Chapter 306: Looking Back in the Past
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After combing his hair, Zhang Zian also adjusted his collar and sleeves. He looked so refreshed, as if he was going to appear on TV.
Zhao Qi was really embarrassed by him. Luckily, other than them, there was no one in the pet shop, or she would really have pretended that she didn’t know this person.
Song Bai unfastened a shoulder bag from his back, and pulled out a strange-looking thing from inside, which Zhang Zian had never seen before. It kind of looked like a selfie stick, but was much shorter, and much fancier.
"What is this?" asked Zhang Zian curiously.
"A handheld pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) device," explained Song Bai, "To enhance stability when capturing videos."
"Oh," Zhang Zian asked Zhao Qi, "Have you seen it before?"
"No," Zhao Qi shook her head.
"Buddy, you are really professional," admired Zhang Zian sincerely.
The only network anchor he knew was Snowy, who usually held a mobile phone and a selfie stick to record videos. Compared to Song Bai, who was using a digital camera and a handheld PTZ, Snowy was just too much of an amateur. But the amount of tipping and rewards that Snowy received from her viewers during live broadcasts…Gee, what an envy of all!
"No, I’m not." said Song Bai modestly, "These are very common devices for vloggers."
Song Bai adeptly put his digital camera and handheld PTZ together. He raised his camera, lens aiming at himself, smiled and said, "Hello, everyone!"
"Cut!" Zhang Zian drew a pausing gesture, "Why are you speaking English?"
"Because I am going to upload the video to YouTube, which is accessible to audiences all over the world, so of course I should speak English," explained Song Bai.
"Well... then…is it okay that I don’t speak English?" Zhang Zian clearly showed that he was poor in English.
"It doesn’t matter, I'll add English subtitles to our dialogues before the final rendering anyways," said Song Bai. He paused, and then continued embarrassedly, "But you’d better not expect too much, because few people usually watch my vlogs."
Compared with live broadcasting, one of the advantages of vlogging was that vloggers could add subtitles to their videos later so that their content could transcend linguistic boundaries and people around the world could watch and understand the videos.
Zhang Zian held up a young black Dragon-Li among the kittens and brought it in front of Song Bai, "You can start shooting now, just turn off the flashlight."
The Dragon-Li kitten was very lively and energetic. It kept struggling and wriggling in Zhang Zian's arms, with its four small paws stroking forwards, like it was swimming. Its body bent like a bow, showing a good waist and abdomen strength. With its yellow-green eyes wide open, it was staring curiously at Song Bai’s camera lens, sticking out a small forepaw and trying to touch it.
Zhang Zian quickly pulled it back a little bit before its paw almost rubbed the lens.
"Is your camera all right?" he asked. Zhang Zian heard that camera lenses were very expensive. Some might even cost tens of thousands of RMB. If the cat really had left some scratches on the lens, how many Dragon-Li cats would he have to sell before he could compensate for the damage?
Song Bai was focusing on his LCD screen and didn’t answer.
"What's the matter? Are there any scratches?" Zhang Zian nervously went closer to have a look.
"No, it's okay, no scratches," replied Song Bai. The scene where the kitten was trying to touch the camera, though, almost took Zhang Zian’s breath away. It was actually very adorable when reviewed from the screen, as if the kitten was going to press the shutter to take a selfie. Song Bai decided to keep this scene at the time of editing, and might even use it as the cover photo of the current vlog.
"Good to know," Zhang Zian calmed down. "How do you like this Dragon-Li kitten?"
As a vlogger, Song Bai was accustomed to observing the world through the camera lens and the LCD screen. Through the camera lens, he saw that the whole body of the Dragon Li kitten was black, and only its chest, abdomen and four paws were in white.
"This is a Dragon-Li cat? Don’t fool me! Though it looks nice, it obviously is just a cheap cat!" said Zhao Qi with astonishment.
Zhang Zian answered disdainfully, "Look at its fur color! Have you seen any cheap cats in such a color? Look carefully!"
Zhao Qi and Song Bai listened to him and then looked at the kitten closely. Only then did they find that the body color of the cat was not pure black, but instead, there were mackerel patterns in between that were hard to perceive—its overall fur color was black, and these patterns were also in black, but of slightly different shades. These mackerel patterns were too dark, if the lighting in the shop hadn’t been greatly improved by Guo Dongyue, they might not be able to distinguish such patterns in an indoor environment.
"This is a rare black Dragon-Li cat." Zhang Zian told them.
It’s true that compared to Zhao Qi’s pure-color British Shorthair, this Dragon Li appeared a little bit cheap. But honestly, Song Bai was an unconventional young man, who didn’t care much about the lady-like British Shorthair cats. He even thought that Zhao Qi’s British Shorthair was too lazy. On the contrary, somehow the scene where the Dragon Li was attempting to touch the camera kept replaying in his mind, and if he was not shooting video right now, he would really press the playback and immerse in that scene.
"Um... I don’t know, how’s the condition of this cat?" asked Song Bai.
Zhao Qi interrupted again, "I think all the cats in his pet shop are well-conditioned, because he personally went to the pet breeding base to pick them. You know, my Lan Lan…"
"Stop! Can you stop talking about your British Shorthair for just one moment?!" Zhang Zian glared at her, and said to Song Bai, "There are not much criteria to judge the conditions of Dragon-Li. As long as Dragon-Li cats are lively and healthy, they are good."
"What? I thought conditions are important when picking pets?" asked Song Bai confusingly.
Zhang Zian sighed, "You're right, but Dragon-Li cats are not in the catalog of purebred cats of CFA (The Cat Fanciers’ Association), so there's no such standard to grade their conditions."
"Really?" Zhao Qi questioned, "I remember reading news that the breed of Dragon-Li was admitted by the CFA and that in the United States, a purebred Dragon-Li cat can be sold for thousands of dollars..."
"Wrong." Zhang Zian replied mercilessly, "Indeed, the CFA once recognized the breed of Dragon-Li. But then CFA and China had a ‘catfight’, so later, Dragon-Li was removed from CFA’s breed catalog. If you really like this Dragon-Li cat, you can buy it, but there’s not much to know about its conditions."
Speaking of the catfight between China and CFA, it was really dramatic.
Around 2012, there was a Great Wall Club in Beijing that specialized in breeding Dragon- Li cats. With its technology, talent and passion, after a period of hard work, the Great Wall Club finally had bred Dragon-Li cats that had reached relatively stable conditions, and they were sent to the United States to attend CFA certification.
As the Great Wall Club had hoped, the CFA admitted Dragon-Li as a breed, which could have been a happy ending to everyone. But then the Great Wall Club and the CFA had some unexpected disputes that soured their relationship. As for the cause of the dispute, there were all kinds of speculations. The more reliable version was that the CFA had kept the Dragon-Li cats which were sent to them for certification instead of returning them to the Great Wall Club, who refused to suffer the loss quietly…
Anyways, at the end of this drama, the Great Wall Club was dissolved, and the Dragon-Li was removed from the CFA. A triple-lose ending!
It was the best shot for introducing Chinese Dragon-Li cats to the whole world, yet the chance slipped away.