Chapter 367

If I remember correctly, Sesame is that spotted cat Li Yuanba gave birth to this summer.

Xiao Guo was locked out by a cat?

Zheng Tan walked in and headed straight to Xiao Guo's rest room.

Xiao Guo was standing at the rest room door pounding on it, twisting the handle twice—clearly he was really locked out.

Xiao Guo's rest room is fitted with a lever lock, which for a cat is still relatively easy to operate—easier to turn than a round knob.

The door is locked, but where's the key?

Zheng Tan watched Xiao Guo shouting there, while a few staff members nearby chatted quietly, unfazed by such a scene.

The boss is locked out again by Sesame.

Since Sesame first locked the boss out when it was three months old, this has happened a few times every month; we're used to it.

Sesame was born in mid-June; now it's mid-December, making it six months old. Zheng Tan can't help but marvel at how fast time flies.

While Zheng Tan wondered how that little rascal Sesame was doing, the studio staff said, 'Our boss just likes doing it this way—even though he has a key, he can open the door from inside when it's locked, yet he insists on not using the key.'

It's just playing with Sesame; among all the cats in the shop, the boss likes Sesame best. Don't look at him shouting now about not giving food—once mealtime comes and Sesame calls, the boss happily trots off to cook cat food. Even if he goes three days without feeding it, tsk—

But Sesame is also teasing the boss; that little guy is quite sharp, and if the boss were truly angry, it wouldn't play like this.

The studio staff have long figured Xiao Guo out; they can predict his reactions and next moves.

Zheng Tan really wanted to say: Boss Guo, when you gave Sesame that name back then, did you anticipate today's situation?

Xiao Guo was shouting at the door when he heard the conversation over here, looked over, saw Zheng Tan and Jiao Ba, his face flushed, feeling embarrassed, he coughed and then came over to greet them.

Hei Tan is here, Professor Jiao—I left your bag in the rest room. Do you need it right away?" Xiao Guo looked at Jiao Ba.

Not in a hurry." Jiao Ba also found the situation amusing. He hadn't yet seen what Sesame looked like; after the estate got busy, he rarely came to the pet center anymore, and usually Cha Li would pick up the cat.

After less than five minutes, probably because Sesame inside noticed no movement at the door, it tried calling twice. No one outside responded, so it opened the door.

The six-month-old Sesame is already about the same size as Zheng Tan; judging by the builds of Peanut Candy and Little Millet, this guy still has room to grow—he might even surpass Peanut Candy in size.

Long-haired, with spots, it looks quite distinctive.

Jiao Ba examined Sesame with interest.

Toward the stranger Jiao Ba, Sesame acted a bit wary, but since this was its own turf and Xiao Guo was nearby, it didn't show aggression.

The studio staff all know that this guy usually gets along well with people and animals, but his fighting ability is definitely not weak; he once went out with Peanut Candy to fight, took on an adult cat, and Sesame won without injury. Xiao Guo was glad it happened at night when no one saw Sesame, or else there would have been trouble. After that, Xiao Guo kept a close watch, and whenever Sesame wanted to play the 'Sesame opens the door' game, Xiao Guo would join in.

However, unlike Peanut Candy, which loves going out to pick fights, Sesame seems not to like going out; sometimes even if the back door is open, it stays inside. The studio mostly has familiar people, and Sesame only causes a ruckus in this area. Sometimes Xiao Guo wonders if Sesame knows its fur color easily invites trouble, so it stays inside.

And Sesame, which spends all its time indoors mingling with the studio staff, appears sharper than Peanut Candy, learning things quickly—especially lock-picking; it can play with it for half a day.

Although Sesame acted wary toward Jiao Ba, it still retained some memory of Zheng Tan, and there are some of Zheng Tan's belongings here; the scent tells it this isn't unfamiliar.

After being away for a while, returning reveals that some things have changed a lot.

Back in summer it was just a tiny lump of a kitten, and now it's grown this big.

When returning from the pet center to the estate, Jiao Ma had already prepared dinner; Xiao Youzi was delighted to see Zheng Tan, and while Xiao Youzi did homework, Zheng Tan kept her company on the sofa, watching TV with Jiao Ma and listening to her nagging, which Jiao Ma always loves.

It turns out that earlier, Xiao Youzi's mother came again due to domestic business; I don't know if she had a change of heart, but she wanted to take Xiao Youzi back to their home overseas for Christmas, and Xiao Youzi refused.

Xiao Youzi's mother bought her an iPhone, but Xiao Youzi never used it, just left it sitting. Later, on a weekend, Jiao Ma took Jiao Yuan and Xiao Youzi shopping and bought each child a phone; nowadays many students have phones, and since Xiao Youzi is now at school and Jiao Ma can't keep up with her care, even if she entrusted other teachers, she still worried, so having a phone makes contact convenient.

But the iPhone Xiao Youzi's mother bought is too eye-catching; one shouldn't underestimate middle schoolers' pettiness. Jiao Ma, having been a teacher for years, has seen many things and does not approve of students owning such an expensive phone. When buying phones, Jiao Ma naturally asked Xiao Youzi's opinion; Xiao Youzi picked a model under a thousand yuan, similar in price to some classmates' phones, and Jiao Yuan chose a similar price range. If they really wanted a better phone, their saved pocket money could afford it, but they didn't.

With a phone, Xiao Youzi called her mother to let her know; at the time her mother said it was fine, they'd stay in touch, but to this day she hasn't called again. Xiao Youzi also hasn't initiated a call, though her mood has been somewhat affected.

When Jiao Ma called Cha Li at that time, she was thinking that Zheng Tan should come back sooner so he could spend more time with Xiao Youzi each day, having heard that kids being with animals don't seem gloomy; now that it's adolescence, kids this age tend to overthink, so Jiao Ma was worried—and that's why Zheng Tan, hearing Jiao Ma's voice, felt something was off.

Now that the reason is known, Zheng Tan will naturally spend more time with Xiao Youzi; he even visited that middle school to check things out—Xiao Youzi is just as cheerful there as at home, with familiar friends around, and with Little Nine watching over, there won't be any trouble.

But Xiao Youzi sometimes zones out, especially when hearing the word 'Christmas'.

Students always feel a sense of novelty about foreign holidays, thinking they're all grand; Christmas abroad is also a big festival, mentioned frequently, which makes Xiao Youzi zone out more often. At home, after finishing homework, Xiao Youzi also zones out, and while doing so, she unconsciously fiddles with her phone.

One day, Zheng Tan charged the phone's battery and finally turned on a phone that hadn't been used in a long time.

After booting up, it still showed text messages and various notifications; Zheng Tan glanced through them roughly, then composed a text and sent it to a familiar number.

After class, Xiao Youzi looked at her phone, which had a text notification; she saw it was from an unknown number. She had intended to delete it outright, but after thinking, she opened it instead.

First message:

Don't zone out, or your New Year's money will be cut in half if you do poorly on the final exam.

Second message:

We don't believe in religion, and we don't care for that foreign Christmas holiday.

Xiao Youzi was puzzled; these two messages show the sender knows her well, possibly even knowing why she zones out, even though she never told her friends Xie Xin and the others about it—how could this person know?!

So Xiao Youzi composed a reply: 'Who are you?'

Soon, a reply came back: 'I'm Zheng Tan.'

Xiao Youzi wanted to ask more, but the class bell rang, so she could only put her phone in her bag for now; she planned to reply after class, but the other side didn't respond again.

This doubt lingered all the way home; she even asked a few classmates who walked home with her, including Xie Xin, if they recognized the number, but nobody did.

"Hei Tan, who do you think this person is?" Xiao Youzi said, having finished a test paper, lying on her desk with her phone on the desk, turning it with her finger movements.

The Zheng Tan crouched nearby twitched his whiskers: I know, but I just won't say.

After that, Zheng Tan and Xiao Youzi exchanged a few texts, but thinking the final exam was approaching, he decided it was better not to distract her.

In the following time, Xiao Youzi sometimes still zoned out, but not necessarily because of her mother; her mood had improved a lot, and when talking with Zheng Tan, he could clearly sense that she had worked things out regarding her mother.

That day, after dinner Zheng Tan went out for a stroll, wondering whether to send Xiao Youzi a playful text; he sighed, looked up at the night sky, paused his steps, then sprinted to where he hid his phone, pulled it out from a small tree hole in an inconspicuous grove, suddenly realized he wasn't wearing his vest, but it was too late to go back for it, so Zheng Tan simply grabbed the phone and ran off on two legs—luckily it was night.

All the way sneaking, he then slipped in through the estate's side gate, which was always locked, hid in the bushes, and sent Xiao Youzi a text.

Xiao Youzi, who was doing a practice test, felt her phone vibrate with a text, glanced at the number, put down her pen, picked it up, and opened it to look.

After seeing the text's content, Xiao Youzi frowned puzzledly, hesitated a moment, then grabbed a scarf, wrapped it around, told Jiao Ma she was heading downstairs, and went down.

Just as she reached the downstairs, before she could even send a text to ask, another message arrived.

Turn right, take the first fork, then go straight to the lawn.

Xiao Youzi did as the text message said; this is the big courtyard, safety is assured, and if she were to go out she wouldn't do that—late at night she couldn't possibly run around alone.

Arriving at the lawn of the big courtyard, the lawn was surrounded by lit streetlights that could only illuminate the path beside the lawn; even that little light let Xiao Youzi roughly see the surroundings.

She didn't see anyone.

At that moment, another text message arrived.

"Turn left thirty degrees, look up at the sky."

Xiao Youzi swayed slightly to the left, then raised her head.

Although Chu Hua Shi's air quality is poor, sometimes at night the stars aren't visible, as if behind a veil of fog, but right now those two bright points and the crescent moon stand out clearly against the dark night sky, impossible to ignore.

It was a "smiley face".

An astronomical wonder, double stars accompanying the moon.

The smiley face was formed by the three brightest celestial bodies in the night sky—Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon.

Xiao Youzi stared blankly at the big smiley face in the sky; after half a minute, she couldn't help but smile.

She took a long breath, as if to exhale all her inner gloom, then broke into a big grin, lowered her head to look at her phone, and pressed the call button.

A cheerful ringtone sounded from the thicket. The sound was quite loud.

Zheng Tan: "……"

Damn it!

Why isn't the ringtone off?! Didn't I set it to silent?

Without waiting for Xiao Youzi's reaction, Zheng Tan hung up and ran off clutching his phone.

By the time Zheng Tan came to his senses, he had already run to the Old Tile House Area; he caught his breath, thinking he'd just hide his phone here for today, then hurried back to see Xiao Youzi's reaction.

Having hidden his phone in its usual spot, Zheng Tan turned and ran toward the big courtyard; after two steps he suddenly stopped, looked around, and found it still pitch dark—no streetlights, very quiet—he shook his head and continued running toward the big courtyard.

After Zheng Tan left, behind a shrub nearly two meters tall next to a tile house, the phone screen lit up, then quickly dimmed again as someone pressed the phone into standby.

Scratch!

The lighter's flame flared up, then the red glow of a lit cigarette butt flickered.

After the lighter's flame died out, in the quiet Old Tile House Area, in the darkness the cigarette butt's glow flickered with the cold winter wind. (To be continued…)

PS: Just to clarify, the double-star-with-moon phenomenon mentioned in this chapter actually occurred in real life on December 1, 2008; the story's timeline deviates, so please don't nitpick. By the way, Chen Ci was still in college back then—it's been a while.