DSMC Chapter 84.1

“This route, I don’t really understand it either. I’ve never seen it before. When watching the zoo instance, people come to see players turn into animals. I never thought players could also turn into humans, and I’ve never seen other players get a transformation card.”

“Transformation card? I remember the game never released transformation cards. I’ve watched this instance for so many years and never seen one. I just watched this player’s stream; may I ask, is his transformation card one that turns humans into cats?”

“I’m also new. When I came in, I could already see that the kitty can turn from human into cat, and from cat into human too.”

“Hehe, I’m already an old fan of the Kitty Baby’s stream. When he first entered the game, he used a cat body. In the first instance, he never turned into a human. He only started turning human in the second instance.”

“New players don’t have points in their first instance and can’t use transformation cards. So does that mean he himself is originally a cat?”

“That’s right. It should be so he could blend in with other players that he turned into a human. His IQ is very high. He can basically produce different endings. Anyway, following our kitty streamer will definitely not make you regret it.”

“Kitty Baby’s original form must be a cat. I suspect the system granted it intelligence, so after turning into a human, its words and actions are no different from a human’s.”

“Wait, you’re getting off topic. Aren’t we discussing Dr. Peng? Does no one really know whether he’s a villain?”

“Don’t know.”

“Don’t know +1.”

“Don’t know +2.”

Yan Jiyun didn’t know what was going on either. He had just been thinking about whether Dr. Peng would be like Uncle Man and Jiang Meiying, suddenly making a move against him in secret and creating all kinds of trouble for his clearance, but the situation went in the opposite direction. Dr. Peng actually turned out to be someone who needed protection.

A veterinarian is a special and important role in a zoo: one step forward is a blessing to the zoo, one step back is destruction to the animals, a truly polarizing extremes. Yan Jiyun of course hoped Dr. Peng was a good NPC; otherwise, he wouldn’t even know where to find the main mission. He had already turned the entire zoo upside down.

Based on the hints currently given by the system, Dr. Peng was the breakthrough point, because the first crisis in the zoo instance was related to him.

Dr. Peng was an important NPC and had to be protected, and his importance could not be let known to other players.

Different roles in this instance might receive different missions. Today, there was a wolf player in the same area as him doing a different mission, so in other areas, it was possible that another player might receive a mission to kill Dr. Peng. It was possible that in the eyes of animals, the veterinarian was a villain, but in the eyes of humans, the veterinarian was a positive NPC.

Yan Jiyun shouted, “Dr. Peng, wait first! If you rush in like this and get hurt, what will you do?”

But Dr. Peng didn’t hear him at all and charged straight toward the twenty flamingos that were in complete chaos.

One flamingo even thought it was about to be attacked by Dr. Peng and directly flew up, slapping its wing against Dr. Peng’s face with a pa sound. The wing hit right on the bridge of his nose, and bright red blood immediately flowed from the right side of his nose. Dr. Peng had to cover his nose and squat down.

“Oof, why is this bird so fierce? It was quite gentle last time I came.”

Perhaps because he often examined flamingos, after one hit him, the next one chased over and started flapping at him too. Maybe animals were instinctively resistant to veterinarians.

Yan Jiyun had no choice but to rush forward to help him. Before the next flamingo reached them, he pulled Dr. Peng back to the shore from the shallow pond. Even he almost got pecked by a flamingo. These flamingos clearly attacked indiscriminately; anyone who got close would be pecked.

The two retreated to the safe lawn. Yan Jiyun asked Dr. Peng, “Dr. Peng, are you okay?”

Dr. Peng: “I’m fine, I’m fine. Help me get a cotton ball from the box. I just need to stop the bleeding. The flamingos here have always been rather fierce, especially at night, when they get even fiercer.”

Yan Jiyun pretended not to understand and asked, “Why? I see the animals in our zoo are quite well-behaved during the day.”

Dr. Peng: “I don’t know the reason either. In the past two months, as soon as night falls, the animals start becoming irritable. That’s also why the zoo needs zookeepers and doctors on night duty, to take care of animals injured from fighting due to their irritability at night. What’s even stranger is that every night, the animals will run out of their enclosures on their own, and when it’s almost dawn, they return to their own enclosures again. Other than being injured, everything is no different from the beginning.”

Yan Jiyun found cotton balls in his large medical kit and handed them to Dr. Peng to stop the nosebleed.

While Dr. Peng tilted his head back to stop the bleeding, Yan Jiyun checked what tools were in his medical kit. Inside were basic medicines for animal injuries and some animal-related medical instruments, all for first aid. It’s quite complete. It seemed Dr. Peng really was working with the purpose of helping small animals. But why did the animals become especially irritable at night?

The system hadn’t given details of the zoo’s first crisis. He felt there was a high chance it was related to the animals becoming especially irritable at night. That is, he had to find the reason for the animals’ irritability.

Why did animals become irritable at a specific time? Was it man-made or environmental?

These were all questions that needed to be understood.

Veterinarians knew the habits and conditions of the zoo animals best. Dr. Peng should be the NPC who knew the most.

But judging from his current behavior and communication, he seemed not to know the reason either.

“Why doesn’t the zoo form a team to research this issue?” Yan Jiyun had checked that the zoo’s surface accounts were all normal, and the daily income wouldn’t be insufficient for the zoo’s expenses. Unless the zoo had two sets of accounts, one shown to outsiders, and the other possibly related to the crisis. He would have to make another trip to the management area; he hadn’t seen a single office belonging to the zoo leadership.

Dr. Peng patted him on the shoulder. “You’re still too young. In a zoo, whether it’s the animals or the people managing the zoo, they all have their own small societies. As long as it hasn’t reached the point where animals are dying, the higher-ups won’t pay too much attention.”

He realized he had spoken too freely and only smiled afterward, saying no more.

Yan Jiyun already understood what he meant: that the zoo’s management didn’t take this issue seriously at all.

If it had only appeared for two months, it could completely be attributed to changes in the weather, saying it’s too hot or too cold. Animals are more sensitive than humans. This guess only applied to real life; in the instance, this answer could be directly ruled out.

So it came back to the original problem: the first crisis had to be solved first.

Yan Jiyun asked Dr. Peng, “If the animals keep staying in this irritable state, will it get worse and worse and then affect their physical health?”

Dr. Peng nodded without hesitation. “Yes. Think about it. If humans stay irritable for a long time, their mental state will get worse and worse, and in the end they either go crazy or end their own lives. Humans can’t stay irritable for long, let alone animals.”

Yan Jiyun asked again, “Is it like this for all animals?”

Dr. Peng said, “Smaller animals are a bit better off. The bigger the animal, the more serious the impact. Some animals develop self-harming behavior, some will kill others of their own kind. In short, anything can happen. We can’t let our guard down when we see any animal later.” He finished stopping the bleeding and looked at the flock of flamingos with a sigh. “The flamingos are already considered relatively mild.”

Yan Jiyun asked, “Then how can we help them ease this problem?”

Dr. Peng shook his head regretfully. “So far, we haven’t found the best solution.”

Yan Jiyun: “Can we try spraying them with water? To wake them up a bit?”

Dr. Peng: “We’ve sprayed them too, but it only lasts a short while. After a few minutes they’re still very irritable. The effect isn’t great.”

As the two were talking about solutions, Yan Jiyun suddenly raised his head. The flock of flamingos that had been fighting suddenly charged toward them. They were about to crash into them, and Yan Jiyun reacted quickly, grabbing Dr. Peng who might be surrounded and attacked by the flamingos.

“Dr. Peng, run!”

Dr. Peng could only run with him, and even while running he didn’t drop his case.

After running, he turned back to look at Yan Jiyun. “Xiao Jiang, flamingos won’t attack us. There’s no need to run, right?”

Yan Jiyun just wanted to roll his eyes at him. “They just beat you until your nose bled.”

Dr. Peng had no choice but to shut up. Xiao Jiang was telling the truth. He couldn’t refute it.

At this moment, however, Yan Jiyun noticed that some flamingos had started flying low, while others turned back toward the lake. But that wasn’t his most important discovery. By the side of the lake, a large animal was hidden, and it was running toward them!

His mission was to protect Dr. Peng. The best outcome was to not let him die.

The system was disgusting. It didn’t tell him for how long he had to protect Dr. Peng. If it was according to their night-shift duration, did that mean he had to stay by his side the whole time?

“Dr. Peng, there’s a large animal running toward us!”

Dr. Peng was even more shocked than him. “What? Large animals usually don’t run toward the lake!”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

Alright, then maybe it was a large-animal player? But not necessarily. Dr. Peng had just said that after their temperament changed, anything could happen. What if an animal that didn’t like water suddenly wanted to go for a swim?

A tiger? A lion? A leopard? Or what?

No matter which big cat it was, they would have a hard time surviving. How could two legs outrun four?

Yan Jiyun had an instant headache. Not only did he have to escape himself, he also had to protect Dr. Peng.

Dr. Peng, perhaps because he had long fought animals that didn’t want treatment, had pretty good stamina. He ran back desperately, slightly panting as he looked back at Yan Jiyun.

He even suspected Yan Jiyun had heard wrong. “I don’t see any large animal chasing us.”

“There is. Believe me,” Yan Jiyun said. “Run!”

As soon as Yan Jiyun’s words fell, there was a crash of movement from the dim bushes, startling the low-flying flamingos into flying higher.

That sound completely convinced Dr. Peng. “T—there really seems to be one!”

Another rustling crash as something plunged into the bushes.

Yan Jiyun’s dynamic vision and night vision were both pretty good. He clearly saw a head appear in the forest. It was a male lion!

The lion let out a roar when it noticed Yan Jiyun had seen it, a roar so powerful it felt like the earth was shaking.

Yan Jiyun felt like he might be done for here. This lion didn’t look easy to deal with at all.

Dr. Peng’s face was pale. He didn’t know whether it was from running hard or from being scared by the lion’s roar.

Yan Jiyun had never been to the lion area before and didn’t know what the zoo’s lions were like in temperament.

He immediately asked, “Dr. Peng, it’s a lion. Do you know what its temperament is like?”

Dr. Peng answered without hesitation, “Its name is Caesar! It has the worst temper among the lions. I don’t know why it ran here either!”

Yan Jiyun: “What’s its relationship with you like?”

Dr. Peng: “Not good. The animals in the zoo don’t like veterinarians. I’m the one they dislike the most!”

Yan Jiyun: “……” This was a result he hadn’t anticipated. He was actually the least liked among veterinarians?

A veterinarian completely disliked by animals and a fake zookeeper. Could they escape from a lion’s mouth?

An emotionally unstable lion meant it could show biting and attacking behavior at any time. They simply couldn’t fight a several-hundred-jin lion.

The lion Caesar kept following them. They had to find a way to draw it away!

Yan Jiyun said to Dr. Peng, “Dr. Peng, you leave first. I’ll help draw it away. And you must be careful. If you run into an animal you can’t beat, just run!”

Whether Dr. Peng lived or died was crucial to him!

Dr. Peng worried about him. “Then what about you?”

Yan Jiyun said urgently, “I’m a zookeeper. I have a way to deal with it. You go!”

Dr. Peng believed him completely. He told Yan Jiyun where he would run and where he would hide. “There’s a staff rest area ahead. I’ll go hide there! You can come find me later!”

Yan Jiyun nodded. “Okay, protect yourself.” He really could draw Caesar away, but it wasn’t any particularly good method.

Dr. Peng ran off the next second.