Picking Up a Stray Cat
This guy was sick.
It wasn’t insulting him. That young, pale face, and the information he could see through that face, both told him with absolute clarity that this young man smiling at him so happily was seriously ill.
The sympathy he had been born with made his heart soften a little. He rolled over and sat up.
The man shook the bell in his hand again. This time he lowered it much more, almost pressing it right to his nose. He could even smell the faint, almost imperceptible scent of smoke on the man’s hand, from at least several days ago.
With the bell right in front of him, he couldn’t resist staring at it and springing up. Both paws shot out at the same time, trying to grab the bell straight into his arms.
But he still didn’t succeed. This person had probably teased cats often and was very experienced. He dodged away again with practiced speed. Ding Wei pounced at empty air, his two front paws crossing in front of himself as though hugging nothing, then he fell back onto the grass.
Bastard! He sprawled on the grass and refused to get up, the corner of his eye slanting toward that hand.
The man smiled and sat down on the grass, lightly tossing the bell up and down in his hand. He didn’t want to look, but his eyes still followed the bell up and down against his will. It was already quite an achievement that his head didn’t move along with it too.
What kind of rotten habit was this for a cat to have!
“Don’t sit on the ground, you’ll catch a chill in a bit. You’ve already been out for over an hour, let’s go home.” A woman’s voice came over, hurrying closer along with the sound of footsteps. The man instantly switched from sitting back to squatting.
The woman stopped behind him. The man neither spoke nor turned around to look. He only smiled and crooked a finger at him. Lazily, he got to his feet from the grass and looked at him.
The man’s hand reached over, and the little bell was lying in his palm.
Was he still teasing him, or was he actually giving him the bell? He couldn’t tell for the moment, but he still stretched out a paw and batted at the bell. This time, the man did not pull his hand back.
“Stop teasing the cat. What if it scratches you? Stray cats are so dirty. If your mother finds out, she’ll blame me again.” The woman behind him cut in with a frown.
Stray… cat? Who was a stray cat! Did stray cats come this clean?
He lowered his head and extended his claws from the paw pads to inspect them. So clean! Then he gave the woman a sidelong look. Judging from her age and bearing, she was probably this young man’s… nanny?
The man seemed somewhat displeased by what the woman said. He turned his head and raised his index finger to his lips, but made no sound. The woman shut up, displeased. He turned back again, set the bell on the grass in front of him, pointed at it, then stood up, turned away, and walked off directly without even looking at the woman.
He lowered his head and looked at the bell placed before him. Of course he wasn’t interested in such a tiny little thing, but after batting it back and forth with his paw for a while, he still decided to accept the little gift. After he finished sunning himself, he would carry it back in his mouth.
After Shen Yu came home, Ji Xiao discovered that the number of times his mom called him had obviously gone up. Before, it had been at most once a month, and the content was mainly telling him to come home and do manual labor, carrying rice, carrying flour, that sort of thing. Sometimes when his dad was suddenly seized by inspiration, he had even carried giant fish tanks for them a few times. Now not only had the calls become far more frequent, the content had changed too.
“Son, have you been busy with work these past couple of days?”
“Not too bad. We haven’t had a callout for a day and a half now.” Ji Xiao was in the middle of an intense battle at the computer. Time like this was rare for him. He was running a small dungeon with Tang Paopao to farm materials. He was up front slaughtering his way through everything, while Tang Paopao loafed around behind him, caring about nothing except picking up loot. Ji Xiao got distracted after answering the phone, pulled too many mobs, and in an instant got trampled underfoot by a bunch of burly monsters. He was just about to be reduced to a puddle of mush. Then he looked at Tang Paopao. Tang Paopao froze for a second, turned his head, and immediately ran for the dungeon entrance. Ji Xiao couldn’t help roaring, “Run your sister!”
Tang Paopao seemed to hear him. While running, he even found time to type out a sentence: No healer, no pointless suicide. Hurry up and corpse-run back. I’ll wait outside for you, dear.
“Why are you talking so crudely!” His mom had clearly been startled by him. “Is this how you usually talk? No wonder your father always says you’re especially good at pretending at home. Good thing we don’t live with you, you’d scare us to death…”
Ji Xiao laughed. He had almost forgotten that he was still on the phone with his mom, and felt a little awkward. “I was playing a game.”
“You still shouldn’t talk like that even when you’re playing games. What if some young girl heard you.”
“Where would any young girl come from around here? Right now it’s only old man Lin Zi from next door, and the way he talks is way rougher than me.” Ji Xiao finally succeeded in dying a miserable death under a pile of monster feet. “Mom, did you need something?”
“If you hadn’t said that, I’d have forgotten. Let me tell you…”
The moment that line came out, Ji Xiao already knew what was coming next. He sighed. “You’re arranging for Shen Yu to come over to my place again? I may be free right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m off duty. I could get sent out on a call at any moment.”
“Oh, stop that, I haven’t even finished talking yet, why are you in such a rush? Your sister hasn’t been back in two years. Shouldn’t you look after her a little? She’s suffered who knows how much all alone overseas, you tell me…” As she spoke, his mom’s tone started drifting toward sorrow.
“Okay, okay, go ahead,” Ji Xiao quickly cut her off. “I’ve been living in luxury these past two years.”
“Your sister went out with her classmate this morning. She said they were going shopping at New Century. Isn’t New Century over by your side? It’s noon now, so get in touch with her and take her and her friend out for a meal or something. That’s fine, isn’t it? That’s not asking too much, is it?”
“Not too much at all, absolutely reasonable. I’ll treat her and her classmate to lunch at noon. Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure they eat until they’re stuffed.”
Treating Shen Yu and her classmate to lunch was no problem, but based on past experience, the second those two got together, Ji Xiao would instantly become invisible. To keep himself from getting too bored, he needed to bring company.
The company was ready-made and available on call. He knocked on Lin Zi’s dorm room door. “Grandpa Lin, still alive in there?”
“Full of vigor.” Lin Zi opened the door. “What are your orders?”
“Got a lunch appointment in a bit, I’m introducing you to a beauty.” Ji Xiao stared at Lin Zi’s face for a while. “How long’s it been since you shaved?”
“A week.” Lin Zi rubbed his chin. “What’s the point of shaving normally, nobody’s looking anyway. If you took me to beauty-filled lunch dates every day, I’d definitely shave every day.”
“Go shave. We’re eating with my sister later. Don’t embarrass me.”
“Holy crap, has a fairy descended from your family or what?” Lin Zi was instantly in high spirits. “I’ll go spruce myself up right now.”
The place Shen Yu had arranged to meet Ji Xiao was a café not far from the squad. By the time Ji Xiao and Lin Zi got there, the two girls were already sitting under a parasol outside the café, chatting.
Ji Xiao had seen the girl beside Shen Yu before. She was Shen Yu’s childhood friend, Ning Xiaoyue. The two of them were closer than real sisters. Back when Shen Yu went abroad, Ning Xiaoyue had cried even more bitterly than Mom had.
“Ji Xiao!” Ning Xiaoyue shouted as soon as she spotted the two of them from far away. “Wow, after two years, you actually didn’t grow ugly!”
“Just barely. Sorry to disappoint you again.” Ji Xiao smiled and pulled Lin Zi over. “My buddy, Lin Zi… this is my sister Shen Yu, and this is Shen Yu’s sister, Ning Xiaoyue.”
Lin Zi’s arm slipped around behind Ji Xiao and pinched him at the waist, expressing his amazement at the two beauties.
“Let me say this first, we’re not eating. We’ve been eating all morning,” Shen Yu said with a smile, kicking the chair out from under the table with her leg. “We came over for drinks.”
“No problem, we’re here to watch you drink.” Lin Zi nodded and pulled over a chair to sit down.
Ji Xiao glanced at him. Watch? The two of them hadn’t even eaten breakfast. But in order to save Lin Zi some face, he didn’t say anything and sat down beside him. “Then let’s order something to drink.”
After ordering the drinks, Ji Xiao noticed that Shen Yu had been holding a paper bag in her arms the whole time. He pointed at the bag. “What is that, a bomb? You’ve been hugging it the whole time.”
“Tch. If it were a bomb, I’d have thrown it at you already.” Shen Yu smiled and leaned over, crooking a finger at him. “Come look, what do you think it is?”
Ji Xiao leaned over and looked inside, and happened to meet a pair of eyes in the paper bag. He jerked his head up to stare at Shen Yu. “You bought a cat?”
“No, and it’s not like you don’t know Mom’s allergic to cat fur.” Shen Yu lifted the kitten out of the paper bag and held it out in front of Ji Xiao. It was a little calico mutt of a kitten, looking somewhat weak. It let out a feeble meow at Ji Xiao.
“I really didn’t know that…” Ji Xiao reached out and took the kitten, settling it on his lap. “What happened?”
“Your sister and I saw it on the road just now. It had been dumped beside a trash can. It was so pitiful. If we didn’t do something, it would definitely die.” Ning Xiaoyue propped her chin on one hand. “So we picked it up.”
“This is a baby kitten.” Lin Zi glanced at it. The kitten was filthy all over and looked pretty pitiful. “We’ve really had a lot of cat-related fate lately…”
“What are you planning to do with this cat?” Ji Xiao felt a bit of a headache coming on. The little kitten was still trembling all over even under the sun, so he could only tug up his own T-shirt and wrap the cat up.
“We definitely can’t take it home, so leave it in your dorm first. Once I find someone to adopt it, I’ll come take it.”
“Leave it in my dorm?” Ji Xiao looked surprised and turned to Lin Zi.
Lin Zi scratched his head. “Keeping it for ten days or half a month shouldn’t be a problem, right? We can keep it out in the hallway. The boss should make an exception.”
“Ding Wei, do me a favor.” A young girl tapped on the bar. “The seam at the back of my clothes came loose, so I’m going to fix it. Can you take the drinks for the outside table to them?”
“Mm.” Ding Wei was squatting under the bar doing the accounts. Without even lifting his head, he answered once.
It was only after a little while that he stood up, picked up the tray, glanced at the slip, and slowly walked outside. Around noon he always got sleepy, especially at noon on sunny days. He could fall asleep even standing up. At times like this, what he really ought to be doing was stripping naked under the sun and basking in it.
There was only one table of guests outside. He walked over and set the drinks on the table.
“Hey, aren’t you…” Lin Zi looked up at the waiter who had brought the drinks over and froze.
Ji Xiao also turned his head. When he saw the server’s face, he froze for a moment too. “It’s you, right? That day when Yajuyuan caught fire…”
Ding Wei’s originally groggy mind snapped awake the moment he heard that. He quickly raised his eyes and swept a glance over the two men in front of him. One of them he didn’t really remember, but the other one…
Fate… what kind of damn fate was this, to keep seeing the same person over and over without end…
Ding Wei nearly blurted out why is it you again on the spot. He set the drinks down on the table, turned the tray upright and hugged it to himself, then smiled. “It’s me.”
“Are you okay? Why did you run off that day without waiting for the doctor to examine you? Did someone from your family come pick you up?” Ji Xiao looked him up and down. Something felt a little off, but he couldn’t recall what it was.
“…Mm.” That morning, Ding Wei had slipped away by turning into a little black cat. “Thank you for that day.”
“We should’ve done it anyway, no need to thank us for that.” Ji Xiao smiled. “But weren’t you sleeping a little too soundly? We pounded on the door several times and you still didn’t wake up. You’re seriously slow.”
Because I lost my tail! Lost my tail! Losing a tail is exhausting!
Ding Wei rested his chin on the tray and bared his teeth in a smile at him too. “Thank you.”
“You’re working here part-time?” Ji Xiao looked at him. If he remembered right, Zhang Xinwen had said that he was a student. Judging from how he looked, he really did seem like one. “It’s Wednesday, aren’t you in class?”
“Not going.” Ding Wei gave the little kitty wrapped in Ji Xiao’s T-shirt a sidelong glance. “It’s going to die of heat.”
“What?” Ji Xiao didn’t react at first.
Ding Wei pointed at the cat in his arms. “It.”
“It’s been trembling the whole time.” Ji Xiao lowered his head. It wasn’t midsummer yet, but the weather was already pretty warm. “I don’t know why. Isn’t it because it’s cold?”
“It’s hungry.”
“Do you have milk here?” Shen Yu flipped through the menu.
“Has it been weaned?” Ding Wei looked at Ji Xiao.
“Who?” Ji Xiao’s attention was still on the cat, and he answered casually.
“You.”
Everyone burst out laughing. Lin Zi patted Ji Xiao on the shoulder. “He has, I can vouch for it.”
“If it’s already been weaned, it can’t drink milk, it’ll throw up. Feed it fish mixed with rice.” Ding Wei turned and left. “But we don’t have that here.”