Strange Life of a Cat

Fang Shaokang was a busy man. He didn’t show up again after setting up the cat tree.

He did call the next day to ask about it. Papa Jiao said, “It’s nice. Charcoal spends a lot of time on it.”

As for night time, the family knew the cat only slept on the sofa or a bed.

Though he didn’t use the cat bed on the cat tree, he used it often when he got bored during the day. He didn’t like staying idle, but couldn’t jump around because the house was too small. Now he had the cat tree. Fang Shaokang bought it so he wouldn’t feel bad even if he broke it.

Around the time school ended, Zheng Tan went over to the elementary school. He didn’t see Jiao Wei today which was weird. Normally Jiao Wei was here earlier than him. Did something go wrong?

No, that couldn’t be right.

Last period ended earlier at the elementary school than the university. At first, Zheng Tan had thought Jiao Wei didn’t have class in the afternoon. However, he was here early every day except today.

He knew he was forgetting something.

As the bell rang signifying the end of school, Zheng Tan heard footsteps.

“Made it!”

Zheng Tan looked over. Jiao Wei was dressed in battle fatigues and panting. He had run over and was covered in sweat.

Military training!

That was what he forgot.

Freshmen started registration slightly later than the sophomores and juniors, military training began even later than that. Both Yi Xin and Su Qu didn’t need to do military training since they completed it as undergrads so Zheng Tan forgot about it. Jiao Wei still had to undergo military training.

Of course he didn’t have class yet if military training wasn’t over.

Papa Jiao had mentioned that the freshmen hadn’t started classes yet and Jiao Wei had been going to sophomore courses. The professors didn’t know all the students and didn’t bother to check. Most of them didn’t mind people listening in, some even liked those who were eager enough to take the course without registering for it.

To Jiao Wei, Chuhua University was a renowned school and many professors here were famous. It would be such a loss if he didn’t go to as many classes as he could. The school didn’t charge for these extra courses, so he thought of it as him taking advantage of the school. If he needed textbooks he borrowed them from the library. Freshmen didn’t have library cards yet so Papa Jiao lent him his.

At noon, they saw students in battle fatigues all around the shops near campus. Now freshmen were easy to detect.

Jiao Wei’s parents were proud to see their son in his uniform and borrowed a camera to take pictures. His father asked where they were training and planned to go watch them train. He had until October, so there was plenty of time.

Military training…

Zheng Tan looked at the sun above his head, the temperature was rising again these days.

That afternoon, after Zheng Tan and Jiao Wei dropped Youzi off at school, Jiao Wei left for his training grounds with a water cup.

Jiao Wei didn’t notice a cat following him as he ran to the field. Zheng Tan was running in the bushes and it was hard to notice him if you didn’t know he was there.

The training grounds were divided into areas. Science, engineering, humanities, social sciences, and med, each department took up a different area. The campus was large enough to have them do this.

Something funny was going on though.

Certain majors such as literature or foreign languages were mostly made up of girls. Whenever they started training, the “vultures”, so to speak, gathered around. As for the engineering department, 70% of the students were male, the rest were not that different from being male.

How f*cked up!

Most of the boys in the engineering department wanted to swear.

Jiao Wei was in engineering. They had been assigned to one of the smaller training grounds. They had been divided by program and were standing in phalanxes.

The red running tracks were drowned by camouflage. Training hadn’t begun yet and students were chatting in groups.

Zheng Tan saw Jiao Wei head over to a group.

At two in the afternoon, the sun was blazing. The temperature was in the thirties and most of the freshmen were fatigued.

There were some trees near the tracks but the students didn’t get to enjoy them.

Zheng Tan sat on a tree watching Jiao Wei and his peers get berated by their drillmasters.

Most of the drillmasters were the same age as the students. Some might be even younger. However, they were the boss at the moment and the students had to follow every order they gave.

Zheng Tan was having a great time watching them suffer. He was quite comfortable in the shade with a light breeze blowing in. The students were having a much worse time. Some even needed to rest because of heat strokes.

This department was mostly men, so they tried to tough it out. They didn’t want to be called girly or weak since they all wanted to make a good first impression. The few girls in the department were still girls after all.

Jiao Wei hadn’t noticed Zheng Tan until someone pointed at a tree during break time. He looked.

Most people just thought it was funny and stopped watching the cat after a while. After all, cats were nothing new. Jiao Wei, however, thought the black cat was up to mischief.

Surely enough, the next day on top of the bleachers in the shade were four cats sitting in a row looking down at the students.

Jiao Wei felt his eye twitch. The eastern quarter’s famous four were all here.

His drillmaster was watching so he couldn’t do anything or even watch them. They were supposed to look straight ahead or else punishment was sure to follow.

At this stage of their training, the focus was mostly on standing and marching. It was easier than what was to come, but standing still under the sun for hours was still tiresome. They weren’t even allowed to wipe the sweat from their brows.

Fatty loved watching this. He was not his usual half-awake self and looked alert and interested. Sheriff followed the others and did what they did.

As for Tiger, a little toy hanging on the strap of a water cup caught his eye.

The students and their drillmasters had all left their cups on the bleachers in a row. Some even wrote their names on their cups so no one took it by mistake.

The four cats were sitting in a row when Tiger was overcome by curiosity and just had to check out the toy.

The cup was full of water, so Tiger couldn’t knock it over by playing with the strap.

However, he decided pushing it around with one paw wasn’t enough anymore. He stood on his hind legs and held the toy with both paws.

Sheriff decided it was time he joined in.

Cats were like that sometimes. They just couldn’t leave things alone.

And just like that, the cup with the strap was knocked over.

“Knees straight. Hand on both sides held close to the line in your trousers.”

The young drillmaster was giving instructions while checking that everyone was following orders. He sometimes gave people a kick behind the knee or pushed their arms to see if they were putting in the effort.

“S…Sir…” A student in the phalanx said, “My water bottle…”

“No moving! No talking! No looking around!”

“Sir..um…sir,” someone else said timidly.

“Say report before you talk! Say report before you do anything actually!” The drillmaster bellowed.

“Report! Sir your water bottle was knocked over, sir!”

“…”

He looked over just in time to see his water bottle roll down the bleachers, banging every time it hit a lower level.

The culprit, a black and white cat, had a paw still in the air and his head tilted. His sight fell onto another water bottle, this one with a pointy top. He reached his paw out and gave the tip a push.

“Dong!”

Another water bottle rolled down the bleachers.

Another guy’s face dropped in the phalanx.

Zheng Tan turned around. It was none of his business.

The four cats had a great time at military training.

Zheng Tan watched them endure the torture of the sun during the day, then suffer a round of mosquitos at night. He loved the look the students had when they got bit but couldn’t scratch the spot.

The cats switched between different phalanxes. They visited one in the morning, then checked out another group in the afternoon.

Now, whenever the students saw the cats near their phalanx, their first response was to send someone to save the bottles.