Zheng Tan stayed at Zhuo's place until they finished dinner and then he left. Zhuo walked Zheng Tan out the western courtyard and watched him walk off into the distance.
Zheng Tan didn't go home straight away after he left the western courtyard. Instead, he headed for the woods by the side gate.
This was because he knew that the region around the perimeter of the campus was in the process of construction. There weren't many students that went into that direction. There were even less during nighttime.
Zheng Tan leaped as he traveled through the forest, arriving at the top of a large tree where he squatted.
Deep breath.
"Aaooowoooo--"
Doesn't sound right.
"Awoooooo--"
Doesn't sound right either.
Zheng Tan carefully recalled the cries of the big white cat at that time, and howled again.
"Wooowoo--"
Still not right!
After several attempts, Zheng Tan analyzed the causes. Maybe because he had always previously avoided calling like a cat, and had gotten used to howling randomly instead. Now that he needed to learn how to vocalize like other cats, for a moment, he couldn’t make that transition. Zheng Tan didn't want to make an unreasonable demand to cry like the big white cat. He just needed to be close to it, but the sound he made right now was virtually wails of a ghost.
Huh?
Ghost wail?
Zheng Tan squinted his eyes.
Since becoming a cat, Zheng Tan especially liked to squint his eyes, but he hadn't realized this issue himself. With the tip of his tails swaying, he pondered upon some thoughts.
Just as he was thinking, a wave of urgent footsteps sounded. Zheng Tan knew for sure without looking that it was the black-backed owned by the side gate janitor. The sound of its paws kicking against dead leaves while running was extremely obvious in such a serene environment.
The black-backed ran over in a hurry, sniffed around then encircled a tree twice before lifting a back leg and urinated against the trunks. After it finished peeing, it dug the paws into the ground in excitement, sniffing about in the surrounding. It waited for the whistles from the direction of the side gate. Only then did it bark in response and hurried back.
Zheng Tan looked at the tree that had dog urine on it. He had realized a few days ago that the tree had an offensive urine odor. The black-backed came here every day during the lookout time to pee; fixed location, attached to this tree only. At the same time, Zheng Tan remembered the tattooed man. That person liked peeing at the same spot. Zheng Tan found this out while staking out around the tattooed man's house. It was because of this habit that gave Zheng Tan an idea.
Initially, Zheng Tan only wanted to use violence to teach this person a lesson, but later he thought, pure physical damage was too good for him. Probably, this guy still wouldn't associate this punishment with the three dead kittens. Maybe this guy would still do similar things to other cats. Therefore, Zheng Tan decided to try another way.
Since he decided to change the original strategy, this meant that things couldn't be acted out in one day. If one day wasn't enough, then we shall do it day by day.
So thus came the preparation work that Zheng Tan had been gradually doing over this period of time. Plus, things were not going smoothly for the tattooed man, there seemed to be a taboo for red sticky things.
Zheng Tan practiced voicing for a while again, and looked at the time; the sky had completely darkened.
Exiting the woods, Zheng Tan came to the remote corner near the old resident area alleyway side of the school gate. In the corner, there was a number of leafy old pine trees. Zheng Tan had hidden the things that he accumulatively collected up there, wrapped in those black plastic bags. In that corner, there was a small probability for the things to be found, and if they were found, Zheng Tan wasn't worried. Who would think that those things in the bag were the work of a cat?
He carefully opened the bags.
At the beginning, because he wasn't accustomed to using claws, the claws always hooked onto the plastic bags. After some tries, things got a lot smoother, since inside this cat body was the spirit of an adult. Although, it was not to the extent that he could deal with such a minor problem of tying and opening bags.
There were four dolls inside the bag. One was slightly bigger, a cat doll with floral patterns. The other three were smaller in size, with the dimensions of an adult palm’s height, all white, and furry. It was the kind that girls liked.
These four dolls were "obtained" by Zheng Tan from the second level of a gift store outside the campus at night.
Other than these four toy cat dolls, there was a pack of cotton swabs, three small packs of tissue, some bags that varied in size used for holding food, a few packets of flavoring pack sized tomato sauce used in fast food stores, and some elastic bands that girls used to tie their hair up with. These elastic bands were much wider than the normal elastic bands that Papa Jiao used in their lab. At the same time, it also ensured that when Zheng Tan wrapped it around his neck it wouldn’t be too loose or too tight.
These were all "obtained" by Zheng Tan over the past period of time. Zheng Tan spent a lot of energy into not letting anyone notice or find out.
There were advantages and disadvantages in taking action as a cat. Sneaking into other people's stores and warehouses were easy, but "taking" things away were not so easily achieved.
Zheng Tan took a black plastic bag out, placing the bigger furry toy cat into the bag. Then he added a packet of tomato sauce, two cotton swabs and a pack of tissue. Zheng Tan tidied up other things that were temporarily not used, tying the bag and placed it in the old spot up on the trees. There were dense branches around, making it difficult to see from the outside. Even if it was seen, nobody would have the time or spirit to climb up the trees and go through the bags.
He wrapped the things he needed to use today inside the bags, secured with an elastic band.
Taking a look, Zheng Tan made sure that all things here were fixed up and wouldn't fall off, then he bit the bag between his teeth where the elastic band were and jumped off the trees with this bag of things. He re-emerged from the courtyard fences at the campus border near the mouth of the alleyway in the old resident area. Like a flash, he headed straight to the greening flower bed. Using the plants in the flowerbed and the night as a disguise, he quickly disappeared. The surrounding traffic sped past to and fro. No one would take notice at the dark silhouette that flashed by here.
This time of the day, the alleyway of the old residential area was much more desolated as compared to the central department stores area. It was a completely different sight. Occasionally, there were waning street lamps. Many of the roads were pitch black. You could only see the approximate layout of the alley through some of the light that peeked through from the surrounding households. As for others, nothing was visible.
Those on the night shift, or coming home from work, whether they were riding electric motorbikes, walking or riding bicycles, would all light the way using torches.
Under this environment, there was definitely no one who would notice that by the trash bin at the corner, there squatted a black cat.
Zheng Tan estimated the time inside his mind. According to the information he had obtained from the previous period, the tattooed man would often depart from home at nine in the night to the location where he worked.
As expected, not long later, the voice of the tattooed man was borne. Alone with the tattooed man was another person; the two discussed.
"What I meant is that you should probably show some restraint. The message going around is that Boss Ye's gang probably had beef with our boss. You should all be careful. Otherwise, you might lose a leg or miss an arm," the guy beside the tattooed man said.
"Haha, Boss Ye wouldn't even treat little hooligans like us seriously." The tattooed man's voice sounded like he said it with laughter, but the laughter was extremely unnatural.
"Anyhow, when everyone starts to fight, we will play dead and not make any trouble. Don't let your weaknesses be caught by other people."
"I know that. Oh, wait, I need to take a piss, hehe!"
As he spoke, the tattooed man walked and took a turn into a dead-end, this was where the tattooed man would urinate when he went out or came back. The dead-end which he peed at was very close to the corner that Zheng Tan squatted. Diagonally across, Zheng Tan could see the situation there from the trash bin.
After waiting for the two to walk off, Zheng Tan gripped the bag of stuff in his mouth and headed for the tattooed man's house.
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