Strange Life of a Cat
Chapter 335 - Chapter 335 Chapter 328 Old Cat

Chapter 335: Chapter 328 Old Cat Chapter 335: Chapter 328 Old Cat Seeing Little Wei grab the cat’s tail, Ermao laughed and said, “If this were any other cat, it would have slapped you with its paw already, Wei. You need to pay more attention. My wife’s relative’s child was just like this. The kid was three years old, and no matter what you said, he wouldn’t listen. The parents couldn’t keep constant watch, and one time, the child ran to grab their cat’s tail again and got scratched. You know, kids don’t understand their own strength, and the cat’s reflexive paw strike drew blood right away. If that child hadn’t been wearing several layers, not just his hand, but his arm could have been scratched.”

Ermao’s words were actually the milder side of things. Such incidents were not rare. It was considered lucky if they just scratched a hand or arm. If it were a face or an eye that got scratched, it would be much worse.

Wei Leng nodded, acknowledging that this indeed needed attention. He had heard about many such cases before, but the cats he was familiar with were all pretty mild, so he had overlooked it somewhat. Now that he thought about it, he really needed to put more effort into this. He couldn’t let his son develop such habits. After all, not every cat was “Black,” and they wouldn’t tolerate such behavior.

Thinking of something, Ermao chuckled proudly, “However, my two girls get along quite well.”

The “two girls” Ermao mentioned were his cat, Heimi, and his daughter, Er Yuan. He even took out his phone to show Wei Leng a photo of the two together. It looked quite harmonious indeed.

In response to Little Wei’s behavior of grabbing cat tails, Zheng Tan decided to keep his distance from the tyke until he turned eight. He wouldn’t even go near him during his first birthday party.

After having dinner at Wei Leng’s house, Ermao dropped Zheng Tan back at the courtyard. On the way, he joked about putting a fake cat tail during Little Wei’s first birthday party. Just imagining the scene made Ermao laugh. But he was only joking. Many kids’ first birthday parties didn’t involve such pranks these days, but since Wei Leng was organizing one, Ermao would not interfere. He was also wary, concerned that Wei Leng might retaliate during Ermao’s daughter’s party.

Zheng Tan listened to Ermao’s complaints and looked around the car. Compared to when they had arrived, there were fewer gifts in Ermao’s car but now there was a box. The lid of the box wasn’t fully closed, and Zheng Tan peered inside. It contained two braided items similar to the ones given to Wei Leng.

Was Ermao giving these away?

“Black Coal, don’t mess up those red strings. They are 50 yuan each. I took the last few today to give away,” Ermao said.

50 yuan?!

That old lady is ruthless!

Zheng Tan stared intensely at the braided red strings. They didn’t even have a single stone attached, so why were they so expensive?

Listening to Ermao, did many people buy them?

That old lady was really good at deceiving people. No wonder she managed to live well all by herself in a small village before Ermao found her, without even farming or plowing.

50 yuan wasn’t a lot, and for many people it was just small change, but when Zheng Tan thought about those red cords that looked like they were a few yuan per large roll at street stalls, and then considered the finished products that were marked up dozens of times, he couldn’t help but inwardly curse the old woman for cheating people.

However, while he cursed inwardly, Zheng Tan also wondered, should he buy one himself?

Little Youzi was twelve this year. Since many of her classmates were one or two years older than her, and the children didn’t really care about the concept of one’s zodiac year, no kid in the courtyard had ever mentioned it. Generally, it was the adults who talked about this, so aside from Jiao Ma buying Little Youzi some red clothes, Zheng Tan hadn’t seen anything deliberately targeting the concept of the zodiac year. After all, among young people, although there were quite a few who cared about this, there weren’t too many. Jiao Yuan hadn’t paid attention to this aspect in the past. Zheng Tan had only heard about it from Jiao Ma; Jiao Yuan didn’t care at all and never did anything like wearing red underwear.

After returning home, Zheng Tan searched through his money drawer. Most of the money he had saved before the New Year had been given away in red envelopes, but he had made some extra cash working overtime after the New Year, and Xiao Guo was now more generous, giving 100 yuan instead of just 50 yuan each time.

After confirming he still had enough money, Zheng Tan decided to stake out near the old woman’s house to see if it was really as busy as Ermao had said. People have such a mentality, drawn to the hustle and bustle; if everyone else is buying, we might as well buy too.

Picking a morning with nice weather, Zheng Tan ran to the lakeside villa area and lay on a tree near where the old woman lived.

Although the old woman was always sitting in a wheelchair and wasn’t seen running around on normal days, there were quite a lot of people who came to talk to her, most of them middle-aged women or elderly people. With Zheng Tan’s hearing, he could catch the sound of the old woman hoodwinking people from there.

And don’t mention it, the old woman really did seem like an expert when she was hoodwinking people, leaving her audience stunned–at least in Zheng Tan’s opinion, the old woman was deceiving them.

While she was hoodwinking people, the old woman kept her hands busy, weaving something with red cords. Although she was old and her hands trembled a bit, she was not slow in her weaving. Zheng Tan was too far away to see clearly, but by the time the old woman finished chatting, her hands had finished the product, which she then put aside and continued weaving. Most of the people who came to talk ended up paying for one or two items.

Zheng Tan decided to continue staking out in the afternoon to see how many people the old woman could hoodwink. As for lunch, after thinking it over, he decided not to go back home to eat. Going back and forth was troublesome, and if he stayed nearby he could mooch a meal from Feng Baikin; Aunt Li’s cooking wasn’t too bad either.

Just as Zheng Tan was planning to go over to Feng Baikin’s house for a meal, he saw two children, about ten years old, running towards the old woman’s house, looking as if they were afraid of being seen, like thieves.

These were likely elementary school students heading home for lunch. There was an elementary school nearby, and many children from this community and nearby communities attended it. It was rumored to have a good quality of education, and naturally, some of the fees were quite high, even though it was a public education; there were quite a few other costs as well.

Both children were carrying bags with bowls in them, which they had brought to school for breakfast and were now taking back home to wash.

The little girl was dressed like a child from this villa area, while the little boy looked much poorer and was probably from a nearby community.

Seeing the actions of these two children, Zheng Tan was in no rush to climb down the tree for food; instead, he continued to lie in wait and see what the two kids were up to.

Typically, those who sought out the old woman wanted to chat about things like facial features, fate, the Five Elements, and Feng Shui, or they were there to buy red cords out of her reputation. These two kids didn’t seem to belong to the former category. As for the latter… Surely these kids weren’t going to fall into her trap? It was 50 yuan per item!

At that time, no one was chatting with the old woman anymore, as each family needed to head back to prepare lunch. There was someone to take care of the old woman, so she didn’t have to cook herself; she was still in the courtyard, weaving red cords. The three-legged cat was lying beside her, guarding the completed crafts.

“Granny Yang!” The little girl called out politely from the doorway.

Zheng Tan had heard from Ermao that the old woman’s ancestors apparently bore the surname “Ouyang”, though he didn’t know when it had changed to “Yang”. Ermao had also mentioned something about surnames Ouyang, Ou, and Yang all descending from the same lineage, but Zheng Tan wasn’t interested and didn’t linger on the topic. However, he recalled that the jade token originally had the characters for “Ouyang”, though at the time, Zheng Tan had only recognized the character for “Yang”.

“Oh, Little Ni Ni.” The old woman looked at the girl standing at the door, smiling with a face full of creases, squinting her eyes.

“Granny Yang, I brought a classmate to buy a bracelet, oh, not a bracelet–buy…” The little girl was unsure of what exactly to call it, pulling the slightly trailing boy forward, “You say it.”

The little boy was a bit embarrassed and nervous, but as the old woman asked a series of casual questions, he began to relax and answered each one.

Zheng Tan listened to their conversation and learned that the little boy wasn’t buying it for a person, but for a cat. No one in his family was experiencing their zodiac year this year, but their old cat was already twelve years old, even older than the little boy.

The old woman showed no sign of surprise, maintaining a kindly, smiling face as she listened to the boy talk about his family’s cat, her hands continuously weaving a piece to completion.

“Granny Yang, see, could we buy one for it?” After speaking, the boy asked with a flushed face.

To many people, his behavior seemed prodigal and foolish, like looking for trouble pointlessly. Could a cat be treated the same as a human?

According to the conversion of cats’ ages to human ages, many people say that a seven- or eight-year-old cat is equivalent to a human in their fifties; like their twelve-year-old cat at home, which would correspond to a human’s age of seventy or eighty, essentially a truly old cat.

“Of course you can.” The old woman handed over the item she had just woven.

The little girl leaned over to inspect it, “Oh, it’s different from the one I saw last time.” To confirm, she looked at the other bracelets in the box next to her; this one was indeed different from the rest.

The old woman just smiled, giving no answer.

The little boy carefully placed the red woven item into his pocket, then took out a plastic box that had previously contained candy from a bag carrying dishes. It held some loose change, a few fives and tens, plenty of one yuan and fifty cent coins, and some ten cent coins.

After counting the money, with a flushed face, the little boy awkwardly said, “Granny Yang, you… don’t mind this, do you?”

“No worries, just put it here,” the old woman said carelessly.

As he left, the little boy looked back at the old woman, “Granny Yang, I heard that the zodiac year is a hurdle, will it get over this hurdle?”

“Do you hope it will get over this hurdle?” the old woman asked.

“Of course! I heard there’s a cat in the north of the city that lived more than twenty years and is still doing well!” the boy exclaimed excitedly.

“Then that’s settled.”

The boy was a bit confused, but soon smiled again, waved to the old woman, “We’re going, thank you Granny Yang!”

The two children left the old woman’s courtyard, whispering to each other as they walked away. Curious, Zheng Tan decided to follow them to see what the old cat looked like.

“I’ll pay back the twenty yuan as soon as I have money.” The boy said. The matter was urgent, and he had been saving his pocket change for a while, but he could only scrape together thirty, not enough for fifty.

“No rush with that, you don’t have much pocket money anyway. Besides, I’m not short of money.” Children living in this villa area generally came from well-off families, and the more generous parents gave quite a bit more; many of the elementary schoolers who played games were in the “tycoon” level.

“I should be able to pay it back by next week… no, the week after next,” the boy stated confidently. He had thought of a way.

“Let’s not talk about that for now. How is your cat doing lately?” the girl asked.

“It’s doing well. I heard that old cats lose their teeth, but I checked yesterday, and my cat hasn’t lost a single one, still has a good appetite.”

“But when I saw it last week, it looked lethargic, it didn’t jump at the wool rope when I tried playing with it, seemed quite lazy.”

“…It’s not lazy, it just can’t jump anymore.” (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote on Qidian [NovelFire.net], support through monthly tickets, and your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.NovelFire.net to read.)