Chapter 437: Curtain Call Performance

Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng's wedding was held in May, and Jiao Ba and Jiao Ma brought Zheng Tan to attend the banquet; Xiao Youzi had no time, and Jiao Yuan was in the capital. Many school leaders attended the wedding, with Fo Ye leading the way, and because of this wedding, many people learned that Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng were backed by several big figures from the school, so normally they wouldn't use their status to cause trouble for Xiao Zhuo and his friends at school.

For Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng, they wouldn't have a honeymoon like those young people; they had a lot of work to handle and not much time for vacation, and if they wanted to take a break, they'd have to finish a phase of their project first. Although they couldn't take a long holiday, they still took Zhuo Xiao Mao to the amusement park for a good time.

When Zheng Tan was invited again to eat at Zhuo Xiao Mao's house, it was already summer vacation; Zhuo Xiao Mao went to the countryside to play and caught some shrimp, brought them back to eat, and said he wanted to share them with Zheng Tan.

Under the blazing sun, Zheng Tan ran from Dongqu Dayuan to Xiqu Dayuan, and under the gatekeeper's gaze, he swaggered through the gate.

Now Yue Cheng lives together with Zhuo Xiao Mao and Xiao Zhuo, not because Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng lack money to buy another house outside, but simply because living here is convenient, and Zhuo Xiao Mao has long been accustomed to this place. Yue Cheng bought a four-wheel sedan, its safety performance is decent, and he must have spent a lot of money on it.

Many people say orally that such a four-wheel sedan is unnecessary, but one day you'll realize that indeed you need a vehicle with doors, rather than the No. 11 bus or a two-wheeler, because your life already involves more than just yourself, especially if you have a family with children.

When Zheng Tan entered the door, Xiao Zhuo was busy in the kitchen, and Yue Cheng was not there. He had gone to the yard and also helped Xiao Zhuo with some chores so that Xiao Zhuo could have time at home to accompany the child.

Because the summer vacation had just started, Zhuo Xiao Mao didn't go to school; he lay alone on the bed in his small room reading a book.

Zheng Tan wiped his feet on the nearby carpet, jumped up, and glanced at the book in Zhuo Xiao Mao's hands.

Actually it's not really a book, but many printed papers stapled together, a thick stack, containing undergraduate works, as well as master's, doctoral, and other teachers' articles published in scientific journals by the school.

Zheng Tan couldn't understand any of it, but he was very curious about the words Zhuo Xiao Mao had highlighted with different-colored fluorescent pens on those papers, such as "Statistically significant trend can be seen," "These results will be given in a series of reports," "To a certain extent it is correct," and so on.

One could say it's note-taking, but the highlighted parts don't look like profound scientific knowledge.

Upon seeing Zheng Tan, Zhuo Xiao Mao was very happy to finally have someone to confide in.

"Hei Ge, do you know the implied meaning behind these words?" Zhuo Xiao Mao pointed to the marked sentences on the printed paper and said, as if eager to share an interesting anecdote with Zheng Tan.

Zheng Tan shook his head, listening to Zhuo Xiao Mao's following words.

Zhuo Xiao Mao proudly pointed to those sentences and said, "He told me. There are many language traps in the paper; one cannot take the surface meaning at face value, so I highlighted these phrases and examined the whole text to see if such hidden meaning really exists."

The "he" in Zhuo Xiao Mao's words refers to Yue Cheng; they have been getting along for over three months, and Zhuo Xiao Mao and Yue Cheng have become familiar, but they haven't settled on a form of address—calling him "Yue Shu" feels too distant, while calling him "Ba" feels too abrupt, so for now Zhuo Xiao Mao temporarily uses "he" as a placeholder.

However, Zheng Tan estimates that Zhuo Xiao Mao will soon start calling Yue Cheng "Ba," as the likelihood of Zhuo Xiao Mao mentioning Yue Cheng in that way is quite high.

"Hei Ge, look, for example, this phrase 'Statistically significant trend can be seen' actually implies 'These statistics are meaningless'; likewise, 'The results will be given in a series of reports' really means 'If this experiment could get more support, such as funding, we would continue to tinker with it'; and 'Statistical investigation shows' actually means 'According to rumors…' Well, this 'Based on the above results, we predict' actually means 'Sorry, we're just guessing wildly'; and 'We hope this research will prompt scholars in the field to conduct deeper investigation' actually means 'Whoever wants to do it can do it, I'm not doing it anymore'…"

Zhuo Xiao Mao listed many examples in a row, all common phrases in papers, which Hei Ba actually said before—just like industry jargon; insiders understand the deeper meaning behind them, but outsiders are being misled.

Zhuo Xiao Mao seemed to be playing a game of finding faults, highlighting all the potentially meaningful sentences in the papers, then, like reading a joke collection, he sat there laughing hysterically by himself.

Zheng Tan felt helpless beside him; he truly didn't know where the humor lay.

After laughing, Zhuo Xiao Mao closed the folder and said to Zheng Tan, "Hei Ge, my mom once said she wanted to raise a cat; last month she even took me to the pet center to look, originally planning to adopt one from there, and didn't you also say in that public service announcement that adoption should replace purchase?"

Zhuo Xiao Mao's smile faded, carrying a hint of slight worry.

The idea of adopting a cat had been considered by Xiao Zhuo long ago, but now, both Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng have no time at home; they spend their days mostly at the physics institute, while Zhuo Xiao Mao also has to go to school, and after school he goes to the physics institute more often than directly returning home, let alone that Zhuo Xiao Mao is just a little brat who can't even take care of himself yet, how could he look after small animals? Adding another pet means another responsibility, and it can't be taken lightly.

After thinking it over, Xiao Zhuo still temporarily gave up the impulse to adopt a cat; regarding this, Zhuo Xiao Mao feels some regret, he still wanted to adopt a cat and then get a dog; last month he had already picked them out, but after returning, hearing Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng's analysis, he realized there really is no time to care for them, and it's impossible to bring cats and dogs to the physics institute—Fo Ye would surely reject them outright with an iron face.

"Ah, I wish I could grow up quickly." Zhuo Xiao Mao sighed.

When you grow up, you won't think like that anymore. Zheng Tan thought to himself.

As a child, everyone wishes to grow up fast, but after growing up, they fantasize about returning to the days of being a little brat.

After eating a hearty lunch at Zhuo Xiao Mao's house, Xiao Zhuo took his lunch box to the physics institute; Zhuo Xiao Mao watched TV for a while then took a nap, and Zheng Tan kept him company there until Xiao Zhuo returned, after which Zheng Tan left, as he still had things to do in the afternoon and wouldn't stay too long.

Coming out of the building, a wave of heat rolled toward him; Zheng Tan quickened his pace to the shaded area, then walked along the shade outward.

Two cats were lying sideways asleep under the grape trellis; a large yellow-and-white cat polished its claws, climbed up the trunk, climbed halfway, saw Zheng Tan, and then stayed there like a cicada shedding its skin, staring at Zheng Tan. Until Zheng Tan left, it flicked its tail, continued climbing up, found a branch to lie down on.

When Zheng Tan returned to Dongqu Dayuan, Qi Li was waiting at the entrance to the compound; there is a large plane tree at the intersection, a wide stretch of cool ground, he parked his electric bike there, playing on his phone, waiting for Zheng Tan to return. Obviously, Qi Li learned Zheng Tan's whereabouts from the Jiao family and thus waited here directly.

This afternoon Zheng Tan needs to go to the pet center to film a video; now Xiao Guo's studio has been filming videos from the initial advertisements and promotional clips to later little stories performed by cats, and their popularity keeps rising, precisely because of these videos they have gathered a large fan base from pet centers; although many fans are not even in this city, or even this province, some are abroad, yet for the pet center "Ming Ming Ru Ci," they already know it well, and whenever a video is released, many people wait online, refreshing pages, and buying pet supplies online also often ends up here. This has already formed a brand effect.

Zheng Tan also has many fans online; not only Zheng Tan, but several cats and dogs at the pet center each have their own supporters. Although the videos may not necessarily show their true personalities, netizens don't bother to dwell on that—just watching the videos for fun is enough.

Previously Zheng Tan was the mainstay there, but now the mainstay has changed; Zhi Ma has taken up the burden. Although Xiao Guo and his team originally didn't want too many people to know about Zhi Ma, after so long, the people around inevitably know something, and later someone unknown posted a photo online of Zhi Ma poking his head out of the studio doorway, which went viral for a while, with many netizens urging Xiao Guo not to hide Zhi Ma; after consideration, Xiao Guo finally decided to let Zhi Ma take the stage.

Zhi Ma is quite smart; although he doesn't innately know how to perform like Zheng Tan does without teaching, compared to other cats, filming with him saves people a lot of trouble—after two lessons he gets it, and he also knows how to act cute; many people watch videos just to see cats being cute, he looks unique, excels at being cute, unlike Zheng Tan's style in front of the camera, yet his "impact" is tremendous; in the human world this would be a rising superstar, Zheng Tan this former "film emperor" still has influence, but it's now obvious that Zhi Ma's supporters are growing exponentially, and who knows—maybe one day his popularity will surpass Zheng Tan's.

Zheng Tan doesn't mind this; after all he isn't a real cat, and he has no competitive relationship with Zhi Ma. After the Jiao family asked him to reduce his work here, Zheng Tan's only regret is not earning as much overtime pay.

Zheng Tan now comes less often; the Jiao family even hopes he won't come back anymore, anyway Zhi Ma is already there, so there's no need to bother Zheng Tan. The Jiao family worries like this because in April Zheng Tan slept for three days again. Compared to before when he would sleep seven days straight, catch a cold and need hospitalization and IV drip, this time his condition is relatively milder, but the Jiao family worries more, unable to find the cause, and they can't relax until they do.

At that time Zheng Tan merely felt he had dreamed; he dreamed he was sick, hospitalized, in a ward, with a lively little nurse changing his IV nearby. That nurse Zheng Tan has a faint impression of—he had once flirted with her, but before he could tease her further, he was back.

At that time, Zheng Tan just felt like he had dreamed; he dreamed that he was sick, hospitalized, in a ward, and beside him there was a pretty little nurse changing dressings. That nurse, Zheng Tan had a slight impression of her, that he had once flirted with her, but unfortunately before he could flirt, she came back again.

Seeing Zheng Tan, Qi Li put his phone back into his bag, opened the sunshade installed on his electric bike, waited for Zheng Tan to jump onto the rear seat, then rode toward the pet center.

The props and cameras in the studio were already ready; they had filmed some in the morning, and would film more after Zheng Tan arrived.

In the shaded corridor outside the studio, the guard dog lying there saw Qi Li about to push the door, hurried over, squeezed in as soon as the gap opened, enjoyed the air conditioning, soon stopped panting with his tongue out, found a spot to quietly doze off. Dogs also love air conditioning.

After Zheng Tan rested a while, he joined the filming; the sooner it's done, the sooner he can go home.

Qi Li knocked on the door and entered Xiao Guo's office to hand over a form, seeing what Xiao Guo was writing, he was somewhat surprised: "Boss, who is this 'curtain call performance' arranged for?"

"Our work team has several old-timers who can't keep being tossed around; they're not like people, they don't grow wrinkles, but if you pay a little attention you'll see they're already not young." Saying this, Xiao Guo picked up the small mirror beside him, glanced at his own face, and sighed: "Life is like a tub of hot bathwater; soaking in it feels comfortable, but the longer you soak, the more wrinkles you get."

Qi Li pondered, "That saying sounds a bit familiar." He shook his head and continued, "But boss, you're still young, in your prime, no need to lament."

Li Yuanba, who occupies an entire bookshelf, squinted his eyes toward Xiao Guo's direction, then kept dozing off. (To be continued…)

Li Yuanba, who was occupying an entire bookshelf, squinted his eyes and glanced over at Xiao Guo, then continued dozing. (To be continued..)