Night.
Eastern staff residence quarter of Chuhua University.
Papa Jiao stood at the front door of his own home, he lifted his hands and rubbed his face. Disguising the weariness on his face, he then pulled the keys out and opened the house door.
The couch in the living room was still empty, there was no longer a black cat that stretched across, lying there watching the television, happy and content.
Hearing the sound of opening door, the two children's doors flung open at almost the same time, but when they saw Papa Jiao's facial expressions, their eyes dimmed down again.
It had been a week, but there was still no news.
The criminal dens for illegal cat and dog trading that got banned in Chuhua city didn't have the news that they were looking for.
Bang!
The two children's door closed again, they went to finish their homework.
After knowing that their cat had gone missing, the two children's eyes became bloated from crying. Even after a week, their eyes were still red and their mood always low.
"Still no news?" Mama Jiao asked in a hushed tone, she was not in a good emotional state as well.
Papa Jiao shook his head and didn't say a word. After a while, he responded: "Wei Ling and Director He are all helping to find him, Mr. Zhao and others also asked their friends to look out for news in this area, it will come soon."
After finishing his sentence, the bedroom phone rang.
Papa Jiao stood up to pick up the phone, while the two children in their rooms pressed their ears to the door, hoping to hear some good news.
However, Papa Jiao didn't say too much when he answered the phone, the only two sentences were in a quiet voice and didn't seem to be in a good mood.
Hanging up, Papa Jiao took a cigarette out and smoked on the balcony.
Normally Papa Jiao didn't smoke unless he was in a bad state.
The person that just called was Wei Ling, he reported the investigations result to Papa Jiao, no sign of his Charcoal, but they found the person that sold the tranquilizer. They traced this thread further, but the purchaser was not a local and was quite sneaky, they couldn't find out much.
Although it didn't have too much useful news, Papa Jiao always had a suspect at heart, he recalled the recent encounter with Professor Ren in the faculty. Professor Ren recently looked somewhat pleased…..
While the people of Chuhua city occupied themselves with trying to find any news of Zheng Tan, Zheng Tan now lay on the attic of a villa sleeping.
That day he followed the great Pyrenees and that girl to a nearby district. The district was high-ended, it had elevators and villas, the house of the great Pyrenees was one of the villas.
The speed of that girl riding wasn't really fast, it looked more like taking a spin, often stopping and getting off the bike to buy things. That's why Zheng Tan could follow hiddenly, but it was quite tiring because of his weariness. He was in an extremely poor state on that day.
The girl and the great Pyrenees entered from the front gate of the district, but Zheng Tan crawled through from a nearby fence. He made his way towards a villa following the footsteps of a dog and a person, and had found quite a good location ---the attic.
It was not difficult for a cat to crawl up this type of Americanized villa attic.
The attic of this house had some knick-knacks piled in there, there were normally not many people that came here. Many places were covered with cobwebs and dust, initially there were some rats, but after Zheng Tan arrived, they probably rolled up their belongings and left since Zheng Tan had never seen them.
After all these trouble of finding a temporary place to stay, Zheng Tan's tensed nerves began to ease up. He rampaged through the stuff in the attic and found a cushion inside one of the cardboard boxes. Regardless of the moldy smell on cushion, Zheng Tan lay on it and began to rest.
Zheng Tan was awoken by the sound of splattering rain.
The rain hit on the window of the attic, making a clattering sound which resonated clearly in this serene environment.
Outside, the sky darkened, another day has passed.
From here, Zheng Tan could see the lamp posts of this district, the light bouncing from nearby residences and the shadows of people moving about through the window of the attic.
It's probably supper time. Zheng Tan sniffed his nose and could only smell the moldy scent that the attic had.
Zheng Tan knew where this area was, and knew how far Chuhua city was from here.
One being the central city, the other being a southern coastal city.
It was because of this knowledge that made his mind blank.
Xiahe city was not too far from the Southern City, a city where he had lived for twenty years.
Zheng Tan looked at the raindrops on the window, not sure what he himself was thinking, to be accurate, he was in a trance.
However, the trance didn't last for too long.
Ah, his stomach was starving.
Zheng Tan figured that some time later when the family were all asleep, he could go down there and look for some food.
Zheng Tan didn't want to expose himself. This household kept a dog so they probably don't eat dog meat, but who knows if they would eat cat meat? And what about the family's moral character?
He didn't want to take risks.
Zheng Tan took a stretch and flexed out his limbs, pondering about what he should do in the future.
If he had been a human it would be much better, but unfortunately he was now just a cat.
Doing nothing was boring, Zheng Tan fumbled through the stuff in the attic and found a small ball, the children's toy type. It looked like it had been there unmoved for a long time.
Lying on his back on the cushion, Zheng Tan played with the ball with his four paws. His front paw gently pushed the ball back then his legs pushing it back again.
Looking at the moving ball in the air, Zheng Tan felt that he resembled those animals in circuses.
Speaking of which, how was the Jiao family during his absence, and what about Mr. Guo's advertisements …
Just like that, Zheng Tan played with the ball while immersed in his thoughts.
The laughter of the family travelled to the attic, as well as the sound of ads on the television and a familiar dialect that he hadn't heard for a long time.
It was finally midnight, the rain outside might have stopped.
A window on the slant side of the attic could be pushed open, the family probably didn't know that there was a broken window in their attic. Nevertheless, even if they knew they probably wouldn't take it to heart since this window was extremely small, it would be difficult for a seven or eight years old child to climb through, let alone a thief.
Walking out through that window, Zheng Tan surveyed his surrounding. Due to the recent raining, the environment was damp and moist.
Zheng Tan took a look at the water stain on his paws and found a place to climb down from the roof, arriving at where the kitchen was.
Initially Zheng Tan saw a door opening on the door that allowed pets access, and was prepared to enter from there, but after a try, he realized that it was locked. Most likely because that great Pyrenees had grown too big, it could still be used when it was younger, but now there was no need, that's why the family locked the pet door.
Unable to get through from the door, Zheng Tan could only climb through the window. Luckily, there was a window on the top that was left unclosed, Zheng Tan climbed through that window. Before he climbed through, he intentionally wiped the water stain of his feet off on the door mat at the back door, it's better not to leave cat paw prints in the kitchen when he's there.
There was a large refrigerator in the kitchen, Zheng Tan opened it up to take a look. There weren't much groceries in there, judging by the family condition of this household, even if they didn't finish their dinner they would throw it away. Fortunately, there were some pre-made meat balls from the supermarket, Zheng Tan ate a few, half cooked, guess he had to make the best of it.
The rest were all children's snacks, some biscuits and pastries etc. Zheng Tan ate some of each, and took some snacks that had individual packaging that he would take to the attic.
After eating something, Zheng Tan felt much better, although they were cold it was better than suffering the hunger.
Zheng Tan gently closed the kitchen door, holding some snacks to his chest and quietly left. He had become more proficient in walking on two legs.
It was a little troublesome when he had to climb out the window, two legs were that useful, so Zheng Tan had to take the snacks out one pack at a time between his teeth.
Before leaving the kitchen, Zheng Tan looked at the gap under the closed kitchen door, through the crevices he could see some white dog fur -- on the other side of the door lay the great Pyrenees. Zheng Tan believed that it had discovered him but didn't speak out.
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