Chapter 255

Not far from Zheng Tan, in a small household courtyard, lay an ordinary house cat. When Zheng Tan had just walked over here, he still heard that cat call out a few times, with a hint of arrogance; perhaps, to it, this place was originally its territory, and upon seeing Zheng Tan it provocatively called a few times, proving its courage was not small.

But now, that house cat had shrunk into a corner, its eyes wide and round, staring at the strange cat in the night. Perhaps it knew who that was, perhaps not, but undoubtedly its eyes were full of fear and contraction, as if facing a creature one level higher on nature's food‑chain pyramid.

This feeling was strange.

If Zheng Tan were not in his special circumstance, he would probably have curled up in some corner like that house cat, silently afraid to call out, not daring to move at all.

Could that cat have the same origin as Jueye and them?

Because Jueye's case came first, Zheng Tan's first thought was this situation; after all, there are some bases around here, such as Chu Hua Da Xue's internship base, and also those people who always stay in this area doing research—who knows what strange research they might come up with.

In the darkness Zheng Tan could not make out the cat's fur color; the cat merely glanced his way for a moment, then continued forward. It moved quickly and lightly; if not for Zheng Tan's vigilance and intuition honed over the past few years, he might not have noticed it.

The residential building that gave Zheng Tan an unpleasant smell had, around its yard, only some low-built shrubs and grass, with trees a bit farther away. Although only two stories, each floor's height was greater than that of ordinary housing Zheng Tan had seen in Chu Hua Shi, so in terms of true height, these two stories equaled three stories of those Chu Hua Shi residences.

Zheng Tan stood silently aside, watching the cat run over and then leap straight at the wall, not knowing whether its claws caught on something or it simply used a running start to climb; Zheng Tan only felt a flash of shadow on the wall, and the cat was already before an open window on the second floor—such climbing must have been practiced often.

The cat stood on the windowsill looking inside, ears alert to the surroundings. Its tail twitched, then it jumped in.

What was it going to do?

Zheng Tan was curious. What made him even more curious was the cat's origin. In the three years he had seen many cats and other animals, he knew that even within the same species intelligence varied. This cat made him feel that it was not merely a simple threat in attack power.

The cat that had been huddled in the courtyard corner was gone, likely having gone inside to seek safety. Zheng Tan had intended to just stroll around and return to the base, but now he hesitated.

People around here don't come out much at night either. The base area is livelier, while here it is truly quiet; only the sound of television programs from residents' homes gives a hint of activity.

Jiao Ba said Shuishan was a miraculous place, but Zheng Tan had never felt what was miraculous about it; as for the legends, he just took them as stories. Now, although he still felt nothing miraculous, he finally had some other kind of feeling.

Curiosity is a habit no cat can shake off. When Zheng Tan inherited this cat's body, perhaps he also inherited that habit.

Zheng Tan was still pondering that inexplicable eerie feeling when he came to and realized he had already walked several steps toward that residential building.

Sniffing the faint odor coming from the air, Zheng Tan shook his fur, as if shaking off goosebumps.

Arriving at the residential compound, Zheng Tan slipped through a gap in the fence, stopped where the cat had climbed the wall, sniffed, and smelled an unfamiliar cat odor. Besides that, there were medicinal smells from specimens, insecticide, and a complicated, unpleasant odor that made Zheng Tan feel uneasy.

The wall was not smooth, but Zheng Tan climbed up.

Even though Zheng Tan usually felt good about himself, he had to admit his wall‑climbing ability was indeed inferior to that cat's—he was neither as fast nor as agile.

After much effort he reached the windowsill of the second‑floor window; Zheng Tan did not rush in, but lingered on the sill, watching for any movement inside.

It was very quiet, so quiet it seemed as if there were no living things inside. Had Zheng Tan not seen the cat jump in with his own eyes, or smelled the odor coming from the room, he would surely have thought nothing alive was in there.

Even if there were no living beings, that did not mean there were no other animals.

The room's door was shut, and no lighting was turned on inside; looking at the sky then at the room, one would feel the sky was actually a bit brighter.

Night wind blew into the room; the air circulated once around the room, carrying out those complex odors.

The window screen swayed with the airflow; the dancing white screen added an extra touch of eeriness in this situation.

When the hanging window screen was lifted again by the airflow, Zheng Tan saw the situation inside the room.

Inside the room were many animals, but none were living, except for the cat Zheng Tan had just seen, quietly squatting on a table.

This was a room for displaying animal specimens, containing many specimens; of course, limited space meant it could not match a museum's variety or large animals, so most specimens here were small‑sized—birds, little squirrels, rabbits, and the like.

The museum's animal specimens are mostly donations from zoos, forestry departments, etc., such as rare animals that died of disease—something Zheng Tan learned later. According to Jiao Ba, the Chu Shan Natural Museum's freezer for storing animal corpses now holds several hundred frozen specimens, which the taxidermists must thaw one by one and prepare as specimens.

However, for many private collectors, specimens are preferably made from healthy animals; some taxidermists dislike dead animals because highly decomposed carcasses emit odors that make skinning unbearable, so they favor fresh kills.

As for the animal specimens in this room, Zheng Tan intuitively felt they had been made from animals killed while healthy.

Perhaps because the makers were not very professional, compared with museum specimens these are far inferior in production and preservation; Zheng Tan still smelled rotting fur, estimating that in a year or two some specimens here will be discarded outright. Probably the owner does not care—if a specimen rots, it's thrown away and a new one made; discarding the old frees space for the new.

Zheng Tan did not want to examine closely the animals turned into specimens; he focused mainly on the cat squatting quietly on the inner table.

Opposite that cat lay a cat specimen; the specimen was presumably not an ordinary house cat, though its size was about the same as an ordinary cat's.

Having attended exhibitions, Zheng Tan naturally recognized a few valuable cat breeds, but this specimen was not among those he remembered. Could it be a wild cat living in the mountains?

Just as those students said when they talked: in the wild, without reproductive isolation, anything could happen—put simply, hybridization. Like wolf‑dogs or super‑cats, besides artificial selection guiding breeding, natural selection can continue, especially in a species‑rich place like Shuishan.

Since it was worth the effort to make into a specimen, it must differ from a house cat, though Zheng Tan could not tell how great the difference was; standing on the windowsill he could not see clearly enough to examine it closely.

However, judging by appearance—size and outward differences—the two seemed unlikely to be related.

The cat simply sat there quietly; only when Zheng Tan moved onto the windowsill did its ear twitch and glance at him, then it fixed its gaze on the specimen cat again. Face to face, eye to eye, they were about ten centimeters apart.

Zheng Tan felt a rather absurd sensation: he thought the cat was not mourning anything, but rather seemed to be contemplating, like a thinker.

Zheng Tan knew his idea was laughable, but then he thought that people around him in daily life probably felt the same way—finding it hard to accept that a creature supposedly low‑ability and low‑intelligence could suddenly become smart.

Like most people, Zheng Tan had underestimated the intelligent species on this planet; perhaps they cannot match human IQ, but they are also not as low as people imagine.

The cat remained seated in that state for about half an hour, then left. As it departed it glanced at Zheng Tan, seeming somewhat surprised, since all the other cats around here would shrink back at the sight of it.

After the cat left, Zheng Tan ran into the room and stared at the cat specimen, but looking at its spine gave him a chill, so he only glanced a few times, walked around the room once, then left and returned to the base.

Over the next two days, Zheng Tan went out with the internship team during the day and took a walk each evening; every day at this time he would see that cat here, and the cat would do the same thing each day, though Zheng Tan could not know what it was thinking.

That day, around five or six in the afternoon, the internship team members returned one by one, had eaten in the cafeteria, and Jiao Yuan and Xiao Youzi went to find those students to deal with the crabs they had caught in mountain streams that day; the earlier crabs, having all been placed in one bag, were found by afternoon to have almost killed each other off, leaving several empty shells eaten by their own kind.

Zheng Tan did not go with them; after about that time he intended to go out for another stroll, expecting the cat to show up on schedule today.

But before Zheng Tan could lift his foot to step out the window, he heard a fire engine's siren; listening to its direction, it seemed to be heading toward the very place he usually walked.

When Zheng Tan arrived at the residential building, he found that the house which had been fine yesterday was now on fire; the blaze was exactly in the room where the specimens were displayed, and by the time the fire engine arrived the flames had spread, but they were soon brought under control.

Normally at this time the surrounding residents would be unseen, but now they all came out to gather and discuss.

Zheng Tan glanced around, saw no cat, took two steps, then suddenly felt something and lifted his gaze toward a direction—a stretch of woods with no residents, the branches too thick for him to see anything. As he was about to turn back, a pair of shining eyes behind the leaves flickered; Zheng Tan knew it was just the light, yet he could not help but feel the hairs on his back rise, knowing that whatever was perched in the tree was now looking at him. (To be continued…)

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The Returning Cat is still some distance from completion; no matter how everyone chooses to proceed next, Chen Ci here thanks everyone for their continued support and companionship.

Bowed!