Strange Life of a Cat

Ye Hao shooked his head. He was about to suggest they find another place to talk when the door opened.
This time, there was no shrieking. Zheng Tan had opened the door himself. He opened the door for the group and jumped back onto the sofa to rest. He was tired and felt much better. He drank a gla.s.s of water and was ready to rest.
Ye Hao looked at the opened door and eyed Wei Ling.
The later shrugged and entered the room.
Ye Hao followed him. Baozi and Long Qi hesitated, especially Long Qi whose face had turned to ash at the sight of Zheng Tan. Baozi had to give him a little shove before he entered the room with his talisman in his hand.

Zheng Tan hadn"t planned on listening to these people talk, but a few keywords caught his attention.
Ye Hao was planning to develop the abandoned construction site near Chuhua University. He had his eye on the site for some time, but the original construction had caused such controversy that he chose to stay out of it. Now that the political environment in Chuhua had changed completely, he was considering that piece of land again.
Still, there remained some difficulties, which was why he was trying to get Fang Shaokang on board.
"How"s it going?" Wei Ling asked.

"I just managed to schedule an appointment with Fang Sanye. We"ll see how that goes." Ye Hao rubbed his forehead. "It"s not like we need him to do anything. I just want to see what his stand is on this issue. As long as he doesn"t oppose our plans, we should be fine."
"Is he interested in the land as well?" Wei Ling asked.
Zheng Tan"s ears perked up.
Ye Hao shook his head. "It"s all hearsay. No one knows what Fang is thinking. No matter what, I think it"s good to notify him before we do anything. Shaoguang group is trying to expand here in Chuhua. It"s obvious to anyone who followed their recent moves. Some of their recent decisions look risky but I don"t think Fang"s someone who does things impulsively."
Zheng Tan couldn"t quite follow the rest of the conversation. He just knew that Ye Hao wanted the patch of land near Chuhua University but he wasn"t sure if he could get it or when the construction would actually start.
The two men chatted for a little longer, then Wei Ling got up to leave.

Ye Hao sat quietly in the room for a while after Wei Ling left. Then he looked up and asked Baozi and Long Qi, "Should I give the cat a room? He could do all his singing there."
Long Qi felt himself go stiff. Who gave cats VIP rooms? No one! If Ye Hao gave the cat a room, did it mean the cat would come here more frequently? Would the cat bring feline friends here?
Baozi and Long Qi didn"t say anything. Ye Hao thought for a long while then got up to leave. He looked like he had come to a decision.

On the way home, Zheng Tan suddenly realized Ye Hao didn"t seem to notice his whiskers.
Was it because of the color of his fur and the lighting?
It was only when he got home that he came up with the explanation.
Only people who truly care about you notice the little changes.
For some people, the slightest change in their pet"s behavior could alarm them. For others, their pets could be barely breathing and they still wouldn"t notice.

It was the same with people. If Papa Jiao or the kids so much as coughed, Mama Jiao would worry that they were sick and think of ways to prevent the worsening of these symptoms, yet most other people wouldn"t even notice anything amiss.
T

he Jiaos could spot the change in his whiskers immediately because they cared about him.
This realization gave him a funny feeling. He never felt like that before when he was his human self.
His whiskers didn"t bother him as much now. They were growing longer every day and things were back on track again.

Now that he was in a better mood, he wanted to go outside again. He sometimes saw Tiger and his friends rolling around on the lawn outside when the weather was good. He envied them. Enjoying the sun from the balcony was different than sunbathing on the lawn.
So Zheng Tan finally decided to take a stroll outdoors after staying home for two weeks.
His whiskers were looking fine now and he decided he didn"t care what random people thought of him anymore.
He left the building and breathed in the warm afternoon air. Basking in the sunlight, he felt a sense of pure joy.

Tiger was lying on the lawn and Sheriff was playing in the bushes. Fatty was sitting to the side with his eyes closed. He only left the house when his owner wasn"t home. Whenever the old lady was home, he would stay on the balcony no matter what his friends were doing.
Tiger saw Zheng Tan and flipped onto his back. He pawed at Zheng Tan"s tail.
Zheng Tan shook his tail to avoid Tiger"s paw and lay down on the lawn. He played lazily with the gra.s.s around him.
As he was playing, someone entered the quarters and took a shortcut across the lawn to his building. The man caught sight of the cats.

It took Zheng Tan a moment to realize it was the man who left his curtains open that morning when he was doing the unspeakable with his girlfriend.
He had gone over to the building a few more times after that incident. The curtains were always shut when the man was home.
Zheng Tan thought the man would throw rocks at them and he was ready to dodge. However, the man stood there for a few moments then left. He walked past the cats as fast as he could.
Zheng Tan didn"t know that the man really considered throwing rocks at the cats but decided against it. He had asked around and his neighbors had told him there were two cats and two dogs here in the Eastern Quarters he should never provoke.

The two dogs were Mighty and Sahara. The former was a vicious fighter that made a name for himself by catching the eastern quarter thieves and fighting regularly with the western quarter dogs. Sahara, on the other hand, was smart and vengeful. If someone annoyed him, he would make life extremely inconvenient for that person. He would p.o.o.p in front of his house, or shove the person whenever he got a chance, or pee on the person"s clothes. The person wouldn"t do anything to Sahara either. Sahara"s owner was too powerful.
The two cats were the fat house cat and the black cat living in building B. No one gave him a detailed description of why these cats were special. The mystery made him even more wary of them.

There was a joke component to the two dogs and two cats saying, but the man still avoided these animals whenever he saw them.
When he walked past the lawn, he caught the black cat staring at him and felt gooseb.u.mps on his arms. He shook his head and hastened to leave.
Zheng Tan didn"t know what the man was thinking. The man looked at him like he was some monster, which amused him, but he didn"t give it much thought.
Around four, Jiao Yuan and his friends were back. It was cleaning day at their school but they were not on cleaning duty that day, so they got to leave early.

The kids entered the quarters. As they did so, Zheng Tan heard them talking about going running tomorrow.
Zheng Tan thought that was odd. Since when did Jiao Yuan run in the morning?
At dinner that night, Jiao Yuan told his family that his school was about to hold the annual autumn sports compet.i.tion. Unlike elementary school kids, the middle schoolers took any compet.i.tion very seriously.
Girls tend to grow faster than boys. In seventh grade, most of the boys were still short and small. Jiao Yuan and his friends were about the same height as s.h.i.+ Rui, with the exception of Xiong Xiong. He was tall and st.u.r.dy and had managed to become the head of his cla.s.s"s sports committee.

The teachers gave their little group a bit of preferential treatment, not only because of Xiong Xiong"s mother"s position in the ministry of education. The parent of these kids were mostly professors at Chuhua University. Middle school teachers had kids that would wish to go to university one day which might require the help of these parents.
The eastern quarter kids had formed a little group in their cla.s.s. Xiong Xiong forced them to sign up for sports that other kids didn"t wish to compete in.
Jiao Yuan took out a piece of paper that designated what he had to do. Zheng Tan took a look. Jiao Yuan drew the short straw and had to compete in two eight hundred meter races and a fifteen hundred meter race.