Strange Life of a Cat

There were many plants with four leaves, but one from the mutation of a three-leaf wood sorrel was not that easily found. Most clovers found in the market were not four-leaf wood sorrels.

Just like Zhuo said, the chance of encountering these type of four-leaf wood sorrel was indeed very low, otherwise they wouldn’t have to sell other plants to substitute for it.

But…..

Looking at the bush in front of him that was comprised mostly of four-leaf wood sorrels, Zheng Tan had an uneasy feeling.

Zheng Tan felt that if the students outside knew about this, they would definitely pluck the entire bush away. That explained why the door remained tightly shut even though there weren’t many things planted in the shed, other than the reason of the shed itself, Lan must have known about these wood sorrel.

Zheng Tan lifted his paws and went through the bunch while silently criticising, an unique individual plant suddenly caught his eyes.

It was slightly smaller than the surrounding leaves, but the reason that Zheng Tan noticed it was it’s unusual leaves.

One…Two…Three.. Four…Five… Six… Seven… Eight… Nine !!

Zheng Tan counted again, it really did have nine leaves. Could it be three plants that had grown together?

He examined the plant again. While other branches had ordinary stems, this specific one with nine-leaves had a stem that was wider in diameter. However, even though the stem was wide, the nine leaves were very small. The biggest leaf was only two-third in size as compared to the other branches, and the smaller leaves were so small that you could barely see them growing on it.

But even if it had small leaves, it was still nine leaves grown together!

Nine leaves!

How could this have happened? Was it the by-product from the induced mutation on other plants?

Zheng Tan cannot make heads or tails of it.

Never mind, Zheng Tan couldn’t be bothered to figure it out, so he might as well leave it unsolved.

He took a look at the leaves on the other branches in this plant, but they were all three-leaved, with only this branch having nine.

Zheng Tan was prepared to pull the entire root up, taking the whole plant with the leaves on other branches with him. But he couldn’t control his strength and snapped it, making Zheng Tan grouchy. Cat paws were certainly not as effective as human fingers.

Paying no attention to the other branches, Zheng Tan picked the branch with nine leaves up in his mouth and walked outside.

“Hey, Charcoal, what do you have in your mouth?” Lan finished his work in the shed, when he walked out he saw Zheng Tan who had picked up something in his mouth and asked.

Zheng Tan threw a side glance at Lan, then at the shed.

“Oh, you found it! I kept that specially for…” Lan showed off his work as a habit, but when he focused on the plant in Zheng Tan’s mouth, his voice was suddenly cut off.

Zheng Tan paid no heed to him and headed straight for the crates, jumping onto the roof of the shed and disappearing in a blink of an eye.

Lan stood still and recalled the scene that he had just witnessed. The branch that Charcoal had…..seemed to have more than four leaves! At least six leaves or even seven!

Anyhow, Lan only hesitated for a second. He wasn’t concerned about those wood sorrels, they were only a pastime. What he valued the most in the entire greenhouse were his orchids, so he quickly cast the matter aside.

Exiting Lan’s little parterre, Zheng Tan headed straight for the western staff courtyard.

Every time Zheng Tan came out it was always during class time and working hours, so there were not as many people around as usual. There were some that remained on campus, but few that belonged to the courtyards.

When he went inside the western courtyard, a cat rushed over with threatening snarls. Zheng Tan didn’t bother with it, running towards the small building that Zhuo lived in without delay.

There was a security system downstairs that needed an access card, so Zheng Tan waited, planning to run in through the opening when somebody came out.

Coincidentally, the person that came out was Zhuo’s housemaid who came downstairs to take out the garbage. The housemaid was frightened out of her wits when Zheng Tan past her feet that she almost flung the trash bag in her hands up into the air. She loathed black cats! And just now a black cat had ran past her. Although it didn’t touch her, her skin still prickled with apprehension.

After a long consideration, the housemaid decided to take a stroll downstairs before going back up again, she clearly didn’t want to face that black cat upstairs. She had always felt some supernatural evil with black cats, she would have smacked the pan across at that cat if it weren’t for Zhuo and Professor Ye.

Throwing the garbage at hand into the bin, the middle-aged housemaid shook her head. She had no clue what goes on in Zhuo and Professor Ye’s head, were they not afraid that the child would be born with some sort of issues?

Despite not being here for long, the housemaid would chat with the family members of staff living in the yard when she was bored, and she heard things.

She heard that the child in Zhuo’s womb had no guarantee of being healthy. Even though they hadn’t found any conditions of deformity, who knows, many people said that even if it was not deformed, the child that she gave birth to may still have an IQ much different than normal children. There were cases like this before where the child’s IQ couldn’t compete with those in kindergarten, even in it’s teenage years.

Wind doesn’t come from a hollow cave without reason. There was basis to those people’s speculations – after all, deducing by the time frame, Zhuo was working on a program with “Buddha” when she was accidently impregnated. That program involved contact with some radioactive elements , but even with safety precautions…

Even the doctors from the associating hospital weren’t optimistic about it.

To avoid getting in trouble if he was confronted by someone while taking the lift, Zheng Tan chose to climb the stairs. It was only six stories, an effortless height for Zheng Tan who had to climb five flights of stairs daily.

Arriving at room 606, Zheng Tan hopped up and pressed the doorbell.

The housemaid probably hadn’t returned from downstairs and it would be inconvenient for Zhuo to move around the house alone, so after pressing twice, Zheng Tan waited in front of the door.

After a while, the door opened.

Initially Zhuo thought it was the housemaid who had forgotten her keys, but when she opened the door and didn’t see anyone, her line of sight lowered to Zheng Tan who squatted before her.

Zheng Tan rushed inside before Zhuo could take a proper look at what he had in his mouth, jumping into the moon chair in Zhuo’s room and puffing as he tried to catch his breath.

Zhuo poured some water from the water cooler into the small cup that Zheng Tan drank from when he visited before. She tried the temperature before placing it on the desk.

Zheng Tan leaped onto the desk and drank some water, he wasn’t really thirsty so he stopped lapping after a few drinks. Zheng Tan wasn’t used to this way of drinking, but gradually he became accustomed to this animalistic method of lapping water.

Zhuo was genuinely glad to see Zheng Tan. She didn’t think that the black cat would return again in the afternoon after his trip here in the morning. Zhuo understood what the meaningful glances from the people nearby meant, so most of the times Zhuo wasn’t willing to face those people out there. Even when she occasionally went for a stroll she would chose a time when there weren’t many people.

There were always some people who looked caring on the surface, but everything they said was like knives that aim to stab your heart. However, every time she was with this cat , Zhuo felt extremely at ease.

Hence, Zhuo made up her mind that if she could come back afterwards, she would also keep a cat at home.

Zheng Tan finished drinking water and noticed that Zhuo was still looking at him, paying no notice to the grass on the moon chair, so he tilted his chin and nodded towards the chair.

Seeing this, Zhuo gazed in the direction of the moon chair.

“Huh?”

Zhuo picked the strand of grass up from the chair, when she finally got a plain view her face was filled with disbelief. She looked at Zheng Tan, then at the grass in her palm again.

Nine leaves, like the petals of a flower, layered together. The smallest leaves in the center were only so big, but there were actually nine leaves.

Zhuo heard from the transferred junior that gave her the four-leaf clover, every additional leaf of the clover represents good fortune. The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth leaf all had their meanings.

What does the ninth leaf represent?

It represents the luck of survival after many hazards and nirvana of the phoenix.

Survival, rebirth…

Even though it was only legend, something made for self-assurance , when people are at the lowest point of their lives and almost in despair, there will always be things that keep them together, be it hope, someone, something, or some obsession.

After finding out she was pregnant, Zhuo had not stopped worrying for many days, although she didn’t display it on the surface. She hoped that her child would be healthy – no need to be too smart, just healthy – but the word “healthy” to people like Zhuo was a wild dream.

The peeping eyes of those around her, the words that were said behind her back, they weighed so heavily on Zhuo that it made her breathless.

The nine-leaf clover in her palm at that moment suddenly gave Zhuo an impulse to cry aloud.

The small nine-leaf clover in her hands, something that people always believed was a legend, shone like a shining star in the hopeless darkness for Zhuo, guiding to the direction where hope lies.

Standing on the desk, Zheng Tan couldn’t see the facial expressions of Zhuo who sat on the lounge looking at the plant in her hands. As the droplet of water began to fall, Zheng Tan was at a loss of what to do.

Crying? No way?

It’s just a strand of useless grass, it’s not a big deal?!

Women in maternity were so emotional and moody!

Shaking his whiskers, Zheng Tan had no clue how to react to the situation at hand.

Not long afterwards, Zhuo snuff her nose and said: ” A four-leaf wood sorrel was already hard to find, many people spent a long time trying to find one but had no luck. I didn’t think that you could find this…”

Zheng Tan had an urge to tell her that those four-leaf clovers were not actually hard to find, seriously, there’s a whole bush of it in Lan’s shed!

“My child, even if mama can’t come back in the future and be with you, brother Coal will always be there for you…” Zhuo mumbled under her breath.

Zheng Tan scratched his ears as his mind began to replay the scene when a rascal from Tiger’s household dragged Tiger’s tail and stuffed it into his own mouth.

Then, Zheng Tan was in pure horror once again.

Sh*t, I don’t want to take care of children!!!! Even if you call me brother Coal or dad, it still won’t cut it !!

‘I am only a cat right now, they would pull at my tail, pinch my ears, or even scream at their top of their lungs and cry at me for no reason!’

Zheng Tan became bewildered at Zhuo’s reactions, Zhuo said that she would forever grateful for what Zheng Tan did, but judging by the condition that Zhuo was in, Zheng Tan was afraid that she would be in mishap. With that big of a belly and being so sentimental, was she really alright?

Fortunately, the housemaid came back just in time for Zheng Tan to sneak out.

Some time later, Zheng Tan met Zhuo again, being accompanied by the housemaid for a stroll and bask under the sunshine. Zhuo showed Zheng Tan the pendant she had on her neck.

The pendant was slightly bigger than a longan, and inside it was the nine-leaf clover that Zheng Tan found. The plant was covered by some unknown material which didn’t appear to be plastic or glass.

The material was transparent, and had a lively green colour because of the plant inside the pendant.

Then housemaid sat on a bench ten meters away from them, quite a distance from Zheng Tan and Zhuo. She couldn’t see the object around Zhuo’s neck and neither was she interested in it. Her concentration was all on Zheng Tan now, afraid that Zheng Tan would come towards her. If it was not for Zhuo, the maid would have kept a great distance away at that second when she saw Zheng Tan.

Zheng Tan felt something different about Zhuo today. Compared to her old self, she had more vivid vitality, in contrast to the woeful self that remained gloomy even when she smiled.

He yawned and shook his fur as he watched Zhuo and the maid walk away. Zheng Tan continued to walk forward too, he planned to go to Papa Jiao’s office for a nap. Recently, a few co-workers of Mama Jiao frequented the house, Zheng Tan didn’t want to stay home and face those unfamiliar faces.

When he arrived at biology building, Zheng Tan didn’t immediately head for Papa Jiao’s office. He saw a group of people on the first floor public lab dissecting lab rats. Yi Xin wasn’t in the crowd, but Zheng Tan saw someone he knew.

Wasn’t that the beef jerky!

Zheng Tan can’t remember Su Qu’s name, all he could recall was his Mongolian beef jerky.

Su Qu’s figure stood out in the crowd, he worn a woollen jumper inside and a white lab coat outside. He had bloated up after the winter break and looked like a polar bear.

This sparked Zheng Tan’s interest, so he crouched on the camphor tree outside the public lab window on the first floor and watched. The lab windows weren’t all closed so Zheng Tan could hear clearly the conversations that was carried on inside.

During early March, the marks of the first round postgraduate entrance examination were published. As for the second-round admission cut off, Chuhua University belonged to those schools with autonomous admission lines, their cut-off was announced before the national admission line. Therefore when it was mid-March, each of the faculties had all released their admission lines.

Zheng Tan overheard from Papa Jiao while he was at home that this bulky boy didn’t pass the faculty admission line by much, but he still passed.

In ordinary circumstances, there were still two weeks time before the second-round examination, it was a 1:1.2 ratio placement difference exam, a bunch of people that had passed the line would be eliminated. However, when the first round examination marks got released, those who had quite high marks had already began to contact the teachers in department. As for those with comparably lower marks, they started to pull some strings, hoping to find an ideal teacher and settle the matter.

After all, what decides if you could stay were those teachers with postgraduate placement opportunities. If his hand struck the hammer and decided it was you, then you could pass no matter how high or low your marks were. Many people’s placements were already made final before the second-round, so when the time came, the exam was just a mere formality.

This was a semi-open internal rule, most colleges were like that. Zheng Tan only knew from the discussion between Papa Jiao and Mama Jiao.

As for this beef jerky boy, Papa Jiao seems to have already came to an agreement, otherwise he wouldn’t have let him come over and get familiar around the labs.

At the moment, that hunk was talking cheerfully with other but the movements of his hands were unequivocal, an extremely incisive knife skill. After the dissection, the tweezer would accurately find the body part required for the sample in one go.

Su Qu’s first-round marks were not high, under usual circumstances, these kind of people would often be very close to being cut-off in the re-examination and had a high chance of being eliminated. However, under instructions of assistant professor Jiao, Su Qu can now stand inside the lab and study. This meant that his placement was already cut and dried, he would officially become a member of the department in September. Other higher grade postgrad students in the department also understood it’s meaning, so they were very welcoming to this new junior-to-be.

Over the course of two days, the hunk junior had frequently helped to carry things for the female senior students in the department and take samples for the male senior students, so naturally he became quite popular.

As for grades.

Haha.

Who cares if you get first in the second round?

Those who had been through it all knew that after you had finally entered, only the published articles and the impact factor of these articles matter, everything else was bullsh*t.

There were so many classes in the first year of the master course, as long as you use the time to perform experiments in the lab you could ditch class for all you want. Your tutor would be overjoyed, some easy-going tutors would even cover for you, and accept your application to leave.

When Yi Xi entered the course his grades were not even ranked in the top ten, but look where he’s at now? These days when somebody mentions the famous person of this year group, who would dare to ignore such a presence?

Yi Xin’s name was still up on the yearly roll of honour in the department, as for those who were ranked the top ten in the exam results, who could remember them now?

When others asked Su Qu who he was they got the response of Yi Xin’s junior, the person working for assistant professor Jiao. Their attitudes improved drastically, or at least that was what it appeared to be on the surface.

“Senior, your kidney is ready.” Su Qu called.

The person that Su Qu was calling senior was not Yi Xin, everyone else in the grade above was his senior. What was different was that Yi Xin was Su Qu’s immediate senior, as they belonged to the same advisor. Whereas during normal times, the same way of addressing does not distinguish direct or collateral relationships.

The senior that was waiting for the sample was chatting with someone, the person beside him heard and laughed: “Hey, your kidney is ready!”

Others that were collecting samples began to jeer with Su Qu: “Senior, your kidney!”

That senior pointed his tweezer towards the biggest figure in the group, Su Qu, and said: “If you continue this uproar I will make a cut on your body and have yours as well!”

Su Qu had clearly gotten used to hanging out with them, and said bashfully : “Come….. Come, senior, come and get me, you can have me!”

At the same moment, Yi Xin was prepared to walk through the doorway with some research in his hands, along with him was a few undergrad junior girls. They heard the cheesy comment that Su Qu made before they even walked in the lab door, the juniors’ expressions were rather… intricate.

Yi Xin wanted to face-palm. ‘Boss Jiao, is it still too late to return the item?’

Zheng Tan couldn’t stop himself from laughing on the tree outside, this Su Qu was indeed a buffoon.

While he was enjoying himself, Zheng Tan abruptly sensed unfriendly eyes on him. He turned and saw a person in beige-coloured coat standing not too far away and staring at him.