Strange Life of a Cat

The building was never completed and didn’t yet have any doors or windows, so it was easy to get in.

Zheng Tan moved cautiously, avoiding making any noise. He kept his senses sharp, detecting every smell and sound.

A cat had a sense of smell 20 times more sensitive than that of a human, and they could hear at least two more octaves. They had good eyesight in the dark and were smaller, making them harder to detect. These factors all worked to Zheng Tan’s advantage.

No matter what was going on here, be it some secret transaction or a revenge story, Zheng Tan didn’t care. He just wanted to find Nougat and leave safely.

Bang!

There was a huge noise upstairs.

Zheng Tan jumped, startled. It was easy to be alarmed by sudden sounds since it was so silent earlier.

Except for the window near the front door, all the other windows were bolted with wooden boards. Nougat couldn’t have left through here.

Zheng Tan decided to go upstairs.

The construction was never completed so the staircase didn’t have railings. There were rusted nails scattered on the stairs. Zheng Tan silently reached the second floor. He listened intently. Plastic rustled in the wind, then it was quiet again.

This didn’t mean anything.

Zheng Tan found someone lying on the ground where the sound had occurred. He wasn’t moving.

Zheng Tan took a deep breath. He had to stay calm at times like this.

He mustered up some courage and went over to the person on the floor. He searched around him and found a drop of blood near a corner. Someone had lingered here. The blood was not yet dry so it couldn’t have been very long ago.

It was just…

Zheng Tan sniffed the blood, then the wall. The smell was somehow familiar.

He thought about the people he knew, then quickly eliminated the University people. He thought about the people he didn’t see that frequently.

Mr. Guo? No. Wei Ling? No. A Jin? Not him either. Ye Hao?

Wait a minute. It was Ye Hao!

What the hell!

How did Ye Hao get into this trouble? Had he been tricked?

First Nougat, then Ye Hao. Zheng Tan decided luck was not on his side tonight.

Zheng Tan had smelled Ye Hao and had no idea where Nougat was, so he decided to follow the smell.

Ye Hao was hurt, but Zheng Tan didn’t know how serious his wound was. He saw blood on the floor every few steps. The trail of blood and the scent quickly led him to Ye Hao.

However, Zheng Tan sensed someone unfamiliar when he found Ye Hao. He twitched his ears, capturing the light sound of footsteps. There was also the smell of sweat.

That was a good thing about summer, scents were hard to cover up.

The stranger was closing in on Ye Hao. Zheng Tan hid behind a wall watching the person as he approached.

The person was moving quickly yet silently. He had found Ye Hao but remained alert.

He wielded a rake in his hand, the same kind Zheng Tan had discovered near the dead cat.

All the windows were covered with plastic hung on strings. One corner was folded down because the string holding it up had broken. Moonlight poured in.

Zheng Tan saw the person heading toward a small room. Ye Hao was probably inside.

He should help.

Zheng Tan hoped Ye Hao would remember this was the second time he had helped him.

The person closed in with a rake in hand. Ye Hao was focused as well. Neither knew they were both being watched.

“Aow~”

Suddenly a strange sound made the hair on the back of their necks stand up.

There was no wind at the moment, the sound was caused by plastic. It was the dead of night and neither of the men expected any living being other than each other to be present. Under the tense atmosphere, the sound was chilling.

The men had different reactions to the sound.

The stranger was annoyed. He regretted not killing off all the cats around here. He got one of them and left the rest.

Ye Hao, who was starting to feel tired due to the loss of blood from the wound on his stomach, had been preparing for the worst. He was alarmed by the sound, yet immediately afterward, he was pleasantly surprised and a little suspicious. He had been there for the KTV fiasco at the Night Tower. According to Wei Ling, that cat was the only one that could create such noises.

This had to be that cat?

Zheng Tan moved to a different hiding place after crying out. He picked up a nail from the floor. The man was moving towards Ye Hao again. Zheng Tan threw the nail the moment he had reached Ye Hao.

The nail hit the man on the back.

Zheng Tan hurriedly retreated to a corner. He had made the noise when he sensed there was no one here except Ye Hao and the stranger. Now he put some distance between him and the attacker. Even if the man was an expert at fighting, he couldn’t kill him while being ten meters away.

The next moment, Zheng Tan heard bangs and the sound of metal falling to the floor.

That was fast.

Zheng Tan inched out of the dark. He saw the stranger on the ground and Ye Hao leaning on the wall. He had a knife in his hand, blood dripping from its blade.

He probably struck when the man turned around.

Zheng Tan twitched his ears. He had planned to make a hero’s entrance when the two men were tangled in a fight. Reality couldn’t have been more different. It made sense though. These people probably struck and killed the moment they got a chance. Dragging it on meant danger.

Ye Hao pressed down on his wound and slid to the floor. He was panting.

“Aow~” Zheng Tan cried out again.

Where was Nougat?

“Meow, meow.”

He heard meows along with the sound of banging on wood in the room adjacent to Ye Hao’s hiding place.

Zheng Tan ran over quickly. He found that that the ground was lower in this room and had wooden floors laid in. The wooden boards had gaps in between and Nougat’s leg was caught in one of them. He didn’t dare to break loose until now for fear of making a noise.

That was smart.

Before Zheng Tan could help him, Nougat had managed to break free. His leg looked hurt, although it was unclear if he broke a bone or just twisted his ankle. He was limping.

“Meow.”

Nougat walked toward Zheng Tan, he sounded upset.

Zheng Tan patted Nougat’s head and told him to stay. He then went to check on Ye Hao.

Ye Hao had exceeded Zheng Tan’s expectations and had managed to move himself to a safer location. He had his phone out and said to Zheng Tan, “Can you keep a lookout, I need to make a call.”

Ye Hao had switched his phone off when he sensed the two men inside the building. In this environment, any buzz of noise could expose him.

Zheng Tan looked at Nougat who was being a good boy and licking his wounds where Zheng Tan had left him. He jumped onto the windowsill that allowed him to see the stairs and the front of the building.

Ye Hao had called Long Qi. Someone was sure to come pick him up soon.

He didn’t plan on staying put though. Those two men probably contacted people too, if their people arrived first, he was dead meat.

He regained some strength and stood up. He said to Zheng Tan, “That cat’s hurt, isn’t it? I can carry it down.”

He had seen the cat nearby while he was making his call. The cat had unknowingly helped him. If it wasn’t for it, he wouldn’t have noticed the two men creeping up on him.

The two fighting cats had exposed the two men and gave Ye Hao a chance to prepare himself. It was a shame what happened to the other one.

Nougat seemed to sense this human meant him no harm. He looked at Zheng Tan and allowed Ye Hao to pick him up.

Ye Hao ripped some clothes from the clothes of his attacker and tended to his wounds. Then, with a cat in one hand and a knife in the other, he followed Zheng Tan down the stairs.

Zheng Tan listened for movement before he led the way out the building. The wind in the courtyard soothed him, but he knew it wasn’t time to relax yet.

Outside the building, Zheng Tan followed Ye Hao’s instructions to a different ‘door’. The brick fence had tumbled over on the side. That was how Ye Hao entered the place.

Near the opening, Zheng Tan immediately caught the whiff of a stranger. He pressed his paw on Ye Hao’s foot to stop the man from advancing.

The next moment came fast. Ye Hao dropped to the ground and rolled behind a pile of rubbish just as a shot was fired.

A bullet grazed the top of his shoulder. It was thanks to Zheng Tan and his quick reflexes that the bullet didn’t do more damage.

There was another man here. A man with a gun.

Zheng Tan cursed every deity he could think of. How bad was his luck going to get tonight and who did Ye Hao piss off? It was bad enough that the men had knives, but a gun?

Zheng Tan dragged Nougat, who Ye Hao had dropped, behind a pile of bricks. The pile wasn’t high so this was only a temporary measure.

Just as he was trying to find a way out, Zheng Tan felt a chill run down his spine. It was a chill that he didn’t experience before, not even when he saw Ye Hao kill a man.

The man with the gun suddenly started shooting aimlessly. Bullets were hitting the fence and the ground. None landed even close to Zheng Tan. Ye Hao didn’t seem to be the target as well.

At the same time, Zheng Tan heard a rumble. It was like a suppressed roar. Then, the man with the gun shrieked.

Zheng Tan carefully poked his head out from behind the bricks just in time to see the gunman fall to the ground. A figure pounced on him.

The sound of flesh being ripped apart made him shiver, although the night was not cold.

The man on the ground spasmed. He had dropped his gun and there were deep scratch marks on his wrist.

The figure…

Was it a dog, a cat? Or something else?

No matter what it was, it raised a paw and scratched the man on the neck.

His body spasmed again, but he was soon dead.

The scene in front of them shocked Zheng Tan and Ye Hao. They were chilled down to the bone.

Nougat who was hiding behind the bricks, on the other hand, was suddenly excited. He limped toward the figure.