Er Mao was still talking about that cat when they got back on campus. He had given it food and made it a sign, but he showed no signs of wanting to adopt it.

Zheng Tan recalled the first time they met. He knew Er Mao didn’t dislike cats, but he also didn’t particularly like them. He was different than Long Qi though.

Oh well. He’d have to leave it to fate. He wanted the cat to be adopted but knew it couldn’t be forced.

Zheng Tan remembered a cat he met near the pet center. He sometimes went there when he was free. He once met an old man who had lost a leg. He was chatting with other people visiting the pet center. He said that it was important to pick pets to which you felt a connection. He wouldn’t raise a pet he didn’t feel close to no matter how precious the breed. His cat had lost a leg in a car accident. He had taken great care of it, and it was clear they had a good relationship.

If the owner disliked the pet, he wouldn’t take great care of it. If the pet disliked the owner, it would run away. Most cats weren’t like Li Yuanba and couldn’t find an owner by themselves. Duke was also a special case.

He took a different path than the one had taken when he left campus. It was still early, he didn’t want to go home to the Eastern quarters yet.

He would always take this path when he came back from walks at noon. He would pass by the auditorium which had a large LED screen outside which displayed the time. He needed to know when he should go pick up Youzi.

Er Mao was already on his way back to the eastern quarters when he realized Zheng Tan wasn’t beside him anymore. He found him and walked over.

Zheng Tan ignored him. It wasn’t like he could answer.

Er Mao had heard about Zheng Tan from Wei Ling, but Wei Ling had painted a very broad picture with no details. He couldn’t guess why this cat wasn’t going home even though it was lunchtime. It was only when he saw the gate of the elementary school that he realized the cat was picking up a child.

He had nothing to do at the moment. He wasn’t hungry either because he had never stopped eating on their little adventure, so he decided to wait with Zheng Tan.

Parents were here to pick up their children. Most of them knew Zheng Tan and greeted him warmly. Zheng Tan ignored all of them. He was a cat, and no one would take him not responding to being rude.

The bell rang and the kids started running out. Youzi saw Zheng Tan and rushed over. She saw Er Mao but didn’t say anything. She waited alongside Zheng Tan.

Er Mao didn’t understand. Were they missing someone?

Soon, Jiao Wei came running over.

“Sorry. The professor exceeded class time,” Jiao Wei said to Youzi; then he looked over at Er Mao. He was a new face and not a parent. Jiao Wei didn’t say anything to him. He took Youzi’s hand and started to leave.

“Where are you guys going?” Er Mao asked.

Jiao Wei eyed Er Mao suspiciously. He looked at Youzi who was also perplexed. He didn’t seem to be a friend of the family.

“I live in the same building as the Jiaos on the third floor. My last name’s Wang.” Er Mao introduced himself. Then he pointed at Zheng Tan and said, “I’m friends with the cat.”

Zheng Tan twitched his ears. They were not friends!

Jiao Wei immediately nodded. “Oh. So you know each other.”

Even Youzi seemed friendlier after he said all that. Er Mao was shocked. He never thought one day he would make contacts through a cat.

Jiao Wei introduced himself and invited Er Mao to lunch with them. “Come with us brother Wang. My treat today. My parents run the restaurant. If you like the food, do come again.”

Er Mao was not one to shy away from a free meal. “Sure. I’ll have a place to eat now.”

During lunch, Er Mao chatted with Jiao Wei, and somehow he mentioned Wei Ling.

“You’re a friend of brother Ling. My apologies for being so rude earlier.” Jiao Wei explained how Wei Ling helped him before. “Thanks to Charcoal, I was able to get brother Ling’s help. The restaurant wouldn’t still be here if not for him.”

No wonder he looked at the cat as if it wasn’t a pet, Er Mao thought.

Er Mao smiled. “Wei Ling and I learned martial arts together. He’s not around most of the time. If you run into trouble again, come to me. I’ll help you. I’m great in fights.”

Jiao Wei’s mouth twitched, but he managed a chuckle.

Er Mao left two packages of dessert he bought today for Jiao Wei’s parents. They didn’t frequent the old city and hadn’t tried many of snacks sold there.

That afternoon, Zheng Tan dropped Youzi off at school then went straight home. He locked the door just to be safe.

He turned on the computer and surfed the internet.

He read some news and celebrity gossip then went on the pet forum again.

He had wanted to read the post with his pictures again to satisfy his vanity, but the top post caught his eye. It was about a case of cat-torture.

In it was some pictures of a university student and a tortured cat. The cat was lying on the ground, its eye was still bleeding, and it was covered in wounds.

All the pictures were of the student and the dead cat. They were taken from all angles and made Zheng Tan shiver. It was like a horror movie.

He might not have been so affected if he was still human. Now, however, he was a cat and had once been caught and made to experience almost ending up in a restaurant that sold cat meat. The pictures made him very uncomfortable. It was even worce than seeing the man with all the tattoos throw a kitten on the ground.

The student in the pictures didn’t look like your typical bad guy. Zheng Tan scrolled down and read a bio on him. He was attending a top-tier university in another province and was considered an excellent student. His father was a rich entrepreneur, and his mother worked in management at a large company. The words ‘top-tier university’, ‘straight A student’ and ‘cat torturer’ did not go together, but he was all three. He had tortured and killed more than a dozen cats. He confessed to as much.

Zheng Tan never knew that apart from the man with the tattoos, people who seemed completely civilized tortured animals as well.

He didn’t want to look at the pictures anymore, so he scrolled down to read the comments.

“F*ck! How cruel! You call this one of the brightest minds in the country?!”

“Academic achievements have nothing to do with morals and character.”

“He should be shot dead, brought back to life and shot dead again.”

“Not only do you need to protect pets from cat traffickers, now you need to be careful of people who adopt with the wrong intentions. If you accidentally give a pet to these monsters in suits, you’ll have to live in regret.”

“I don’t see as many cats around my house anymore. I thought they were all caught by traffickers, could they have been caught by these maniacs and tortured?”

“There’s not that many lunatics around. Don’t scare yourself. Just be mindful of your cat. Especially if you let your cat outside the house.”

…

Back when he was human, he wouldn’t have cared about this kind of thing. He wouldn’t bat an eye when he read this post let alone argue with other people. Now, he was conflicted.

A person whose ID was ‘Irritable Cat’ said, “It’s all because of his upbringing. His father neglected him, mothers of this age are focused on their careers and don’t have time for their children as well. Neglect is even worse than physical abuse in a value. It makes a child feel worthless. Growing up like this, it’s easy to neglect the feelings of others.”

ID ‘Kitty magician Ai’ said, “Some people behave completely differently at home compared to when they are out in society. They might appear to be submissive and passive, but inside they are aggressive and hostile people. They suppress their real emotions in front of their bosses and coworkers, which cause them a great amount of stress. They take this out on those weaker than them. They don’t do this because they dislike those they bully or torture, but because of their bottled-up stress and anger…”

These were the last two rational comments.

Zheng Tan kept reading on.

“Isn’t he afraid of karma?”

“If karma was real, he would not be well and living now.”

“Calm down everyone.”

“If this happened to your cat, you wouldn’t want the bastard dead?”

“Aren’t these stray cats?”

“Stray cats are animals too. You speak as if its OK to kill stray cats.”

“At least legally, he’s fine.”

“Poor stray cats.”

…

“We can’t torture a person like torturing a cat. If he says, he’s going to repent and change. We shouldn’t give him extra pressure. If we outcast him, we could ruin him.”

“That’s hilarious. A dog will always eat shit.”

“You’re defaming dogs!”

…

The post ran ten pages. Zheng Tan read the other posts; the later comments were getting less and less civilized. People started throwing personal insults at each other.

Some were emphatically denouncing this man. They believe that if the law wasn’t going to punish this man, society should punish him. Others believe his crime was torturing animals, not humans.

Of course, on this forum, most people belonged to the former group. The later group did not belong to this forum but came over from other internet sites to argue a point.

Zheng Tan thought of the black and white cat with all the wounds. It was tortured as well, but luckily it was still alive.

Zheng Tan knew that no matter how people argued right now, people treated cats and humans with different standards. In a few years, that boy would be among the elites of society, and the dead cat would be forgotten.

From a species point of view, society had more tolerance for humans. Those who were successful would still live a great life no matter what they did to animals. If Zheng Tan were still human, he wouldn’t think so much about the matter, but now it made him upset.

He refreshed the page and realized the post now had fifteen pages of comments. The fight continued and was getting worse and worse.

Zheng Tan thought about it, then used his paws to move the mouse and clicked on the reply button. He typed, “As a cat, I feel sad.”