Chapter 583: The Night at the Pet Shop
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The fluorescent light of the computer was shining upon Pi’s face, and its clip-on glasses were glowing from the metal, made of an unknown material.
It lightly pressed on the keys one after another on the keyboard, out of fear of disturbing the other’s rest. Since its typing speed couldn’t keep up with the speed of its thinking, the progress of its writing had inevitably been slowed down. But it had no other choice.
In the dead of night, even the fan sound from the laptop was particularly harsh. From time to time, Pi tilted its head to look around the bedroom and see if it had disturbed Zhang Zian or the other elves.
After Zhang Zian and Snowy Lionet finished their argument, silence returned to the room. Because of its night blindness, Richard, who had always been nosey, couldn’t participate in their conversation.
Old Time Tea always slept soundly, like it could stay asleep even if Mount Tai were to collapse over its head.
Galaxy looked at Pi once and closed its eyes again, lying in the crib safely and covered by the soft moonlight.
Pi and Fina looked each other in the eyes but quickly looked away.
Fina, who had slept enough during the day, didn’t feel drowsy at all in the evening, and its majestic green eyes were glancing around the room.
Famous was still awake. Turning and tossing restlessly on its blanket, it was still looking forward to the grand premiere of the movie. A small night light at its spot provided a little dim light for it.
After arriving at the pet shop, Pi had gradually become accustomed to such evenings. Almost every night before going to sleep, a certain elfin, usually Snowy Lionet or Richard, would make a scene, as if it were some kind of ritual before sleeping.
Pi tried to ignore Fina’s awe-inspiring gaze and focused on the screen in front of it, thinking about the following storyline of its novel.
After a while, the lower right corner of the screen indicated that it was 11 pm.
Pi suddenly felt relieved. Firstly, it had almost finished writing that day’s chapters. And secondly, Fina’s gaze was finally gone.
Snowy Lionet started to smack its lips. Old Time Tea snored from time to time. Famous kicked like it was having a nightmare, but it didn’t wake up.
From this time on, the night had truly overtaken the pet shop.
As the only awake elfin on the second floor, Pi was extremely pleased.
It yawned, took off its clip-on glasses and rubbed its aching and sore eyes before putting the glasses back on its nose. The words on the screen looked the same because the glasses did not actually have any degrees. It wore the glasses just to clearly read the words in the untitled book.
In fact, Pi didn’t want to stay up late, but for some reason, in the dead of night, its thinking was always exceptionally smoother, and the plots that baffled it during the day made sense to it during the night. As a famous saying goes, inspiration was just like a ghost; they both liked haunting in the night.
When Pi yawned for the second time, it finished writing that day’s chapters and uploaded them.
When uploading the new chapters, it was inevitable for Pi to see the number of people who had added the novel to their libraries. 58 people had. The excitement of being immersed in its past stories was suddenly wiped away, after seeing such a number.
Some authors liked to write something and communicate with the readers at the end of the chapters, but Pi had never done so because it didn’t know if anyone was actually reading its novel. Although 58 readers had added the novel to their libraries, Pi felt that these people hadn’t really read it. The empty comment section was the most obvious proof.
It moved the mouse to the “Publish” button but didn’t press it yet. As if it had suddenly thought of something, Pi wrote in the “Message from Author” section at the end of a chapter: I don’t know if anyone is reading this novel. Can anyone who has read this message please say something in the comment section?
After writing the message, it pressed the “Publish” button quickly, as if it would regret its decision if it hesitated.
Would anyone say anything tomorrow?
It didn’t hold any hope for this. It felt like its heart had become a cold stone and was constantly falling into an endless void.
Pi closed the Word document, turned off the computer, removed its glasses, and placed it on the untitled book. Then, it jumped onto the hammock chair.
Although it had tried to move as quiet as possible, the chair still squeaked lightly, and slightly swayed back and forth. That was how the chair was designed.
Pi held its breath nervously, cocked its ears, and listened to the sounds of the room.
Old Time Tea’s snoring paused a little bit and resumed, while the sleep of other elves seemed not to have been affected.
Pi felt relieved. Finally, it could go to sleep, and it wished it could at least have sweet dreams.
However, reality was not what it expected.
As soon as it closed its eyes, the Word document and the stories that it had written earlier appeared before its eyes. The events that took place before it arrived at the pet shop projected in its mind, one by one.
How interesting!
Eyes still closed, it smiled. How nice if I could come here a little earlier.
After a while, about at 11:30 or so, Pi, who had not yet fallen asleep, suddenly heard some slight rubbing sounds from the bedroom.
Was Snowy Lionet teasing Zhang Zian again? No matter what, it was too late at this point. If they were too loud and woke Fina up, Fina would surely be furious.
Pi opened its eyes to look around the room. To its surprise, what it saw was not Snowy Lionet’s blue eyes, but was the light from Zhang Zian’s cell phone screen.
Was he not asleep so late in the night? Or was he just looking at the time?
He did look at the time and then turned his neck as if looking to in the direction of the desk. Pi quickly leaned its head back into the hammock chair.
After a moment, it quietly stuck its head back out and saw that Zhang Zian was still holding his cell phone. His cell phone screen had become the main light source in the room, so he probably didn’t notice that Pi was watching him in the darkness.
Zhang Zian had not fallen back asleep after lying down. On one hand, he was guarding himself against an attack from Snowy Lionet. On the other hand, he wanted to go to sleep only after Pi had fallen asleep. When he heard that the sound of the computer fan disappeared, he wanted to go to sleep, but his drowsiness had already vanished. After staying in bed for a while, he picked up his cell phone.
He opened up the Qidian app and found some novels with 100,000 to 200,000 words, ones with better performance on the website, and quickly began to browse the beginning parts of those books.
Honestly, he could barely immerse himself into the stories, ones where the storylines were too straightforward and had no logic. Maybe he’d passed the age of reading for these kinds of books, but he knew that if he wanted progress and success, he must focus on learning the merits from others rather than criticizing other people’s defects. Therefore, he tried his best to keep reading the books with patience and perseverance.
The room was quiet, except for the breathing of the elves all around. This made Zhang Zian feel at ease.
His drowsiness came back while he was reading these books. Several times, he unknowingly started to fall asleep, and his hand that was holding the phone lowered down. Then, he would wake up abruptly and continue reading.
The time passed slowly, and it was past one in the night.
He knew that he should go to sleep now, or he else he would be very sleepy during the day tomorrow. He repeatedly told himself that he would go to sleep after reading the next book. However, he kept reading one after the other.
He only browsed the first 100,000 words, which were the first 40 or 50 chapters of each novel, at a very rapid speed. He didn’t need to interpret the plots of the books, he was just looking for the best parts among the choices of words and sentences.
Compared to the text, he actually preferred reading the messages from the authors. Whether they were expressing gratitude or complaining, these messages documented the thoughts of the authors in the process of their writing. Although he had never met the authors whose novels didn’t do well on the website, he particularly empathized with them.
After reading another book, he was extremely sleepy. When he looked at the time on his mobile phone, it was already past two in the morning and he was only four hours away from getting up. He would be exhausted during the day. Should he go to sleep then?
But there was only one book left in his library. He hesitated for half a second and decided to sleep after reading this final book. It was probably his OCD causing himself trouble.
This was an urban novel named Diplomats of the Underworld. The tags of the novel were hilarious, rebirth, and ghosts. Honestly speaking, this novel had nothing in common with the book written by Pi. But it was published half a month earlier than Pi’s novel and had currently uploaded less than 200,000 words, but nearly 10,000 readers had added it into their libraries. It must have some perks making it so attractive.
Since there was only one book left, he motivated himself to stay focused and opened the novel.
The plot of the novel was roughly about the protagonist being reborn for some reason. Not only had he been reborn, but he had also gained an extra system in his head that enabled him to communicate with ghosts. The system assigned him to kill the evil spirits and wicked people, and he would be rewarded with equipment if he fulfilled his tasks.
The novel’s word choices and expressions were somewhat awkward and there were many typos, but at least it wasn’t boring. He read the novel chapter by chapter, and when it was nearly three in the morning, he’d already read 50 chapters and about 100,000 words. Normally, he would have switched and read the next novel by the time he’d reached these many words. However, this was the only novel left in his library, so he decided to read ten more chapters. Besides, he hadn’t found the highlights of the novel yet. If it had no great parts, how did it become successful?
If he still couldn’t find any highlights after reading ten more chapters, he would go to sleep. He decided that he could stay up no longer.
When he read Chapter 57, the finger that had been swiping the screen to turn pages abruptly froze.
At the end of Chapter 57, the author complained that he’d been writing the novel for a month, but the performance of his book wasn’t good. One part among the writing had deeply touched Zhang Zian.
I’ve been preparing this book for a long time. Having no sense of shame at all, I want to say that I have been hoping to rock the web novel community with this novel. I feel so upset that my novel has not gained any recognition or opportunities.
Zhang Zian could feel the author’s resentment from this. Meanwhile, he still was curious. When the author wrote Chapter 57 of this novel, its performance was doing poorly, but currently, it was doing quite well. What had happened during this period?
He continued reading the book.
The answer was revealed two chapters later.
At the end of Chapter 59, the author wrote this:
I’m not sure how to say it, but my mood has been on a rollercoaster the whole day. To be exact, this began early in the morning yesterday. After talking with Morning Gorilla Star in the comment section, he included my novel in his reading list. Since he has so many friends, there are many people who follow his reading list. More readers have begun to notice my books. Thanks to those who have included my novel in their reading lists.
What was going on?
Zhang Zian had a flicker of interest. This was the second time he saw the term reading list. The first time he saw it was on the Wang Haige Forum. At that time, someone responded to a post and said that it was useless to advertise in the comment section, but it was useful to advertise in reading lists.
The situation of the novel had gotten better after only two chapters?
He wasn’t in the mood to read plots he wasn’t interested in. He quickly scrolled to the later parts of the novel. In Chapter 84, he saw that 5,000 readers had put this novel into their libraries, while at Chapter 59, that number was less than 1,000.
Things had changed tremendously in only 25 chapters.
That was how it happened then. Reading lists could really turn something bad to good and make more people notice their novel. However, if the authors of novels wanted the creators of reading lists to notice their novels and include them in the reading lists, the authors must advertise their books in reading lists first.
What exactly was a reading list and why was it so powerful?
So the person named Morning Gorilla Star was probably a creator of a reading list?
Zhang Zian’s brain was weakened by extreme drowsiness. He stared at the dark ceiling and thought for a while, but he had no clue in the end. It would be better for him to think about the matter when he woke up in the morning.
Scared that he would forget about it when he woke up, he added a bookmark to Chapter 59. After that, he put his cell phone under his pillow, closed his eyes, and quickly fell asleep.
After the light of the mobile phone’s screen went out, the room was once again filled with darkness. The only light source was the dim night light near Famous.
Zhang Zian had been very careful while reading the books, thinking that he’d better not make any noises to disturb the sleep of the elves. Still, some elves had woken up once and a certain elfin had never slept.
For a few hours, Pi watched him in the dark. Unlike Galaxy, Fina, Old Time Tea or Snowy Lionet, its eyes did not glow in the dark because it did not have tapetum lucidum behind its retinas. But it also wasn’t as blind as Richard in the dark. No one had noticed its open eyes.
From the side of the hammock chair, Pi exposed half of its head and saw that the glows of several pairs of eyes appeared and disappeared. Zhang Zian’s brow furrowed and stretched in front of his cell phone screen, and the moonlight quietly changed its angle as time passed.
It’s time to sleep. Many times, Pi wanted to remind Zhang Zian to go to sleep. You have to get up so early in the morning, and then you need to carry out the heavy cleaning work, apply for loans from the bank, discuss the decoration of the shoe store with the construction team, and deal with all kinds of difficult customers. If you don’t sleep well, you’ll be very sleepy.
But Pi didn’t tell Zhang Zian this because it couldn’t speak. Since the computer was turned off, it couldn’t type either. But the most important reason that it did not remind Zhang Zian was because it needed to bite on its wrist to stop from crying out loud.
Why?
Why not just tell me to give up? Isn’t that simpler?
There are so many more important things than my novel that you need to attend to. For example, Galaxy is still afraid of human beings, Fina is keeping its thoughts to itself, Old Time Tea is getting old, Snowy Lionet always likes to pull pranks on you, Richard doesn’t want to love anymore, and Famous is still stuck in another world.
Why did you spend time on my novel that is bound to fail?
Why…did you spend time on me?
Pi’s canine teeth had already left four deep teeth marks on its arm. It pulled back its head and pulled up the blanket to cover itself, crouching in the chair like a baby in the arms of its mother.
As the chair slightly squeaked, several pairs of eyes opened and glowed. Then, the glows went out as the cat elves closed their eyes.
The dead of night.
