After Grandpa Gu went home, he occasionally sent over goods. The Jiao family was not going home for the spring festival this year. Both Papa and Mama Jiao’s parents thought about them often. Whenever family friends went to their city, their parents would send stuff along. In the country, people start to prepare for the spring festival at a very early time.

This year, the spring festival came earlier than usual. Back home, many people were meat or fruit producers and had to go to Chuhua often to provide goods for their customers. Ever since the start of December, Papa Jiao had been receiving calls to go pick up stuff.

Back home, many people were in the aquiculture business. The Gu family had a fishpond for eel. It felt better eating food coming from family.

All of this was no business of Zheng Tan’s. Since Wei Ling moved to the company, the only place Zheng Tan could visit was Mr. Guo’s shop. He couldn’t wander off campus during the day. After all, it was much safer on campus. Most students that saw him were kind towards cats. The way people off campus looked at Zheng Tan made him feel like he was about to turn into food.

If he was still human, he wouldn’t have felt the difference. However, as a cat, he could clearly sense the different meanings of the looks people gave him. Strays were always sensitive to people; Zheng Tan was starting to become like them after wandering in the streets for so long. Nowadays, he only left the campus during the night, so as to not be alarmed so often.

Most people who worked 9 to 5 were busy on their commute routes. They paid little attention to cats on the streets. However, many people were after strays or stray-like pets at this time of the year. They would catch these cats and sell them to restaurants. In order to avoid trouble, they would bring the cats out of the province before selling them. These were the people that cats had to be most careful of.

As a cat, Zheng Tan was under a lot of pressure. He underestimated most male cats’ determination to guard and expand their territories. These restless cats were always fighting. He tried to go on short trips in the city; however, he always came home annoyed. Though he had no problem fighting those cats and not all cats were idiotic enough to bother him, there were always one or two that couldn’t leave him alone.

One day, as Zheng Tan was walking towards Mr. Guo’s pet store, he ran into a black cat like him. That cat was always surrounded by a group of other cats. Zheng Tan felt that they all were the black cat’s followers.

He never lost a fight with this cat. However, this cat was not one to learn from its mistakes. Whenever it lost a fight, it came back even more hostile than the last time. It never gave up on the small hope of winning against Zheng Tan. To him, this cat was a pure idiot.

For some time, Zheng Tan thought that fighting was inevitable for cats. Until the day he ran into a cat that didn’t fight.

As Christmas drew nearer, international students were busy preparing for the holiday, so Mr. Guo thought it was time to do a Christmas edition ad for his cat food. Zheng Tan would be Santa and Mr. Guo’s golden retriever, ‘Boss’, would be a reindeer.

When Zheng Tan arrived at the studio, Boss was panting in the corner with antlers on his head. He had been practicing moves for the ad and had just caught a break.

Zheng Tan had worked before with several cats from the store as well as Boss. They weren’t building chemistry together, but they all got along. Aside from Prince, most cats in the store were neutered, and Prince was a calm cat due to living indoors. The store’s cats were used to sharing space with other cats and therefore were less territorial.

Everyone in the room had gone through several phot shoots already. They all knew that all they had to do was train every other animal participating in the shoot besides Zheng Tan. He was an ‘expert’ and didn’t need any guidance. Hence, it was common to find Boss panting, with Zheng Tan sleeping beside him.

Usually, Mr. Guo only woke Zheng Tan up when Boss had learned all his moves.

After putting on the Santa suit, Zheng Tan felt his IQ had been significantly lowered. The suit was very uncomfortable. It was not restraining, but still felt weird on. What was more, Mr. Guo appeared with a giant beard. Paired with the red hat, Zheng Tan couldn’t begin to describe how stupid he looked.

He felt that people who saw the ad would be surprised that Santa was a black cat.

Zheng Tan told himself he was doing this for the ad; it was all for art.

This setting of this ad was Cat Santa riding his sleigh pulled by his Golden reindeer, delivering products from the store to pets.

After the photo shoot, Zheng Tan got out of the clothes and the beard, climbed on top a cat tree and waited for Mr. Guo to take him home. The rest was Mr. Guo and Yanzi’s work. Yanzi was now a common customer here at the pet center. She was good at Photoshop, so Mr. Guo had her help out. Mr. Guo paid her by allowing her and her cat to stay in the shop for free.

All the staff were huddled together working on the pictures. Zheng Tan was left alone on his cat tree. He had taken a nap before coming over and was now completely awake. He looked around and found Li Yuanba with her kittens.

Li Yuanba was the same. Most cats in the store avoided her. Most that dared to come close were scared off by one glare. She didn’t even have to lift a paw. This was what Zheng Tan admired the most about her.

Next to Li Yuanba was her son Nougat. Zheng Tan hadn’t noticed the first time he saw pictures of the kitten. He had a mole next to his mouth. The fur in that area was all white, except for that small patch of yellow. Right now, the patch of fur was the size of a soybean, who knew how large it would be in the future. Zheng Tan was curious.

Nougat had longer fur than most kittens, yet he stilled differed from long-haired cats. His dad was probably a mix. What surprised Zheng Tan even more was how serious Nougat was. Tiger tried to be serious sometimes, but Nougat was actually serious, just like his mama. It’s just that he was still young and didn’t have his mother’s scariness yet.

Li Yuanba stayed in the room for a while before leaving with Nougat in her mouth. One of the rooms next door was for Yanzi. It had a cat door.

From this room, Zheng Tan could see Li Yuanba carry the kitten inside before leaving again. She didn’t come back to the studio but walked toward the other end of the hall. Zheng Tan remembered there was a back door over there used for moving boxes or large equipment. It was kept shut most of the time.

Why was Li Yuanba going over there?

Zheng Tan decided to find out. He jumped off the cat tree and followed her. Li Yuanba saw him but didn’t react.

A few boxes were stacked at the end of the hall. They were a bit far from the door though. Near the corner of the hallway was a row of small windows used to let in fresh air since boxes often had an unpleasant scent.

The height of the windows was way above the average jumping ability of cats, so Mr. Guo was not worried about losing his cat.

Li Yuanba charged towards that direction. Just when Zheng Tan was puzzled, she picked up some speed then jumped—not towards the windows, but up towards the opposite wall. She hit the wall and kicked back with her hind legs. With that push, she landed safely on the window sill.

F*ck! That was cool!

Zheng Tan felt his jaw drop.

Mr. Guo never would have thought that a fat could leave this way. Outside were some more boxes which formed stairs for Li Yuanba to walk down. Soon, she disappeared.

Zheng Tan tried to jump onto the window sill but gave up soon. He missed it by just a few inches despite his superior jumping skills.

He then started to try Li Yuanba’s method. The first time, he couldn’t control his angle and strength and hit the wall. He managed to land safely but still felt numb from the impact.

The second try went better. He avoided the door but hit the opened window with a bang.

He waited for the pain to subside before trying another time. He managed to hang on to the window sill, and after a bit of a struggle, he succeeded. He stuck his head out of the window.

What he didn’t foresee was Li Yuanba waiting for him on an empty box nearby.

‘Was she waiting for me?’ Zheng Tan thought.

Seeing the black cat at the window, Li Yuanba jumped off the box and headed out. Zheng Tan quickly followed.

It was harder to trap a cat than a dog, Zheng Tan felt. Who knew how this cat found out this way to leave the pet center without being caught by anyone.

The scenery was unfamiliar at first. Slowly, Zheng Tan started to recognize his surroundings. He had walked by this area on his way to the pet center. He even ran into—

“Meow!”

Yes, that. That annoying, idiotic, f*cking cat.

He looked up; the black cat looked down at them from a wall. Next to him were two followers.

However, this encounter was different than usual. Zheng Tan felt that idiot was not behaving like himself. His followers left them alone as well. He found that all of them looked at Li Yuanba as if she was a monster.

The cats that never gave up only dared to meow quietly when facing Li Yuanba. This was completely unlike when they ran into Zheng Tan.

No only these three cats. Deeper in the alley, they ran into a few other cats, two of which were quite large. The area had their scent, yet Li Yuanba walked through the territory without even looking sideways. These cats also didn’t dare to start a fight. When Li Yuanba turn to look at them, they sprinted off as if being chased by a dog.

Zheng Tan sighed. He still had lots to learn as a cat. Strength was important, but so was aura.

Li Yuanba was the she-male of cats and a catzilla to the weaklings. Her scary look and her aura stopped all the strays from bothering her. They even forgot to be territorial around her. He could see the fear in their eyes when they looked at her.

Zheng Tan looked at the tricolor cat walking ahead of him. She emitted a sense of power that would not be reproduced. When Mr. Guo first met her, he left her alone after opening the pet travel bag. Besides his understanding of pet cats, this was also due to signal Li Yuanba sent out.

Cats have a variety of languages. They can express themselves by different tones and lengths of their meows. However, Zheng Tan didn’t hear Li Yuanba so much as make a peep. All she had was the aura she carried with her. To people who didn’t understand, this cat was just like any other. To Zheng Tan, however, he could clearly sense something different from this cat.

Her looks were due to genetics, but her aura was the result of time and experience.

Zheng Tan didn’t know what she had to go through to go from a normal cat to catzilla. What he did know was, whatever she went through, it must have not been pleasant.

At the same time, Zheng Tan wondered what cat could conquer catzilla?

Who was Nougat’s dad? He really wanted to know.