Strange Life of a Cat

Chapter 23

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At six o"clock in the morning, Wei Ling got up. He boiled some water so the two children could rinse their face with warm water after they woke up.

Wei Ling did not grow up in Chuhua. He came here after leaving the military because most of his friends lived here. His strongest impression of this city, after being a resident here for a while, was that the weather was terrible.

In his words, "The weather is sick, it needs a cure."

Temperature in Chuhua always felt like it was a practical joke of some sort. It was nearly 30 degrees yesterday, but had dropped to barely ten degrees today. Perhaps because the temperature was still fluctuating, some trees on campus were still green. Of course, leaves were falling off at the same time, but out of the patches of browns and greens on the side of the road, people always noticed the green parts first. Maybe green made people feel better.

Wei Ling had pulled an all-nighter last night. He was up very late looking up information he needed. Just when he was about to take a nap, Papa Jiao phoned in to remind him that the temperature was dropping and that it would be appreciated if he could make sure the kids stayed warm.

After the phone call, Wei Ling was completed awake. So he played some Solitaire. He went all the way from mid-level difficulty with two sets of poker to highest level difficulty with four sets of cards. Bored of Solitaire, he eventually started playing Minesweeper. The rest of the night was spent renewing the high score of that game over and over again.

Even without sleep, Wei Ling was quite energetic. The hour was still early; he planned to go for a run before buying the kids some breakfast.

He remembered to write a note for the children in case they woke up and wondered where he had gone. He left the note on the dining table and was ready to leave when he saw Zheng Tan, still fast asleep on the sofa.

After scratching the thief that day, Zheng Tan had stopped sleeping on Gu Youzi"s bed. He was worried that the scent of blood on his paws would affect the kids negatively. Apparently, it could make children more p.r.o.ne to nightmares.

Gu Youzi had brought out her furry blanket for Zheng Tan to use has a quilt. The blanket had a hat attached to it. On it was a pair of cat ears.

At the moment, Zheng Tan was curled up in a ball under the blanket sleeping soundly. Before, he always wondered why cats curled up in their sleep. Wasn"t the position tiring?

But when he himself turned into a cat, he realized that this sleeping position was really quite comfortable. Most times, he simply balled up unconsciously in his sleep, like now.

"Charcoal, Get up! Let"s go!" Standing at the door, Wei Ling called out in hushed tones.

The cat didn"t move.

"Charcoal! Wake Up! Running time." Wei Ling called out again. He didn"t believe for a minute the cat on the sofa couldn"t hear him.

The ears poking out from under the blanket twitched, then…well, that was it.

Wei Ling: "... ..." This little b.a.s.t.a.r.d was playing deaf!

"Charcoal!" Wei Ling called out for the third time. This time with a hint of warning in his voice. Zheng Tan still did not move. However, he did let out a noise from his nostrils, indicating that he had heard him and that Wei Ling could get lost now.

"Charcoal, now!" Wei Ling tried a fourth time.

Zheng Tan finally moved. He stretched lazily, poking his head out of the blanket. He looked at Wei Ling and yawned. Seeing that the man didn"t move, Zheng Tan went back to sleep.

"Charcoal! Get up! Go run!" Wei Ling was pausing after every syllable as if to emphasize how serious he was.

This time, Zheng Tan finally began to get up. He got out of the blanket, stretched, then shook his fur.

Wei Ling: "..."

F*cking h.e.l.l, he did not expect to need to wake a cat five times to have it get up!

"Do you have to knead on the sofa for a while, go to the bathroom? What? You done yet?" Wei Ling said through gritted teeth.

Zhang Tan twitched his ears. He didn"t knead. If he did, it would be on b.o.o.bs. What was the fun in kneading a sofa? Zheng Tan always felt that this signature move of cats was slightly wrong. Especially since cats all did this when they missed their mothers. It was in their genetics.

Kneading was unnecessary, but taking a morning p.i.s.s was not.

Seeing the black cat run into the bathroom, Wei Ling looked up to the ceiling and sighed helplessly. Why did the Jiao family treat this cat like it was some prize?

Because of the temperature drop, Zheng Tan felt a cold wave hit him right after he left the building. He s.h.i.+vered.

The sun was not out yet. It was quiet and peaceful on campus. Except from some noise coming from the cafeteria, the place was in complete silence.

Half-way through their run, however, the morning radio started right on time.

It played from six thirty to seven thirty every day.

When he was running pa.s.s the dorms, the school radio had finished its opening song and was starting to play the music for broadcast gymnastics.

"Now, the eighth series broadcast gymnastics. March on the spot! One Two Three Four…"

"F*ck, it"s too early for this cr*p!" Agitated complaints were coming from the dorms.

Before the complaining ended, a slipper flew out of the window and hit the loudspeaker. This, unfortunately, did not stop the radio from continuing.

"Jumping movement! One two three four..."

"Ah! Sooner or later, I will smash it! Just wait, the day I leave school is the day this speaker turns into pieces."

Listening to the commotion, Zheng Tan felt oddly gleeful.

Not everyone could become accustomed to using earplugs. He felt bad for the poor idiots who thought they could avoid morning self-study sessions after entering university. Self-study sessions were indeed not mandatory anymore, but now they had the school broadcast that played every weekday to wake up to.

Zheng Tan felt relieved that he lived in the Eastern Quarters. It was relatively quiet over there. The broadcast couldn"t be heard until he stepped on campus.

After a lap, the school radio was still not playing the news, indicating it was not yet seven.

Jiao Yuan usually got up at seven.

Wei Ling went to the cafeteria and bought some breakfast. Zheng Tan waited for him outside and the two went back to the quarters together.

They ran into Mr. Yan who was walking his dog when they entered the courtyard.

Mighty, with his big head and small eyes, wagged his tail furiously. This was because he saw Zheng Tan. Even though he was a mean little thing, he was quite nice to the other pets. Tiger often licked his fur for him. Zheng Tan saw that even the fur b.a.l.l.s Tiger coughed up recently had bits of white and brown in it. That must have been due to Daisy and Mighty here.

Wei Ling sometimes did Tai Chi with the elderly folks here in the quarters, so he was familiar with the older crowd. Mr. Yan knew him too, so he stopped and greeted them.

"Your dog is quite something." Wei Ling looked at Mighty and said to Mr. Yan.

Hearing this, the old man"s wrinkled face cracked up into a big smile. Recently, he loved telling everyone who would listen the glorious deeds of Mighty.

But Mighty was not friendly towards Wei Ling. Maybe it was animal instinct. He avoided Wei Ling and if Wei stared at him, he would bare his teeth.

Mr. Yan looked at the breakfast Wei Ling had bought and shook his head disapprovingly: "You bought eggs and soy milk? I heard a few days ago that when eaten together, eggs and soy milk could not increase the intake of protein, but will affect the body"s ability to absorb protein. I forgot the science behind it. You can ask Jiao, he should know."

Wei Ling thanked Mr. Yan and they were off again. Mr. Yan and Mighty resumed their walk while Wei Ling and Zheng Tan were in a hurry home. The news broadcast had begun, which meant Jiao Yuan and Gu Youzi were probably up already.

Zheng Tan thought about what Mr. Yan said on their way home. Now that he thought about it, it seemed that he never actually saw eggs and soy milk appear on the Jiao family dining table together before. If it did happen, the eggs would be for Jiao Yuan to take to school to snack on. It wouldn"t be eaten immediately.

In the end, Wei Ling went with milk powder.

Lan Tianzhu and Su An came by to go to school together with the kids, so Zheng Tan was relieved of his drop-off duty. It was better this way, Zheng Tan thought. Since Wei Ling was staying here these few days, he might as well just tell the guy that thing he thought up. No matter how things turn out in the end, he"d know if he was right.

When Wei Ling was in the washroom, Zheng Tan went into the bedroom and jumped on Papa Jiao"s desk. There were some books stacked on the side that Papa Jiao regularly used. Among them was Zheng Tan"s first goal "Genetics".

Papa Jiao was teaching a course on genetics this year. Zheng Tan had seen all the PowerPoint slides Papa Jiao had used so far in the course. Papa Jiao would do a mock lecture after he completed each PowerPoint. It was a habit of his. He believed some problems in the details could only be found during a lecture.

Zheng Tan took out that book on genetics. What he needed to do now was find the information he needed in the stuff Papa Jiao had yet to cover in cla.s.s.

Zheng Tan was not sure if the stuff Papa Jiao talked about in the hospital that day came from this book. He was just giving it a try. If this book proved useless, he would look inside another.

For a cat, turning pages was no simple task, but Zheng Tan was used to it. It was a skill that improved with practice. As he read, Zheng Tan kept alert for sounds and movement. He would not flip through the book if Wei Ling came out. After all, it was unusual for a cat to read. Even if he didn"t understand a work in the book, it still looked weird.

Luckily, Zheng Tan soon found the information he was looking for. No wonder Papa Jiao mentioned the subject of pre-birth development. Judging from the look of things, he would be covering the topic soon in cla.s.s, so he had been doing some reading on it recently.

When Wei Ling came into the room to pick up some files, he saw the black cat squatted next to the computer, playing with a bookmark.

"Don"t pull that out, Papa Jiao must have put it there."

But the bookmark was almost completely pulled out of the book by now. So Wei Ling flipped open that book "Genetics" to the page with the bookmark to fix it. Before he closed the book, he took glance of its contents. He froze.

He hurriedly read on, then flipped a page and read some more.

He frowned and went back and re-read the last pa.s.sage a few more times.

In fact, this was the part on disputes on human gender that Papa Jiao mentioned in the hospital. Papa Jiao had made notes on the sides for cla.s.s.

Zheng Tan did not directly put the bookmark on the page with the content he wanted Wei Ling to read, but rather, he put it on the previous page. This was supposed to be a cover-up of his intent.

After reading and re-reading several times, Wei Ling closed the book. He took out his phone and started dialing.

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