Pet King

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

Just as how some people were strong in nature and others were weak in nature, elfins were the same. Many elfins had honed their indomitable will through their past experiences, but some of them did not possess such a character. The world was so big, so of course, there should be innumerable different personalities.

Although it could be said like that…

Outside, there was the continuous patter of the spring rain, while inside the house, there was the continuous patter of teardrops. Zhang Zian and the others were filled with anxiety. They were scared that Sihwa would hear something she did not like and start crying again. If the pets downstairs started their strange behavior again, Zian really did not know how he could explain it again. It might even attract the Approaching Science column…

Why did the pet shop store manager die a tragic death in the streets? Why did dozens of pets run around randomly in the daytime? Why did the fish in the aquarium repeatedly jump out? Why did the nocturnal bats come out in the day? Was it the outbreak of madness or helplessness due to hunger and thirst? Was it the distortion of human nature or the loss of morality? Welcome to “Approaching Science––The Strange Sounds in the Pet Shop.”

Although it was very sensational, it definitely could not happen!

The best way to solve it would be to have Sihwa stop crying––to turn grief and anger into strength––but she was born with a weak and delicate personality, so it was not easy for her to do that.

Old Time Tea and Fina had sympathy for Sihwa. They could understand her loneliness, because they too, were very lonely in a sense––the kind of loneliness due to the cold at high altitudes.

An understanding was just an understanding; they did not know what the best way to comfort her was. Although they were lonely, they were stronger and prouder.

Zhang Zian sighed softly, reaching out his hand to rub her head. “Don’t cry. Let me tell you a story.”

“How hateful! Don’t mess up my hair!” Sihwa shook her head in embarrassment. The residual tears in her eyes were thrown into the water with her movement.

Actually, her hair was already very messy; it was curled like dark green algae. She never combed it. As soon as she opened her eyes every day, she would instantly start to play with her mobile phone. It was a world that looked at faces, after all, and because her face was unparalleled in the world, she still exuded natural beauty even with unkempt hair.

However, she was very curious about the story Zhang Zian wanted to tell. It even overwhelmed the sadness in her heart, and she asked, expectantly, “What story?”

“It’s a story about a whale… a lonely whale.” Zhang Zian gave a simple introduction, which caused people to instinctively think back to what Sihwa had mentioned about the lonely song.

Fina and Old Time Tea were also quite curious. After all, it was the nature of a cat to be curious.

“Zhi zhi?” He did not know when, but Pi had also appeared at the doorway of the bathroom, gesturing with its hands. It meant to say, “Can I listen too?”

“Of course you can.” Zhang Zian called for it to come in.

Watched by four pairs of expectant eyes, he recalled the stories he had read before. He organized his language a bit and retold the story in his own words.

Ancient stories often started with, “A long, long time ago,” allowing the audience to quickly get away from reality. It was just like how the opening scenes for online fictional books often involved crossing into another world so that readers would know that they could not judge the story with the restrictions of real life.

Unfortunately, it was not a story that happened a very long time ago, nor was it a story with someone crossing into another world. Instead, it was a real life story that had actually happened before.

The story started in the late part of the Cold War. At that time, to fight the enemies that used false impressions, America built an underwater acoustic interception system called SOSUS.

Many things were manufactured for military purposes, but later on, they had unexpected effects in other areas––and so did SOSUS.

In the sea, the sounds were too numerous and messy. As soldiers, the American Navy could only identify a small portion of these sounds; even they did not know what was making a large portion of the sounds, but for national defense reasons, they really wanted to find out.

So they wisely decided to cooperate with scientists, sharing some of the military’s recordings with them, and letting the scientists analyze the sounds that the military wanted to know about. The result could greatly benefit both sides.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s researcher, Dr. William Watkins, was the first to hear an unusual sound in the recordings. The sound was very similar to the song of a whale, but while it appeared to be the most similar to a blue whale’s song, it was not, as a blue whale’s frequency range was between 15 to 20 Hertz. The sound he heard, however, had a frequency up to 52 Hertz.

After the Cold War was over, even more top secret recordings were made public.

More than once, the sound of the whale would appear and disappear in quick succession. The scientists did more research and even mapped its former swimming routes according to the recording sites, but the ocean was too big and deep for anyone to see the whale with their own eyes.

In the Twenty-First Century, the unfinished research was published, and it aroused the curiosity of the whole world. People called the mysterious whale “52 Hertz––The World’s Loneliest Whale.”

Even more people joined the research and search for this whale, and practically every year, people would be able to record its voice. Until now, however, no one had managed to see it.

It swam around the vast, mist covered water of the Pacific Ocean, mainly appearing in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Western Coast of the United States. It would also often appear in further regions, as well.

20 years had passed, and the whale was still using its unique frequency range to sing lonely songs in the sea.

Due to its frequency range being very different from other whales, it was unable to interact with its fellow species, and was hence excluded from the whale society. Thus, it had been continually lonely for more than 20 years.

It had always swam back and forth in the deeper parts of the ocean, singing a song that none of the same species could respond to.

It had been always swimming slowly alone to find the traces of a fellow whale species, on a journey that had no end.

In recent years, its voice had become even lower, dropping from 52 Hertz to around 45 to 50 Hertz. People guessed that it had matured––that it had grown from an ignorant juvenile to a strong and young youth. It was only a guess, as no one knew what the truth of the matter was.

No one knew if it was male or female; no one knew if it was young or old; no one knew what species of whale it was; and no one even knew if it was alive or dead… After 2004, no one had managed to record its sound again.

No one hoped that it had died, because if it had died a lonely death, then the story had a tragic ending.

It was probably that they had no luck, and just did not manage to record its voice.

The area with the densest number of hydrophones was the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Western Coast of the United States. It could have swam somewhere else with not as many hydrophones and not as many enthusiastic scientists who were interested in studying the ocean.

That was what people believed.

In order to find its trace, in order to not let it be forgotten, the people who loved it and sympathized with it had even raised funds to shoot documentaries and movies to compose songs for it.

Zhang Zian had read the story a long time ago. Like the other people, he did not want it to die so lonely, but logic told him that it was probably already dead.

Perhaps he was wrong.

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