Future Pet Shop

Chapter 189: Cheeky, Who Taught You That?

After eating his way through the entire trip, he still returned loaded down with bags. Shen Yibin felt a little like he’d just raided a village. The tour bus, having finished its day trip, returned to Yunzhong City to drop him off. The rest of the group would rest for the night before continuing to another scenic spot the next day. Stepping off the bus, Shen Yibin handed his many bags to Sakai Kaori and the others who were there to greet him.

"Fresh oranges! You should all try some. And here’s some river fish, caught just today. I’ll cook them for you all tonight after I rest up. Put the zongzi in the fridge, and we’ll have them for breakfast tomorrow." Shen Yibin figured that with all this, he probably wouldn’t need to go grocery shopping for the next few days. This haul alone would be plenty for them.

"Hmm? These oranges look really good. Hah’Er, peel one for me." Seeing the oranges, Cheeky flew over and landed on Hah’Er’s shoulder. For once, he didn’t open his mouth with a sarcastic comment.

"SQUAWK!" Egg stretched its head over, drooling at the sight of the few fish still flopping about. It completely forgot to pick a fight with Hah’Er. ’These look way tastier than the fish we usually get from the shop next door.’

"What’s this?" Sylvie asked curiously, picking up a small, delicate zongzi wrapped in bamboo leaves. She had never seen this kind of food before, but it looked quite pretty, and it smelled wonderful.

"These are zongzi," Sakai Kaori explained. "The Dragon Boat Festival is almost here. It’s a Chinese custom to eat zongzi during the festival to commemorate Qu Yuan." Shen Yibin was surprised; for a foreigner, Sakai Kaori knew an incredible amount about Chinese culture. Although some regions commemorated people like Wu Zixu for the festival, the vast majority still focused on Qu Yuan.

"And who is Qu Yuan? Why is he commemorated this way? What’s the special meaning of this food you call zongzi?" Sylvie had become a little ball of curiosity, firing off one question after another.

"Qu Yuan was a great poet in Chinese history. You could think of him as a figure like Dante in the West. After his kingdom’s capital fell to his enemies, Qu Yuan drowned himself in a river on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The local people, afraid the fish would eat his body, wrapped sticky rice in leaves—zongzi—and threw them into the water. They hoped to feed the fish so that Qu Yuan’s body would remain intact." Sakai Kaori spoke with eloquence, and Sylvie listened, completely captivated.

"Besides eating zongzi, there are also customs like hanging wormwood and calamus, tying on five-colored silk threads, drinking realgar wine, and racing dragon boats..." At that moment, Sakai Kaori became a veritable expert on Chinese folklore, explaining it all eloquently to Sylvie.

"There’s going to be a big dragon boat race on the Yunshui River soon. We should take a day off and I’ll take you all to see it," Shen Yibin offered. ’The employees should get a day off for the festival, after all,’ he thought.

"Oh, yes! I’ll take videos and post them on my social media," Sylvie exclaimed, clapping her hands. Then, she threw an arm around Sakai Kaori’s shoulder to ask another question. "So, what’s that realgar wine? Why do people drink it?"

"For that, I recommend you watch a very popular TV series!" Not long after, the lyrics "West Lake’s beauty in the third lunar month, spring rain like wine and willows like mist..." echoed through the pet shop’s main hall. For a moment, Shen Yibin was in a daze, feeling as if he’d been transported back to his middle school summer vacations. ’Sigh,’ he thought, ’I’m about to get bombarded by this classic drama all over again.’

"These oranges are pretty good. Hah’Er, bring me back some more next time, and then juice them for me." Having devoured two whole oranges, Cheeky lay down on a cushion, clutching its bulging belly. Looks like it wouldn’t need any dinner tonight.

Meanwhile, Egg was wrestling with a zongzi. Unfortunately, no matter how it clawed and bit, it couldn’t get through the outer leaves to the sticky rice inside. Luckily, Sakai Kaori quickly unwrapped one for it. After finishing the zongzi, Egg gave Sylvie a goofy grin, and it seemed their bond had grown even stronger.

"Oh, right. The folk song I heard on the dragon boat today was pretty good. Cheeky, Sun Qian, want to hear it?" After speaking, Shen Yibin took out his phone and hit play.

"Old driver, give me a ride, I’m just a young girl; Don’t care if you’re young, one more person just wastes my gas; Ali-li~ Ali-li~ Ali Ali-li..." A folk song, a duet between a man and a woman, immediately blared from the phone.

’Holy crap, why is *this* playing?’ Shen Yibin frantically shut it off, breaking out in a nervous sweat. "Sorry, sorry! Wrong song! That’s not the one, it’s a different one. I’ll find it for you right now." ’This makes no sense,’ he thought. ’When did this song even get on my phone?’

"That song sounded quite nice. Why did you turn it off?" Sylvie, who loved art forms rich in local culture, looked up from her tablet and asked in confusion.

Sakai Kaori also looked completely baffled, having no idea what was wrong with the song. Sun Qian, on the other hand, seemed to get it; she was covering her mouth to hide her snickers.

"That’s not the one I recorded. It’s nothing special. Let me just play the folk song from the dragon boat for you. It’s much better," Shen Yibin said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"It won’t take much time. Let’s just finish listening to this one first?" Sylvie was still curious about the song.

"If he won’t play it, I’ll sing it for you." Seeing Shen Yibin’s stubborn refusal, Cheeky stood up from its cushion, its round belly sticking out. It cleared its throat twice and, playing both male and female parts, continued the song.

"Old driver, give me a ride, and I’ll be your lover; Something like that’s impossible, your bro’s not that kind of guy; Ali-li~ Ali-li~ Ali Ali-li..." ’You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Shen Yibin thought. ’You know how to sing this, too? Who the hell taught you? I didn’t, and Sun Qian wouldn’t have... Damn it, did you learn it at the Future Pet Shop?’

"...OOF!" Cheeky had only gotten a few lines out when it was knocked flat by a flying cushion.

"Who hit me?! Who hit me?! Who dares to—" Getting cut off when it was just getting into the song clearly annoyed Cheeky, but when it saw who had thrown the cushion, it instantly deflated. "Er, never mind, never mind. I’ll stop singing, then."

"Don’t you ever sing songs like that again," Sun Qian said, her face bright red. Cheeky was her pet, after all. If people found out it sang such things, she would be completely mortified.

From just those last few lines, Sylvie also got the gist that the song wasn’t exactly high-brow. She didn’t bring up listening to the rest of it again. She was a princess, after all; it wouldn’t be at all proper for her to be associated with something like that.

And so, Cheeky shut its beak, and Shen Yibin lost any desire to play music for them. He got up and went upstairs to start making dinner. ’Still,’ he thought, ’Cheeky’s singing was actually pretty incredible... maybe even better than the original? Hmm, maybe someday I can get it to sing the song in secret, record it, and keep it hidden away to listen to by myself?’ Shen Yibin began to hatch his devious little plan.