The next day, which was the last day of Zhang Zian's stay in the small seaside town, he drove to Karl's aquarium with Fei Max as usual.
"Hi! Jeff! Good morning!"
Paul, an expert in water quality testing, was testing something, his eyes were pressed against the eyepiece of the microscope, and when he heard the sound of the store door opening and closing automatically, he glanced at him casually. It was really just a glance, and the distance between the eyes and the eyepiece was probably less than 1 centimeter. .
He is always busy with work. He has to measure the specific gravity of water once a week, the level of nitrate and phosphate, and the level of ammonia and nitrite every two weeks. Make adjustments to determine whether there is a problem with the ecological chain of the aquarium or equipment failure, otherwise the loss of a dead fish will be great.
There are so many aquariums in the aquarium, he has to inspect them in batches and randomly, and especially record the inspection date of each aquarium in detail.
"Good morning, Paul!"
Zhang Zian put down the plastic storage box with great effort, and glanced around the store, "Where's Carl? Isn't he here?"
"It should be in the back, go find him." Paul straightened up and recorded the data he just observed on the computer. At this time, he noticed that the plastic storage box Zhang Zian was holding was very heavy, and it seemed to be full of water in it, so he kindly asked, "Do you want me to help you?"
"No need, I'll do it myself, thank you." Zhang Zian looked at Paul's typical skinny figure, and guessed that asking him to help would only do a disservice to him.
At this moment, Carl came out from behind carrying a plastic bucket.
"Jeff, are you going back to Berlin today?" he asked.
"Yes, we'll be leaving in a while, thank you for your care these days." Zhang Zian threw the key to the villa to Karl.
Paul was very surprised, "What? This is leaving?"
"Yeah, otherwise I won't be able to catch up with the closing ceremony of the film festival." Zhang Zian said with a smile, "Thank you, Paul, I have learned a lot from you."
"Is that so..." Paul lowered his head regretfully.
After several days of getting along, he and Zhang Zian became good friends, because he found that Zhang Zian was easy to learn, and being able to chat with him was a sense of recognition that he could not get from Karl or others, because other People are more concerned about the local team's wins and losses and whether they can advance to the Bundesliga next season, and they don't care about complicated water quality records and monitoring.
"It's okay, just keep in touch online, I will come over to play when I have time in the future." Zhang Zian hugged him goodbye.
"Jeff, there is something you must come with me to take a look at!" Carl waved at Zhang Zian impatiently.
"Oh? What?"
His mysterious appearance aroused Zhang Zian's curiosity.
"You'll know when you come and see it, while it's still alive..." Carl said vaguely, and took him to the backstage staff area of the aquarium, where there was an aquarium alone.
"Look, haven't you seen this thing before?" Carl pointed to the aquarium.
Zhang Zian came closer and observed carefully.
There is only a layer of bottom sand in the aquarium, and on the bottom sand lies a strange creature, covered with a hard chitin shell, like a combination of a cicada monkey and a pippi shrimp, but its size is smaller than the two are hundreds of times larger.
Cicada monkeys, which are the larvae of cicadas, get their name because they will climb up trees and transform into cicadas. The process is like a monkey climbing a tree.
The shell of this creature was lavender, and it was about a foot long. It lay on the bottom sand as if it was dead. If its two tentacles were not still moving slightly, Zhang Zian really thought it was dead.
Between its body and the bottom sand, several pairs of appendages can be vaguely seen, each with sharp claws.
"This is... the king's footed worm?" Zhang Zian asked uncertainly.
"That's right!" Carl sighed with excitement and regret on his brows, "It's a pity that it is dying and won't live long. We may be the last two people it has seen."
"Is that for sure? After all, it is a deep-sea animal. It is used to the huge pressure on the bottom of the sea. Not to mention coming to land, it will die due to loss of pressure even in shallow sea. It is not easy to survive until now. "Zhang Zian knew the fate of this rare creature.
The king-pod generally lives on the seabed hundreds of meters underwater, and it is almost impossible to keep it as a pet for ordinary people, and it is also difficult to catch.
They can be seen occasionally in the deep-sea aquarium in Fusang, and Fusang people also have an unusual love for this kind of creature. Figures, dolls, key chains and the like in the shape of the king's footed insect are selling very well, probably because they think This creature is cute.
"Yeah," Karl nodded, "that's why I was in a hurry to ask you to come over and take a look at it for the last time. It's rare to see a living king-pod. After it dies, I'll ask someone to make a specimen of it and place it In front of the shop."
"Where did it come from?" Zhang Zian asked, "Caught by fishermen?"
Carl shook his head, "It's strange, this is what my friend picked up while walking by the sea yesterday. Doesn't it sound incredible? This kind of creature that lives in the deep sea knows that it will die when it floats to the surface, but it violates their survival instinct , as if eager to go somewhere. My friend also knows a little about aquariums. At first glance, he thought it was the Dow's deep water lice in Fusang. The creatures are not valuable, but it is strange to appear on the coast of Germany. Later, he took a closer look and recognized it as the king's full-footed insect, so he called me and I drove it back."
Zhang Zian knew in his heart that this was probably caused by the appearance of the mermaid.
"By the way, I also have a gift for you."
He motioned for Karl to go back outside with him.
"What is it? Don't tell me it's a Berlin Bear doll. I'm too old for that kind of gift." Carl said half-jokingly, "I also have the autographed photo of Famous."
Zhang Zian also smiled, lifted the lid of the storage box, pointed to the creature in the water and said, "This is it."
Carl was stunned the moment he saw the giant sea scale worm, and couldn't believe his eyes.
"My God! This... is this a giant sea scale insect?" He tremblingly said, "You just brought it in a storage box?"
"Because there is nothing else available." Zhang Zian was also helpless, "I can't buy an aquarium just to hold this thing."
As expected, Karl is a man of knowledge, and he knows all kinds of exotic creatures like the back of his hand. He recognized the identity of the giant sea scale worm at a glance, and knew that it was a newly discovered species by scientists.
He looked left and right around the storage box like he was treating a treasure. If he didn't know the danger of this creature, he really wanted to hold it in his hand.
In comparison, the rarity of the king's full-footed worm is far behind.
Hearing the voices of the two, Paul also came over from the water quality testing platform. He was also shocked to see this strange and rare creature.
"Is this giant sea scale worm a gift for me?" Carl suddenly recalled, "You want to give it to me? You should know how rare this kind of creature is? There probably isn't any aquarium in this world. The museum owns them!"
"Yeah, to thank you and Leina for taking care of me, and you like such creatures very much, don't you?" Zhang Zian said with a smile, "We Chinese pay attention to reciprocity, I can't accept your care for nothing, otherwise it will make people people joke."
He changed his tone, and said half-jokingly: "And how do I bring this guy back to the country? I'm afraid I will be stopped by the customs, right? I will inevitably spend a lot of time at that time, and maybe there will be trouble."
"But... how did you get this giant sea scale worm?" Carl believed it, and asked in surprise, "As far as I know, they live in Antarctica, right?"
"I don't know how it came to Germany, which is thousands of miles away. Coincidentally, I also picked it up yesterday when I was walking by the sea." Zhang Zian shrugged, "It's probably similar to what happened to your friend, but mine Fortunately, the living waters of giant sea scale worms are not so deep, and they will not die when they go ashore."
Karl thanked him repeatedly, and immediately urged Paul to vacate the best aquarium in the store, arrange the cooling equipment, simulate the water quality of the Antarctic sea in the aquarium, and make sure to use the best conditions to entertain this new customer.
He is very confident that using this giant sea scale insect as a signboard will definitely attract more customers to visit.
According to his experience, rare pets do not necessarily have to be sold. In fact, it may be better to keep them in the store as a display, which can promote the sales of peripheral products.
To a certain extent, Zhang Zian also felt the same, because some customers who came to his store came here for the rare chocolate-colored Abyssinian cats, but in the end they met other cats, or bought them. Imported cat food and cat supplies...
Taking this opportunity, he expressed his thoughts and hoped that Karl could help him introduce a batch of high-quality German aquarium equipment.
Carl has always been a major customer of the local aquarium equipment manufacturer, and he can get the equipment at a preferential price. He fully agrees, please rest assured Zhang Zian, and will definitely arrange for it to be mailed to China immediately.
After explaining the matter, Zhang Zian bid farewell to them, started the car, and embarked on the road to Berlin.