Strange Life of a Cat

Zheng Tan squatted on a tree. It was the only suitable accommodation he could find.

There were several houses 200 meters away, two of which still had their lights on, and he could occasionally hear voices chatting.

The area was surrounded by fields, but under the dim starlight, he could see that there were hardly any crops. The area would probably be demolished soon.

Zheng Tan settled down in a comfortable position. He closed his eyes, but his ears were on alert. It paid to be vigilant outdoors.

Lights in homes switched off, one by one. Once in awhile, he could hear cats meowing in the distance, answered only by the occasional dog barks from the households. It was finally dark.

The temperature in the suburbs was lower compared to downtown. The wind was chilly, blowing away the last of his haziness.

Just when he was debating whether to get up and find something to do, he heard footsteps. They were light, but cats had good hearing.

Zheng Tan peeked out from the leaves. A man wearing a loose hoodie was walking towards this direction. He had one hand in his pocket holding something while the other was carrying a small shovel.

The man wore a hat. Zheng Tan could not see his face, nor was he sure this person was indeed a man. But girls didn’t usually wander around alone at this hour, did they?

Guessing from his appearance…was he preparing to bury something? A corpse, maybe? Zheng Tan was letting his imagination run wild. He was curious, but didn’t dare to follow the person. Who knew. Even a cat could be eliminated.

The person walked toward some dilapidated brick houses. From the look of them, they had been deserted for a long time. Weeds were growing wild all around.

The man stopped in front of a half collapsed house. Zheng Tan decided to watch from his tree; after all, it wasn’t far away.

The man squatted down in a corner. He had his back to Zheng Tan doing who knows what. Zheng Tan heard not the sound of bricks but light clanging of glassware colliding.

The person didn’t leave until daybreak. Zheng Tan went to check out the brick house, but did not go too close. He smelled the unpleasant scent of pesticides.

Zheng Tan was curious, but he also valued his life. Even if it was the life of a cat, it was his.

The families around the area were still asleep. Zheng Tan jumped into one yard and found a faucet to clean his paws off the pesticides. The water was too cold with no tissues nearby to dry off. Zheng Tan didn’t want to lick his paws, so he looked around.

He saw some clothes the family hung outside to dry and picked a long dress with the best material to wipe his paws, leaving behind a string of gray marks. He then stole a persimmon from the fruit tree in the yard before leaving.

A dog barked next door. It had probably heard Zheng Tan moving about. The barks were soft; it was probably a puppy.

It was morning when Zheng Tan returned to his tree.

Not before long, swearing could be heard from the house. The dress Zheng Tan had used to rub his paws was found.

With the sun rising, the temperature gradually rose as well.

Zheng Tan felt the warmth of the sun on his back. He yawned and stretched lazily, opening the bag of crackers. This was his breakfast. He had the persimmon if it got too dry.

A small, brown dog ran out of a yard, jumping around merrily. This was probably the puppy he heard earlier.

No one managed the fields. There were a few hens there pecking around for food. The little dog ran over to chase the hens.

There was a fat hen among the group that stayed still when the small dog charged at it. The puppy paused near it, gave a few symbolic bites without even touching the hen, then ran off chasing other birds. The more they ran, the more he chased.

The fat hen, however, managed to avoid being chased every time by remaining still. The fatties sometimes were the wisest.

The small dog was tired of chasing chickens. It panted while jotting down the road. Suddenly, its ears moved. It stopped and looked around, then ran straight over to the tree.

Zheng Tan chewed the crackers loudly while looking down at the dog barking and running in circles at the foot of the tree. He threw the remaining bit of cracker down. The pup paused, walked over, sniffed it, then ate the cracker.

After it was done, the small dog looked back up at Zheng Tan eating his biscuits, wagging his tail happily.

Zheng Tan left a bit of cracker to throw down to the dog every time. Then he watched amused as the dog looked for the leftover in the bushes or jumped up to catch it in the air.

Zheng Tan was having fun. The bag of biscuits emptied out soon. He was just about to let out a sigh when he heard a lighter.

There’s someone around? Zheng Tan was surprised.

He traced the sound to the source. A man dressed like a migrant worker was nearby. But Zheng Tan recognized the guy immediately despite his different clothes.

It was the guy looking for the guinea pig.

The small dog also saw the stranger. He started barking.

Zheng Tan rolled his eyes. Stupid foodie. What good was barking now?

The small dog did not last long under the threatening gaze of the man. It soon gave up and ran away with its tail between its legs.

Zheng Tan did not run. Rather, he was not sure if he could run away.

Should he wait to see what the guy wanted or pretend to not know him? After all, there were a lot of black cats around.

The man puffed out some smoke: “Even without your pet identity card, I recognize you. You’re a wicked one, aren’t you? Teasing a dog, eh?”

Damn. The guy was not easy to fool.

Zheng Tan felt himself stiffen up. Although the guy seemed amiable now, but their first encounter was too unpleasant. He couldn’t let his guard down.

The man smoked while spitting out nonsense. Then suddenly, he looked up and asked, “Were you here last night? Did you see anyone strange?”

Strange? Did he mean the guy in the hoodie?

“You did!”

Wei Ling could tell from the subtle changes in the cat’s expression and the look in its eyes that it knew what he was talking about.

He had asked the question expecting nothing. Who knew the cat really did see something.

“Look, I’m not going to ask too many questions. I just want to know what the guy was doing. Or rather, what was he hiding?” Wei Ling spread out his hands and shrugged, with his cigarette dangling from his mouth. He wanted to show that he meant to harm.

Zheng Tan thought about it. Eventually, he raised his chin to point to the brick house.

“Thank you!”

Wei Ling walked towards the house. Zheng Tan decided to use this opportunity to run away, but was stopped.

“Don’t go. I have something to ask you. I will catch you again if you slip away. Trust me.”

Zheng Tan saw a flash of silver then a thin metal sheet sticking out of the dirt road appeared in front of him.

Zheng Tan stared at the metal piece. His whiskers trembled. He squatted down, carefully poking the metal with his paw. He was surprised. He looked over to the guy over at the brick house. The man in the hoodie took so long to hide this thing, it would take this guy some time to find it.

Five minutes later, Wei Ling reappeared with a brown jar in a gloved hand and a cell phone in the other.

“Hey, good new… I said, there is good news … can you hear me? Hey … Hey … I said … F*ck!”

The phone rang right away after he hung up.

“Hey … yes, I said I have a clue here… Hey …”

The location and a brief description of the events took ten minutes, and it was repeated over and over again. Zheng Tan grew tired of listening to it.

Zheng Tan roughly estimated that out of the ten minutes, that person spent half the time saying “Hey…Hey”, then “f*ck”.

Wei Ling finally finished the call. He pocketed the phone looking relieved. “Damn, broken PHS[1]!”

Wei Lin nodded towards Zheng Tan, who was waiting patiently. “You’re coming with me. Don’t even think about running away, or I will wait for you at Chuhua University. You actually live there, right? You have to return there sometime. ”

“…” This trip was turning into a nightmare.

“Wait here. I’m going to get my ride.” Having said that, Wei Ling hurried off with the jar.

After two of three minutes, the man appeared, riding a pink women’s bike on the bumpy road.

This was this dude’s “ride”?

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Footnotes:

[1] PHS: A Chinese phone brand popular in the early 2000s.