35: Leopard fish, quite flashy.
He walked a few steps, looking at the dazzling array of Guppies, and couldn't help but frown.
The red ones were "Good Fortune," the blue-tailed ones were blue-and-white, and the colorful-tailed ones were...
"Hmm? There's even a leopard-print-tailed one here?"
"This fish is quite flamboyant."
Chen Kai scratched his head, pacing back and forth in the aisle lined with rows of Guppy tanks.
This time, unlike when he would Score a Bargain on other things, there was no special glowing indication.
Or perhaps there was a glow, but it was obscured by the aquarium's daylight lamps.
"Hello, sir. Do you see any fish you like? Would you like to get a couple? Our aquarium also sells pre-assembled tanks with aquatic plants."
"Like these Guppies, thirty a pair; take them home and they can lay eggs and produce baby fish."
Chen Kai shook his head. "I'll take a look around first. If I decide to buy, I'll have you net a couple for me."
Thirty for one wasn't expensive, but it wasn't the target fish.
"Alright, sir."
The staff member smiled, turned around, and as he passed the fish tanks, picked up his walkie-talkie and said, "Xiao Wang, the filter cotton for the Guppy tank 700 needs to be changed."
Hearing this, Chen Kai shook his head helplessly. Keeping fish was quite troublesome; there were many nuances to it.
He had seen his roommate keep fish before, and things like water temperature were quite specific. He had asked his roommate before what the water temperature for keeping fish should be.
The answer he got was "alternating between cold and hot"...
He cast a glance at the filter compartment.
"Hmm?"
Why was there a faint glow emanating from the filter compartment?
He curiously walked over to take a look; it was the filter compartment for the colorful Guppies.
The Guppies in this tank, as the name implies, had seven-colored tails, but they had almost no fins and relied on their large tails to swim.
"There's no light in the filter compartment, so why is it emitting a faint glow?"
He walked around to the transparent filter compartment behind the tank.
He looked closely and saw a small colorful Guppy struggling against the current in the crevices of the filter media stones!
However, while this Guppy was a bit small, its fins were unusually large!
They were more than twice as big as those of a normal Guppy! They looked like a pair of large palm-shaped ears swaying in the water.
Even the fins were dyed in seven colors!
Chen Kai turned back to look at the other fish in the tank; not only were their fins very small, but they were also a single color, not the seven colors of their tails!
Excited, he turned back to the rear of the tank, just as a Young Man wearing an intern tag on his chest approached the colorful Guppy tank with a roll of white filter cotton.
He quickly waved, beckoning the intern to come over.
Chen Kai was afraid that the regular employees would recognize these fish; if they realized it was a mutation and refused to sell it to him, he would lose out big.
The intern, however, wouldn't care. He had only been interning for a few days, was swamped with dirty and tiring work, and had no time to get to know the fish.
Even if he did recognize it, with the "slacker" attitude of a modern intern, if it was sold, it was sold. It was the boss who would lose out, not him; he was just a fish seller, earning a fixed salary.
The Young Man immediately looked up, repeatedly confirming that he was being called.
"Me?"
"Yes, that's you. Help me net a fish."
Chen Kai looked at his socially anxious appearance and pursed his lips slightly.
"Oh, okay, then I'll get a landing net for you."
The Young Man casually put the filter cotton on the ground, grabbed a landing net from a nearby tank, and took a small plastic box about the size of a palm.
He first used the plastic box to scoop up a box of water from the original tank. "Sir, which one do you want?"
Chen Kai beckoned, signaling him to come behind the tank.
"I want this one in the filter compartment. It's quite pitiful being stuck here, and it's so thin. I'll take it home and take good care of it."
The intern nodded, removed the stones from the filter compartment by hand, and used the small landing net to scoop out the mutated colorful Guppy.
He placed it in the small plastic box, closed the lid, and handed it to Chen Kai. "Pay at the front."
Chen Kai nodded, took the Guppy, and examined it carefully. The fins were indeed different; this was definitely the mutated one!
However, it was a bit thin, perhaps having been accidentally sucked into the filter media for a long time without being fed.
But he didn't dare to feed it; he'd better just get out of there quickly.
The number of fish lives in his hands was at least eight or ten.
Keeping fish, well, it was easy. The "1-3-5-7" mantra: feed once a day, change water every three days, scrub the tank every five days, and change the batch of fish every seven days.
He carried the fish to the checkout counter at the exit and placed the tank on the counter.
The woman sitting at the checkout counter picked up the small plastic box and took a look.
"Oh, this fish of yours is pretty. It's from the 50-a-pair tank, right?"
Chen Kai was stunned. Wasn't it thirty?
Fifty was fifty; he didn't care about the extra twenty. He just wanted to leave with the fish quickly before a professional staff member saw it.
If they changed their minds and refused to sell it, he would regret it to death.
"Yeah, that's right."
The woman in charge of checkout rolled her eyes. "Well, since your fish is so pretty, it's 50 a pair, so just pay 30 for one."
Chen Kai deliberately paused for a few seconds, putting on an impatient expression. "Fine, fine, scan the code quickly."
"Okay, scan mine. Scan this code for twenty-five, and scan me for five."
The woman at the checkout chuckled and secretly took out another QR code from under the counter.
Chen Kai scanned it; it was a personal code.
She was planning to take a kickback; it was obvious she was fleecing him.
But he couldn't not buy the fish, and he didn't care about the five bucks.
He readily scanned the code and paid the money.
"Alright, I'm taking it then."
"Okay, come back again."
Seeing Chen Kai leave, the woman took out her phone, opened WeChat, and looked at the five bucks that had arrived, wearing a smile.
She had guessed that Chen Kai wouldn't be able to resist buying such a beautiful fish.
"Holy crap! Where's my fish? Who sold my mutated fish?"
Just then, a weathered and shocked voice reached the woman at the checkout counter.
She turned her head and saw the curator holding an exquisite plastic box, having scooped a box of water, standing in front of the colorful Guppy tank, looking a bit at a loss.
"Who the hell sold the fish I put in the filter compartment for fasting? Do you know this is an extremely precious genetically mutated variety!?"
The curator slammed the tank onto the table, and the water in the tank spilled out a bit.
He walked toward the checkout counter, angrily took out his phone, pulled up a picture, and questioned the woman at the checkout. "Did you sell this fish?"
"It seems... I did..."
The woman at the checkout said, feeling a bit guilty.
How could she not remember this fish? She had taken a kickback on this very fish!
"How much did you sell it for? When did you sell it?"
"Thirty... just sold it..."
"You sold my fish for thirty!?"
The curator, his face flushed with anger, opened the payment records. "Then why did I only receive 25!? You took a kickback, didn't you? You're fired!!"
He took a deep breath. Since it had been sold, it definitely couldn't be retrieved. Even if that person returned a different colorful Guppy to him, the accounts wouldn't match.
He had already accepted a five-thousand deposit from the Guppy farm and was just waiting for the three-day fasting period to pack it up and send it by courier!
And it just had to go wrong at this moment! He lost five thousand!