Strange Life of a Cat
Chapter 307 - Chapter 307 Chapter 300 Identical

Chapter 307: Chapter 300 Identical Chapter 307: Chapter 300 Identical The ornament swayed in such a way that made Zheng Tan’s eyes dizzy, so he couldn’t see it clearly. Therefore, he reached out to take a closer look at the ornament, and sure enough, it closely resembled the bag of stuff he had seen before. After examining it for such a long time that morning, even if Zheng Tan couldn’t discern its authenticity, the feeling was nearly identical.

While Zheng Tan was looking at the ornament, Jiao Wei came running over. They didn’t have any classes for the third and fourth periods that morning, so he was just hanging out at the library. Seeing that it was about time, he planned to go to the restaurant to avoid the peak of students leaving class later. Every time he ran down this road, he would look around, especially at those tall trees suitable for a cat to nap on and the wooden chairs by the gravel path–Zheng Tan was picky about his sleeping spots. Sure enough, without much effort, he spotted the black cat lying on a chair.

“Heitan!”

Not knowing the man and woman, Jiao Wei just called out Zheng Tan’s name and then waited on the side. Seeing the man and woman look over, Jiao Wei smiled and nodded at them without saying much, as he usually wasn’t very talkative.

Upon seeing Jiao Wei, although Zheng Tan was somewhat curious about the identities of these two people, eating lunch was the more pressing matter at hand. Besides, these two might not be related to that bag of stuff, so Zheng Tan didn’t waste any more time. He jumped down from the wooden chair and trotted towards the school gate with Jiao Wei.

After lunch at Mr. Jiao’s restaurant, Zheng Tan found a place to rest. Mr. Jiao even called the restaurant to inquire and, knowing that Zheng Tan was there, he didn’t say much. Mr. Jiao and a few other teachers had lunch in the cafeteria and didn’t come over.

After taking a nap atop a tall plane tree, Zheng Tan decided to stroll around. He hadn’t left the school for a few days, so he first went to see how Little Youzi and the others were doing at their junior high school, and then continued walking until he heard the familiar sound of an erhu and saw the familiar overpass.

The blind old man was actually there today! That was rare.

The blind old man had been coming to the overpass far less frequently over the past year, and sometimes Zheng Tan wouldn’t bump into him on his walks, only seeing him when he ran towards the alley where the old man lived.

As Zheng Tan was heading that way, he noticed a low-key black sedan slowly approaching and stopping not far ahead. Two people got out of the car, the same man and woman he had seen at noon.

Zheng Tan watched them, and the two who had alighted from the car saw Zheng Tan as well.

“Another black cat? Is it popular to keep black cats around here?” the woman commented.

“It’s the same one we saw at noon,” the man said, a bit surprised, and then smiled, not taking it too much to heart. Different cats have different ways of looking at people, and that black cat had a very special way of looking at people. But even if it was the same cat, encountering it here wasn’t a big deal.

“It doesn’t have a cat card,” the woman stated. She wasn’t doubting the judgment of the person beside her; she was merely voicing her own doubt. Normally, pet cats wore cat cards when outside, and although there weren’t many strict requirements in China, why would it have it on in the morning and off in the afternoon? Of course, this was just her fleeting curiosity, and she soon stopped pondering over the cat card issue.

The man and the woman shifted their gaze away from Zheng Tan and continued on their way without paying him any more attention, chatting quietly as they walked.

Zheng Tan, too, just felt surprised for a moment upon seeing these two people, but didn’t bother with anything else, walking his own path straight towards the overpass. Then, he noticed that, like him, the man and woman both climbed the steps of the overpass. After reaching the top, the two stood by the railing on an empty spot. The woman opened her sun umbrella, as the sun was not so gentle this season. Meanwhile, the man looked towards the center of the overpass, focusing on the blind old man playing the erhu.

“Thomas, is that old gentleman the person you’re looking for?” the woman inquired.

“Hmm.”

Just as the woman was about to ask more, she suddenly exclaimed, “Ah, the black cat has gone over there!”

Both were surprised; they had seen cats with boldness, but not one as audacious as this, walking calmly on the overpass with people coming and going as if all the surroundings were just air–a cat like that was something they had never seen before.

Under their gaze, the cat walked up to the old man playing the erhu and casually stood by the box with money, nonchalantly scooping out coins with a rattle and clinking sound, fetching two game coins, and then stood under the large umbrella in the shade, opening its mouth to yawn.

Two people: “…”

After a few seconds of silence, the woman said, “Thomas, that old man has a really good temper.”

The man didn’t reply verbally, but thought to himself that if the old man really had that good of a temper, there wouldn’t have been so many secretive battles and bloodshed back in the day. A person who had fought his way to prominence with real knives and bullets, especially one like the old man there, definitely couldn’t be described as “good-tempered.” It’s just that the cat’s boldness was a bit too much–previously, many people had said that many animals tended to give that old man a wide berth.

Zheng Tan yawned. He had just rummaged through the old man’s box and found two game coins. Every September, the start of the school season brought new students to the area who thought they were clever by throwing game coins into the box, not realizing that while they thought they were making fools of others, those very people considered them as practically courting death. They simply weren’t worth the effort to deal with. Isn’t there a saying? You watch the fool on the bridge, and those around you watch you as the fool.

As Zheng Tan yawned a second time, the old man finished his piece and started packing up his things.

This made Zheng Tan a little puzzled. It wasn’t time yet, was it? Did the old man have something to do that required him to leave early?

Not only was Zheng Tan thinking this, but several small vendors on the overpass were also muttering, “Why did the old man go back so early today? Do we need to pack up early too?”

“Let’s pack up. He probably heard some news. Just to be safe, we should follow suit and withdraw.”

Thus, following the old man, some of the vendors began to pack up their wares in succession. Of course, there were still some vendors who stayed put, seeing that business was brisk. The old man hadn’t come by most of the time over the past year; they managed to set up their stalls all the same, hadn’t they?

Zheng Tan saw the old man packing up and leaving and followed him from behind. He hadn’t been to the old man’s place in a long time and wondered if Xiao Jiu was there recently. After a few steps, Zheng Tan noticed a man and woman also following not far behind. He glanced back at them and continued walking. Once they were some distance from the overpass, Zheng Tan saw a fruit vendor hurrying past from behind, running in haste. Looking back towards the overpass, those vendors who had remained were hurriedly packing up something; clearly, inspectors were coming, and they needed to scram quickly.

Watching the old man’s leisurely pace, Zheng Tan curled his lip.

After passing through the commercial street and entering the familiar alley, the man and woman continued to follow behind at a distance of six or seven meters. Zheng Tan was taken aback again. Did these two know the blind old man?

At the same time Zheng Tan was puzzled, the two behind were also surprised. Did this cat know the person they were following?! Wasn’t it just an ordinary pet cat from an average household in the university?

Judging by the reaction of the person who answered the door, there were no extra expressions whether it was seeing the man and woman or Zheng Tan.

They must know each other!

After entering the house, Zheng Tan made his way to the living room as if he owned the place and jumped onto a chair to sit. He seemed far more natural than the two following behind.

“Uncle Kun, long time no see,” the man said, bending slightly in a salute towards the old man.

Zheng Tan bristled his whiskers. “Uncle Kun”? Although this title was only different by one word, compared to the more formal “Mr. Kun” that Ye Hao and the others called him, this seemed much closer, didn’t it?

“Seven years, Tang Mo, you’ve finally come back. Are you planning to break into the domestic market?”

The old man’s tone carried a rare familiarity, and Zheng Tan couldn’t help but take another look at the man named Tang Mo. What was this guy’s background?

Tang Mo smiled faintly, “That’s the plan, but I ran into some trouble as soon as I got back. I couldn’t handle it, so I came to seek your help.”

He was straightforward and spoke with a tone of affection that a junior might use towards an elder, indicating that he really understood the old man’s temperament and was indeed very familiar with him. If it wasn’t for the fact that the two did not resemble each other at all, and considering what Ye Hao and others had said about the old man having no biological children, Zheng Tan might actually suspect a family connection. If there was no blood relation, then it could be something to do with Tang Mo’s parents.

“Oh?” The old man picked up his teacup and took a sip, not uttering any superfluous words.

Tang Mo took a box passed to him by the woman beside him, opened it, and placed it on the table in front of the old man.

Inside were several naked diamonds of different shapes, each larger than five millimeters; the biggest was nearly one centimeter. Zheng Tan didn’t know how to evaluate a diamond’s quality or value but perked up his ears to listen to their conversation.

Putting down his cup, the old man accurately reached for the box, his fingers brushed over the diamonds, and he picked one up to feel it, smiling, “Nicely done, better than before. Your father would be very pleased if he knew.”

Zheng Tan was taken aback. From that comment, those shiny, eye-catching diamonds… were they fake?

“Graphite and some other materials are placed into a specially made box, which is then placed into a device similar to a pressure cooker to simulate the temperature and pressure under the Earth’s surface where diamonds form. The graphite changes and, after three days, when you take out that box and open it, you get a diamond crystal. Compared to natural diamonds that can take hundreds of millions of years to form, these are created in just a few days and are much cheaper than the naturally mined ones. However, that was the technology from three years ago.” Tang Mo picked up a diamond, looking at the reflected light with a confident smile on his face. “These are the products of new technology. The cost has gone up a bit, and it only takes a few days, but they are indistinguishable from natural diamonds formed more than a billion years ago under high temperatures and pressures–and what’s more, they can grow.”

“Congratulations. It looks like the jewelry market is about to see another war,” said the old man, his tone not changing much. The underlying benefits didn’t excite him too much, “I remember when your father proposed that project, he said that once the technology matured, its impact on the market would be no less than the arrival of the Steel Age in the 1950s and the invention of the transistor in the 1940s.”

Diamonds are not just for decoration; they could allow computers to operate at speeds that could melt their insides, and they would permeate into electronics, mechanics, and even armaments, bringing about revolutionary change. Although it was still far from the ideal and many problems remained unsolved, Tang Mo felt that he had already taken a significant step forward.

“Before that, I’d like to ask Uncle Kun to help me find a bag of experimental products stolen by a rat,” Tang Mo said, putting down the diamond.

Zheng Tan’s ears shot up, and he turned to their side. (To be continued. If you like this book, please come to Qidian (NovelFire.net) to cast your recommendation votes and monthly passes, your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.NovelFire.net to continue reading.)