Future Pet Shop-Chapter 54: Cheeky’s Concert
"I think that’s him!" someone immediately exclaimed. They pulled out their phone, found the video, and replayed the background music. Sure enough, the accent sounded just like the parrot right in front of them. It was enough to make them forget about the panda—after all, the line ahead was still long, so they might as well listen to the parrot sing. "Hey, we’re all queuing up nicely. How about you sing a song for us?"
"Is that any way to ask someone to sing? So impolite! ’You’ this, ’you’ that... This parrot has a name, you know! My noble name is..." Before the parrot could finish reciting his long-winded name, Shen Yibin, who had just come to the shop’s entrance, cut him off. "You guys can just call him Cheeky. He knows lots of songs. Even for songs he’s never heard, he can learn them after listening just twice."
’If I let you finish announcing your name, the readers will just accuse me of padding the word count again.’ Shen Yibin leaned in and whispered into Cheeky’s ear, "Cheeky, as long as you keep them happy, I’ll go buy you some Amazonian fruit in a bit. I just checked, and there’s a supermarket that has it in stock." To maintain order, Shen Yibin was really sparing no expense.
"No problem. And today’s music time is extended to four hours." Cheeky was the type to get wild when a crowd formed; the more people there were, the stronger his desire to perform. Egged on by the audience, he was already itching to start singing. Add to that a chance to extort a treat from Shen Yibin, and there was no way he would refuse.
"Fine. I’m going back in to handle the customers. You watch over things out here." Although Bai Yanni and the others were helping maintain order inside the shop, some customers were genuinely interested in his pets. The police couldn’t help him with introducing the animals, so Shen Yibin had to do it himself.
As for Hah’Er, Shen Yibin had placed him on the sofa and set up a cordon around him. Hah’Er was lying on the sofa, happily watching cartoons on a tablet and completely ignoring the visitors. But the visitors weren’t the least bit dissatisfied; just being able to see a panda up this close was more than enough for them.
If anyone tried to pull any funny business, the other visitors would probably make them regret being born long before the police had a chance to react. As a result, the scene was quite harmonious.
The only drawback was that the five-minute viewing time felt far too short. The lucky ones who went first exited the shop still wanting more, only to be immediately captivated by the different kind of commotion happening outside.
"...You’re my little, oh, little apple, loving you is never too much..." Outside the shop entrance, a brilliantly-colored parrot stood on the branch of a roadside tree, belting out a song. Hundreds of people stared with their mouths agape, dumbfounded by the performance, almost forgetting their original reason for coming.
"You ten, you can go in now." Another group of visitors received permission to enter the store.
"Hang on, let me finish this song first," someone answered without thinking. A panda was a rare sight, true, but you could always see them if you just went to the Sichuan Giant Panda Base. A parrot that could sing this well, though? That was a once-in-a-lifetime sight.
Almost everyone pulled out their phones, opened their camera apps, and started filming Cheeky. A few quick-witted individuals even opened up a streaming platform, logged into their accounts, and started a live broadcast. The streamer with the most followers wrote a title for their channel: "MIND BLOWN! A BIRD’S GIVING A CONCERT ON THE STREET! MY FRIENDS AND I ARE SHOOK."
"Damn, the quality of these streamers is getting worse and worse. He typed ’bird concert’ instead of ’solo concert.’ I’d rather watch a ball game." A veteran fan on the streaming platform, ID name Tai Zhi, glanced at the bizarre title, then switched to another channel. This one belonged to a female streamer with cleavage as deep as the Mariana Trench. He automatically switched to single-hand mode.
’Heh heh, this streamer’s new outfit is killer.’ Even though the streaming platforms had rolled out a series of new rules, female streamers with bombshell figures always found ways to get around them. It allowed them to leverage their physical advantages to attract fans without being punished by the platform administrators.
As the streamer’s dancing grew more and more sultry, Tai Zhi’s eyes drew closer and closer to the screen, and his heart began to pound. But just as he was about to make his move, a message suddenly popped up from his QQ messenger, interrupting him. "Tai Zhi! Tai Zhi! Quick, check out room 654254! The show in there is absolutely insane!"
"Zeng, you use the Nudge feature on me one more time and I’ll block you, believe it!" Tai Zhi was furious at this netizen. ’I was just about to install the joystick driver, and you’re bothering me now? What could possibly be happening in another stream? Could it really be more intense than this one?’
The other guy didn’t say a word and just tossed him a link. "If you regret watching this, I’ll give you the password to my cloud drive." 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶
"Whoa, are we really betting that big?" Tai Zhi knew exactly how many treasures Zeng kept in his cloud drive. With a heavy heart, he tore his eyes away from the female streamer and clicked the link Zeng had sent. And then... he froze.
The live stream didn’t have a hot female streamer, or a pro male gamer, or even a single person. On top of that, the video quality was absolute garbage. But he still couldn’t look away. "Okay, I’m on my knees here. Can one of you enlightened bros tell me if this parrot is for real singing this song?"
On the screen was the footage of Cheeky singing from the branch of a roadside tree, only the song had already changed from "Little Apple" to "Love Trade." "...Love isn’t for sale, you can’t just buy it when you want..."
If any other streamer had been singing this song, Tai Zhi would’ve clicked the X in the top-right corner without a second thought, full of contempt. But when the singer was a parrot, it was a completely different story. How could it sing so perfectly? Was this a parrot or some kind of monster?
"Yo, isn’t that Tai Zhi?" As a minor celebrity on the platform, someone recognized him right away. "It’s totally real. He’s already sung three songs in a row, and there’s no sign of any trickery. Plus, more than one streamer is broadcasting this bird’s concert. I’ve basically been kneeling ever since I opened the stream. This parrot is just... it’s just unreal!"
Only then did Tai Zhi remember the title of the stream he was watching. It was the very same one he had scoffed at earlier: "MIND BLOWN! A BIRD’S GIVING A CONCERT ON THE STREET! MY FRIENDS AND I ARE SHOOK."
’If I’d known it was this amazing, what the hell was I watching that ball game for?’ Tai Zhi furiously copied the link and spammed it to every single one of his QQ groups.
