Pet King

Zhang Zian dried his hair and shared a few words with the customer, then he had Li Kun and Jiang Feifei return to the aquarium to take care of the business there. Once they went back, he made his way up to the second floor.

The customer’s whale watching proposal was pretty good, but it was another matter entirely when there was a moody whale in the shallow sea… God only knew when it would suddenly appear on the side of the ship. There was also going to be trouble when it overturned the boat and brought danger to the customers.

Zian knocked on the door to the bathroom. After waiting for a brief moment, he entered.

Sihwa looked at him from head to toe then asked, “The water on your body––was it really sprayed onto you by the whales?”

“Yeah, I met the giant whale again and my boat was almost overturned by it.” Zhang Zian emptied his pockets and threw the wet clothes into the laundry basket. He had planned to accumulate more clothes before washing them.

“What happened? Did you not play my song?” Sihwa frowned, suspicious. She didn’t dare to assert other things, but she was very confident in her own voice. So far, she had yet to encounter any problems in communicating with whales through her songs.

“Of course I did, but it didn’t seem to work. It had a counter effect,” Zhang Zian replied truthfully. “The strange thing was that your singing affected the minke whales, but it wasn’t effective against the giant whale. Do you know the reason for this?”

Sihwa innocently blinked her eyes. Except for white whales, she couldn’t really differentiate between other types of other whales. Even if Zian mentioned that it was a minke whale, she wouldn’t know what kind of whale that was.

Zhang Zian told her about his trip out to sea, picking out only the important things to tell her. “Currently, your songs have only been played on two kinds of whales, and it’s effective to one, but ineffective on the other. I had wanted to find more whales and test it on them to gather some data samples, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find any. The problem now is that there are only two possibilities for this: There’s either a flaw in your song, or a problem with the whale. Which do you think it is?”

“Impossible! There’s absolutely no problem with my song! You must have played the song with the wrong posture!” She shirked her responsibility, for fear that Zian would blame her.

Zhang Zian placed his hand on his forehead. “Then what if you temporarily exclude posture problems?”

“Then… then it must be that whale! Yes! It’s probably deaf!” Sihwa rolled her eyes. She said with a sudden realization, “Since there are deaf people, there must be deaf whales, too!”

She even felt proud of herself after she was done speaking. She had an “I am so smart” look on her face.

Zhang Zian said, “…Although deaf whales do exist, this whale didn’t seem like one. It seemed to have been attracted by your song.”

Sihwa had a momentary pause. “Impossible! There’s no way it’d attack you after it listened to my song!”

“I mean, it does hear your voice, but for some unknown reason, it doesn’t understand your song. What do you think about such a possibility?” Zhang Zian explained patiently. “Remember when I asked you about it? I asked if all cetaceans can understand your songs. If they don’t, would there be any misunderstandings?”

If it was like before, then Sihwa would give a positive answer to his question without much thought. Now she wasn’t so sure. If there were no problems with the giant whale, it would mean that the problem was in the song itself, and she really didn’t want to admit that.

She tried to recall and said, “I guess… Most whales should be able to understand my song. At least… the whales in the vicinity of Germany could all understand my song, and I could learn their songs after I listened to them. I can’t do anything if I can’t hear it, though. After I arrived in Binhai City, I could understand the whale songs in the nearby sea… Maybe that giant whale’s from a remote country!”

The low-frequency sound waves of whales could be transmitted far, but they were not infinite. They could spread thousands of kilometers depending on the sea conditions, and Sihwa, who was born near Northern Europe, could only hear the whale songs in that range.

“Then can you hear the sounds of the giant whale now?” Zhang Zian asked again.

“I can’t. There are too many whales nearby, and it’s like a thousand ducks are quacking at the same time. I can’t even tell who is who. During the usual times, I can only try my hardest not to listen to them and treat those voices like the sound of the wind and rain in the background. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even be able to hear all of you.” Sihwa shook her head.

So it was like that… Zhang Zian gave it some thought, and indeed, it was really tough to have a wide range of hearing. One would even hear some sounds that they didn’t want to hear, and if it was an ordinary person, they might have already gone crazy. It was fortunate that Sihwa had a one-track mind.

Although the number of whales had been greatly reduced, within a few thousand kilometers, there were still more than a thousand of whales. The giant whale was only one of the many whales. Just like thousands of people speaking at the same time, to single out an individual was just like finding a needle in a haystack.

“Understood. Then let me change a question—if you hear the song of the giant whale, can you understand and try to communicate with it?” Zhang Zian threw out another question that he had prepared in advance.

“Erm…” Sihwa grabbed her hair in frustration, then said with uncertainty, “I’ve never consciously tried to learn them. It all happened unconsciously… But I probably can.”

“Okay then, let me find a way to get the voice of the whale.” Zhang Zian nodded, expressing that he was done with his questions.

“Hold on!” Just as Zian was about to leave the bathroom, he was stopped by Sihwa. “How do you plan on getting the giant whale’s song?” Sihwa noticed the waterproof bag on his mobile phone. “Are you planning to put the phone into the water to record?”

“Of course not. The waterproof bag can only prevent damage against splashes of water; it wouldn’t necessarily be waterproof if it was placed underwater. Besides, even if the waterproof bag was able to work underwater, it would still hinder the sound transmission, cause distortion, and the recording would all be for naught,” Zhang Zian said as he shook his head.

“Then…”

“If you want to record sounds underwater, you can only use professional equipment––a high-precision recording device called ‘Underwater Pickup,'” Zian explained further.

“Oh, haha. So it’s the underwater pickup…” Sihwa pretended to know about it. “Can it be bought online? Like how you bought your boat?”

“You can’t purchase it online––not even from the almighty Taobao.” Zhang Zian shrugged his shoulders regretfully.

“So what now?” she asked.

“I know a person. He’s an associate professor in the Biology Department at Binhai University. He often goes out to the field to investigate things, so I think he should have one. I plan to give him a call him later and ask if he can lend it to me.” Zhang Zian had considerable confidence in the biology department. He believed that it should have such professional equipment. He was just uncertain if he could borrow it.

“Me… let me make the call! I’ve never made a phone call before!” Sihwa excitedly pleaded.

It didn’t really matter who made the call, since it was all the same. Anyway, since Zian was asking for her help, he decided to satisfy the little wish of hers.

Zhang Zian quickly agreed to her request and unlocked his phone screen. At the same time, however, he revealed the interface of the broadcast app that he had yet to exit from.