Strange Life of a Cat
Chapter 280 - Chapter 280 Chapter 273 68

Chapter 280: Chapter 273 68 Chapter 280: Chapter 273 68 Jing Gui knew that Liu Ba wasn’t short on money, what he lacked was interest and fun. Recently, he only took orders that interested him. Having run into trouble and nearly lost his life, Jing Gui managed to get the vacationing Liu Ba to come help him out this time. Liu Ba neither agreed nor refused outright but, out of consideration for his old friendship with Jing Gui, he came to check on Jing Gui’s injuries and took the opportunity to learn about the case Jing Gui was working on.

However, after listening to the details of the case, Liu Ba was underwhelmed. He had encountered such situations plenty of times before. Competitions between mistresses and the confrontations among their illegitimate children were all too common for him. The first couple of times it was interesting, as if he was involved in an epic drama of court and domestic strife, where he played a crucial role in controlling the plot, even influencing pivotal changes. This could pique Liu Ba’s interest and allow him to experience the excitement and novelty, and he could even observe, as a bystander, the unsightly behaviors of the main and supporting characters behind the scenes.

But having been in touch with these types of incidents too often, they had become dull.

Therefore, from his interactions with Liu Ba over the past few days, Jing Gui had clearly sensed Liu Ba’s reluctance. If he were interested, why would Liu Ba act so lazily all day? Now, this text message had successfully sparked Liu Ba’s interest.

Thinking back to the content of that text message, it informed Jing Gui of the current whereabouts of the evidence left by the person who attacked him with a knife that night–information that was indeed crucial for Jing Gui. For the past few days, under the pretext of recovering, he had rejected some of the employer’s unreasonable demands. They were private detectives, not kamikaze detectives. Since they had realized that the case involved some complicated characters, it was necessary to investigate further or even re-evaluate their approach to figure out which aspects were safe to probe into and which to avoid. As for the number that had sent the text, Jing Gui only glanced at it briefly; it was an unfamiliar one. He figured it was probably from someone he knew trying to do him a favor, or perhaps from the opposing camp due to an internal dispute. However, clearly, the situation was different from what Jing Gui had thought, as evidenced by Liu Ba’s reaction–there was something unusual about this number.

“Do you recognize it?” Jing Gui asked.

Liu Ba shook his head, “No, but I heard someone mention it a while ago.” Although Liu Ba wasn’t in Chuhua City or even in the province at the time, he liked to keep an eye on interesting affairs, including this very number with four sixes. He had always felt that there was a fascinating secret behind this phone number and had intended to wait until the number made waves again before getting involved. Unexpectedly, he had now stumbled upon it.

“You don’t mind if I use your phone, do you?” Liu Ba asked, shaking Jing Gui’s mobile phone.

Jing Gui waved his hand, nonchalantly saying, “Go ahead.”

Liu Ba looked at the number and then dialed it. As expected, the other party had already switched off their phone.

Was this due to caution, or was there some other reason?

Since Liu Ba had been involved in the problematic milk tea and candy case before, he had followed up on it; otherwise, he wouldn’t have discovered such an intriguing matter. Even the police had taken an interest in this number, but they had never managed to uncover any useful information.

Ending the call, Liu Ba handed the phone back to Jing Gui, “I’ll come with you to pick up the things mentioned in the text… and while I’m at it, I’ll make a stop at a place.”

Jing Gui had no objections.

Zheng Tan only sent the text message because he happened to hear Jiao Yuan and others mention that problem kid one day. Although that kid had probably been keeping a low profile lately due to a guilty conscience, and had not troubled Jiao Yuan and the others, there were no rumors of any issues, and Jiao Yuan even heard from a ninth-grader that the kid was doing quite well recently.

Knowing that Jing Gui hadn’t found the person, and in order to eliminate any hidden threats and prevent that person from causing more trouble for Jiao Yuan and his friends, Zheng Tan immediately provided a clue as soon as he discovered Jing Gui’s number.

After sending the message, Zheng Tan didn’t bother with it anymore. He turned off his phone and went out for a walk, confident that Jing Gui and his people would track down the person based on the clue.

That day, Zheng Tan was at Ermao’s house, listening to Ermao and Wei Leng chatting. It was the weekend, and Ermao’s girlfriend was out of the province on business, while Wei Leng was going to his mother-in-law’s house to pick up his wife later that night. Before that, he was spending time chatting with Ermao.

“Damn, that hairy brat has been lurking around these past few days,” Ermao said angrily.

The “hairy brat” Ermao was referring to was Huasheng Tang. Lately, Heimi had been lying on the balcony of their house frequently, and every time Huasheng Tang prowled around the East District courtyard, he would howl a few times. Once he even got into a fight with Sahara, and after the fight, he returned to howl again the next time.

“Why stop them? Just let them communicate their feelings before going on to the next life,” Wei Leng said.

“You speak so lightly!” Ermao huffed, “Anyway, I just don’t like the look of that hairy kid. Wei, you don’t understand, you’ve never felt this way.”

“What feeling? Tell me about it.”

“The feeling of marrying off a daughter.”

Wei Leng chuckled, “You make it sound as if you’ve married off a daughter before. Tell me, what’s this feeling really like?”

“It’s like… damn it, the good cabbage I painstakingly raised ends up being ravaged by a stupid pig.”

Wei Leng and Zheng Tan: “…” This statement was all too familiar, only the perspective of the speaker had changed.

Just then, there was a cat’s howl coming from downstairs.

Ermao crinkled his beer can with a crackling sound, “Here it comes again!”

Zheng Tan looked at Ermao and knew that if Huasheng Tang kept provoking him, Ermao was probably going to run down and start a fight today.

He jumped off the sofa, Zheng Tan left the faculty building and gently clapped his hands at Huasheng Tang squatting on the concrete space in the courtyard.

Huasheng Tang stopped howling when he saw Zheng Tan, meowed twice with a seemingly aggrieved tone, glanced at Ermao waving a mop threateningly on the third-floor balcony, bared his teeth at Ermao, and then turned to leave.

Zheng Tan felt that the conflict between Ermao and Huasheng Tang seemed to be growing, but it was unclear who would compromise first.

Since he was already downstairs, Zheng Tan had no intention of going back up. He walked out of the courtyard’s gate, planning to stroll around and check his phone for any text messages.

As he walked, Zheng Tan suddenly felt a gaze upon him. Looking up, he saw someone dressed like the other students in the school, except with a very short ponytail on the back of their head.

Even with the ponytail, Zheng Tan could tell who this person was at first glance.

Zheng Tan looked over the person, who was carrying neither a shoulder bag nor any other large bag. In fact, upon seeing Zheng Tan, the person even turned out their pockets to show they didn’t bring their water gun this time.

The visitor was none other than Liu Ba.

Even though the person didn’t seem to carry anything dangerous, Zheng Tan remained wary.

In contrast to Zheng Tan’s caution, Liu Ba chewed his gum, blew a bubble, and then greeted Zheng Tan with a smile, “Yo, long time no see.”

Zheng Tan continued to watch the other party warily.

Liu Ba lifted his hands to show Zheng Tan he wasn’t holding anything and then walked over. About four or five meters away from Zheng Tan, he turned and headed toward a nearby sports field.

Zheng Tan thought for a moment before following but kept a distance of about ten meters. He didn’t feel at ease being any closer as he still didn’t know Liu Ba’s true background, so it was best to be cautious.

Liu Ba didn’t go far. He just found a spot to sit at the edge of the sports field nearest to the courtyard, not on the stands, but on the grass beside the track.

“Being a cat must be nice, so carefree, playing however you want, without the pressures of life,” mused Liu Ba.

Perched on a tree nearby, Zheng Tan inwardly snorted upon hearing this. Not every cat lived without pressures of life — in fact, some cats even suffered from psychological issues, which just weren’t apparent to others.

Zheng Tan didn’t care much about the rest, but he was now wondering why Liu Ba was here. Was it Liu Ba that Jing Gui called for help that day?

As Zheng Tan pondered, a student coming over to retrieve a ball kicked it back onto the field, sat down to wipe off sweat and catch his breath with the intention to rest. He saw Liu Ba sitting there, grinned, and said, “Hey buddy, which department are you from? Interested in kicking the ball around? We’re short on people, and we’ve got beauties to watch too.” He then winked at Liu Ba and jerked his chin in a direction, “That’s our ‘Queen Bee’ from our department.”

Zheng Tan looked in the indicated direction. Even from a distance, he could see several girls standing by the soccer field. From this distance, they all looked quite attractive, although it wasn’t clear which one was referred to as the “Queen Bee.”

“Queen Bee?” Liu Ba asked, with a profound look in his eyes.

The student didn’t notice Liu Ba’s odd expression and proudly explained, “She’s the recognized beauty of our department. Her name has the character ‘Feng,’ so she was jokingly called ‘Queen Bee’ by everyone. She’s beautiful, has good grades, and is popular. In our department, she doesn’t have to lift a finger; there will always be people willing to help her, whether they are guys from our own department or from other departments, all falling at the feet of our ‘Queen Bee.'”

“Then you guys must work really hard,” said Liu Ba.

Zheng Tan had a feeling that there was more to what Liu Ba was saying.

The student, being rather obtuse, chuckled at Liu Ba’s remark, “Of course, we take care of all the heavy and tiring work, and people vie to run errands. How could we let our ‘Queen Bee’ get tired?”

Zheng Tan kept his eyes on Liu Ba, feeling that his expression was off.

Indeed, after a few seconds, Liu Ba said solemnly, “Brother, do you know about the mating flight of the queen bee in such a social insect species?”

Zheng Tan: “…” He had a bad feeling about this.

The boy shook his head in confusion; they weren’t biology students, so how would they know about that?

“The new queen bee will fly out on a good day, releasing pheromones to attract the male bees. Those who can keep up prove they are strong and robust, and she will mate with them–XXOO. After indulging herself, the male bee will most likely die from exhaustion–it just can’t survive. Then the queen bee will continue to fly, mating with another strong male bee with the same fate for the male, and so on… until she feels, um, there’s enough sperm–this is what’s known as the ‘nuptial flight’ among bees,” Liu Ba explained slowly.

Both Zheng Tan and the dumbfounded student swallowed hard, as if they had heard a horrifying story. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it with a recommendation ticket or a monthly pass at Qidian (NovelFire.net). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.NovelFire.net to read.)

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