Super Zoo

The rarity of the Amazon water lily is cherished not only for its scarcity but more importantly for its short blooming period, which lasts only a few hours.

At this moment, the pristine white petals were already showing signs of withering. Like the night-blooming cereus, this flower, though breathtakingly beautiful, would wilt just two to three hours after blooming.

Just like Ren Chen's personality, when pursuing a girl, he was as enthusiastic as a blazing fire, incredibly captivating, but the moment he got her, he would quickly lose interest and move on to the next target.

Seeing that the bouquet of lilies was about to fade, Ren Chen shrugged his shoulders, ready to throw the valuable flowers out of the car window and leave the neighborhood.

In the process of hunting his prey, Ren Chen always had patience. Failing once or twice meant nothing to him. On the contrary, women who got wet at the sight of him he found unchallenging and uninteresting.

A fierce woman fears a persistent man, and Ren Chen was well aware that with his wealth and looks, as long as he was persistent, there was probably no woman in Yangchuan City he couldn't win over.

Just as he picked up the Amazon water lily and was about to throw it out the window, a buzzing sound came from within the petals, and a dark-bodied wasp darted out, stinging him squarely on his handsome face.

"Fuck!"

Despite his refined and youthful appearance, Ren Chen had never been bullied; he was the one who bullied others and was far from a coward. Although his face was in severe pain, he instinctively slapped at it fiercely.

"Snap!" With a crisp sound, the wasp had already flown off to who knows where, and his slap landed squarely on his own face, causing him to grimace in pain again.

Immediately after, his cheek burned painfully. Ren Chen quickly turned on the interior light and looked in the car's vanity mirror.

In the mirror, his once charming little face swelled up in an instant, looking like a pig's head, with the left side so swollen that it covered his left eye. Tears unwillingly streamed down, and his cheek was red, swollen, and turning purple. From the little hole where the wasp had bitten, pus and blood were still oozing out.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

In just a few short seconds, his entire face began to numb, especially the half that had been bitten, which was nearly completely numb.

"Damn it... I hope this doesn't ruin my looks..."

Ren Chen felt extremely frustrated, thinking about his bad luck. The fragrance of the Amazon water lilies failed to lure a woman but attracted a wasp instead.

...

"You're absolutely right!" Suming said earnestly while driving, addressing Nangong Yan, "Driving in the dead of winter, there's absolutely no need to open the windows. Isn't that just showing off?"

"Huh?" Nangong Yan, a bit puzzled, looked at Suming, thinking I just said it's a bit cold with the windows down, I never said you were showing off.

"I'm reflecting on myself. The sage says, 'Reflect on yourself three times a day.' I always hold myself to the sage's standard and reflect on myself constantly," he said, while he rolled up the rear window. Er Gouzi lay quietly in the back of the car.

Nangong Yan looked at Suming for a while, then, with a flicker in her big eyes, she leaned in with a smile and asked, "Oh, I get it, you're jealous!"

"Eating vinegar regularly is good for stimulating intestinal movement, aiding digestion, and preventing various respiratory infections!" Suming said matter-of-factly, "But that handsome guy, I guess he won't be bothering you for several days."

"How do you know?" Nangong Yan asked curiously.

"God told me!" Suming said seriously. Even though Er Gouzi had released less than a quarter of its venom, that handsome guy would need at least a week to reduce the swelling.

Nangong Yan was used to Suming's often nonsensical chatter and didn't ask further, just smiling and saying, "Did God tell you anything else?"

"God also said that when I get rich, I have to buy a nice car!" Suming said between clenched teeth.

Afterwards, Suming and Nangong Yan drove straight to the night market, eating everything from skewers to crawfish to milky tea, until almost midnight. Nangong began to feel nauseous, and only then did he take her home, perfectly exemplifying what's meant by 'a platonic relationship between a man and a woman.'

On the drive back to the zoo, Suming wondered if there was something wrong with his psyche. Or was it that he had grown accustomed to being alone, developing a more reclusive nature? This was why, although he and Nangong were getting closer, he had never broken through the final barrier.

At almost the same time, Nangong was lying on her bedroom bed, pondering the same question.

She and Suming had a very clear understanding of the nature of their relationship by now.

Half-jokingly, they had even shared a Fa-style kiss during that visit to the medical school.

She understood Suming. Behind his sunny smile hid a heart that was hard to reach. Sometimes Nangong could feel that perhaps due to the lack of a father since childhood, there was a cold spot hidden deep in Suming's heart, inadvertently revealing a charisma that was both alluring and dangerous.

So, Suming's feigning ignorance was understandable to Nangong, and it was within her expectations; that's just how he was.

Understanding was one thing, but frustration was another. There was nothing that couldn't be discussed between besties. Lying in bed, Nangong held her phone and vented a stream of complaints to a girlfriend on WeChat.

A voice message came from the other end. Her girlfriend's pace was like a singing bird, swift and fast, with English mixed into the Shanghainese: "Yer outta yer mind, men are just despicable creatures, ya can't give 'em no good face, understand?"

"With your smooth talking, why aren't you being an influencer on social media?" Nangong replied, appending an eye-rolling emoji at the end of her message.

...

On Xinhai Web, the Weibo account 'Taoyuan Yiqu' that Suming had registered now had 3,482 followers. The total number wasn't much, and only a day had passed since Nangong Yan's interview was broadcasted on TV, so expecting to become a big V with hundreds of thousands of followers from just one TV program was clearly unrealistic.

However, the number of followers was continuously growing; each refresh saw an increase in followers.

This feeling was a bit like when a web novel gets a good recommendation spot, and the author refreshes their backstage favorites, which grow rapidly during the recommendation period. However, once the novel is up for sale, the followers drop drastically because many readers go off to read pirated versions…

Gaining more than three thousand followers… oh no, three thousand favorites, in one day was indeed a fierce effect of the recommendation, followed by a bunch of messages.

Most of them were about the Broad-eared Fox, along with some about axolotls, Yangtze alligators, Qinling Golden Monkeys, and there were even inquiries about when the fish riding project would reopen.

"The fish riding project will reopen on May 1st, welcome to ride!"

"The axolotl has been quite lonely lately; if anyone knows where to find a big, plump female axolotl, please leave a message…"

"This Qinling Golden Monkey is male, so there's no question of it being a white tiger or a golden tiger…"

"The grey wolf in the back hills is definitely not Grey Wolf, I guarantee to Chairman Mao, if you plan to smash it with a frying pan, please call 120 first"

...

Suming took some time to reply to many of the fans' messages and uploaded a video of monkeys riding dogs and running wild in the mountains. He deliberately added a watermark 'All rights reserved, Taoyuan Yiqu' in the video.

Within a few minutes of posting the video, a refresh brought twenty new messages and six repost notifications.

As new videos kept being updated and widely spread through various channels, more people would come to know about the 'Taoyuan Yiqu' Weibo account. The number of future followers would definitely keep increasing. Although there were only a few thousand now, tens of thousands of followers in the foreseeable future did not seem far off.

But speaking of which, the influence of celebrities was still enormous; even a celebrity who had not acted in anything, after a few appearances on reality shows, could gain millions or even tens of millions of followers.

Currently on Weibo, what everyone cared about most was what gifts they could get. Suming had already mentioned on TV last time that early followers could enter a draw for gifts prepared by the zoo's star animals.

About the lotto giveaway, Suming had come up with it on the spur of the moment and had blurted it out without really thinking about what gifts to give.

But since he had said it, he had to make it happen. Just like impulsively promising readers ten new chapters of a web novel tomorrow and having to churn them out overnight, regardless of bloodshed and lack of drafts, being a person of one's word was vital. One's reputation was built or destroyed by such actions.

What exactly should he give? Suming thought for a moment.

The real issue wasn't about what gifts to give.

People who could spend money to visit the zoo were at least not lacking basic necessities and were not after the small advantage of the gifts.

The main thing was about creating a lively atmosphere. Giving a gift through a draw was about bridging the gap between the public account—or the zoo—and the followers, thus enhancing their connection.

So, the method of giving gifts and the draw itself was very important; the gifts themselves were secondary. Of course, if the gifts were astonishingly amazing, the effect would be much better.

"Gift preparation in progress… please look forward to it…"

...

In the afternoon, Mrs. Tong suddenly approached Suming.

Song had been attending meetings in the city these days and didn't come to work at the zoo, so any important matters would be communicated over the phone with Suming and a few other leaders in charge. The routine work management of the zoo was now the responsibility of the office director, Mrs. Tong.

Mrs. Tong brought a data analysis chart that detailed the zoo's visitor numbers.

From the chart, it was evident that the zoo's visitor numbers remained fairly constant until June. After June, which was after Suming's arrival, the curve began to rise, maintaining a high-speed upward trend, with a steep upward slanting curve continuing until this year.

So far, the visitor numbers were approximately 210% of the same period last year, meaning there were more than double the visitors.

The zoo's main income was from ticket sales, so the number of visitors decided the zoo's financial health.

These days, the Fox Home project had been initiated in the back hills. Whether for their devout interest or merely seeking novelty, it had become exceptionally popular, with a significant surge in visitors.

However, many of them were not coming through the zoo to the back hills, but rather sneaking in by taking back routes and climbing up from the wastelands around the back hills. In other words, many people were not buying tickets.

Mrs. Tong suggested building a fence around the accessible paths leading to the back hills.