Zhao Bo stayed at his cousin's house for over a week before his dad picked him up.

As soon as he got home, Zhao Bo's mother, Fan Haiping, had already prepared a big meal. She stopped Zhao Bo, who was about to rush over to grab a chicken wing, "Hold on, first tell Mom how you did at your cousin's house. Do you know you were wrong?"

It would have been fine if his cousin's house wasn't mentioned, but the moment it was, Zhao Bo started jumping up and down. "Mom, can I transfer to my cousin's school!"

Fan Haiping was on the verge of a breakdown. Zhao Bo's grades were average, and he was currently in an advanced class at a key elementary school. She had gone to great lengths to get him in, and now Zhao Bo was actually saying he wanted to attend a village-run primary school.

"What did you say?" Fan Haiping only realized after she said it that her voice was too high, startling the child. She quickly controlled her tone, "Why? Is your cousin's school that good?"

"Yeah, they don't have any homework," Zhao Bo said, fiddling with his fingers. "During breaks, we all talk about birds. You know why?"

'Mom doesn't want to know...' Fan Haiping hadn't expected that Zhao Bo, who normally couldn't live without his tablet, phone, and Wi-Fi, would actually have a comfortable time at his cousin's house. He had cried and thrown a tantrum before going, which made her feel like she had completely miscalculated.

Zhao Bo indeed had a very unhappy first day, but Fan Haiping didn't know that on the second day, he went to Lingyou Zoo with Tongxin Elementary School. He was utterly captivated by those birds.

After returning, his enthusiasm didn't wane. He watched all sorts of related films and read books, which completely consumed all of Zhao Bo's spare energy.

Zhao Bo said excitedly to Fan Haiping, "Mom, my cousin's school organized a trip to Lingyou Zoo. It was so much fun there, the birds are incredibly smart. But the zoo is still under renovation, the teacher said it won't open until next month. When it does, can you take me and my cousin to play there again?"

"Still thinking about playing? Go do your test papers first. If you don't finish, you don't get to eat!" Fan Haiping was furious and sent Zhao Bo to his room to do his test papers.

Zhao Bo's father, Zhao Zhengyi, said leisurely from the side, "I told you so. What's with this 'reality show' idea? Where wouldn't a kid have fun?"

"Don't even mention it. It's so worrying. He has to go back to school tomorrow, but he seems even naughtier now," Fan Haiping said sullenly. "And what's this about a zoo, Lingyou Zoo? I've never heard of it."

"I haven't heard of it either. It must be new, right?" Zhao Zhengyi said.

On the other side, Zhao Bo finished a test paper in tears before Fan Haiping let him out. He rubbed his eyes and came to the table to eat.

Fan Haiping lectured him, "Will you dare to bully your classmates again next time? Will you dare to talk back to your teacher again? If you make another mistake, don't even think about going to your uncle's place. I'll send you to the mountains..."

While Fan Haiping was lecturing Zhao Bo, Zhao Zhengyi adjusted his glasses and held his phone in front of his wife. "Honey, look at this. Isn't it interesting?"

Fan Haiping leaned over to look. It was a GIF sent in Zhao Zhengyi's WeChat alumni group. A group of children, each with a bird perched on their shoulder, suddenly took flight together, flying into the distance in a flock. The children were even waving goodbye.

Just then, two fat peacocks, dragging their long tail feathers, started running frantically in pursuit.

Fan Haiping burst out laughing with a "pfft." "It's like they're saying: Wait for me."

Zhao Zhengyi also roared with laughter. "Right? This is hilarious. Old Huang loves to forward these kinds of humorous pictures all day. Some of them are quite interesting. You think they were trained to do this, right?"

"Who knows." Fan Haiping scrolled through the chat history. Zhao Zhengyi's classmates were all sending laughing emojis. Someone asked where it was, and another said it probably wasn't in Donghai City. Old Huang hadn't replied yet.

When Fan Haiping scrolled up, the GIF played again. But this time, Fan Haiping caught a familiar figure in it and couldn't help but shout, "Old Zhao, look, doesn't that look like your son?"

"What?" Zhao Zhengyi was stunned. He leaned over to look as Fan Haiping pointed to a corner, telling him to pay attention.

When the image replayed from the beginning, Zhao Zhengyi followed Fan Haiping's finger and indeed saw it. In the corner of the image was a child who looked exactly like his son, with a parrot perched on his shoulder.

"It really is!" Both Zhao Zhengyi and Fan Haiping remembered Zhao Bo saying he had visited a zoo and became even more certain. "Xiao Bo, is this Lingyou Zoo?"

Zhao Bo took one look and exclaimed excitedly, "Yes, Mom, that was when we were saying goodbye that day! Mom, let me tell you, my parrot was so well-behaved. My cousin had one too, the teacher said it was a Zebra Finch. They perched on us and accompanied us on the tour."

"Then this zoo is quite impressive, training the birds to be so obedient. Where is it?" Zhao Zhengyi asked. Seeing how interesting it was, he thought it wouldn't hurt to take the kid there again.

"Take bus number 117 and get off at Cape Park Station!" Zhao Bo announced loudly. He remembered it very clearly.

"Cape Park, I think there used to be a zoo there. Is it this one?" Fan Haiping's memory was a bit fuzzy.

At this moment, in Zhao Zhengyi's WeChat group, Old Huang said, "It's right here in our Donghai City! But I don't know where, I saw it in a friend's group chat."

The classmates below replied one after another, "So it's in Donghai City, I really want to go. Is it the City Zoo?"

Zhao Zhengyi replied quite proudly, "Everyone, this is Lingyou Zoo next to Cape Park. The child in the blue plaid shirt in the picture is my son. He just happened to be there that day!"

......

Duan Jiaze was completely unaware that the short video had been made into a GIF and had gone slightly viral on local social media. He was furious. When Xiao Su and Liu Bin came to work in the morning, they rushed over to find him, saying they saw the main gate had been pried open.

Duan Jiaze's first reaction was a burglary. He hurried over to check and found that many of the bars on the main gate were twisted like pretzels, and the lock had been completely pried off. It looked more like deliberate vandalism; if it were a thief, they would have just needed to break the lock.

He then inspected the park and discovered extra food in many of the animal feeding troughs. His heart sank; this wasn't the zoo's feed. His first reaction was that the food was tainted. From the looks of it, it might have been poisoned.

"...Damn it, what do we do? Do they need their stomachs pumped or something?"

"Wait, Zoo Director, they don't seem to be eating it." Liu Bin held a handful of hay and tried to offer it to a sika deer. The deer immediately shook its head and walked away, which further proved that something was wrong with the feed.

Duan Jiaze was panicking, but now that he thought about it, it made sense. These animals had eaten high-grade feed from the Immortal Realm and had become much smarter. They probably smelled that something was wrong on their own.

But Duan Jiaze was still furious. He, along with Liu Bin and Xiao Su, cleared away all the feed of unknown origin. "Who would do such a despicable thing!"

He had moved in less than a month ago and, at most, had only chatted with the old gatekeeper of the neighboring Cape Park. He couldn't imagine who would be so malicious.

Duan Jiaze couldn't help but privately ask Luya, "Daoist Lord, did you really not notice anything at all last night?"

Luya was very embarrassed. He hadn't been in the Human Realm for a long time and was incredibly arrogant; why would he pay attention to the movements of mortals? In his view, it was like noticing a few ants crawling nearby—he simply wouldn't care. Now, if a few gods or demons had come in, that would have been a different story. Last night, he really hadn't paid attention.

Right under his nose, the animals had been poisoned.

A flash of shame crossed Luya's face. He raised his hand, and a saber and a sword appeared in it—his magical artifacts, the Man-Slaying Saber and the Man-Saving Sword. He declared sternly, "Allow this venerable one to perform a ritual and retrieve the scoundrel's head!"

"...Wait!" Duan Jiaze was frightened and quickly grabbed him. "We live in a society governed by law, we can't act recklessly. Just find out who it was and tell me."

"You mortals are so troublesome," Luya muttered.

Luya tapped his finger on the "Aquarium." An image immediately appeared on the water's surface, obscuring the swimming fish below. A closer look revealed the zoo's entrance at night, presumably the scene from last night.

Duan Jiaze waited for a long while without seeing anyone appear. "Can you fast-forward it?"

Facing the impatient human, Luya was very disdainful. "They're about to appear!"

Sure enough, after a short while, several figures appeared in the image. Holding tools in their hands, they began to pry open the gate. Although there was only faint moonlight, Duan Jiaze still recognized them from their familiar facial contours and body shapes. "Pause, pause for a moment... It's them!"