Pet King

Chapter 556: Strength of Faith

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Tic!

Early in the morning, Zhang Zian heard a gentle noise in his sleep. He opened his eyes slightly, and saw the laptop being booted up on the desk. Pi was holding its legs and was curled up in the chair. It opened its mouth and yawned, as the reflection of the Windows start up image flashed on the lenses of its pince-nez.

Ever since Pi started online writing, it woke up early every morning before Zhang Zian, and always hurried to check on website data as soon as it got up.

Zhang Zian put on some clothes, sat up, then got off the bed quietly and stood behind Pi. Pi looked back at him and squeezed out a smile, with an anxious and expectant look. It entered the username and password to enter the author’s page. As soon as it saw the number of favorites, the expectation and anxiety turned into disappointment.

Pi had already written over 20,000 words, but only got 9 favorites, 0 recommendation and 20+ views. The worst was, there was still no sign of a contract. Zhang Zian patted its shoulder and asked it to calm down, relax, and not to overthink.

Pi nodded reluctantly. It opened a Word file and typed: “It’s OK. If nobody reads it after I finish it, I can at least read it to all of us.”

Zhang Zian nodded with a smile, but thought otherwise in his heart. How could it be Okay? He saw how Pi had been writing. It sat in front of the laptop from dawn to dusk. If he didn’t go upstairs to remind it, it would not stand up for a break. It stared at the screen all day and referred to the nameless book from time to time, searching for past histories from the book, making them into stories and writing them down, following a proportion of 70% real vs. 30% unreal.

He always believed that hard work deserved some payoff. If Pi only wrote to pass the time, it would be fine. But it didn’t. It was writing with great seriousness, trying to show people the stories of the pet shop.

Zhang Zian bent down and typed: “Pi, I did some research. Qidian has different numbers of books in each category. You are writing a modern category novel, which has the most number of books. Maybe the editors haven’t even gotten to it yet. Don’t give up. Carry on!”

Pi nodded again and typed gently: “I will carry on.”

It was not just saying it. It jumped off the chair, wobbled into the bathroom, took off the glasses, and washed its face with a handful of cold water to clear its head.

In the bathroom, Zhang Zian prepared separate towels for each elfin, with different colors and patterns. Everybody was only using their own except Richard. Galaxy’s towel was dark blue, Fina’s was gold, Old Time Tea’s was dark brown, Snowy Lionet’s was white, Richard’s was grey, Famous’ was yellow, and Pi’s towel had comic style numbers embroidered on them. They were easily distinguishable.

Pi wiped its face with its own towel, returned to the chair, sat straight, and typed in Word with strokes of growing skillfulness: Chapter 15 The Observer of Destiny.

Despite the sleepiness, Zhang Zian did not lie down again, since he was up already. He was thinking about Pi’s novel anyway, and could not have fallen asleep even if he had laid down. He saw Pi writing with its entire focus, then he decided not to bother it and walked out of the bedroom door. Galaxy also woke up, and snuck out behind him.

“Galaxy, are you going to play hide-and-seek?” He closed the bedroom door and asked gently.

“Meow… Is Zian joining me?” Galaxy paused.

“Maybe later. I need to clean up the bathroom first.” Zhang Zian smiled. “Go ahead, Galaxy.”

For a moment, he wanted to ask Galaxy about the future of Pi’s novel. But he didn’t do it. If he knew everything about the future, what fun was left in life? Just like what Forrest Gump said,” Life is like a box of chocolates. You never knew what you’re gonna get.”

But Galaxy seemed to have guessed his mind. “Meow… Zian, Pi doesn’t need the help of Galaxy. It needs the help of everybody!”

The help of everybody?

Zhang Zian thought that Galaxy was referring to Fina, Old Time Tea and Richard. He was stunned.

Galaxy seemed to have switched the subject and asked, “Meow… Zian, do you enjoy your life?”

“It’s fine. I think I enjoy it.” Zhang Zian admitted.

“Compared to the days before returning to Binhai City?”

“Much more fun than those days!”

Before returning to Binhai City, Zhang Zian was a common office worker with a routine 9 to 5 schedule. Life was flat and uneventful. But upon his return to Binhai City, he was mistakenly identified and worshiped as a martial arts master, participated in a cat show abroad and was part of a film. This was beyond his imagination in the old days.

“Meow… Pi is writing about your life, with an artistic touch.”

Zhang Zian finally got Galaxy’s point after the detoured conversation. His life was interesting, so a novel recording his life would not be too boring to the interest of readers. Not to mention that he had the group of elfins such as Galaxy, Fina, Old Time Tea, Snowy Lionet, Famous, and Pi in his life, although the readers had not met them yet.

“OK. Thank you, Galaxy.” Zhang Zian smiled.

As Galaxy was about to turn downstairs, it spoke again as if this just came to its mind. “Meow… Zian, Pi’s Strength of Faith is fading.”

His heart sank as he heard these words. He knew this ever since Pi first appeared as an elfin. But he thought it was caused by the separation between Pi and the nameless book. Since Pi had reclaimed the nameless book, the Strength of Faith should stabilize. Or could he be wrong?

Zhang Zian spoke about his concern.

“Meow… Pi is Pi, and the nameless book is the nameless book. Zian, Pi doesn’t have much time left. It needs to regain the Strength of Faith.” After speaking this, Galaxy quickly ran downstairs to play with Wendy and American short hair, who just got up.

Galaxy’s words sounded familiar, like “the Chinese team doesn’t have much time left.” Usually when this line was spoken, the Chinese team ended up in a disaster.

So here was the thing. The nameless book and Pi were two different sets of faith systems, which meant that the nameless book and Pi probably came from two separate thought experiments which happened to complement each other. But they didn’t share the same Strength of Faith.

He remembered that the Navigation Elfin once told him that if the Strength of Faith was too weak to support an elfin’s physical form, the elfin would disappear. Old Time Tea’s Strength of Faith was also fading, but very slowly. The Strength of Faith of Pi was already in danger since Galaxy specifically warned him about it. Pi was an Elite Elfin, the weakest kind of elfins in strength. If nothing was done about it, it would be very bad.

After thinking about this, Zhang Zian suddenly had a strange idea in his mind: if the fading of Strength of Faith could cause the elfin to disappear, what would happen if the Strength of Faith kept accumulating?