73 The Issue of Marriage (1/2)
Chapter 73: The Issue of Marriage
Translator: Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Cats were nocturnal creatures, and would spend two-thirds of their lifetime sleeping or napping. Humans rose up upon hearing the crow of a rooster to practice the sword [1], and would spend two-thirds of their lifetime studying, working, living, and laboring. When humans fell asleep at night, it was the time of the day when cats were their most energetic and vigorous. The two types of living creatures with the complete opposite work and rest times would actually attract each other. Wasn’t forming an unbreakable ally a marvelous thing? The relationship between cats and humans were similar to marriages, needing protection and patience from both parties. Humans spent time shoveling cat feces, spent money to treat cats’ illnesses, gave a lot of care and effort to provide comfortable living environments for cats, and mocked themselves with terms like ”feces scooper” and ”cat slave.”
At the same time humans were sacrificing, cats also worked hard to change their habits in order to accommodate the work and rest times of humans: they completely gave up the happiness of leisure that the wild ones of their kind had, and were even deprived of the ability to procreate. They could only spend the rest of their lives with one family in a lifetime. Even within married couples and partners, how many people could do this?
However, many people could only see their own sacrifices, think that cats should be so, and casually mistreat and abuse cats. Then, if cats chose to end this relationship and run away from home, they shouldn’t be criticized for doing so. After all, cats and dogs were different. One was righteous, and the other was loyal. Righteousness was that if the king was bad, then the minister would go to a foreign country. Loyalty was that if the king wanted a minister dead, then the minister must die. If unrighteous, then the relationship could only be broken off and demarcated. Zhang Zian thought about this topic on the morning bus.
The slap struck by Aunt Liu, who was humiliated, was very hard. It was not a rare sight for the American shorthair to bite her in return and then run away. But it was not normal that this event happened in front of Fina. Fina had absolute power over domestic cats, and ordinary cats did not dare to act hastily in front of her. Therefore, after the American shorthair had run away, Zhang Zian knew that it must have been at Fina’s instructions.
For a cat to run away and get rid of a middle-aged aunt was nothing, and Aunt Liu could not possibly have thought that the American shorthair would circle back and return to Amazing Fate Pet Shop. After all, the golden cat had frightened the American shorthair. Common sense would say that the American shorthair should be very scared of Fina, and would have hidden far away. Aunt Liu was stingy and greedy, but definitely not a fool—even smarter than the average person. But in the event that things surpassed common sense, it was easier to think too much.
When the American shorthair had escaped back to Amazing Fate Pet Shop, she was still limping on the leg that was slapped. Zhang Zian could not find fault with Fina for this. He suddenly thought of a question: ”What kind of attitude did Fina have towards the stray cats of the cities and villages?” If Fina summoned all the stray and wild cats into the shop, it would be big trouble.
He quickly estimated that all the strays and wild cats of the country would probably total a few billion. They would close the shop in one day by eating so much! Even the top five hundred companies would not be able handle it! Binghai City would become occupied by wild cats of all colors, the city government would be surrounded, the rescue forces would fail, Amazing Fate Pet Shop would appear like the image of a big devil in front of the world, a company under umbrella protection, followed promptly by panic-stricken global political emergency consultations, and the final decision would be to drop a nuclear bomb.
B…b…boom! A huge mushroom would rise up.
Game over!
Heroes, please start over to come back!
How come it seemed like a biochemical crisis? But before that, he and Fina would probably already have been sent away to be sliced into pieces…
The bus braked, the loudspeakers rang to indicate they had arrived at a stop, and Zhang Zian awoke from the middle of this vigorous daydream. His thinking could move from a fleeing American shorthair to a biochemical crisis; and he felt that he probably couldn’t be counted as old and was still far away from getting dementia. Forget it; don’t think about this much, just stop at this point. Fina seemingly does not have plans to change this novel into, ”Crisis of the Cat,” thank heavens!