Shady Shop

"Thank you for your trouble." Fan Shangde nodded.

"You're welcome. This is what I should do." The young man scratched his head, smiling quietly.

The girl ran to the side of the living room and took out a metal case. She waved at the Vermilion Bird. "Xiao Huo, come here. These are all for you."

She opened the case and over a dozen varieties of pet food were revealed, including flowers, fruits, grasses, and even sealed cans with worms in them. All of it was food favored by birds.

Fan Shangde threw a look and said to the Vermilion Bird behind him. "Come on and take a look. Someone brought you some nice food."

Being an intermediate-rank pet, the Vermillion Bird was quite intelligent. It had been showing a lack of interest and only stepped over reluctantly after Fan Shangde had said so. The Vermilion Bird stuck out its head and took a look at the goods, then it turned around right away. Its eyes were filled with laziness. The bird nestled on the ground, not intrigued at all.

"Well…"

The girl was surprised. She didn't foresee that the Vermilion Bird would ignore her like this. How come it wasn't interested when there were so many delicacies?

The young man standing next to her was stunned as well. He felt the situation was awkward.

Fan Shangde, on the other hand, was not taken aback. He tried coaxing the Vermilion Bird into eating several of the treats the young man had brought but none of them worked.

"Grandpa, your bird is not coming down with something strange, is it?" The girl couldn't help but consider the possibility as she saw the Vermillion Bird lying on the ground, low-spirited.

Fan Shangde raised his eyebrows. He would have had the same idea on any other day. However, he was convinced that it was because of the food, after he witnessed with his own eyes how happy the Vermilion Bird was when it enjoyed the food in the pet store.

"It has been losing appetite recently and will not eat any of the usual food. I suppose it will be better after some time." Fang Shangde answered calmly and sat down on the side to rest.

The young man's eyes flickered. Building on what Fan Shangde said, the young man proposed, "If so, grandpa, why don't you bring it uptown with us. We have the best hospitals for Astral Pets there and it can be cured. Problems should be solved timely to avoid things to go wrong in the future. It will be quite convenient."

Fan Shangde snorted. "I already said my piece, I'm not going anywhere."

The young man expression's changed. He said nothing else.

"Grandpa, you don't want to go but you have to consider it for Xiao Huo's sake. It won't last long if it continues to go on a hunger strike like this. You cannot simply wait for it to starve to death and do nothing about it!" The girl tried to persuade him from another perspective, using a different way to solve the problem.

Hearing this, Fan Shangde raised his eyebrows. Somehow, he felt smug. "It won't starve. I already took it to get quality food today. It's just unwilling to eat this average pet food you brought here. That doesn't mean that it won't eat anything else," said Fan Shangde.

The young man was speechless. The food he brought was considered average? Every item was considered precious pet food!

"You bought food for it?" The girl sounded surprised. "Will it eat other pet food?" There was an odd look on her face.

"Of course." Fan Shangde laughed.

"I'm not convinced." Fan Xiaoyu was still in disbelief. She believed that her grandpa was just making up excuses. After all, in all those years, her grandpa had come up with many strange excuses just to avoid living with them in the uptown area.

Fan Yujing, the young man, was just as baffled after that exchange.

Fan Shangde puckered his eyebrows. He reached into his pocket and grabbed the little bottle. He pulled out the cap and poured out one fruit.

"Come here," Fan Shangde called the Vermilion Bird.

The Vermilion Bird had turned over the moment Fan Shangde opened the bottle.

The fruit was thrown to the Vermilion Bird.

The Vermilion Bird caught it with its mouth and swallowed it at once.

This scene shocked the siblings.

Soon, Fan Xiaoyu came back to her senses. She would not believe what had happened. "It must be because the food we brought was placed on the ground and Xiao Hou doesn't find any of it interesting. I've used the wrong way to feed it."

With that said, she took out some fruits from the case and said, "Xiao Huo, here."

The Vermilion Bird turned over.

A big pile of fruit was forced onto its beak.

Fan Xiaoyu: "…"

Fan Xiaoyu was in a cold sweat as she saw the Vermilion Bird about to fly into a fit of rage. Her hair was standing on end; she didn't dare to try again.

"Now you believe me," Fan Shangde said, laughing with satisfaction.

Fan Xiaoyu looked at him speechlessly. She knew that her plan of using Xiao Huo as a leverage to persuade him had fallen through.

"Grandpa, what kind of food is this? I've never seen it before. Where did you get it?" Fan Yujing checked the fruit carefully. He was confused. He had the confidence to say that he had been out for many battles so he was well-informed. Yet, he had never seen this bird food before.

Fan Shangde answered casually, "I bought it in a pet store nearby. It's called something like Scarlet Stone Fruit."

"Scarlet Stone Fruit?" Fan Xiaoyu pondered about the name. The name didn't ring any bells, even though she was a well-versed straight A student. "I have never heard about this fruit before. Is it real food? I'm afraid that it may produce side effects," she said, wondering.

Fan Yujing nodded. "She's right. Some unethical pet stores will pass some weed off as pet food. There are strict regulations in the uptown area regarding this, unlike here. Grandpa, don't put Xiao Huo in harm's way just because you bought something unknown."

"What?"

Fan Shangde felt nervous once they put it this way.

The Vermilion Bird was his baby; it was of great significance to him. He could not imagine what would happen if something were to happen to it.

"I don't think that is the case. I bought it in a formal store. They have a business license." Fan Shangde tried to keep a calm appearance while inside he was fearful and trembling.

Fan Xiaoyu thought about it. "I heard that some gangster shops will mix some special chemicals in the pet food so that the food they sell tastes better and the pet would crave for more. Pets would lose their minds once they can't get such food, but they may suddenly die if they eat such food for a long time, or suffer from other ailments."

Fan Shangde was dumbstruck. He had seen such reports on the news. He became anxious.

"Right. The pet food I brought is the favorite for birds of the fire family but Xiao Huo won't even look at it. It's only interested in the fruit you have, grandpa. This is too strange." That simple smile vanished from Fan Yujing's face as his sister explained. Taking that simplicity's place was something malicious and severe.

"Well, grandpa, how much did it cost you?" Fan Xiaoyu asked all of a sudden.

Fan Shangde was surprised by this question. Out of instinct, he answered, "1500 coins…"

"One bottle costs 1500 coins?" Fan Xiaoyu was shocked. A layer of ice came onto her pretty face. "This is not uptown. There cannot be pet food this expensive. That has to be a gangster shop!"

"Grandpa, where is the store, and what is its name?" Fan Yujing asked directly.

"The Pixie Pet Store…"