common rooms as the main highlight. After Yan Jin took over this villa, he had the first level renovated but had left the second floor untouched. Hence, the corridor on the second level had nothing special other than the doors to the common rooms. The design was not as complicated as the first level, which made it not as appealing.
Xiao Yu had always looked forward to seeing Yan Jin’s collection room and etc. on the second level. He thought that he would witness one of those rare collection sets or maybe some designed artifacts, but now, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
Yan Jin seemed to sense Xiao Yu’s gloomy mood. Then, he opened one of the doors.
If Xiao Yu was still a human, he would have suspected that he had opened the wrong door and would have closed the door once again.
Too bad he was only a mere hamster now. That was why he could only widen his eyes in disbelief as he watched the incredible scene before him.
This room was different from the other common rooms. It did not have a bed or any kind of furniture. The four walls of the room were covered with pink and blue checkered wallpaper and the floor had no carpet. But, the flooring was soft; a person’s feet would sink deeply into the floor with every step they took. There were a lot of soft pillows and cus.h.i.+ons at all four corners of the room and the ceiling’s chandelier was a small carousel that emitted a soft, warm glow as the colorful wooden horses moved in circles.
But all those features did not capture Xiao Yu’s attention when he had first entered the room.
At the center of the room, there was a low billiard-sized table that barely reached the height of Yan Jin’s calves.
On that table was something that Xiao Yu had never seen before, never heard of before and never thought that it would appear in his imagination before –
The first thing that came into his sight were the white clouds drawn on the sky background board with watercolor, planted at the far end of the table.
Then, under that ‘sky’, there was a town!
As if he had entered a fairy tale kingdom, the walkway was paved with limestone tiles and at the sides were rows of European apartment buildings. The buildings were structured to look broad on the top and narrow at the bottom, just like how they would normally appear in cartoons. With the pointy roofs and compact attics, every household and building was exquisitely decorated. Every gla.s.s window could be opened. Looking out from those windows, he could see the messy trash bins at the corners of the street where the dim street lights flickered. The low bushes were set off by contrast with the brick red walls that had tomatoes pencil drawn on it.
They were just round circles, but Xiao Yu knew they were tomatoes, they had to be tomatoes.
The small town had cafes, a cinema, a barber’s shop and a bar. Wine gla.s.ses and small cheerful decorations embellished the bar counters. Every table came with three small chairs as they waited for their only customer. The display windows in the shopping street had cute bags and dresses. Every poster was appropriately pasted on the wall, along with some older brick walls that were about to fall off as it lined with the edge of the torn posters. It seemed as if it really was a small town from a decade ago.
Opening the windows of the highest storied buildings, he could see the town’s most beautiful flower bed, along with the water fountain splas.h.i.+ng water towards the sun like a blooming flower. At the center of the flower bed was a gothic church with white doves on top of the clock tower, singing the songs of harmony.
Xiao Yu had gone overseas to study at country F before. He had also travelled to deserted places as well, but he had never seen a town as gorgeous as this one. It was as if it had all the essences of what the most beautiful town should have, and it was all compressed and built in this place that was like a marvelous wonderland.
Too bad this town did not exist in any corner of the world; instead, it was all on top of this low table with the dove of peace at the peak of the church that was as high as Yan Jin’s shoulder.
This town did not belong to any human being, but it was a tiny man-made town.
At the front end of the small town, there was a semi-arched door with fresh flowers and lamp posts at its sides. Written on top of it was –
A Little Town for Fishy
This was the ‘other cage’ that Yan Jin had mentioned earlier.
As Xiao Yu walked on the pavement laid with flagstones polished from every angle, he truly felt like a parvenu hamster.
Translator’s Note:
暴发户Parvenu, is a status of a person who had suddenly became rich. xD