DSMC Chapter 76.2

While waiting for the tigers to bring the balls back, Yan Jiyun heard the visitors’ conversation and paused slightly.

No way?

Something like that had happened at the zoo?

Was the one bitten to death  a zookeeper or a player?

Probably not a player. visitors were NPCs; the content of their conversation should be related to the plot. Moreover, the visitors here had quite a high degree of freedom. They could issue missions to players. If they were in a good mood, they’d chat a bit more; if their mood was average, they wouldn’t provide any information at all.

The previous zookeeper who tried to tease tigers with a ball failed and was instead bitten to death, which showed that he hadn’t made the tigers happy first. This time, Yan Jiyun had first used the cat toy to stir up the tigers’ emotions. Only then were the tigers willing to play ball with him, and only then did the visitors mention the accident from back then.

So this was the way for players to obtain information. Could the popularity ranking just be a smokescreen? If players resisted interacting with visitors, it would indeed be very hard to obtain any important information from them. Of course, it was also possible that if players performed too much, the NPCs would watch too engrossedly and forget to chat with other NPCs, which could also result in players failing to obtain information.

The degree had to be carefully controlled.

Yan Jiyun glanced at the Bengal white tiger player who had also run off to fetch a ball. He didn’t know whether he had heard the visitors’ conversation. If he had, that meant he also knew about the plot of a zookeeper being bitten to death by a tiger. But if not for his initial cooperation, Yan Jiyun wouldn’t have obtained this information either. Sharing information wasn’t a big deal.

Now there was a problem: were they obtaining information purely through visitors, or did they need to visit every exhibition area?

Fifty players, fifty exhibition areas. Surely not every area had different information to distribute, right?

Wouldn’t that exhaust the players to death?

Still, the matter of a tiger biting a zookeeper to death was enough to put Yan Jiyun on guard.

Two tigers that had grabbed balls ran back toward Yan Jiyun. The tigers that hadn’t managed to get a ball seemed unwilling to accept it and began pacing in place.

Yan Jiyun felt this wouldn’t do either, as the problem was not scarcity but inequality. 

Each tiger needed one ball. 

After throwing the red ball out once more, he surveyed the surroundings, then bent the cat teaser in his hand into a ring.

When one of the tigers carried a ball back, he snapped his fingers in front of it.

He encouraged it. “Come on, Orange.”

The South China tiger Orange glanced at the ring and actually felt an urge to jump through it. Then it lightly leapt and passed through the ring with ease.

Yan Jiyun’s inspiration came from the training the caretaker had done with him. Those few days of rest hadn’t been wasted training so many items. He could completely apply all that training to the tigers.

The tigers following behind, seeing this, also curiously jumped through one after another, lining up to play.

The Bengal white tiger player had only just learned how to walk, and had only recently started running smoothly. And now the zookeeper was already teaching them to jump through hoops?

Weren’t zoo tigers supposed to be free and unrestrained? Why would there be such bizarre training?

Reject animal performances!

Yan Jiyun refused to admit this was an animal performance. He was just consuming the tigers’ excess energy. Once they were tired from playing, they naturally wouldn’t keep staring at him.

As long as Uncle Man didn’t say when the work here ended, it seemed like he had to stay here indefinitely.

Because according to speculation, he was currently an NPC and needed to obey the instructions of senior staff. If he left on his own initiative, he didn’t know whether he’d receive a notice of dismissal.

Yan Jiyun continued using the cat teaser bent into a ring to play with the tigers. All the tigers got to play, making it a very fair game.

The Bengal white tiger player stood in place, hesitant to move forward.

The visitors outside were all shouting.

“Go, big white tiger! Charge! Jump through it, jump through it!”

“You’re the only one left~”

“No way, no way, is the big white tiger actually afraid to jump through the hoop?”

“Is it possible that it just doesn’t dare to jump at all?”

“What if it’s just not interested?”

“I lean more toward it being kind of dumb.”

Could the Bengal white tiger player, who had only just learned to run, really jump through hoops?

Yan Jiyun glanced at the Bengal white tiger player and deliberately encouraged him. “You can do it, Baiyun.”

The Bengal white tiger player suddenly acquired an extremely ordinary, completely unremarkable name, and thought with a pang of heartache, ‘Thanks, but my name isn’t Baiyun.’ (白云；white cloud)

Yan Jiyun didn’t care whether he was called Baiyun or not. He just wanted to indulge in the pleasure of naming others. In the previous three instances, others had named him—this time, he finally got to enjoy it.

He even deliberately teased the Bengal white tiger player. “Baiyun, you’re scared to jump, right? Everyone else already jumped.” The tone was quite sarcastic.

Bengal white tiger player: “……”

Even though he knew this was a sarcastic provocation, he still didn’t want to be looked down on by this zookeeper at all. If the other tigers could do it, so could he!

After being stimulated by Yan Jiyun, the Bengal white tiger player began making mental preparations. He didn’t believe he couldn’t jump. Even that fat tiger had jumped through.

While the Bengal white tiger player was preparing to jump through the hoop, Yan Jiyun deliberately made an encouraging gesture toward him.

The visitors had already been drawn in by the tiger hoop-jumping game. Quite a few of them directly jumped off the sightseeing cars, wanting to watch up close.

Tiger zone was crowded with people again.

Even visitors from neighboring exhibition areas were attracted over, and one sightseeing car after another got stuck again at the tiger zone. 

“Mom, is this a tiger performance?”

“Not really a performance. It’s probably the zookeeper uncle making the tigers exercise, helping them lose some weight or something. Look, even tigers exercise, so you have to exercise in the future too, okay?”

“Got it.” The little girl watched intently again. “Wow, another tiger jumped through! But why isn’t that big white tiger jumping? Is it kind of dumb and can’t jump through?”

“It might not want to exercise. We can’t learn from it, understand?” the little girl’s mother said.

Bengal white tiger player: “……”

He was being slandered again. Couldn’t this zookeeper just be a decent person?

The Bengal white tiger player felt he couldn’t be looked down on by a child. It was just jumping through a hoop. How hard could it be?

He started a run-up, charged forward, saw the hoop, and jumped!

Pfft…

Screech…

Crash…

The white tiger didn’t jump high enough and only hit the edge of the cat-teaser hoop. Moreover, he overshot it. After landing, he couldn’t steady himself and directly sprawled on the ground, sliding forward a long distance. He’s too socially dead!

The player lay motionless on the ground. Embarrassing. So embarrassing he could die!

The entire scene fell silent for three seconds.

Then all the visitors burst into laughter.

“Hahaha!”

“It’s so stupid!”

“Hahaha, it’s kinda cute because it’s so clumsy.” 

Yan Jiyun wanted to laugh but didn’t dare laugh too loudly. Instead, he stepped forward and patted the big white tiger’s head to comfort him. “It’s okay, Baiyun. We’ll keep going next time. Practice more and you’ll get it. You’re the best!”

Why did watching another player embarrass themselves feel so good?

[Want to be Human] livestream channel: 

“Holy shit, hahaha, Kitty Baby is so sly, I’m dying laughing! How ruthless is he to actually teaching tigers to jump through hoops!”

“Oh my god, if the white tiger player knew Kitty Baby was also a player, wouldn’t he die of anger? Might want to strangle the cub before dying. This level of mockery is off the chart.” 

“I think the kitty was especially smug just now. He was probably about to give himself internal injuries from holding it in.”

“I still don’t understand what danger this instance actually has. Isn’t it a bit too joyful? There’s no horror atmosphere at all.”

“Hahaha, I’m watching pretty happily too. Any big shots want to come out and give some guidance; where exactly is the horror point of this instance?”

“I just discovered this cat streamer. I frequently watched this Crazy Zoo instance. For players, it’s actually quite terrifying—”

“Upstairs, don’t spoil it! I just want to watch Kitty Baby happily clear the instance!”

“What’s wrong with spoilers? When has our Kitty-cat ever followed the instance’s original line of thought after spoilers? Before this, no player had ever played the zookeeper like this. Previously, there was a player who used a time card to exchange into human form and successfully became a zookeeper, but he ran into a black panther and was directly bitten to death. Look, Kitty Baby just pulled out a cat teaser toy and successfully gained the favor of the felines. I don’t think there’s any need to worry about him at all. Besides, have you ever seen a player actively make tigers jump through hoops? If he had some firestarter in his hands, I’d bet Kitty Baby would turn the iron hoop into a flaming hoop.”

“What you say makes sense. Kitty Baby has always been bolder than other players.”

“Actually, I think Kitty Baby is pretty timid.”

“So after all that, what danger does this instance actually have? Which animals will bite people to death?”

“It’s not biting people to death, it’s eating people. There are animals here that will eat people.”

“So the system turning players into animals is actually protecting them, but Cat Cub accidentally became human?”

“Holy shit, Kitty Baby is in danger! Quick, turn back into a kitty!”

How could Yan Jiyun possibly turn back into a cat? He was having quite a lot of fun right now. Even if he were to turn back, it definitely wouldn’t be in public, especially with a white tiger player here.

This time, the Bengal white tiger player felt he had completely lost face. His disguise was truly unsuccessful. If there were players standing outside, wouldn’t he be directly exposed?

After figuring this out, the Bengal white tiger player immediately got up, pretending that nothing had happened.

Yan Jiyun continued to raise the hoop a bit higher and said to the tigers, “Come on, tigers, keep going.”

The tigers continued playing. Whenever a tiger jumped through, the visitors outside applauded and cheered loudly, and the tigers’ enthusiasm was all stirred up.

However, the tigers’ patience was also limited. After they’d played three rounds, Yan Jiyun felt his hands were already tired.

The Bengal white tiger player didn’t want to embarrass himself again, so he didn’t participate at all in the next two rounds, making things a bit less interesting.

He asked Uncle Man, who was standing to the side watching the show, “Uncle Man, are we going to keep playing with them here?”

“Today’s work ends here. You did very well,” Uncle Man said flatly. For the first time, he didn’t make eye contact with Yan Jiyun, instead looking elsewhere.

Yan Jiyun didn’t sense any intention to praise him from Uncle Man’s face. Uncle Man no longer had that initial calm expression. Instead, his face was covered with dark clouds, and his abnormality was obvious at a glance.

Did Uncle Man not want him to have close contact with the animals? Plus, earlier he had used stomach pain as an excuse to leave, leaving Yan Jiyun alone in the tiger enclosure—was that intentional?

Yan Jiyun pretended he hadn’t noticed anything and prepared to leave with Uncle Man.

Just as he turned around, Uncle Man suddenly “accidentally” knocked over a rack. The rack fell, kicking up a cloud of dust in front of the tigers.

Yan Jiyun quickly covered his nose.

At that moment, the four tigers closest to the rack suddenly became restless. They stared at Yan Jiyun and let out low growls.

Alarm bells went off in Yan Jiyun’s mind; danger had suddenly descended!

The system’s notification sound followed closely after.

[Player has triggered the side mission: “Uncle Man’s Anger”.]