"CP 1765, September 26. 76 days have passed since landing. Local time: AD 2016, November 1."

  "Dissecting an alien organism! How thrilling that phrase sounds, doesn't it? Yet none of that happened: no surgical blades snapped or corroded; no eyes glowed red with fangs protruding; no monsters burst from the abdomen. How to put it? Dissecting that small rodent (noted aside: 'If I classified it correctly') felt no fundamentally different. Or rather, the only difference in 'feel' came from the cheap embalming treatment. Almost pure formaldehyde, what an old fashion..."

  "Min chuckled multiple times during the dissection. He never explained what he was laughing at, but it was obvious that he was thinking about foxes. It was baffling why he relished such racially charged jokes — though perhaps he didn't see them that way... Next time I might as well crack a monkey joke on him, though that doesn't seem too wise. After all, beyond the appearance, foxes and tuefue share little else in common..."

  "Back to the dissection. Just as seen in the atlas, convergent evolution is remarkably effective. Some organs with distinctive features were instantly recognisable. If it were alive, I could probably identify more. The intestines and blood vessels were easy to spot, and the brain was identifiable by its position. In total, I recognised nine distinct organs, not counting the skin. More detailed observations are in my research notes — this is just a diary, not meant for scientific data."

  "Progress with the journal, however, proved quite interesting. That dreaded occurrence all researchers loathe happened again: media or other publishers took liberties with the content!"

  "They added a few simulated planetary images to the article, but got the atmospheric colours completely wrong. This kind of mistake falls somewhere between an blunder and a rookie mistake — the general public probably wouldn't notice, but it's glaringly obvious to experts. Fortunately, this is a reputable journal, not some tabloid. Otherwise, it wouldn't just be a well-intentioned slip-up — we'd likely see absurd headlines like 'Breakthrough Discovery! Arbitrarily Model Any Star System!'. Philosophically speaking, all this is the curse brought by money, again."

  "Another curious thing: lately, whenever I brush my fur, bugs fall out. Honestly, it's a bit gross. Clearly, local lice have latched onto me but can't handle the environment. Yep. I strongly suspect they came from the fox Min bought a while back, another reason to hate it."

  "The lice themselves are not too worrying, but this reminds me of something smaller — microbes. I don't believe I need to live wearing a mask and hazmat suit all the time, but being cautious never hurts..."

  "Weather-wise, it was quite cloudy when I woke up today, but cleared up completely for the rest of the day. If it rained less here, I'd actually really like the weather."

  ***

  "What are you doing?" Xi P asks curiously, watching Min seem to struggle intensely with an email.

  "Notifying the journal that they used the wrong images and need to correct them." Min replies.

  "That seems not needed, un-necessary. This is not a major mistake."

  Hearing this, Min immediately stops typing and turns to look at Xi P in astonishment, as if he were some kind of strange creature. This is not at all what Min expected from Xi P.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" Feeling uneasy under Min's gaze, Xi P asks. Over time, he has grown increasingly adept at reading the emotions of these aliens. He rarely encounters such a look, which Min displayed only during their initial meeting. He has no idea what he said wrong.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Takes a deep breath, Min begins: "This is unacceptable. Details determine success or failure. How can a scientist who neglects details achieve the best results? I don't know what's causing your lack of attention to detail, but today, as someone who values precision, I'm going to teach you some lessons about the importance of details..."

  Paying little heed to whether Xi P understands, Min suddenly launches into a torrent of words. He speaks non-stop for nearly half a minute before pausing to take a sip of juice from the table.

  '??'

  Xi P hasn't fully grasped every word, but he gets the gist. After a long silence, he replies with a hint of resignation: "But isn't this... well, finding mistakes that are too tiny? Making them an new issue again, just because of one minor mistake? I really don't get it."

  Now it is Min's turn to look puzzled: "You mean nit-picking, and that's not what I mean. I never said I wanted them to reprint the whole thing."

  'But you said 'correct'.' Seeing Min's reaction, Xi P realises there must have been a misunderstanding in their communication.

  "I meant to have them mention it in the corrections section of the next issue. You don't think they're a major journal like Nature, do you?" Min replies, feeling both amused and exasperated.

  "Alright..."

  "Oh, and since you're here, there's something else I need to tell you." Recalling something, Min closes the email window and opens a shopping site instead. "I've been thinking about this for a while. Since you're here on Earth, I think it'd be best to adapt to local customs. Look."

  Xi P remains silent as Min navigates to the clothing section. Is Min buying him some clothes? He has brought several outfits from his probe, but trying on some local attire might be interesting. He has tried some before — apart from needing scissors to cut slits in certain places due to his build and joint issues, wearing them is actually manageable...

  But he soon realises his line of thinking is all wrong. Xi P's eyes widen and ears perk straight up, as he watches Min type keywords into the search bar and the results appear on the screen: *alien swear words* — a wearable fake fox tail!

  ***

  After finishing the email, Min spends time chatting to his friends online. Nearly an hour and a half passes like this. As bedtime approaches, a notification suddenly pops up in the bottom right corner — an email alert!

  Not expecting this, Min quickly opens his inbox. To his astonishment, it's actually a reply to the email he just sent!

  Turning around, Min calls out: "Xi P, they replied!"

  No sooner has he spoken than he hears a muffled "Got it" echo from the bathroom.

  'Come to think of it, why has he suddenly started showering so often lately? He's definitely not the type who enjoys bathing, is he?'

  Not wanting to wait for the alien to spend several minutes drying fur with the hairdryer, Min checks the email first. The reply is short — just a simple promise to correct the colour issue in the next issue and a pledge to minimise such occurrences in the future. What's interesting is how efficient they are — it's all been resolved in just an hour and a half. He thought this sort of thing usually took a few days at least.

  A few minutes later, Xi P finally emerges from the bathroom, still holding the hairdryer and blowing continuously at the fur on his head as he walks. His earlobes cover his ear openings tightly, so he isn't too bothered by the noise of the dryer. Min, however, is bothered by it. Covering his ears, he motions for Xi P to turn off the hairdryer and dictates the reply to him.

  Ignoring Min's strange stare at his ears, Xi P simply nods after hearing the reply. There's nothing more to say; emails like this rarely get any other kind of response anyway. It does reminds him of an interesting event that happened recently on Lierus: a journal recently implemented an automated response system. Any email flagged as "author complaining about unexpected changes to their manuscript" would trigger an AI-generated reply, with no manual intervention whatsoever. The system was exposed in under seven days — not because of imprecise flagging, but because the style of the replies was too reminiscent of those of well-known AI models...

  "I wonder what happened to that journal. Min's dictated reply seemed to have that same feel, though their tech probably can't build such a system yet — otherwise it would've been exposed long ago. Or maybe humans are just particularly skilled at this sort of thing?“

  Unaware of the chain of thoughts unfolding in Xi P's mind, Min continues: "...And it's already past 9 PM. How can they still be at it at this hour?"

  Xi P abruptly cuts Min off: "It's morning over there — Germany is on the opposite side of the Earth."

  Unfazed by the interruption, Min glances at Xi P in surprise once more: "You already memorised the world map?"

  "Doesn't you as well?"

  "Of course I did. I mean, I just wanted to say your memory is impressive…"

  ***

  'Wait... so he actually knew from the start that we mistakenly submitted to a German journal?!'