DSMC Chapter 85.2

The staff rest area was a wooden cabin, surrounded by many flowers and plants, and looked quite nicely arranged.

However, Yan Jiyun did not immediately go inside.

The cabin had windows, but there were no lights on inside, and he couldn’t hear any human breathing. That meant Dr. Peng wasn’t there.

As expected. A key character will court death. No wonder the system had issued a mission to protect Dr. Peng.

Yan Jiyun decided to explore the staff’s lounge anyway.

It was very quiet inside, with no unusual sounds. He slowly pushed the door open, little by little.

When the door was pushed open to about 15 centimeters, a group of pitch-black things flew out from inside, and Yan Jiyun dodged to the side.

The black panther jumped up and pounced, hooking one of those pitch-black creatures. After they had all flown into the forest, Yan Jiyun went forward to see what they were. Turns out, they were bats.

Aren’t bats supposed to like damp, dark places?

The environment of this wooden cabin didn’t seem suitable for them to live in. And the zoo wouldn’t keep bats either, so could it be man-made?

Only after Yan Jiyun was sure there wouldn’t be any other creatures suddenly jumping out did he cautiously walk inside.

He found the switch of the cabin, but it wasn’t lit up. There was no light at all. 

Earlier, Yan Jiyun had been busy running out of the wolf zone and hadn’t brought along his pile of belongings; there was even a flashlight in there.

No, wait. He had a lighter. After changing back, the senior zookeeper’s clothes automatically returned to his body, and the lighter and walkie-talkie came back with them.

On this point, the system was quite considerate and didn’t confiscate the items he had on him.

He lit the lighter and quickly made a round in the cabin, which was less than fifty square meters.

There was a dining table, water, and several folding lounge chairs leaning against the wall for resting. It really did look like a staff’s lounge. There was also a restroom in the partitioned area. It was indeed arranged as a rest area with no major problems.

However, the humidity inside was indeed a bit high. There were patches of mold on the walls, dense and clustered, enough to make one’s scalp tingle just looking at them.

Yan Jiyun said to the black panther, which was poking its head in, “Stay outside for now. Don’t come in. The inside is too damp.”

Hearing him speak, the black panther didn’t go in. Instead, it found a spot on a tree outside that could bear its weight and lay down there, its dim eyes staring at the surroundings.

Yan Jiyun rummaged around inside the cabin and didn’t find any special tools, but he did find a medical kit. The cabin was small, but the supplies were quite complete.

The lighter started to heat up, so Yan Jiyun turned it off, hugged the medical kit, and walked outside, calling the black panther down.

Yan Jiyun beckoned to the black panther. “Come down quickly, I’ll treat the wound from where the lion bit you.”

He seemed not to know the black panther’s name yet. His eyes lit up. He could name a little animal again!

The black panther obediently walked over and lay down in front of him.

Yan Jiyun saw a small blood hole on the back of its neck, bitten out by the lion.

“That Caesar is way too fierce. Next time we should try to outsmart him. Don’t ever fight head-on. We need to know how to grow sneakily.”

“Tsk tsk tsk, the skin’s torn up like this. How long will it take to heal…”

He talked while cleaning the black panther’s wound.

“Hey, you don’t have a name yet, right? I don’t know what name the zoo gave you either. I think you’re even darker than me… so how about I call you Soy Sauce.”

“Soy Sauce is nice. As expected of me. This name is way better than what my pooper scooper would come up with¹T/N: I understand naming a cutie wolf pup “Pudding”, but naming an adult, handsome black panther “Soy Sauce”……………………….. Yan Jiyun, you deserve being called “Caramel”!!!.”

The black panther snorted, clearly not very satisfied with this name.

Yan Jiyun didn’t care whether it was satisfied or not. When other NPCs named him, they hadn’t asked for his consent either. Now, as long as he was happy, that was enough.

The medical kit only had band-aids and medicine for treating wounds. It was not much, but it was enough for Yan Jiyun for now. He wasn’t a professional veterinarian anyway; he still had to find Dr. Peng.

After treating Soy Sauce’s wound, Yan Jiyun prepared to leave to look for someone. There was no need to carry the whole medical kit, so he put it back, but still pocketed some simple and useful band-aids, mosquito-repellent spray, and half a bottle of medicated oil that some zookeeper had put in. In addition, he also got a syringe of anesthetic that he didn’t know whether it would be useful or not—this was definitely the most valuable item in the kit. In fact, when he put the kit back, only a small half of the items were left inside; he had taken everything he could.

To hold the medicine, Yan Jiyun also took a small backpack from the lounge. This was much more convenient than stuffing things into his pockets.

The zoo was definitely unsafe now. No one knew when they would encounter frenzied animals. Both he and Soy Sauce had very limited stamina; it was impossible to rely on brute force all the time. If they ran into large animals like elephants, bears, or gorillas, there was no way they could fight them one by one. What’s more, he, Soy Sauce, and Orange were all standing on the lion’s opposing side. The next time they encountered the lion, it would be either you die or I die.

Yan Jiyun patted the bulging backpack and set off again with Soy Sauce.

For the black panther, the zoo was definitely not as big as the wild. It probably could finish running around the whole zoo in half an hour.

Yan Jiyun tentatively looked into the black panther’s eyes and tried to understand its emotions. It actually had a tendency toward irritability, but it was still able to control itself for now.

They were currently in the Aviary Grand View, that is, near the west gate.

The zoo was equivalent to more than 50 football fields, with around 400 species and nearly 10,000 animals inside. Without driving around, it was impossible to walk through the whole place in a single day.

Where to find Dr. Peng was the problem he was facing now.

If only there were some item Dr. Peng had used. Let Soy Sauce smell it, then have him lead the way to find Dr. Peng… there would surely be results soon.

It was still his own fault for not being careful enough, not having collected any of Dr. Peng’s personal belongings in advance. Thinking about it like this made him seem like a pervert.

Forget it. It was all for completing the mission. Next time he saw him, he would definitely ask him for a piece of clothing.

“Soy Sauce, let’s go find Dr. Peng.”

The aviary zone was full of small animals. Now he had to find a way to solve the animals’ agitation problem. He didn’t know whether Dr. Peng was the key figure to solving this, but he was currently quite responsible when it came to dealing with small animals.

Yan Jiyun and the black panther left the aviary zone. He had originally wanted to go check on Xixi to see if there were any problems, but considering that there was a black panther by his side, he temporarily gave up. Xixi was afraid of cats; he was already cat-sized, and the black panther was several times bigger than him. It might be even more afraid of big cats. If Xixi were frightened into a stress reaction, that would be terrible. And he hadn’t found Dr. Peng yet, so there would be no way to treat it. Cat

Zookeepers on duty should be patrolling each animal habitat area.

Ever since Dr. Peng appeared, the walkie-talkie in his hand hadn’t been of much use.

He suddenly realized that since all the zookeepers chose to stay in their own dormitories at night, didn’t that mean that the zoo staff were all off work?

So now, in the zoo, there were only frenzied animals, players, and on-duty personnel left.

Then couldn’t he go to the management building to look up information?

The appearance of the leaderboard in this instance already showed that this was an instance where players searched for clues on their own. The system wouldn’t force them to form teams. Of course, players could also cooperate with each other, but that depended on whether they had the ability.

Yan Jiyun knew very well that his situation was special, and it was impossible for him to cooperate with other players.

What’s more, getting to know someone in a short time was too difficult, and he was still a newbie player who had just cleared three Newcomer instances. The others had experienced several instances and had experience. If the other party asked about his information, he would still have to prepare a set of explanations that could convince them. He might as well spend that social time on finding clues and clearing the instance.

Soy Sauce hid in the forest at the side. Unlike Yan Jiyun, who openly used his identity as a zookeeper to walk on the main road, it instinctively walked in the dark forest, both to protect the cub that had turned into a two-legged beast and to observe the surroundings.

One person and one panther were very harmonious, not disturbing each other.

However, the peaceful atmosphere between them only lasted for a short while.

As soon as Yan Jiyun reached his destination, he saw an ostrich sprinting past him, and a brown bear chasing after it.

This place, Happy World, was an area with many playable attractions for kids. Even though there were no staff, the rides would automatically start and stop, just like during the day when visitors got on and off.

On the carousel closest to Yan Jiyun, there were monkeys jumping up and down all over the place, looking like another monkey zone, dense and crowded.

Besides monkeys, there were also some birds that had flown here, chirping noisily, extremely lively, just like a big animal gathering. 

Yan Jiyun knew that these animals should all be in an excited or frenzied state.

He quietly hid in the bushes where the black panther was crouching, observing the situation in Happy World through the gaps in the bushes. There were no particularly large animals here, only small and medium ones.

While thinking, Yan Jiyun saw a familiar figure running toward him!

Dr. Peng was running with great skill. Just from the sound of his panting, it was obvious that after escaping the lion’s pursuit, he had fallen into another chase. And this time, what was chasing him was a group of frenzied elephants!

The elephants’ steps were heavy, kicking up rolling clouds of dust around them.

Yan Jiyun covered his nose. He saw that Dr. Peng seemed to be holding a tube of blood in his hand, running for his life.

“Stop chasing! Help!”

Yan Jiyun remembered his mission and reached out from the bushes, pulling the exhausted Dr. Peng into the bushes.

“Dr. Peng, this way!”

Dr. Peng followed him into the forest for a short distance. After successfully shaking off the elephants, he stopped and panted heavily.

He said in surprise, “That’s great, you’re okay.”

Hearing the thudding footsteps of the elephants not far away, Yan Jiyun said, “The elephants might catch up at any moment.”

Dr. Peng hurriedly said, “That’s true. I just obtained a blood sample from the elephants. This can be used to find out the reason for their agitation, and it urgently needs to be refrigerated. Xiao Jiang, can you help me deliver this blood sample to the laboratory?”

[Congratulations to the player for triggering the side mission: “Dr. Peng’s Request”.]

[Mission Details: Please deliver the elephant blood sample back to the laboratory within twenty minutes.]

[Mission Countdown: 20 minutes]

Yan Jiyun: “……”

He had just barely caught his breath!!!!!

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  T/N: I understand naming a cutie wolf pup “Pudding”, but naming an adult, handsome black panther “Soy Sauce”……………………….. Yan Jiyun, you deserve being called “Caramel”!!!