Strange Life of a Cat

Well, this was awkward. Zheng Tan looked up from his soup. He saw that Wei Ling was trying to stay out of this, so he buried his head back into his bowl. He kept his ears perked though.

After a moment of silence, Tang Xue finally found her voice. “So, what is going on here?”

Ye Hao put down his bowl. He pointed at Zheng Tan, “Wei Ling brought this one.” He then pointed at Nougat, “This one is from the pet store. It came with the one Wei Ling brought and is being sent home after breakfast.”

Finally, Ye Hao pointed at the large cat, “Found this one on the streets. No idea where it came from.”

Tang Xue nodded halfheartedly. She stared at the large cat, “This isn’t a normal cat. It’s huge. Could it be a super cat?”

“A super cat?”

Ye Hao and Wei Ling both looked up at her.

“Shijiu Uncle had a large cat, don’t you remember?” Tang Xue asked Ye Hao.

“I haven’t seen him recently, but I did hear Qi Ye mention this last time I went to visit.”

The Qi Ye that Ye Hao was talking about was Tang Xue’s father. When Ye Hao first came to Chuhua, he was in Tang Qi Ye’s gang. Tang Qi Ye was part of the reason he was where he was today, though most of it still was his own hard work. Tang Xue wouldn’t have married him otherwise. Though they were family now, Ye Hao still called his father in law Qi Ye.

As for the Shijiu Uncle they were talking about, he belonged to Tang Qi Ye’s generation and was half retired, though still influential. He and Qi Ye were neither friends nor enemies. However, they were the few of their generation still around, so the men caught up from time to time.

Ye Hao had heard Qi Ye mention Shijiu Uncle’s new pet on his recent weekend visit. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time. He had thought that a large cat was just a relatively large pet cat. No one living in the city would raise a real large feline. It seemed now that he was being naive.

“Shijiu Uncle had one of his friends get him a super cat from abroad. Super cats are part bobcat part normal cat. Real ones are hard to come by nowadays.”

“Shijiu Uncle had his friend find him the descendant of a first generation super cat. Apparently, second generation super cats are not quite as large. They are still larger than normal pet cats. Shijiu Uncle’s cat is now 15kgs and very strong. It showed signs of continued growth. That one is smaller than the one you have here, but that one has short fur.”

Zheng Tan listened to Tang Xue intently. When she finished, he looked at Nougat’s father. A super cat?

Ye Hao frowned. He didn’t care about fur length or size, “Do you know if Shijiu Uncle’s cat..uh…kills small animals?” Ye Hao had wanted to say murder people but decided against it.

“Of course it does. Apparently, it already killed a few pet cats and a small dog. Every time it went with Shijiu Uncle to visit dad, it stared at his grey parrots. Dad said his parrots started pulling out their own feathers again out of stress.”

Zheng Tan couldn’t help but think birds had a hard time too. Unlike General, most birds seemed unable to amuse themselves.

As they talked, the large cat had finished its food and was licking a paw.

Zheng Tan always felt cats were more focused when licking their paws than when they ate. They probably put more heart into licking their balls than eating.

“Back away Ye Heng!” Ye Hao suddenly yelled.

Tang Xue hadn’t realized that their son had moved when she was talking. Only when Ye Hao yelled did she see their son had left her side.

Cats were always reserved towards strangers, hostile even. Tang Xue knew that, but she always let her son do what he wanted and had forgotten about the large cat.

Ye Heng was very close to the cat when his father warned him. He not only refused to back away, he instead quickened his pace.

Even Wei Ling’s face turned to ash. They were too careless. They should have locked the cat up or leashed it at least.

Ye Hao didn’t dare move, he had a knife in his hand and eyed Wei Ling telling him to attack as soon as the cat showed hostility.

Ye Hao and Wei Ling had a table between them and the cat. It was already too late to stop Ye Heng.

Tang Xue could tell something was wrong now.

Ye Heng ignored his parents and stood by the large cat, looking at it.

The large cat felt someone come close. It looked up at Ye Heng, then squinted his eyes and rubbed his head on the kid.

Even without the earlier presentation on super cats, after last night Ye Hao did not want an animal like this near his son. It was too dangerous. He couldn’t say with certainty that he would win a fight with this cat. It had large paws and was strong. Its reflexes and IQ made him nervous. A scratch was no joke.

Zheng Tan was close to the large cat and could tell it held no ill will. The cat wasn’t murderous like it was last night. It was closer to a well-fed, lazy pet cat purring to its young owner.

Wei Ling hadn’t reacted immediately because he saw Zheng Tan wasn’t worried. They didn’t know the large cat well enough and doing anything hastily could anger it. He wanted to play it safe, wait and see.

For anyone who didn’t dislike cats, a purring cuddly cat was irresistible. Ye Hao’s boy did not hate cats. Not at all.

He rubbed the cat’s head and scratched its chin. He had heard from Shijiu Uncle that cats liked that.

The cat raised its head. The boy had hit the right the place.

Before long, Ye Heng was dragged away by his father.

Ye Heng who had been smiling earlier immediately looked upset again. It was then Zheng Tan saw how alike the father and son now staring at each other looked.

“Now, Now.” Wei Ling grabbed Ye Hao’s arm. They needed to deal with the cat first.

At that moment, Baozi was back. Ye Hao had sent him to find information on the large cat and with some luck, he had made good progress. He remembered an incident a few years ago. Cats had been dying mysteriously around campus. At the time, he was young and curious. He had friends in the university and knew a bit about what had really happened. He decided to look into it again.

Ye Hao motioned for Tang Xue to take Ye Heng upstairs before taking the documents in Baozi’s hand.

“The CFH incident?” Ye Hao frowned. He muttered, “The cat from hell.”

Zheng Tan thought CFH sounded familiar. He thought about it for a moment then recalled Papa Jiao mentioning it. Ye Hao sat down on the couch to read. Zheng Tan followed him. He jumped onto the back of the sofa to read the document with Ye Hao.

Ye Hao glanced at him but didn’t shoo him away. He didn’t think a cat could understand the document and was just curious why it followed him.

The document wasn’t exhaustive. Baozi didn’t have enough time to find out more. Also, the incident had been covered up and all relating information had been destroyed. He only managed to find out that cats known as CFH were ferocious. There were mixed breeds and differed from one to the other. Some had long fur, some short, some had tails and others didn’t. However, they were good in cold climates and could survive hunger. The only thing was they were capricious and many had congenital diseases. The researchers had wished to see how second-generation CFHs would turn out. Unfortunately, the incident had happened and the project was canceled. All of the ‘products’ of the experiment had been dealt with, though a few cats escaped.

People had been looking for the escaped cats worried that they might reproduce. Eventually, all they found were the dead bodies of a few cats that died from disease, so the search ceased.

This large cat was a second-generation CFH that was the offspring of an escaped cat and a normal cat. Of course, it could also be a super cat, but both Ye Hao and Zheng Tan leaned towards the first explanation. After all, it was true to the name CFH when it managed to murder an adult man.

“Why do you think people were studying this stuff.” Wei Ling didn’t understand.

“Who knows.” Ye Hao threw the documents onto the coffee table.

“I heard scientist had made pigs with human blood and mice with human brain cells, so…” Baozi shrugged. If these things existed, why couldn’t CFHs?

Zheng Tan shivered. He was suddenly thankful Papa Jiao wasn’t that kind of a scientist.

“This was ten years ago.” Ye Hao exclaimed.

“So you can take it out and call it a super cat.” Wei Ling joked, “It was so long ago, probably no one remembers. As long as no one sees it murdering humans, who would know otherwise.”

Ye Hao shook his head, ” I don’t care about that. It has been ten years, but this cat still moved like a young cat. It doesn’t seem to have any diseases and it’s hard to tell how long it’s going to live.”

Zheng Tsn looked at the yawning large cat, then at Nougat who was licking his fur. So Nougat would be a third-generation CFH.

The “mole” next to his mouth really didn’t make him seem ‘hell’ like.

As time goes on, who knew how many cats similar to Nougat would exist. They looked no different than normal cats and could live in peace with humans. Now mixed breed cats and dogs were everywhere, who would think of the CFH incident?

Even if they run into an especially hostile cat, they wouldn’t think too much about it.

These cats from hell would now live on earth.