After Grandpa Gu went home, he occasionally sent over goods. The Jiao family was not going home for the spring festival this year. Both Papa and Mama Jiao’s parents thought about them often. Whenever family friends went to their city, their parents would send stuff along. In the country, people start to prepare for the spring festival at a very early time.
This year, the spring festival came earlier than usual. Back home, many people were meat or fruit producers and had to go to Chuhua often to provide goods for their customers. Ever since the start of December, Papa Jiao had been receiving calls to go pick up stuff.
Back home, many people were in the aquiculture business. The Gu family had a fishpond for eel. It felt better eating food coming from family.
All of this was no business of Zheng Tan’s. Since Wei Ling moved to the company, the only place Zheng Tan could visit was Mr. Guo’s shop. He couldn’t wander off campus during the day. After all, it was much safer on campus. Most students that saw him were kind towards cats. The way people off campus looked at Zheng Tan made him feel like he was about to turn into food.
If he was still human, he wouldn’t have felt the difference. However, as a cat, he could clearly sense the different meanings of the looks people gave him. Strays were always sensitive to people; Zheng Tan was starting to become like them after wandering in the streets for so long. Nowadays, he only left the campus during the night, so as to not be alarmed so often.
Most people who worked 9 to 5 were busy on their commute routes. They paid little attention to cats on the streets. However, many people were after strays or stray-like pets at this time of the year. They would catch these cats and sell them to restaurants. In order to avoid trouble, they would bring the cats out of the province before selling them. These were the people that cats had to be most careful of.
As a cat, Zheng Tan was under a lot of pressure. He underestimated most male cats’ determination to guard and expand their territories. These restless cats were always fighting. He tried to go on short trips in the city; however, he always came home annoyed. Though he had no problem fighting those cats and not all cats were idiotic enough to bother him, there were always one or two that couldn’t leave him alone.
One day, as Zheng Tan was walking towards Mr. Guo’s pet store, he ran into a black cat like him. That cat was always surrounded by a group of other cats. Zheng Tan felt that they all were the black cat’s followers.
He never lost a fight with this cat. However, this cat was not one to learn from its mistakes. Whenever it lost a fight, it came back even more hostile than the last time. It never gave up on the small hope of winning against Zheng Tan. To him, this cat was a pure idiot.
For some time, Zheng Tan thought that fighting was inevitable for cats. Until the day he ran into a cat that didn’t fight.
As Christmas drew nearer, international students were busy preparing for the holiday, so Mr. Guo thought it was time to do a Christmas edition ad for his cat food. Zheng Tan would be Santa and Mr. Guo’s golden retriever, ‘Boss’, would be a reindeer.
When Zheng Tan arrived at the studio, Boss was panting in the corner with antlers on his head. He had been practicing moves for the ad and had just caught a break.
Zheng Tan had worked before with several cats from the store as well as Boss. They weren’t building chemistry together, but they all got along. Aside from Prince, most cats in the store were neutered, and Prince was a calm cat due to living indoors. The store’s cats were used to sharing space with other cats and therefore were less territorial.
Everyone in the room had gone through several phot shoots already. They all knew that all they had to do was train every other animal participating in the shoot besides Zheng Tan. He was an ‘expert’ and didn’t need any guidance. Hence, it was common to find Boss panting, with Zheng Tan sleeping beside him.
Usually, Mr. Guo only woke Zheng Tan up when Boss had learned all his moves.
After putting on the Santa suit, Zheng Tan felt his IQ had been significantly lowered. The suit was very uncomfortable. It was not restraining, but still felt weird on. What was more, Mr. Guo appeared with a giant beard. Paired with the red hat, Zheng Tan couldn’t begin to describe how stupid he looked.
He felt that people who saw the ad would be surprised that Santa was a black cat.
Zheng Tan told himself he was doing this for the ad; it was all for art.
This setting of this ad was Cat Santa riding his sleigh pulled by his Golden reindeer, delivering products from the store to pets.
After the photo shoot, Zheng Tan got out of the clothes and the beard, climbed on top a cat tree and waited for Mr. Guo to take him home. The rest was Mr. Guo and Yanzi’s work. Yanzi was now a common customer here at the pet center. She was good at Photoshop, so Mr. Guo had her help out. Mr. Guo paid her by allowing her and her cat to stay in the shop for free.
All the staff were huddled together working on the pictures. Zheng Tan was left alone on his cat tree. He had taken a nap before coming over and was now completely awake. He looked around and found Li Yuanba with her kittens.
Li Yuanba was the same. Most cats in the store avoided her. Most that dared to come close were scared off by one glare. She didn’t even have to lift a paw. This was what Zheng Tan admired the most about her.
Next to Li Yuanba was her son Nougat. Zheng Tan hadn't noticed the first time he saw pictures of the kitten. He had a mole next to his mouth. The fur in that area was all white, except for that small patch of yellow. Right now, the patch of fur was the size of a soybean, who knew how large it would be in the future. Zheng Tan was curious.
Nougat had longer fur than most kittens, yet he stilled differed from long-haired cats. His dad was probably a mix. What surprised Zheng Tan even more was how serious Nougat was. Tiger tried to be serious sometimes, but Nougat was actually serious, just like his mama. It’s just that he was still young and didn’t have his mother’s scariness yet.
Li Yuanba stayed in the room for a while before leaving with Nougat in her mouth. One of the rooms next door was for Yanzi. It had a cat door.
From this room, Zheng Tan could see Li Yuanba carry the kitten inside before leaving again. She didn’t come back to the studio but walked toward the other end of the hall. Zheng Tan remembered there was a back door over there used for moving boxes or large equipment. It was kept shut most of the time.
Why was Li Yuanba going over there?
Zheng Tan decided to find out. He jumped off the cat tree and followed her. Li Yuanba saw him but didn’t react.
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