Chapter 190

Zheng Tan followed the sound and looked over; the streetlights didn't interfere much with his vision. After a careful look, he was sure he'd never seen this person before. The three cats blocking the road were clearly with this person, but the question is, why did this person bring three cats out in the middle of the night just to stand guard here? It's not a gang attack—there's no killing intent. Moreover, how did this person know his name?

Although he sensed no hostility from the person or the three cats, Zheng Tan remained highly alert. The person seemed a bit strange, and the three cats were strange too—they weren't like the cats he usually encountered around.

Zheng Tan and the person sized each other up, while he wondered whether he should just ignore them and run straight home.

"I've long admired you," the person said again.

Zheng Tan lifted his eyes, "Long admired your grandpa!"

"Or maybe I can call you blackc?" the person said in a natural tone, as if chatting casually.

The person went on with several sentences; Zheng Tan didn't want to respond, didn't want to make eye contact, and felt the person could see something from his gaze, which annoyed him.

Just as he was about to lift his foot and run off, he heard the person say, "Let's introduce ourselves first—come, Guiyuan, you start."

Saying that, the person snapped his fingers.

He saw the cat in the middle, with a white body and black tail, looking solemn, let out a "Meow—".

"Lianzi," the person said again.

"Meow~" the tabby cat closest to the road on the right side called out. This tabby's fur color was the same as Da Pang's, but otherwise it was quite different. This tabby looked slimmer and appeared well-behaved, unlike Da Pang, who always seemed sleep-deprived and uninterested in everything.

"Babao," the person said.

The cat on the far left, whose tail kept swinging back and forth as if holding back energy, opened its mouth.

"Meow-wa-wa-wa-wa—"

Zheng Tan: "..."

"All right, Babao, be quiet."

The person snapped his fingers; the cat named Babao immediately stopped making noise, glanced at him, and flicked its tail.

"Finally, let me introduce myself—I'm A Wu." The person raised his hand to adjust his hat brim, looked at Zheng Tan, was about to speak, then suddenly looked down the road.

The three cats' ears twitched as they prepared to turn and look back; a figure came flying over, leapt over the three cats blocking the road, and lunged at the person called A Wu.

A Wu dodged nimbly. Looking at the cat in front of him baring its teeth and growling low, as if it wanted to pounce again and scratch/bite hard, he wasn't angry; instead he smiled and said, "Hey, fatty. You live here?"

Zheng Tan saw Da Pang, looking fierce and growling at A Wu with its fur about to explode, and felt surprised; he rarely saw Da Pang like this—only a few times with thieves and cat dealers, and today was another, but even those times hadn't been like this, as if facing an enemy.

Looking at A Wu and the three cats, then at Da Pang, Zheng Tan grew more puzzled: did they all know each other? A Wu clearly knew Da Pang, while Da Pang, aside from charging over and launching an initial attack, just stood to the side growling warily.

"Tsk tsk, haven't seen you in over a year, and you've gotten fatter." A Wu glanced at Da Pang, unfazed by the threatening growl, and drawled, "Haven't you had enough instant noodles yet?"

Zheng Tan was surprised again; few people knew Da Pang was punished with squatting over instant noodles, and the old lady at his home never talked about it. Since this person knew, he really was an old acquaintance of Da Pang.

"Forget it, today's purpose is also achieved, Hei Tan—we can consider ourselves acquainted; when I have time I'll come find you." After a pause, A Wu sighed-like: "Who on earth trained you to be like this? I'd really like to meet them."

Saying that, the person snapped his fingers again: "Guiyuan, Lianzi, Babao, let's go!"

The three cats blocking the road hurried to catch up; the cat named Babao probably still intended to go over and greet Da Pang, but Da Pang remained highly wary, staring fixedly at the departing A Wu, completely ignoring Babao.

Zheng Tan glanced around, climbed a sycamore tree, and watched A Wu and the three cats disappear into the distance; the cat Guiyuan stood by the sidewalk close behind A Wu, Lianzi jumped onto A Wu's shoulder and lay there, occasionally hooking her claws into his felt hat, while Babao energetically treated fallen leaves as imaginary foes, pouncing everywhere.

What a strange combination.

Da Pang had stopped calling, but his ears were slightly flattened back, his body slightly crouched, staring in the direction A Wu had gone. Was this guy really frightened?

After A Wu walked away and was out of sight, Zheng Tan jumped down from the tree, raised his paw and patted Da Pang, calling him back to the compound. He guessed Da Pang had come running from the balcony after hearing Babao's call; if Da Pang remembered them, following the sound made sense. Moreover, Babao's cry was quite distinctive—though not as eerie as Zheng Tan's ghostly wails and wolf howls, it was still quite dramatic.

Because of the encounter with A Wu, Zheng Tan spent the whole night after returning guessing who A Wu was—he knew Da Pang and had specially come to find him, but why?

The next day, Er Mao figured he'd stayed up too late playing and was still asleep at home; Zheng Tan didn't see his door open. Da Pang remained sprawled on his own balcony, but looked jumpy at every sound, making Zheng Tan even more curious what blow he'd taken to still be like this after seeing A Wu the previous night.

After dinner that evening, Zheng Tan habitually went out for a stroll; daytime was getting longer, temperatures rising, many people went out to exercise at night, and Zheng Tan would also wander around outside.

The sun set behind the high-rises, the sky still held the afterglow of sunset, and people began to emerge from the compound for after-dinner walks.

Zheng Tan twitched his ears; Officer Jingzhang was outside again fighting with the cats of Xiqu Dayuan. He lifted his leg to go check the situation, but suddenly sensed something, turned his head toward a patch of greenery, and saw the cat named Guiyuan standing there, looking at him.

Zheng Tan looked around. He didn't see the person called A Wu, nor the other two cats.

Guiyuan walked toward Zheng Tan, stopped when half a meter away, looked at him, then walked off in a direction, took two steps, turned back to look at Zheng Tan—this was a signal for him to follow.

After weighing it in his mind, Zheng Tan still lifted his foot and followed. Though he wasn't sure what Guiyuan intended to do with him, as long as they remained within Chu Hua Da Xue, he wasn't too worried; in his mind he had already claimed the Chu Hua Da Xue area as his turf.

The path Guiyuan took was familiar to Zheng Tan; he often went this way. There were few people here, it was a secluded side path lined with trees, and ahead lay a small bamboo grove. The bamboo growing along the sides of the path gradually met at about three meters off the ground, forming an arched doorway. Beneath the arch stood a common long wooden bench from the school; in summer daytime people often came here to escape the sun and rest, or to practice guitar or recite English vocabulary. But at night the place felt distinctly gloomy, because the streetlights only illuminated a small patch under the arch, leaving anyone sitting on the bench in darkness. Even with the sunset's afterglow, one couldn't see what was under the arch, so hardly anyone came this way at night.

Guiyuan had brought Zheng Tan here.

An object flew out from beneath the arch; at the same moment, a figure shot out from there, passing by Zheng Tan and Guiyuan without pausing, its eyes fixed only on the thrown object.

Zheng Tan recognized it as Babao from yesterday; it leapt up to catch a small flying disc.

Babao carried the disc and ran toward the archway, glancing at Zheng Tan as he passed, then continued back.

The person sitting on the bench beneath the arch was indeed A Wu; the tabby cat Lianzi lay beside it, and after Guiyuan arrived he jumped to sit beside Lianzi, sitting upright.

"Long time no see."

A Wu greeted Zheng Tan, then took the disc Babao had brought back, patted Babao's head, praised him a few times, tossed the disc outward, and Babao quickly turned and ran to catch it. This disc was smaller and lighter, making it easy for Babao to catch without strain or hurting his teeth.

After throwing the disc, A Wu lowered his head to look at Zheng Tan crouched two steps away, patted the empty space on the bench, and said, "Come over, let's chat."

Zheng Tan didn't move. Since he hadn't figured out the details, he wouldn't foolishly run that close.

A Wu then produced some food; Zheng Tan ignored it.

He divided the food in his hand among his three cats, A Wu brushed off the crumbs, and looked at the black cat still standing guardedly. Having seen this black cat yesterday, he knew ordinary methods wouldn't work, so he hadn't brought out the usual cat-teasing toys; plus, with Da Pang the fatty causing trouble, he just left it at that.

"You can understand what I'm saying, right?" A Wu suddenly said.

Zheng Tan turned his head to avoid direct eye contact with A Wu.

"Looks like it really can understand." A Wu said, feeling somewhat moved. Although he appeared calm on the surface, inside A Wu was much more excited. Anna's leopard-spotted cat was one he had trained; yesterday he heard that the leopard-spotted cat had suffered a crushing defeat at the paws of a black cat, which sparked his curiosity, and after looking into it he became even more interested. He had even bought the cat food that Blackc used in their ads, and he came here really just to see what kind of training this cat had undergone; A Wu didn't think this black cat was exceptionally gifted, he thought it was the result of an excellent cat trainer's work. As a cat trainer who considered himself still capable, A Wu rarely encountered an opponent.

A Wu then went on to say some more things and ask some questions. Zheng Tan just stood there, showing no reaction to A Wu's words, and moreover A Wu's remark "Looks like it really can understand" frightened Zheng Tan, but Zheng Tan decided to play dumb to the end, no matter what you say, I'm just pretending not to understand anything.

After A Wu muttered to himself for a while, he fell silent for two minutes, then threw the frisbee that Eight Treasure had fetched back out again, and then calmly said: "When I was a child, I saw my master scolding his cat, but the cat looked innocent and clueless, so I told my master, 'Anyway, they don't understand, so saying all this is just wasting saliva.' My master snorted and said, 'It understands, and might even be able to comprehend every word I just said, and has already filed it away in its mind, merely pretending not to know anything.'"

As he said this, A Wu looked at Zheng Tan and thought to himself: "You little brat, you're trying to pull one over on me!" (To be continued...)

ps: (3.12)