Chapter 24

The Feng family has always kept cats.

When Feng Yiping was in the fourth grade, his essay "The Cat in Our Home" won the first prize in the county's primary school essay competition, which was the best result in their school for many years. All the Chinese teachers in the school praised the essay and passed it around, but Feng Yiping can't remember what he wrote in it now. He only remembers that his homeroom teacher, who was also their Chinese teacher, commented, "It expresses genuine feelings."

Keeping cats was also a practical necessity.

Although the family was poor when he was a child, they stored a lot of things in the granary, cabinets, and on the beams. Besides the main grains like rice and wheat, they also had peanuts, soybeans, sorghum, sesame, lilies, sweet potatoes, and many other things that attracted rats. At night, he often heard the rats scurrying around.

Rat traps were expensive and not very effective, and rat poison had to be used with great caution and didn't work well. The most practical solution was to keep cats.

People say that cats are noble creatures, and indeed they are. Their nobility is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

First, they are clean. Cats are very hygienic, and although you never see them bathe, they are always clean. After each meal, they always lick their paws and any parts of their body that have gotten dirty. When they relieve themselves, they do so in private and bury their waste afterward.

Second, they have a dignified demeanor. Even though they live in ordinary households, they walk with a slow, steady pace, neither humble nor arrogant, indifferent to their surroundings, much like the officials in Peking Opera who take measured steps. No matter how urgently you call them, they will only lazily lift their heads to look at you and then continue at their own pace.

Cats never lie on the ground. They either sit in a standard posture or occupy a chair, still sitting on it. Sometimes they jump onto the stove or the high cupboard, perching there like a crouching tiger. Only in the cold winter do they relax, lounging on a chair by the fireplace.

Third, cats are very independent. It's hard to feel like you are the master of a cat. They will never fawn over you or beg for your attention. For example, in the countryside, Feng Yiping could only secretly give the cat a piece of fish during the New Year, and when he did, the cat would meow once, jump over quickly, eat the fish, and then sit quietly without asking for more. After eating, the cat would ignore the fish bones and meat scraps on the ground.

Most of the time, the family could only feed the cat leftovers. If it felt like it, it would eat a few bites, but often, after everyone had finished eating, it would meow a few times, and when you put the food in its bowl, it would look at it and then jump back onto the chair. Later, it would disappear, and when the next meal came, the food it didn't eat would be given to the pigs, and when you put fresh food in its bowl, it would look at it but not eat a single bite.

When it was thirsty, it wouldn't drink water just anywhere. It would jump onto the water jar, easily grab the edge, lower its head, and lap up the water with its tongue.

Moreover, cats never fawn over their owners. If you tease them, they will ignore it when they are in a good mood, and if they are in a bad mood, they will scratch you. Of course, they have a sense of proportion and won't use too much force unless you are really over the line.

Finally, cats are very generous. At night, when the rats are active, making squeaking sounds, and then suddenly let out a short scream before everything goes quiet, it means the cat is hunting. The rats become fewer and more cautious, but the cat never boasts about its achievements.

Feng Yiping has seen the cat play with a rat at least twice. The cat's grace and demeanor were truly impressive, much like Zhuge Liang's seven captures and releases of Meng Huo.

From the time Feng Yiping could remember, the first cat they kept was a small yellow cat sent by his grandfather. When the cat grew up, it went out one day and never came back. His parents told him that someone had caught it with a net.

The second cat had a story. It didn't come from someone else's home but rather showed up on its own.

It was a winter evening, and a family in another part of the village was celebrating a child's full moon, with a banquet during the day and an outdoor movie at night. In the era before television, this was a rare form of modern entertainment in the countryside, and Feng Yiping, of course, went with his mother and sister, carrying stools. Midway through the movie, a cat jumped into his sister's lap and fell asleep without any hesitation. His sister tried to put it down several times, but it kept coming back. Even after the movie ended, it followed them home, and they couldn't get rid of it. Finally, his mother said, "Let's take it," and the cat stayed with them.

It was a beautiful cat, with a glossy black coat, but a pure white patch on its chest, making it very attractive. Its eyes were slightly blue and very bright, and it had three whiskers on each cheek, giving it a dignified appearance.

This cat was very special.

That year, they hadn't built the new house in the back of the village and were still living in the old house in the middle. Because his mother was sick, they had incurred a lot of debt, so the pig they slaughtered for the New Year was only a fifth of what they usually kept, and the rest was sold to pay off the debt. They bought only some cabbage and vermicelli, and with careful budgeting, they barely had enough to last through the New Year and to entertain guests in the first month.

It was the 28th day of the 12th lunar month, the day before New Year's Eve. In the afternoon, a heavy snow started to fall. There was no electricity, so they used oil lamps, but the snow outside made the room brighter than usual.

In the evening, after entertaining a group of debt collectors, Feng Yiping and his mother and sister were about to eat the leftovers when the front door creaked open, and the cat squeezed in. His sister, who had sharp eyes, looked back and saw that it was carrying something. She put down her chopsticks and went over to see, then called out, "Dad, Mom, come and look, the cat caught a rabbit!"

Everyone was surprised. When they went to see, sure enough, the cat was dragging a fluffy gray rabbit, which was larger than the cat itself. No one knew how it had managed to catch it. This fat rabbit became a delicious dish on the New Year's Eve table, and it was one of the few things that brought joy to the family during that not-so-prosperous New Year.

This wasn't the only time. At that time, there were few varieties of vegetables. In the sixth month of the following year, the vegetables from the previous season were old and out of season, and the new season's vegetables hadn't grown yet. As Mei Qiuping put it, it was a time of scarcity. The housewives tried their best, but during this period, most families could only eat various pickled or dried vegetables.

Dried vegetables were considered better. They were usually dried radishes, daylilies, lilies, or wild vegetables from the previous year.

During these times of scarcity, Feng Yiping ate many vegetables that he would never eat again.

The one he liked the least was peanut sprouts. When harvesting peanuts, some always escaped and sprouted after a rain, growing out of the ground. People would pick them while working in the fields, wash them, stir-fry them, and boil them, and they would be served as one of the few green dishes on the table. Peanut sprouts were not as tasty as bean sprouts; they had a strong grassy flavor, and the older ones were slightly bitter. Feng Yiping could handle the bitterness, but the strong grassy flavor, which was even stronger than that of coriander, was something he could never get used to. So he would only drink a little of the soup and eat pickled vegetables.

The scarcity in the fall was better. When clearing the vegetable garden, they would pull up the chili plants, and the small, unripe chilies on them would be chopped and stir-fried with oil, making a good side dish.

There were also green onions. A large bunch of green onions, washed and stir-fried with oil, was very fragrant and quite good.

As the weather cooled in the fall, several families would make tofu together, which wouldn't go bad for a few days. Tofu could be fried, stir-fried, or boiled in many ways, making it a good dish. When divided among the families, each got only a little, enough for a few meals. No one was extravagant enough to make tofu every few days; that wasn't how life was lived in the countryside.

So Mei Qiuping came up with a solution. She took the leftover tofu residue, cooked it with oil, added chili powder, and sprinkled it with green onions. Although the bean smell was still strong, at least it wasn't pickled vegetables.

During these times of scarcity, one evening, the cat came back with a salted fish! It was another unexpected surprise, and the family didn't care where it had come from; they were just glad to have some meat.

A few days later, it brought another one! This time, Mei Qiuping was a bit uneasy. Losing a couple of fish in the countryside was no small matter. If a family's small gourd disappeared from the garden, they would stand on the hill and curse the whole village. Losing two salted fish at once was a serious matter, and the housewife would curse for half a day.

But for several days, no one in the village mentioned losing fish, which was a relief. So everyone praised the cat, saying it was very considerate and really cared about the family.

Of course, there was one time when the cat gave Feng Yiping a big scare. It was a summer afternoon, and he was napping on the bed. In a half-dream state, he suddenly saw a black paw push aside the mosquito net and reach toward him, which scared him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat. When he came to his senses, he saw that it was the cat coming to sleep on the bed. Because of the angle, the black paw looked very large, like the claw of a monster in his imagination.

As Feng Yiping grew older, the cat grew older too. This cat, which was so understanding and considerate of the family and was destined to be a member of the Feng family, went out one early winter morning in the fourth grade and never came back.

A few days later, it was a Sunday morning, and Uncle Four came to the house and said he had seen the cat sitting on a paulownia tree on the hill, already gone.

Feng Yiping didn't go with them, but Feng Zhenchang and Uncle Four went to the paulownia tree, took the cat down, and buried it on the hill.

This magical cat was like a gift from heaven, and even its departure from the world was so unique and noble.

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