Does This Count as a Debut?

Within the new forty-mu park area, new enclosures stood in great numbers, and the Purple Bamboo swayed in the wind; construction was already complete. In the very center, there was a man-made lake with a small island in its heart, a place for waterfowl to rest.

Speaking of waterfowl, with the new park area completed, Duan Jiaze had also brought in a new batch of animals: swans and mandarin ducks.

There were ten pairs of swans, five pairs of white swans and five pairs of black swans. The black swans were acquired for about 3,000 yuan each, while the white swans were more than twice as expensive. The five pairs of mandarin ducks were much cheaper, at 800 yuan each.

Swans are too plain-looking when they're young, so Duan Jiaze didn't buy any cygnets. The waterfowl lake was open-air, and when the swans and mandarin ducks first arrived, Duan Jiaze was a bit unsure, afraid that they would fly away if he let them out.

A group of amateurs squatted by the lake, discussing what to do.

Xiao Su said, “Why don't we call the Forestry Bureau...”

Liu Bin: “Yeah, or call the City Zoo and ask them for advice.”

Xu Chenggong said, “Wait, wouldn't that expose that we got all our qualifications through backdoor connections...”

Duan Jiaze: “...”

Outsiders might not know, but these employees who had been working for a while knew. Their zoo had all the proper documents and every qualification, yet there wasn't a single expert among them. If that wasn't the result of pulling strings, what was it? Look at how familiar the Zoo Director was with Director Sun's family from the Forestry Bureau, even helping them raise a dog.

Duan Jiaze thought it over, rubbing his hands together. “I'll go get Luya... no, I'll go get Cuicui and let them communicate. They're all birds, so they should be easy to reason with.” It was best not to deploy the Daoist Lord for such a small matter.

Everyone: “...”

Had the Zoo Director gone mad? Although Cuicui held a high status in the aviary, second only to the Luya bird, could it really persuade these newly arrived waterfowl?

Duan Jiaze ran to the aviary, held Cuicui in his arms, and ran back to the new park area. “Alright, release the birds.”

Cuicui craned its neck and let out a few calls.

Xu Chenggong hesitantly released the mandarin ducks and swans. The mandarin ducks entered the water and began to swim, while the swans took a short running start and took flight. However, they didn't fly anywhere else. Instead, they crossed the lake and landed on the central island, looking as if they were setting up camp there.

The amateurs all started to applaud. “Wow, did Cuicui really persuade them?”

“It's probably because the water is rich and the grass is beautiful here...”

Now that you mention it, that's right. The environment at the foot of Cape Mountain was excellent, so it wasn't strange that the swans were willing to settle here. Compared to the City Zoo located in the urban area, this place was practically a paradise on earth.

Duan Jiaze, with Cuicui tucked under his arm, shielded his eyes with his hand and looked around, nodding in satisfaction. “Not bad. Once a few more types of animals move in here, we can open the new park area.”

Duan Jiaze also contacted several zoos, breeding centers, and farms, preparing to bring in animals like lynxes, red-crowned cranes, golden pheasants, hedgehogs, Tibetan foxes, and flying squirrels. The most expensive among them were the red-crowned cranes and lynxes, costing tens of thousands of yuan per animal. He would bring in one pair of each.

The others didn't cost much. What was worth mentioning was the Tibetan fox. Very few zoos in the country raised them, let alone bred them, as everyone preferred the more aesthetically pleasing arctic foxes. Duan Jiaze had to go to great lengths and contact the relevant departments in their distribution area to have the good fortune of acquiring one.

This Tibetan fox was ugly, but it was uniquely ugly and quite popular online. Now that the zoo had arctic foxes and red foxes, Duan Jiaze went through the trouble of negotiating for a Tibetan fox. He was even planning to mischievously place it in the enclosure next to Yousu, thinking it might create some kind of chemical reaction.

All these animals would be transported to Lingyou Zoo over the next week. Duan Jiaze had also hired ten new employees who would start work next week. Tallying up all these expenses made Duan Jiaze's heart ache a little.

Huang Qi even advised him to be more generous, saying they were only a few spots away from their goal and should buy some large animals.

Duan Jiaze said sadly that, more importantly, after this calculation, he was completely reluctant to build a new office building. The money just didn't go far enough. With more employees now, the break room might not even be big enough for everyone to eat, and they'd have to sit outside...

With more animals too, the original storage rooms also seemed very cramped...

Huang Qi couldn't help but laugh. “Zoo Director, aren't you failing to see the bigger picture? You can't afford to build a new office building or a cafeteria, but we still have vacant enclosures. Can't we just renovate them for temporary use?”

Huang Qi's words were like a wake-up call for Duan Jiaze. He slapped his forehead, “Right, right, I'm so stupid.”

Leaving those enclosures locked up was a waste anyway. Since they couldn't be filled with animals for the time being, why not use them for something else? Even if they were called enclosures, there was no rule saying they could only be used as enclosures.

Duan Jiaze was suddenly enlightened. It was a pity he couldn't convert them into offices, but for now, he was quite satisfied.

Huang Qi then said to Duan Jiaze, “About the commercial, the sample clip has been edited and is being reviewed by the advertiser. Once it's approved, they can give us a sneak peek. My idea is that after the commercial is released, the newly acquired animals will be arriving one after another. With so many new animals, we can organize a live stream event to promote it.”

Duan Jiaze: “Okay. We're doing a live stream?”

“The last time that streamer came to do a live broadcast, the results were quite good. We gained a lot of followers, and this online popularity can be converted later. This time, let's take this opportunity to do our own live stream, just using the function available on Weibo,” Huang Qi said.

Duan Jiaze thought for a moment. “That's a good idea, but we don't have any employees with live streaming experience. Won't it be awkward?”

Huang Qi: “I think Xiao Su can do it. She manages the official Weibo and microblog accounts every day, so she must be familiar with the internet.”

Counting on his fingers, Xiao Su really was the most suitable person at Lingyou Zoo for the job. The plan was to stream on Weibo anyway, and Xiao Su was also the part-time editor for the official account and loved being online herself.

Duan Jiaze nodded. “Then I'll talk to Xiao Su about it.”

Two days later, Xu Jinghui sent the revised sample of the commercial to Duan Jiaze.

Duan Jiaze specially switched to his laptop and clicked open the sample clip to watch.

......

The shot first opened on an azure blue sky, then panned down to a lush green mountain forest and the scattered zoo enclosures at its foot.

In the woods, a chubby American Shorthair emerged from the bushes. Following a scent, it discovered a bag of cat food left on a forest path. It pounced forward, grabbing the edge with its teeth, and dragged the cat food away.

The cat climbed a wall into the zoo, but because the cat food was too heavy, it lost its balance and fell into an enclosure. After landing lightly on its feet, the cat picked up the cat food again and started backing away.

At this moment, the screen flashed quickly through various animals in their enclosures, each making a small movement, slightly raising their upper bodies as if they had discovered something.

Meanwhile, in the enclosure the cat was in, an arctic fox actually opened a combination lock and pounced towards the cat.

The cat rolled on the spot and stared dumbfoundedly at the fox.

The arctic fox started dragging the cat food back...

The cat angrily pounced on it, grabbed the other end, and pulled it back towards itself.

The two were evenly matched. Because their sizes weren't too different, the cat managed to drag the bag over. But the arctic fox, being a canid, bared its large, sharp teeth.

The frightened cat's potential erupted. It grabbed the cat food and fled at top speed, but accidentally tumbled into the monkey enclosure.

The disheveled cat was surrounded by six monkeys. It scurried left and right under the monkeys' feet, finally managing to climb back out with great difficulty.

But next, a python, a lion, and a black bear appeared one by one, each larger than the last. The cat either inadvertently entered their enclosures, or, in the case of the jungle-like python enclosure, failed to spot the perfectly camouflaged green tree python at first. When faced with the black bear, which was countless times larger, it simply fell to the ground and played dead.

After countless hardships, the cat was finally about to leave the zoo, but the background music suddenly turned solemn.

Then, a red raptor with a sharp beak and talons made its entrance. Its gaze was incredibly sharp. It could shatter the branch under its feet with one claw, and the flapping of its wings was powerful as it flew.

It landed at the main gate, blocking the cat's path. Silhouetted against the light, the large bird looked very menacing. With every step it took, the editing and sound effects gave it a sense of great weight.

Anyone could see that this was the zoo's final boss. With the atmosphere built up like this, it seemed perfectly natural for it to be more ferocious than the other beasts.

Before, the cat had been full of rebellious spirit, using its wits to get by. But facing this bird, it cowered on the ground, not daring to make a sound. It looked at its bag of cat food, its eyes welling up with tears, looking utterly pitiful.

The big bird didn't fly. Instead, it walked step by step towards the cat, casting a shadow over it, and raised one of its sharp talons—

Just then, something unexpected happened. The background music stopped abruptly. A human walked out, grabbed the big bird's wings, and lifted it into his arms as if holding an old hen, then walked away with a relaxed gait.

After a good while, the cat dared to stand up, shake its head, and take its cat food home. In the end, some of the cat food was poured into a bowl, and the cat happily plunged its head in.

......

“Ahhh! So cute! How can this commercial be so cute!” Wang Weiwei shook her computer.

She had just randomly opened a movie on a video website to pass the time, but who knew she'd be captivated by the pre-roll ad. Although Wang Weiwei didn't follow Lingyou Zoo's official Weibo, the moment the opening scene appeared, she immediately recognized it as Cape Mountain and Lingyou Zoo.

So, Wang Weiwei, who had originally planned to get a drink and ignore the ad, picked up her phone and started watching it.

It was a cat food commercial. Wang Weiwei had never owned a cat, but she did have a dog, so she knew of this pet product company. They had deep pockets, and the commercials they produced were on another level.

Watching the cat's adventure in the zoo, seeing the animals that appeared on screen, which Wang Weiwei had seen at Lingyou before, she couldn't help but feel a special excitement. On one hand, she felt the ad was filmed to be exceptionally cute and the editing was very brisk; on the other hand, she felt a strange sense of pride.

Under the high-definition camera, every hair on their bodies was visible. Their movements were incredibly human-like. Although there wasn't a single line of dialogue, it didn't affect the viewer's understanding at all. Other people might wonder how it was filmed, but as a Donghai local who had visited Lingyou Zoo, Wang Weiwei knew they were always this goofy in person!

Like that male lion—Wang Weiwei still remembered his name was Lele. In the ad, after he met the cat in the enclosure, he mimicked its actions as if in a mirror.

Rolling over, wagging its tail, licking its paws, lowering its front half—all were perfectly synchronized. Even the cat seemed to begin to wonder if it was looking at a mirror—although its counterpart was much more majestic.

Wang Weiwei had seen these actions at the zoo before. The comparison only made her feel more strongly that they were indeed both felines.

“Lele is too cute!” Wang Weiwei nibbled on her snacks, overwhelmed by the cuteness of the big cat and the little cat.

“This is the Zoo Director!” she shrieked when the Luya bird was carried away by a human whose face wasn't shown at the end.

She had talked about the Zoo Director with her friends while visiting Lingyou Zoo. Even without seeing his face, she could tell it was definitely the Zoo Director; it could only be him. This made Wang Weiwei even more excited. She sent the link to her friends and shared it on her feed.

Wang Weiwei even went back and watched the ad again before starting the movie, feeling a bit lost and wistful.

At the beginning of the video, there were actually many bullet comments saying:

“I'm still immersed in that cat food ad...”

“Immersed in the ad +1, can't stop getting my cat fix.”

“Did I see a different ad from you guys?”

“What do I do, now I want to eat cat food too?? It looks so fragrant.”

“Me too! I watched it three times! Holy crap, the lion is so cute!”

“Why does the snake want to eat cat food too? This is unscientific.”

“Isn't the big bird at the end that Luya who saved someone a while ago? So badass, I jumped when it came out, I thought it was going to grab the cat!”

“As a VIP member, I have no idea what you're all talking about...”

For a full five minutes, the bullet comments were all discussing the cat food ad.

Wang Weiwei couldn't even watch the movie anymore. She exited and refreshed her social media feed, discovering several new comments and likes.

“I saw it too, on the zoo's official Weibo. They also posted some behind-the-scenes footage, go watch!”

“Finished watching, decided to go see Lele this weekend.”

“I want to go to the zoo too...”

“Watched it while holding my cat, it was totally stunned hahaha.”

Wang Weiwei saw one of the comments and curiously logged onto Weibo to find Lingyou Zoo's official account.

The official account had reposted the ad video from the advertiser's official account. There were quite a lot of reposts and comments.

In the original comments and reposts, many were shocked by the aura of Luya at the end. They said that at first, they were wondering what animal could be more formidable than a lion or a black bear, and they almost laughed when a bird appeared, but as they kept watching, it felt completely reasonable.

These were the netizens who hadn't followed the news about Luya saving someone. As for those who had, they were all in unanimous agreement: The moment Luya appeared, they knew. Who else could be the final boss but him!

Getting carried away by his owner at the end was also 666...

The comments on Lingyou's side were all from fans of the various animals, howling with excitement. Wang Weiwei even saw a fan of the arctic fox leave a comment in disbelief:

“The Great Immortal has too little screen time! Not brilliant enough! Bad review!”

“Awesome, does this count as the Great Immortal's debut work?”

“Yes, yes, yes, it's Lingyou's group debut!”

“Are you short on agents or assistants?”

“Cheering for the Great Immortal, what flourishing beauty!”

Lele unexpectedly rose to prominence. Lingyou Zoo had already announced there would be a commercial, but the most anticipated stars were Luya and the White Fox Great Immortal. Although these two had the most related comments, Lele's popularity was also quite high.

Another highly-liked comment posted a picture of a cat wearing a lion's mane decoration, saying: ‘They should have made the cat wear this, it would've looked exactly like Lele.’

Wang Weiwei scrolled to the behind-the-scenes footage her friend mentioned. It was probably shot by a Lingyou staff member on a phone, so the quality wasn't great. It was a montage of various behind-the-scenes clips. Only after watching it did she realize they had been filmed separately.

After watching it, Wang Weiwei privately felt that the cat was too sensitive and timid; its performance relied almost entirely on editing and filming techniques. On the contrary, Lingyou's animals were like real actors, they really looked the part!

Especially the White Fox Great Immortal. It had the most actor-like feel. As soon as filming started, it entered a ferocious state of baring its teeth and fighting. When filming was over, it would calmly lick its fur on the side, dropping out of character in a second.

The comments under the blooper reel also said a lot of things:

“Give the Great Immortal a Best Actress award, this acting is incredible.”

“Gets into character fast, drops character fast. I'm impressed.”

“The person who appeared at the end was the Zoo Director? I couldn't tell in the final cut. I really want to roast him, why is the Zoo Director still using the 'holding an old hen' technique.”

“Holding an old hen, laughing till I cry! So vivid!”

“Agreed, our great Luya is an internet celebrity, can't you show some respect!”

“The real final boss is the Zoo Director, right... Except for the cat, he's the one directing every animal. I'm already on my knees after seeing him walk a bear on a leash. Does he have some Russian blood in him?”

......

Duan Jiaze browsed through the comments, laughing out loud from time to time.

'Damn, I absolutely can't let Luya know that the netizens all think I was holding an old hen.'

Xu Jinghui also sent over a lot of exclamation marks. “The results are amazing! The advertiser already liked the sample clip, but I didn't expect the release to have such a huge effect!”

Xu Jinghui couldn't give specific sales figures, but just from the ad's performance, it had definitely blown up.

Even the behind-the-scenes footage posted by Lingyou Zoo's official Weibo had a very high view count.

Xu Jinghui sighed again about how worry-free it was to cooperate with Lingyou. The filming process was smooth sailing, and the results were so good. She teased, “Just have them debut directly. I think the animals in your zoo are really talented actors.”

Duan Jiaze laughed along and said, “Then Sister Xu, please introduce us to some production teams.”

The two chatted for a bit before saying goodbye. Duan Jiaze then told Xiao Su she could send out the announcement. He had already discussed the live stream with Xiao Su, who had no problem with it and was even full of enthusiasm.

So, Xiao Su posted an announcement on both Weibo and WeChat: Lingyou Zoo would be holding a live stream in two days in the afternoon to chat about the behind-the-scenes of the commercial shoot, see the new little animals, and of course, feature the zoo's various mainstays.