Strange Life of a Cat

The sun had already begun to brighten when Zheng Tan got off from the car.

Due to pondering too deep into things, Zheng tan didn’t take notice of how far this van had actually traveled, he never even anticipated that he would be this unfortunate.

He just so happened to ride on a car that drove out of the city. He didn’t even know if this place was still inside the Southern City, but judging by the time elapsed, he’s probably far beyond the perimeters of the Southern City.

Lengthy forests extending towards the farmlands where the sky and the horizon met entered his sight.

It was a country state but cannot be considered to be in poverty, the buildings of the residents were all quite modernistic, only a few kept the traditional tiled roof.

Zheng Tan didn’t know where this place was on the map, but judging by the fact that most residences were either two or three floored, Zheng Tan was glad to know that these people’s state was not to bad . This way it would make it easier for him to look for a phone, if he had been in a place of extreme poverty, it would be impossible to find a telephone.

Zheng Tan noted down the address of the van driver’s house, if the driver drove out again he could have the chance of hitching a ride again. Afterwards, Zheng Tan planned to walk about first, familiarizing himself with the landscape and this foreign environment. To wait for an opportunity, he needed to safely spend the oncoming waiting time.

He need to find out which households were easier to get his hands on, more convenient to find fooding, and which villager’s house has a telephone and whether it will be easy to find an opportunity to make a call. Most important of all was to find himself a safe location to stay.

As to safety, Zheng Tan was much more inclined to taller branches. Perhaps because the climate in this place during this season was much warmer than the central regions, there were many flourishing arbours, giving Zheng Tan an advantage to hide himself.

Zheng Tan encountered some mutts and cats that were playing with insects outside during his walk around the village, they were all allowed to wander outside. Seeing that they were casually sauntering about, Zheng Tan became at ease. Being able to see these animals wandering outside meant that there were no one out here kidnapping cats and dogs.

Zheng Tan picked a tall Pagoda tree that had green branches and a full shade as his hideout during sunny days, Zheng Tan hopped up and tried it out. Overall he was quite pleased, he chose a branch and lay down, surveying his surrounding.

From here he was able to see the situation over by the village but at the same time wasn’t too close to it, that way he wouldnt’ be harassed by some villagers.

Near the Pagoda tree was a tangerine orchard with two native dogs chained inside. Zheng Tan watched a cat enter the orchard in front of the two dogs, the two dogs only gave it a look and didn’t react, probably because they knew each other, and didn’t even bother to call out.

A black butterfly flew past the pagoda tree and into the orchard, dancing between tangerine trees.

Zheng Tan remembered that this was a type of swallowtail butterfly, Zheng Tan saw a similar type in Lan’s flower nursery. The last swallowtail that flew into the parterre was made into a specimen by Lan. At the time there were also a few students present, Zheng Tan heard them discussing, saying that in some places these swallowtails were the butterfly lovers from the legends.

These butterflies were unique, as the Liang Zhu butterfly, these kind of butterflies were sexually dimorphic. The so-called sexual dimorphism meant that there was a disparaging difference between the female and male individuals, allowing people to identify their sex through these differences.

Liang Shan Bo and Zhu Ying Tai, a man and a women plus their connection with a mythical story, people believed that even when they turned into butterflies there will still be differences. On the contrary, some like the lime swallowtail in the butterfly species, due to the similar colours of female and male swallowtails, were difficult to distinguish and therefore not promoted as the Liang Zhu butterflies.

Zheng Tan looked at the patterns on this particular swallowtail’s wing, it appeared to be a female butterfly, so it was “Zhu Ying Tai”?

Zheng Tan was admiring “Zhu Ying Tai” when suddenly the cat that had entered the orchard jumped over from one of the tangerine trees. With a slash of a claw, it slapped the butterfly down and continued to slap for a few more times. It played with it between it’s paws, then ate it.

Zheng Tan: “…”

Not sure how those people who narrated this story with great voice and emotion would feel after seeing this scene.

After Liang Shan Bo turned into butterflies with Zhu Ying Tai and flew away together, they were eaten by a cat? Those people who heard this cruel version of the story will probably have the same facial expression as when they were constipating.

Yawning, Zheng Tan narrowed his eyes and began to snooze. He had no choice, if he was to take action, he must wait till night time.

Zheng Tan dreamt in his sleep, he dreamt of the time during the new year’s celebration at Jiaos’ home. He recalled on that day Zheng Tan and the two children sat on the couch and watched television; “Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco” was on the screen. That time Jiao Yuan even said, “Charcoal, you must remember the way home. If you got lost and we couldn’t find you, can you come home by yourself?”

Stay at the Southern City or find a way back to Chuhua city, Zheng Tan’s heart was in conflict due to this question, but in the end he decided to return to Chuhua city. After all cat life was different to human life, being able to find a nice family was extremely difficult, besides Zheng Tan had already began to miss the eastern courtyard.

He continued to wait until nightfall, Zheng Tan leapt down from the Pagoda tree and headed to the house of the villagers.

This family ate their supper early and slept early as well, saving Zheng Tan from waiting too long.

He found a few households, raked up some food to eat. It wasn’t too delicious but he had to make do. After he finished eating he went around looking for phones, finding a telephone was a matter of some difficulty.

People over here liked to put their telephone in the bedroom as well, they even placed it next to the bed. This meant that the phone will be guarded throughout the night. Zheng Tan tried many households and they were the same situation. Granted these villagers were asleep at night, but Zheng Tan still wouldn’t dare to immediately make a call. The telephone was on their bedside, it would easily awake them.

Zheng Tan definitely don’t want to be treated like a monster by the people, so he had no choice but to continue his search to see if there were any residences that were easier to put his hands.

Zheng Tan wouldn’t pick those houses with dogs, those dogs didn’t know Zheng Tan, they barked at him at first sight. There was nothing that Zheng Tan could do about this, but it just so happens that most villagers kept dogs at their house, narrowing the range that Zheng Tan could choose from.

On the positive side, Zheng Tan did find a pretty good residence in the end, and coincidentally it was the household of the van driver.

While he was hiding in the dark he heard some villagers discussing somethings, only then did Zheng Tan know that the younger brother of the van driver planned to marry. For the past few days he had some matter to take care of over by the Southern City, so he bought some related items on the way as well as helping to bring some appliances back.

The wedding was on the day after tomorrow. That household had a big yard for them to hold the wedding feast in open air, but the kitchen wasn’t big enough so they had to cook in the yard. By now most people in their house were busily working in the yard, when it became dark at night they turned on the light and continued their work.

This way, there were no one in the rooms, what’s even better was that they didn’t have a dog, it made Zheng Tan rather satisfied.

The elderlies lived on the first floor, the phone wasn’t in there and there was nothing in the hall, Zheng Tan didn’t spare another look.

Next to the two story house was another makeshift shed for parking the car, Zheng Tan used this car shed to climb into the second floor.

There was indeed a phone in the second floor bedroom, like other households, the landline telephone was placed on the bedside table. Zheng Tan observed around, there was in fact no adults on the second floor, they all went to the yard to lend a hand. In the room next door was a small little girl, appeared to be around the age of kindergarten, she lay on the foam board covered floor reading a book.

As long as there were no adults it was fine, even if he was seen by these kind of young children who don’t even know how to count Zheng Tan couldn’t care less, adults never take children’s words seriously.

Zheng Tan jumped in from the window, dashed excitedly for the phone, he hopped onto the bedside table, scooped up the receiver and dialed the number that he could remember by heart. Of course, this time he didn’t forgot to add a 0 in front of the mobile phone number, as to the landline number, Zheng Tan couldn’t quite recall what the area code for Chuhua city was, so the number that he was calling was Papa Jiao’s mobile phone.

The Jiaos were probably home at that time, right? Papa Jiao should be at home as well.

Zheng Tan waited joyfully after he finished dialing the number, however, his mood suddenly darkened when he heard the tone from the speaker.

Sh*t! This landline didn’t even unlock interstate calls!

He needed to find a key to unlock!

Where could he find such a key?!

Zheng Tan searched the drawer, but the keys that were used to unlock interstate calls on landline phones were nowhere to be found. He became puzzled, was it necessary to lock the interstate calls on this landline phone? Weren’t these places suppose to frequently make interstate calls?

Discouraged, Zheng Tan placed the receiver back and squatted there pondering. Not every phone in these villagers’ houses were locked, should he tried them all out? However, the best solution was to steal that driver’s phone or anyone else’s phone, at least mobile phones won’t be as complex as landlines.

He looked around the bedroom, because of the joyous event that their family was having, there was a lot of stuff such as candies and other snacks on the table, probably to treat the guests.

Zheng Tan fumbled a pack of beef jerky and dried shredded squid out of a big bag, after he took them out he zipped the bag again, then jumped onto the windowsill and planned to leave with two packs of snacks in his arms.

While he was standing by the window, Zheng Tan used the posture of holding the snacks in his arms and stood on two legs on the windowsill, prepared to jump down. Before he did, Zheng Tan felt someone looked towards this side, he turned and glanced over.

The girl that was reading a picture book next door was hiding outside the door of this bedroom and looking at him. She didn’t call out, her eyes were filled with curiosity.

Zheng Tan paused, then taking no heed of her, he jumped of the windowsill straightaway. It wasn’t that convenient to jump with two legs, but during the time of looking for telephone it worked fine when he tried. Zheng Tan was willing for that to working, since he could free up his hands and hold something else. Anyhow, no one else saw him other than that little girl, why would he be afraid, besides he’s not going to stay in this place forever, if he was found out then he can just flee.

Zheng Tan left in a hurry, but he had created a quite serious impact on the child.

At night, when the mother came with picture books to teach her how to count from one to ten. To incorporate with her memory, she even used some real life objects to instruct her.

“How many legs does birdy use to walk?” Her mum asked.

“Two.” The little girl held out two fingers.

“How many legs does the big yellow dog use to walk?”

“Four!” The little girl counted the number of legs of the big yellow dog in the illustration of the picture book and said.

“That’s right, you’re so smart. How many legs does kitty use to walk?” Her mum asked with a smile on her face.

The little girl recalled the cat that she saw today, bending he fingers she counted, then held out two fingers, “Two legs!”

Her mother:”…”

Zheng Tan had no idea of the impression he had caused, at that moment he was walking towards the big Pagoda tree with two packs of snacks in his arms. There was no one in the fields, over by the orchard was a few dogs guarding, no one could see that there was a cat walking rather naturally on two legs.

While Zheng Tan was walking, he also worked on the ideas to “borrow” the phone. Suddenly, he heard a wave of faint humph, he perked up his ears and listened. Zheng Tan could identify from the sound that it was probably noises made by dogs.

Setting down the snacks in his hands, Zheng Tan headed to the source of the noise. If there was to be any danger, four legs would run much faster than this state he was in.

Over by that side was an indented pit, someone had probably filled it with water and bred something there. Now the pit was covered in weeds, in the center of the pit was an iron cage. Inside the cage were three puppies, two lay there motionless, only one larger one was crawling, constantly making humming noises.