Chapter 8.2 (1/2)

Chapter 8.2

But my affections were not shared by Yin Li . When I entered the room, he made no attempt to mask his frown . “Do you now bring any dirty thing you see home?”

“No, this is a kitten . Look at its eyes, aren’t they pretty?” As I was saying this, I raised the kitten curled in the crook of my arm up to Yin Li to show him . The kitten also made a few whimpering meows as if currying favor . However, the expression on Yin Li’s face grew even more ugly, as if I were holding something worse than trash .

“Throw it out,” he curtly ordered with revulsion .

I didn’t expect him to have such a callous response . I hugged the kitten closer to myself and a.s.sumed a defensive stance, “I’ll raise it my room, I’ll even clean up after it . I definitely won’t let it get your house dirty . ”

But Yin Li still didn’t relent . He persisted arrogantly and stubbornly: “I don’t want to repeat myself . Throw it out . ”

We were in a deadlock . I hugged the kitten and stood in the doorway . The door hadn’t been closed yet, and the cold air blew in from outside . Yet my heart was on fire . Yin Li was always like this, as if I were some doll who should obey his every

order . His feelings for me were nothing more than his feelings for some appendage . 1

1 just to avoid confusion, “appendage” besides meaning “a part of an organism”, also means “(often with negative or pejorative connotations) a thing that is added or attached to something larger or more important” (Google) .

I shouted at him: “No! It’s so cold outside, it’ll die if it’s thrown out!”

Yin Li didn’t bicker with me . His face still in that cold expression, he repeated, “Throw it out!”

As if frightened by our argument, the kitten suddenly yelped . Then leaping out of my arms, it fled outside to hide in the shrubs . I heard a rustling noise, but before I could look for it, its scrawny figure had already vanished into the night .

I turned and glared resentfully at Yin Li . “Fine, it left on its own . Are you satisfied? If you threw me out too, it’d be even better . ” Having finished speaking I immediately turned and left in search for the kitten . Because of Yin Li’s att.i.tude, I felt wronged, as if I were that kitten who, instead of being let inside, was driven away by Yin Li .

Under the dim, moonlit night, I pulled up my zipper and wrapped my arms around my chest . As I walked along, I called, mimicking a cat’s meow . But even then, I still couldn’t find it .

. In the early hours of the morning, when I finally couldn’t bear the cold night air anymore, I headed back . Words festered in my mind as I thought about what I was going to say to Yin Li . If he wouldn’t even let me raise a cat, then maybe we weren’t suited to live together .

I opened the door, feeling the warm, heated air of the room replace the chilly winds outside . Yet my heart still hadn’t warmed up . Defeated, I sluggishly prepared to return to my room when, turning the corner, I heard a meow .

I was elated . Did the kitten find its way back? Then I needed to hide it somewhere before Yin Li discovered it . I followed the sound, but discovered that it was coming from the bathroom next to Yin Li’s bedroom .