Strange Life of a Cat
Chapter 263 - Chapter 263 Chapter 256 Bad Guy

Chapter 263: Chapter 256: Bad Guy? Chapter 263: Chapter 256: Bad Guy? Zheng Tan had never seen that man before. The kindergarten was staffed almost exclusively by female teachers who had been selected through multiple rounds and some personal connections, making them relatively reliable.

Zheng Tan knew both teachers in Zhuo Xiaomao’s class, and this man was certainly not one of them.

The management of Chuhua University Kindergarten was strict; strangers were not allowed in. The children here were all from the university staff, and the security guard, an elderly man, recognized most people. Therefore, it was impossible for an unfamiliar person to be let in by mistake.

Of course, all those measures were directed at people. They were useless against Zheng Tan, a special case. The walls and fences couldn’t keep a cat out.

Zheng Tan jumped onto a nearby tree, watching Zhuo Xiaomao and the man.

Zhuo Xiaomao was arranging building blocks, having made a little car. The man next to him was giving directions and, apparently growing impatient, crouched down to help arrange them, talking all the while. Zheng Tan listened; the man was naming all sorts of high-end cars, totally alien to most children–after all, to them, a Humvee was less attractive than a fire truck.

“Still missing a wheel,” Zhuo Xiaomao looked hopefully at the person next to him.

“I’ll go look for one.” The man adjusted a block, then stood up and took a step back, ready to search for the suitable part in the toy box.

But as the man stepped backwards, his foot landed on something, and he slipped, tumbling to the ground.

The indoor rooms had foam mats, but it was not the same outside, especially where Zhuo Xiaomao was playing, which though not concrete, was covered with a layer of wooden boards. The man’s twisted face as he hit the ground made it clear how painful it was.

Zhuo Xiaomao didn’t react much, but a child who was a little closer burst into laughter upon seeing the man slip. The other children, hearing the commotion, also began to laugh. With kids being prone to chain reactions, the man was now thoroughly humiliated by a chorus of giggles.

The two female teachers, alerted by the noise, came to see what had happened. Teacher Bai, in particular, looked very concerned at the man’s state.

“Are you alright?” asked Teacher Bai.

“…I’m okay.” The man on the ground got up with difficulty, saying he was fine more for pride’s sake than anything else; his gasping revealed the true story.

“It’s a glass bead,” the other teacher found the culprit of the man’s fall.

Glass beads were dangerous for the younger children, posing a risk of slipping and a hazard if swallowed–many kids instinctively put whatever they find into their mouths. So, such toys were absolutely not provided by the kindergarten, and it was impossible for one to be here.

“It must have been one of the older kids who dropped it!” the man said through clenched teeth. He had seen some older kids playing with them a few days before, and even though they had been put away and the area had been cleaned since, somehow one had been overlooked.

The two female teachers searched the area again to ensure there were no more glass beads. Then, Teacher Xiao Bai helped the man leave to get checked at the university clinic, while the other teacher stayed to continue supervision.

Zheng Tan watched from a distance, clearly seeing that Zhuo Xiaomao had taken the bead out of his pocket and placed it on the ground when the man had squatted down and wasn’t paying attention.

It never crossed the teachers’ minds to associate the incident with Zhuo Xiaomao. What could a two-and-a-half-year-old child possibly do?

In this group, Zhuo Xiaomao was the youngest. The other children had mostly turned three before joining, some brought in a few months earlier by parents who were too busy or feared their child falling behind at the starting line, rushing to enroll them upon seeing others sending their kids to school.

Actually, whether a child should attend kindergarten depends on the child themselves. Too young and fragile, without self-care ability, sending them to kindergarten is not only exhausting for the teachers but also suffering for the children, and may even cause them to develop an aversion. As for Zhuo Xiaomao, who was six months shy of three years old, he had a strong psyche and self-care ability, being capable of eating, sleeping, peeing, and pooping on his own–far better than many three or four-year-olds. Moreover, attending kindergarten had been his own suggestion.

On his first day at kindergarten, just as the teacher had finally calmed all the other children down, Zhuo Xiaomao let out a howl, triggering the recently quieted kids to start crying again. For these little ones, being away from parents for the first time made crying all too easy. The instigator, Zhuo Xiaomao, while everyone else was crying, went to the front table, picked a large and nice apple, and sat down to nibble on it.

Who knows who he learned it from–this little rascal was cunning!

The children soon lost interest in the commotion and went back to playing with their toys. They had been in class for “such a long time” and were eager to enjoy their playtime without dwelling on irrelevant matters. That was the difference between kids and bigger kids–while the latter would continue discussing what just happened, the former had already forgotten. To them, the toys in their hands and the slides were far more attractive.

Zhuo Xiaomao knocked down the car he had just completed, ready to continue playing with it. He arranged the blocks on the ground into a circle, then started stacking other blocks on top to form a cylindrical shape. Not all the blocks were square; some were triangular and trapezoidal, yet he managed to stack them into a tall and steady cylinder.

After using up all the blocks on the ground, Zhuo Xiaomao knocked them down again, yawned, and when he looked up into the tree and saw Zheng Tan, he happily trotted over.

Zheng Tan descended from the tree and stopped in a corner, waiting for Zhuo Xiaomao to come over.

Zhuo Xiaomao was usually quiet and obedient, and with strong self-care skills, he often helped other kids after managing his own tasks. For these reasons, his teachers and classmates had a very positive impression of him. He only talked more and revealed his craftier thoughts when he was with Zheng Tan.

“Black, Black, I just punished a bad guy!” Zhuo Xiaomao said, looking for praise.

A bad guy?

That man?

Honestly, the man gave a good first impression, mainly because his looks were deceivingly handsome, which could earn him quite a bit of favor just by itself. Playing it up a little, he indeed didn’t seem problematic.

Zheng Tan believed Zhuo Xiaomao.

“I saw him steal Xiao Li’s teddy bear and then lie about not having seen it,” Zhuo Xiaomao whispered his secret discovery to Zheng Tan.

The Xiao Li that Zhuo Xiaomao mentioned was another kid from the kindergarten class. Zheng Tan had indeed heard a couple of days earlier that a child here lost something, a crystal pendant shaped like a teddy bear, worth more than 1,000 yuan, gifted by the child’s relative. The child often showed it off, but unexpectedly, after taking a tumble outside, returned to find the pendant gone, and couldn’t find it when they ran back to where they’d fallen.

The child’s parents even suspected the kindergarten teachers, but there were many well-off children here, several wearing jade, and when it came to value, those jade pendants were worth much more. Why weren’t those lost, but only your child’s item went missing?

They couldn’t find out through investigation and were also worried about affecting the other children, so in the end, they let the matter rest.

Now it seemed, the one who picked up that pendant was the man from earlier?

Zheng Tan only found out from Zhuo Xiaomao’s whisper that the little cat couldn’t sleep that noon and saw everything with his “Periscope” made out of child-friendly toothpaste and two small mirrors.

The kindergarten children slept here during the midday and didn’t go home. Xiao Li had woken up during naptime to go to the bathroom and that’s when she stumbled. Regarding that “Periscope,” primary schools taught how to make one based on the principle of light reflection using cardboard and two mirrors. Zheng Tan had seen some kids in the courtyard playing with it recently, but this was the first time he’d seen such a small kid like Zhuo Xiaomao use one.

“Every time after squatting for a while, when he stands up, he steps back this much,” Zhuo Xiaomao demonstrated with his hands.

So, the man wasn’t playing with the glass beads randomly, but after observation and rough measurement. However, isn’t that kind of observational skill misused?

But after all, it was just a child, who hadn’t thought that deeply and hadn’t intended to tell the teachers or the parents, treating it just like a little game for his own amusement.

As for why Zhuo Xiaomao didn’t tell Xiao Li about this, from Zhuo Xiaomao’s tone just now, Zheng Tan gathered that Zhuo Xiaomao didn’t have a fond impression of the loud, show-off Xiao Li who wet the bed. Zhuo Xiaomao had previously placed a bug on Xiao Li’s skirt, frightening her to tears, and no one knew that he was the culprit.

From a parent’s perspective, this would be the time to teach right from wrong, to instruct on the correct way to do things. But Zheng Tan couldn’t, not to mention he couldn’t speak to do the teaching.

“Zhuo Xiaomao, is this your cat?” a little girl came up and asked.

Although Zhuo Xiaomao had said his name was Zhuo Yang, many children still liked to call him Zhuo Xiaomao.

Zhuo Xiaomao shook his head. “No, he’s my brother.”

The little girl’s eyes widened in disbelief upon hearing that. “No wonder your name is Zhuo Xiaomao; turns out your brother is a cat. Can you turn into a cat, too?”

“I can’t.”

“Oh.” The little girl looked disappointed, turned to glance at Zheng Tan, and reached out with her soft little hand, trying to grab Zheng Tan’s beard but missed as he dodged.

Zheng Tan didn’t have much patience for these little brats. No matter how cute they looked, they could be irritating beyond belief, not to mention their rough handling and propensity to cry easily. Thus, he didn’t fancy sticking around and lifted his paw to Zhuo Xiaomao, who was about to say something else to the little girl. Seeing Zheng Tan’s gesture, he quickly tapped his hand against Zheng Tan’s paw.

“Bye, Black!” Zhuo Xiaomao waved to Zheng Tan’s retreating figure, then turned back to finish his conversation with the little girl, advising her not to pull on Zheng Tan’s beard in the future, or “Black will get angry.”

After leaving the kindergarten, Zheng Tan was still thinking about the man Zhuo Xiaomao had identified as a bad guy–a dangerous element to have in a kindergarten.

As he mused, taking a shortcut past the university clinic, Zheng Tan saw the man and a woman coming out of the clinic–the woman was Teacher Bai from the kindergarten, and the man was the “bad guy” Zhuo Xiaomao had mentioned. The man now walked with a slight discomfort, probably from the hard fall he’d taken.

At a crossroad, the two parted ways; Teacher Bai headed back to the kindergarten, as she had to oversee the children at lunch and put them down for a nap, and couldn’t leave them. The man went down the other path.

After a brief thought, Zheng Tan decided to follow the man. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to cast your recommendation and monthly votes at Qidian (NovelFire.net). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please go to m.NovelFire.net to read.)