Strange Life of a Cat

Zheng Tan laid expressionlessly on the sofa and looked at the man in front of him.

The person in squatting in front of the sofa stared at him then extended out a hand.

“Here, shake.”

Zheng Tan: “…”

He looked at the hand in front of him, then back at the man. Zheng Tan ignored him. He laid there motionless.

“You don’t know how to shake? Well, I suppose you can roll over… or turn in a circle.” The guy continued.

Zheng Tan had to suppress the urge to scratch the guy on the face. He couldn’t help but flex his paws a little though.

The person gave a few more commands, the kind that most people use to train pets. Zheng Tan didn’t react to anything.

“At least Meow or something. My neighbor’s cat can’t even catch mice, let alone shake or turn around, but it at least meowed when you talked to it. What kind of a cat is this, Professor Jiao.”

Yuan Zhiyi stood up straight, then looked at Professor Jiao who was calmly sitting by a table.

He took a sip of tea. “Chinese farm cat, otherwise known as house cats.”

“You’re telling me, a cat like this one, that probably costs around 50 bucks at the pet store, could make the president of the famous Changwei company help us.” Yuan Zhiyi pointed at the black cat.

It was obvious, Yuan Zhiyi did not believe at all that the president of Changwei had any connections with a this seemingly plain house cat. As far as he knew, this the president of Changwei just returned from Beijing. How on earth could he have anything to do with this cat.

They had just opened shop and were doing business selling small equipment. They also sold basic stuff like DNA sequencing and PCR primer synthesis. They were still new to the market and most of their employees were in sales. They go from university to university trying to get the word out there.

To their surprise, Changwei Company approached them with an order. Though the order was made by a branch office, the order totaled up to 2 million. Using Yuan Zhiyi’s wife words, this was Changwei trying to give them money. They could also use this opportunity to get on Changwei’s boat. However, it was impossible that a company like that didn’t have any long-term partners in business. There was no reason for them to work with a small start-up like theirs.

Yuan Zhiyi couldn’t sleep at all after his call with Papa Jiao. He drove here first thing in the morning to catch Papa Jiao before he left for work. He had to get to the bottom of this thing, or else he couldn’t rest.

“Say something for god sakes.” Yuan Zhiyi urged him.

“What can I say? I’m not sure myself yet. I only suspect there may be some connection here. I can’t make my cat talk can I? I think he might be confused himself as well.”

“He’s confused?” Yuan Zhiyi looked towards Zheng Tan.

Zheng Tan played dumb again.

Yuan Zhiyi shook his head. “I still don’t know what you are saying. He always seems pretty dumb to me.”

They were interrupted by the sound of claws on sofa.

Yuan Zhiyi looked at the Jiao family’s sofa covered with claw marks and shuddered. Why the hell did people raise cats? It was like asking for trouble.

He was far from satisfied with the answer Papa Jiao gave him, but from the looks of it this was as much as he was going to find out today.

Zheng Tan was confused too. He considered himself quite a good cat these too days. He didn’t take long trips, nor get in fights nor catch flees. He didn’t even spy on little couples on campus. He might have broken two of Papa Jiao’s cups by accident; made a hole in Gu Youzi’s pillow case; peed on Jiao Yuan’s shoes and wrinkled the clothes Mama Jiao just ironed.

However, why did Papa Jiao say ‘again’.

Yuan Zhiyi stood up and stretched his legs, “I don’t think it has anything to do with this cat. If it really is because of the cat, I would…”

He looked around and saw a bowl of porridge on the breakfast table. It was cold and turned very thick.

“I would walk out with this bowl of porridge on my head.”

Just as he was making his promise, Zheng Tan heard footsteps outside.

Soon, there was a knock at the door.

“Who is it? Sit. I’ll go get the door.” Yuan Zhiyi said to Papa Jiao. His legs were still numb from squatting. He wanted to walk it off.

He was mumbling something to himself when he opened the door. However, when he saw the people outside, it was as if someone had clenched his throat. He couldn’t even make a peep.

He had met the same person yesterday. He still had the person’s card in his pocket.

“Mr. Zh…Zh…Zhao!” He was so surprised that he started to stutter.

Even Papa Jiao was surprise. He didn’t think the busy Mr. Zhao would show up at his door before they even figured out why he knew about them in the first place.

In front of them was the president of Changwei, behind him was a young girl.

Yuan Zhiyi block the door so Zheng Tan couldn’t see anything from the sofa. He could only hear the voice of a middle age man. Then he smelled the familiar scent of perfume.

Wasn’t this the perfume that girl from that night used?

Yuan Zhiyi was still blocking the door. Papa Jiao poked him on the back where the visitors couldn’t see. The guy was being slow because of the shock.

Yuan Zhiyi hurriedly moved out of the way. “Please come in.”

Mama Jiao had gone to the hospital with Auntie Ling for a routine check-up. Auntie Ling had to go because of stomach problems, so she accompanied Mama Jiao to the hospital right after breakfast. Papa Jiao and Yuan Zhiyi were on their own now with the guest.

Papa Jiao brought out two chairs. Yuan Zhiyi wanted to tell him to just shoo away him cat and let the guest sit on the sofa. Seeing that the guest did not show any sign of displeasure and that Papa Jiao had already dragged out the chairs, he kept his mouth shut.

Mr. Zhao looked like he was in his forties though he had turned fifty recently. He was in good shape and in a good mood too. At least Zheng Tan felt his smile was genuine.

After putting down the things they brought, Mr. Zhao said: “We ran into Professor Lan downstairs earlier. He let us in the building.”

“You know Professor Lan?”

Yuan Zhiyi and Papa Jiao knew Professor Lan worked with quite a few companies, but they didn’t know Changwei was one of them. By the looks of it, the two men were quite familiar.

“We have Professor Lan as our consultant and he comes by once in a while to do lecturer. We bother him quite often with problems that come up in projects.”

Mr. Zhao introduced his daughter Zhao Le, who was studying at Chuhua University. He didn’t talk more about his daughter, but changed the subject.

Because they had chatted about Professor Lan, the two sides felt closer and the atmosphere loosened up. Mr. Zhao did not show his usual aloofness and Papa Jiao and Yuan Zhiyi relaxed. They had a lively discussion on Yuan Zhiyi’s company.

Yuan Zhiyi was very pleased to be able to learn from this successful business man. Mr. Zhao indeed gave them many valuable advices that would great benefit their start-up. Yuan Zhiyi knew many people in academia, but Mr. Zhao was the only person he knew who was successful in business.

Yuan felt Mr. Zhao was much more approachable today, unlike yesterday. He seemed less like a businessman, more like someone eager to help out his juniors.

Mr. Zhao did not promise them anything, but gave them a lot of advice. From what he said, he thought their company was on the right track and was likely to gain success. He was willing to wait for an appropriate opportunity to work with their company again.

Mr. Zhao was a man of his words. If he said that, he would definitely do as he said.

This made Yuan Zhiyi very very happy.

As the three men chatted about business and current markets, the girl walked towards Zheng Tan.

Zheng Tan had managed to stay put in his original spot in the middle of the sofa ever since the visitors came. He took up around one fourth of the space, plus two throw pillows and a doll, not much space was left. Though it would be hard to fit a grown man next to him, a skinny girl could still sit.

Zheng Tan saw that the wounds on Zhao Le’s hands and face had already healed. They probably waited this long to come visit because the wounds were hard to explain without talking about the events of that night.

Zhao Le’s eyes lit up when he saw the black cat, her smile widened. She picked up the cat and put it on her lap and started to comb through its fur.

Zheng Tan was happy to be hugged by a girl again, but her combing was uncomfortable. He thought about it, then jumped off the sofa and went into Gu Youzi’s room. He opened the second drawer of her desk and took out a comb. He went back into the living room and jumped on Zhao Le’s lap, layin, so it was easy to cobm.g the comb down beside them.

Zhao Le originally thought the black cat did not like her, she didn’t think this would happen. After pausing for a second, she laughed and started to comb the cat.

Zheng Tan’s fur was not long and was well kept thanks to Gu Youzi. Short fur didn’t tangle, so it was easy to comb.

Zheng Tan squinted his eyes. As Zhao Le combed his back, the tip of his tail shivered out of comfort. This was much better.

Yuan Zhiyi saw this scene and felt his smile freeze. He wanted to go pull the cat’s ear. Did it understand that these people were guests? Important guests too! So important that a room full of cats couldn’t even compare with the girl’s little finger. How could the cat make her comb his fur and look so pleased?

Mr. Zhao and Zhao Le didn’t stay for long. The left after half an hour. Mr. Zhao didn’t say much about the reason behind their visit, however, he did point out blankly the Jiao family’s cat did his daughter a huge favor. He didn’t go into the details though.

Papa Jiao and Yuan Zhiyi walked the two to their car. People were already waiting there for them. There were two cars in the parking lot, they got into one of them, the other was the Range Rover Zheng Tan saw the other day.

After the two men went back inside, Yuan Zhiyi closed the door then stared intently at Zheng Tan as if to dissect him with his eyes.

“I remember you mentioning walking out with porridge on your head?” Papa Jiao teased.

Yuan Zhiyi paused, then walked to the dinner table and picked up the bowl of porridge.

Just when Papa Jiao and Zheng Tan thought he was really going to do as he said, he pulled out a stool and put it in front of Zheng Tan. He laid the bowl of porridge on to the stool and put the three chopsticks into the bowl as if they were incense.

He bowed.

“Please accept my respect, your honor.”

Zheng Tan and Papa Jiao were speechless.

The guy was an idiot.