Strange Life of a Cat

Liu Yao was tired and sat down to rest. His nanny came to wipe his sweat and bring him water.

Liu was very pleased to see his son so energetic and happy.

He was not someone who gave in easily in the business world. No matter how important Fang Sanye was in the capital city, this was Chuhua. He preferred not to upset Liu by forcing him into cooperation. Now, Liu owed him a favor and their negotiations went smoothly, and Zheng Tan completed his task.

Zheng Tan walked around his car. The logo was a cat head. There was even a tail on the rear of the car. It really was a cat car.

Even if this car wasn’t as cool as he thought and driving it wasn’t as exciting as driving a real car, Zheng Tan was still very pleased. He was deeply grateful that Fang had been so thoughtful. He remembered his task and spent the rest of their time at Liu’s playing with Liu Yao. It was easy enough.

When Fang Sanye left with Zheng Tan that afternoon, Liu Yao seemed very sad to see them go. Liu had wanted to buy Zheng Tan from Fang. Fang Sanye refused, so Liu was considering buying a cat. He needed to find a cat that got along with Bun and could make his son happy. It wasn’t easy.

Zheng Tan didn’t care what Liu was thinking. He had his own problems. Where would he keep his car? Carrying it upstairs and downstairs was impractical. It was quite heavy.

Before Zheng Tan could make up his mind, Tong Qing took him to the engineering department. Fang took him to meet Cheng Zhong. Zheng Tan now knew the person who made his car was the same Cheng from the model car club. This was good news. If there was any problem with the car, he now knew who to ask for help.

The car still needed perfecting, so Zheng Tan couldn’t take the car yet. The Jiao’s were going home soon. He would have to wait until after Chinese new year to get his paws on his car again.

Since he probably wouldn’t have a lot of chances to drive his car, Zheng Tan accepted this fate.

The next few days, Zheng Tan made a trip to the construction site. This time everyone treated him very well. Brother Ning didn’t say a thing when Zhong Yan fed him water from the water machine.

People on the site gossiped about him. Someone mentioned he was the boss’s boss’s cat. Someone else said he belonged to someone important that the boss knew. There were all kinds of theories, but one thing was for sure, he was not to be messed with. These days, even a cat was worth more than humans.

Because of this unexpected turn, Zhong Yan had managed to secure his position among his colleagues. He even got a small raise. No one dared to bully him anymore.

Zheng Tan was the only cat wandering about in plain sight near the construction site. Some had opposed him being there. The site was a dangerous place and the cat could get hurt. They saw him as a ticking time bomb. Eventually, they realized their worries were unnecessary. The supervisors told them to let the cat be as long as it didn’t cause any trouble.

Grandpa Jiao had wanted them home since little new year. Unfortunately, Papa Jiao had some business left in Chuhua and had to stay a few more days.

Last time when they went back to Papa Jiao’s hometown, they stayed at their house in the town. This time they would be staying in the village. Grandpa Jiao had cleaned out a few rooms for them and he even made up a cat bed.

Three days before Chinese New Year, the Jiao’s packed up their luggage and left for home. Jiao Wei’s family had left on little new year’s day. Business had been good this past year and they were planning to buy a house in the area.

They stopped at a red light. Three cars stopped side by side. All of them had just left campus. Zheng Tan didn’t know the people in those cars but Papa Jiao rolled down the window and said something to them.

The windows were all open and Zheng Tan could hear the conversation in the cars on either side. Inside the car on the left, people were talking about curved spacetime and Hubble redshift. In the car on the right, people were chatting about the fluid mosaic model and the endosymbiosis theory of the origin of mitochondria chloroplast.

Zheng Tan decided to watch Jiao Yuan and Youzi play chess.

There was a bit of traffic inside the city, but once they got onto the highway the road was clear.

Youzi was new to chess. Jiao Yuan gave her an advantage of a rook, a knight, and a pawn. Mama Jiao sat in the passenger seat and looked back to help Youzi.

Zheng Tan never played chess before and was a newbie like Youzi. He wasn’t of much help and could only sit and watch them play. When he got tired, he looked up to check the road signs to see how much further they had to go.

“Checkmate,” Youzi said calmly.

Zheng Tan looked back at the chess board. He grinned. They had just begun playing and Jiao Yuan lost.

Jiao Yuan couldn’t believe it. He scratched his chin.

Mama Jiao laughed and explained the match to Papa Jiao.

“Many people make mistakes like that when they play against beginners. When I was learning how to play chess, an elder in my village gave me an advantage like you did. I was excited and nervous and managed to checkmate him like Youzi. It was quite funny.”

Papa Jiao was recounting the memory. He still remembered how the elder’s face turned bright red after he won. “I only won that once though. I played with the man every single time I went back to the village but won never won. Now the elder would only allow me an advantage of two chess pieces. So that meant my chess skills have improved.

Jiao Yuan reset the board and asked for a rematch. The first time he made a mistake. Now he was more cautious, Youzi, who had just begun playing, was no match for him.

They were close to their destination and the kids were getting tired of chess. They sat and looked at the scenery outside.

After two minutes, the car stopped.

There had been an accident ahead and cars were all stuck here.

Seeing that they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, people were getting out of their cars. Some were carsick and needed fresh air, others got off to see what had happened.

Papa Jiao got out of the car to ask about the situation.

Behind their car was a BMW. An old man got out and stood by the side of the road with his hand behind his back. He stared entranced at the miles of farmland.

A man in his thirties got out of the car and said something to the old man. He shook his head, then came over to Papa Jiao and asked if he knew what was going on.

“The driver wasn’t hurt. A truck was flipped and there’s fruit everywhere. It’s probably going to be another quarter of an hour before they can clear the road,” Papa Jiao said.

Zheng Tan listened to them talk. The man in the BMW was from Yiyang as well. They talked in dialect. Zheng Tan could understand some of it now.

“It’s been more than a decade. People probably don’t remember me anymore. When my father first moved to the city, he told me to come back home when I made it. He always felt this was his home, and no matter how nice life was in the city, he wanted to come back. Sadly he had just had surgery and couldn’t travel. He has regained some of his health now, so I’m taking him back home. Back in the day, this highway wasn’t built yet. It was so hard getting to Yiyang. The road was so bumpy.”

Leaving home at a young age and returning when one was old. One’s accent remained the same but one’s hair had now turned grey. (old Chinese poem)

This was probably an apt description of what the man was feeling.

He was one of those people who grabbed his chance in the nineties and made a fortune. No matter what they did for a living, they needed to do face-saving projects before they went home. How else would people know they made it in the city. This BMW was a classic example.

To people in Papa Jiao’s village, expensive cars meant BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis. To many of the villagers, driving a Maybach was the same as driving a Ford. To show that you’ve made it, you needed to consider what the people in your village understood.

Papa Jiao didn’t care about these things. He went back home quite often and people knew him well. It was different for people who hadn’t been home in years.