Chapter 178

Er Mao had the pet center give the calico cat a full checkup; overall condition was not bad.

The vet estimated the calico cat's age, and what surprised Er Mao was that this calico cat was actually less than a year old.

"By the way, Mr. Wang, would you like to have this cat neutered?" the young lady asked, while also explaining to Er Mao the benefits of neutering in urban pet keeping.

"Neuter? Do they have to cut off the little jj?" Er Mao was typing a message on his phone, not looking up.

The young lady's face tightened a bit, then she said: "…Your cat is female."

"Female?!" Er Mao exclaimed.

Holy shit, a female can be that fierce?!

"Isn't the way to tell male and female different for cats and dogs?" Er Mao remembered that dogs were easy to tell apart.

The young lady smiled; it was obvious she'd seen plenty of customers like Er Mao, so she pulled out a thin little booklet from a cabinet and handed it to him. It contained some basic knowledge about cats.

Er Mao flipped through it roughly and asked, "How much does this book cost?"

"This is printed by our pet center ourselves; I'll just give it to you."

That's about enough; Er Mao stuffed the booklet into a plastic bag.

In the end, Er Mao still didn't have the surgery done, and he brought back the cat, clean and fresh after its shots and checkup; the pet center staff delivered the items to the address Er Mao had filled in.

Once the cat's things were set up, Er Mao instantly felt the room was a bit cramped. Fortunately, he'd bought only small items, otherwise it would really be crowded.

He poured cat food into the new bowl he'd bought, and the calico cat that had been sniffing around its new nest came over. What disappointed Er Mao a little was that this calico cat didn't seem to be a picky eater; it ate with gusto.

Looks like he can't go looking for trouble with the upstairs cat for the time being.

Not bothering with the cat any further, Er Mao opened the laptop he'd bought not long ago and logged onto that pet website.

"All the good names have been taken by cats" — this ID was registered three years ago. Back then, he and his fellow disciples, under the influence of their master's cat, went to browse the pet forum to see if other people's cats behaved like their master's. At that time the ID was shared by several people; now it's used solely by Er Mao, while the others have stopped paying attention to the forum, and Er Mao himself only logged back in because of that recent incident; otherwise he wouldn't have bothered with this ID at all.

Domestic internet development is rapid these days; the forum has changed a lot over the past few years. Moreover, some people share video links there.

Er Mao searched for pictures and videos of that upstairs cat, and sure enough, as the pet center girl had said, several of the hot threads about cat food mostly featured that black cat, and many of the replies were from people who came just for that black cat — in other words, the "bc fans" the girl had mentioned.

After carefully examining the cat in the pictures, Er Mao still attributed that effect in the images and videos to the magic of photographic technique; otherwise how could a ordinary cat be photographed to look so variably temperamental in photos and videos? After all, cats aren't people. What acting skills could they have? Er Mao wouldn't believe it even if you beat him to death. He guessed the pet center girl didn't know the true identity of "blackc" either, or she wouldn't be touting it so highly. After all, the gap between advertising photos and the real thing can be huge.

The next day, the weather was clear, and after a rain the temperature rose quickly.

The calico cat lay on the balcony basking in the sun, and bored, Er Mao tried out the comb that had come with the cat shampoo he'd bought; the little booklet that came with it said that combing a cat's fur not only clears away shed hair promptly, but also prevents the cat from swallowing hair and getting hairballs, keeps the fur looking nice, promotes skin blood circulation, and enhances the bond between person and cat, and so on.

Since Er Mao had nothing else to do, he moved a little stool to the side and followed the booklet's instructions to comb the cat's fur. After a few tentative tries, the motion became second nature; seeing the calico cat squinting its eyes, Er Mao suddenly felt a sense of accomplishment. Look, cats aren't that hard to raise, so why did some people he'd seen before talk about keeping cats as if they'd eaten weird beans?

Er Mao was feeling proud, when suddenly —

Bang!

The sound of something hitting the metal net rang out from diagonally above.

The calico cat that had been lying on the ground squinting in the sun sprang to its feet and looked over; its time as a stray had made it habitually highly alert.

Er Mao also stopped his combing motion and looked over; inside the metal net, a blue parrot hooked its large claw onto the net and stood there, its yellow-ringed eyes gazing at the person and cat on the third floor.

The General's attention was mainly fixed on that calico cat; it didn't know the cat, had never seen it before, wondering when this strange cat had shown up — hmm, its mouth felt a little itchy.

Perhaps sensing the unfriendly signal the parrot was sending, the calico cat flattened its ears and warily eyed the parrot on the fourth floor.

Er Mao, however, thought it was nothing special; cats and birds just don't get along — his master's cat used to go into the woods every day to catch birds, big and small. But in China, you rarely see this kind of parrot anymore, so it's no wonder the fourth floor has its balcony entirely wrapped in wire mesh.

Looking at the fourth-floor parrot, Er Mao said with a playful attitude: "Yo, parrot!"

The General inside the net quickly replied in standard American pronunciation with a hint of dialect: "Hello, **!"

Er Mao: "……" What the hell taught this damn parrot to talk like that?!

On the fifth-floor balcony, Zheng Tan heard the conversation below and laughed until he rolled over.

The general definitely turned hostile after seeing that spotted cat, and he also used this method to attack Er Mao.

Zheng Tan and the others live directly above Er Mao's floor; they can't see what's happening there, but Zheng Tan can guess the general situation from Er Mao's conversation with the general and the cat's low growl. Fortunately, the building's residents are fairly tolerant of this, otherwise there would be trouble later.

However, with Er Mao on the third floor attracting the general's attention, that bird no longer often comes to bother Zheng Tan; Zheng Tan felt relieved about this.

He was pricking up his ears to listen to the quarrel downstairs when a rhythmic car horn sounded from the courtyard below.

Zheng Tan looked down doubtfully; today isn't the weekend, so why would Master Fang come over?

Despite his doubts, Zheng Tan still ran downstairs to open the gate.

Fang Shaokang brought Tong Qing in. Since they brought the cat cart back home, every time Fang Shaokang takes Zheng Tan out, Tong Qing comes up to help move the cart. Don't look at the cart being small; its weight is not light, and besides, it has to be moved up to the fifth floor—Tong Qing certainly wouldn't let his boss do it himself.

"Today I happen to have time; I've made an appointment with Old Liu to discuss something. I have to go out of town this weekend, so we set the time for today. I've already told your cat mom about it; I'll bring you back tonight." Fang Shaokang said, and had Tong Qing move the two small carts that were placed in the room out.

Every so often, Fang Shaokang takes Zheng Tan to Old Liu's place to talk business, as some people say, networking also relies on tactics. However, it's really rare for someone like Fang Shaokang to use a cat for networking. But Old Liu happens to fall for this trick. No, I should say it's Old Liu's precious son who falls for this trick.

Third floor.

After hearing the parrot curse "**", Er Mao was about to retort, but realizing this is the faculty dormitory building of Chu Hua Da Xue, he held his tongue; he planned to buy a water gun later, so that whenever the parrot swore a sentence, he'd shoot it once.

He gathered the combed cat fur into a ball—actually not much—and Er Mao had originally planned to just throw it downstairs, but after thinking, he felt he should behave more decently and toss that bit of fur into the trash bin lined with a garbage bag. Seeing the bin was about full, Er Mao tied up the bag, placed it outside the door, intending to take it down when he went downstairs; as the temperature rises, trash easily gets smelly, and there's still a cat at home, so Er Mao has heard plenty about cats rummaging through trash cans.

Who would have thought, as soon as he opened the door, Er Mao saw Zheng Tan happen to be walking up to the third floor.

"Yo, big star..."

Catching sight of the person on the stairs, Er Mao's face stiffened; he swallowed the mocking words he'd been about to say, quickly retreated indoors, and shut the door.

Fang Shaokang called out to Zheng Tan, gestured for Tong Qing to wait a moment, then walked to Er Mao's door and knocked.

"Open the door, don't hide—I've seen you." Fang Shaokang said calmly.

"No time, I'm taking a dump!"

"I'll give you ten seconds to wipe your butt. Ten—nine—eight—"

Fang Shaokang looked at his watch, seriously counting the time, and paid no heed to Er Mao's excuse of needing to poop.

Just as he counted to one, Er Mao grabbed his head, resignedly opened the door, and silently cursed countless times why he had taken out the trash at this moment.

"Uncle Three."

He called out weakly and listlessly, and Er Mao trudged back to his room, dejected.

Fang Shaokang sized up the room, then looked at Er Mao slumped in the soft chair and said, "Who are you planning to fix this time? Or which girl have you taken a liking to?"

"You've got me wrong, I've long since turned over a new leaf, reformed my ways, become law-abiding, practiced the five virtues, four beauties, three loves, with clean sleeves and a red heart toward the sun—an upright good youth, Uncle Three!" Er Mao hurriedly clarified.

Zheng Tan gave Er Mao a sideways glance. Bullshit! This guy beats people, picks locks, plays black-market deals, and almost killed someone and dumped the body.

Fang Shaokang's expression unchanged as he looked at Er Mao: "Turned over a new leaf?"

"Mm-hmm!" Er Mao nodded.

"Reformed?"

"Yes, yes!" Er Mao hurriedly assured.

"Law-abiding?"

"Absolutely certain!"

"Upright good youth?"

"That's a given!"

I don't believe a word of it.

Er Mao: "……" a face full of grievance and indignation.

However, it's quite unexpected that you'd choose this place to rent; it seems you really are preparing to change... Of course, the premise is that you're not doing it to pick up female college students.

Definitely not!

Fang Shaokang also looked around the house; compared to the place Er Mao used to live, this house is rather shabby, and moreover, Er Mao now doesn't seem as slick; his attire and appearance are much more proper.

"Settling one's mind is a good thing." Fang Shaokang sighed with deep meaning, then called Zheng Tan and left. He didn't have time to shoot the breeze with Er Mao here; he couldn't manage other people's kids, at most offering a couple of words as an elder.

Hey, Uncle Three...

I won't go tell your parents; your brother has been sent down, he's busy making political achievements, and he's not in Chu Hua Shi now, so you can relax for now—no one will come to take you back.

Er Mao breathed a sigh of relief, but why is Uncle Three so good to that cat? Wei Leng hasn't mentioned it much either.

After Zheng Tan and Fang Shaokang left, Er Mao sat in the chair pondering.

"Hei Mi, do you think I should walk you or not?" Er Mao lightly poked the flower cat's nose tip.

"Meow——" The flower cat didn't understand Er Mao's words, thinking Er Mao was just playing with it, tilted its head and rubbed against Er Mao's hand.

Er Mao sighed, forget it, let's stick with the old method.

He took out a one-yuan coin, placed it upright on the tiled floor, flicked it with his finger, and the coin spun up.

Heads means walk, tails means stay.

Smack!

Seeing the coin as a toy, the flower cat slapped at the spinning coin with a paw and pressed it down.

Er Mao lifted the cat's paw and looked at the coin lying on the floor tile.

A chrysanthemum. (To be continued...)

ps: (3.2)