Chapter 2 Returning Home Xie Shijin, Who are you looking for?
Cheng Shiyun died two years ago during the summer vacation.
After that summer vacation, she should be going from her first year of high school to her second year.
She had excellent grades. In the final exam of the second semester of her first year of high school, she ranked first in the science class. Her teacher said that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, she could get into Tsinghua University.
But... something unexpected happened.
*
In the two years since her death, the school has changed dramatically.
Air conditioning has been installed in the classrooms, and the library, gymnasium, and playground have all been renovated.
Cheng Shiyun swished her tail as she surveyed the area.
Good, good! With her dead, we have everything, but we didn't get to enjoy anything!
The only constant is that their school is so big that if one student is in the east campus and the other is in the west campus, it's considered a long-distance relationship.
For a person, it takes half an hour to cross the school.
For a kitten, especially one like her that had been starving for two days, it would take half a life!
Cheng Shiyun was so exhausted that she almost collapsed under the shade of a tree in the parking lot flower bed, too weak to even move.
She thought groggily, even if she starved to death here, probably no one would find out.
some.
There are teachers on duty at the school.
There was a silver sedan in the parking lot. The passenger door opened, and a boy who looked about fourteen or fifteen years old and was wearing a baseball cap got out of the car.
Cheng Shiyun didn't recognize her, but guessed she was the child of the teacher on duty.
The boy noticed the timid-looking cat by the flower bed and beckoned to her.
"Suckling..."
Cheng Shiyun: ...
What are you sucking for? She's not a dog!
The boy waved the sausage in his hand.
"Meow woof—"
Here it comes!
Ham sausages are high in salt and are not suitable for a one-month-old kitten.
But she was starving, she was grateful to have anything to eat, why be picky? Better to live a miserable life than die, she should fill her stomach first.
The sausage was too hard, and her baby teeth were soft and small, making it very difficult for her to chew.
When feeding kittens, sensible humans should break the sausage into small pieces for the kittens to eat.
The kid doesn't have much experience, so let's forgive him.
Cheng Shiyun gnawed with all her might, straining her ears to bite.
But the next second, a sharp pain suddenly shot through her ear. Cheng Shiyun froze, unable to help but let out a piercing scream: "Meow!!!"
it hurts!
Her ears hurt so much!
Cheng Shiyun felt as if a needle had pierced her right ear.
Sensing danger, Cheng Shiyun screamed and ran away, driven by her survival instinct.
She hid behind the flower bed, her small body curled up in a ball, the pain in her right ear unusually intense.
The boy chuckled softly, his gaze falling on the kitten's bleeding ear. He took two steps forward and reached out his hand to her. "Mimi, come here."
"Meow!!"
Cheng Shiyun hunched over and bared her teeth, and she could see clearly what he was holding.
It's a stapler.
With a snap.
Her ear was pierced by a staple.
Cheng Shiyun stared intently at him, her emerald green pupils suddenly shrinking into vertical lines like a snake's eyes, her wild genes awakening.
He would lure the cat with food, and then hurt it once it came close. He was so skilled that it seemed like he was doing it for the first time. Cheng Shiyun couldn't imagine how many kittens like her he had hurt with this trick.
"Tsk."
The boy scoffed. Seeing that the kitten wouldn't come closer, he rolled up his sleeves and prepared to go around behind the flower bed to catch her.
"ha--"
Cheng Shiyun breathed on him, and the downy hair at the tip of his tail instantly bristled. He pressed his body tightly against the ground, and his limbs tensed slightly.
This is the most alert and explosive posture a feline takes before attacking.
The boy had already circled around behind the flower bed when, at the critical moment, footsteps came from the direction of the teaching building.
Taking advantage of the boy's distraction, Cheng Shiyun darted into the bushes next to the flower bed.
Guo Renyi walked over with the documents in his hand. When he saw his son squatting on the ground, he frowned and asked, "Guo Xuan, what are you doing squatting there in this heat?"
Guo Xuan stood up excitedly and said, "Dad, there's a cat here!"
"cat?"
Guo Renyi's brows furrowed even more.
During the final month of the semester, a stray cat at the school scratched a student, and the parents came to the school to make a scene.
During summer vacation, he had all the cats in the school killed, but some still escaped.
Guo Renyi opened the driver's side door and said to his son, "It's filthy, get in the car quickly."
The silver-white sedan roared away.
That's too dangerous.
Cheng Shiyun hid in the bushes; her ear hurt terribly, and she didn't know if it was bleeding.
She stretched out her paw, reaching and reaching, but couldn't reach it at all...
The claws are too short.
She's currently like a one-year-old human baby, in the early stages of development, unable to even touch the fontanelle on her head.
In the hot summer, if she didn't receive timely treatment, she could very well die from a festering infection of her wound.
Any difficulty can defeat a kitten that hasn't been weaned yet.
After resting for a while, Cheng Shiyun stumbled out and picked up the half-eaten sausage that had been lying on the ground.
The sausage was salty and hard, but Cheng Shiyun had to eat it.
She wants to go home.
go home.
*
It was evening, I don't know what time it was.
The clouds on the horizon are burning, like roasted marshmallows.
Cheng Shiyun ran through the school, dodging stray dogs, and all the way to the teachers' apartment at Yichuan No. 7 Middle School.
This is an old residential building. The light at the entrance of the building was broken. Cheng Shiyun sprained her ankle once, and her father brought a new light bulb to replace it the next day.
Now the light is broken again, but no one is fixing it.
Cheng Shiyun stayed in the stairwell for three days.
Fortunately, my parents didn't move.
Unfortunately, her parents didn't recognize her.
For the past three days, her father has been attending a summer teaching and research training program, leaving home at eight in the morning and returning at six in the evening.
Her parents are both teachers at Yichuan No. 7 Middle School; one teaches high school politics and the other teaches high school physics. Both are staunch materialists.
Cheng Shiyun wanted to tell her parents that she was still alive and that she had turned into a cat.
But she tried, and no matter how much she rubbed against her father's trouser leg and made soft moans, her father would only glance down at her and turn away.
The father couldn't recognize the kitten as his daughter at all, and Cheng Shiyun was very sad and heartbroken.
She also noticed that her father, who was only in his early forties, had turned much whiter in the two years she hadn't seen him, and even his back looked more hunched than before.
Mother……
Cheng Shiyun overheard an old lady from the next apartment building gossiping that her mother had suffered a severe blow after her mother's unexpected death two years ago, which led to mental health issues and the development of Alzheimer's disease.
People die, families are destroyed.
Cheng Shiyun shrank herself into an even smaller ball and shoved herself deep into the cardboard box.
She can't go home.
She didn't know what to do.
...
"Clatter—"
The residents on the first floor turned on their lights.
Warm yellow light shone through the glass window as a little girl with pigtails held her mother's hand and skipped and hopped into the apartment building.
The little girl suddenly stopped and pointed to the corner, saying, "Mommy, look! There's a kitten in the cardboard box!"
"It's so thin, so pitiful, Mom, can I keep it?"
The young mother followed her daughter's gaze, frowned, and reached out to pull her daughter up: "No, you can't." She softened her tone and patiently explained, "Look how dirty it is, it might have a virus. If it infects Xiaoxin, she'll get a fever again. Do you want to feel uncomfortable?"
The little girl shook her head: "I don't want to..."
"If you don't want to go, let's go home quickly. Dad is waiting for us to eat."
The young mother took her daughter's hand and couldn't help but glance at the cardboard box again.
The kitten was indeed pitiful, a skinny little thing, no bigger than the palm of your hand, with one ear swollen, huddled listlessly in the corner.
Actually, getting a check-up and bath for the cat doesn't cost much, but it looks really dirty. My daughter is still young and has a weak immune system. If she gets infected by the bacteria on the cat and gets sick, it would be a huge loss.
Without thinking further, she took her daughter's hand and walked upstairs step by step.
The footsteps in the hallway faded into the distance, and the residents on the first floor drew their curtains.
Cheng Shiyun huddled inside the cardboard box, enveloped in darkness once more.
Soon, the hallway lights came on again.
Someone came downstairs to throw out the trash, carrying a flashlight.
Feeling dizzy from hunger, Cheng Shiyun staggered to her feet and began rummaging through the garbage heap.
She finally got back; she can't die.
Even if her parents don't recognize her, she can't die.
The effort she put into rummaging through the garbage pile was like scratching an itch.
After digging for a long time, Cheng Shiyun finally found two dead pet goldfish and a pile of relatively fresh vegetable leaves.
There are fish!
Cheng Shiyun's eyes lit up.
These past few days she's been eating kitchen waste, which is oily and dirty, and eating too much of it is bad for the kitten's health.
These two small fish are enough for her to have a hearty meal!
Cheng Shiyun carried her pet goldfish to an open space, ready to take a big bite.
However, when her gaze fell on the goldfish's bulging, not-yet-fully-closed gills, she slowly closed her mouth again.
The little fish are so pitiful, how can you eat them?
—But the little fish is already dead. It's okay to eat it; you used to love eating fish.
—The past is the past. You turned into a fish last time too. Maybe you and it even had the same mother. We were born of the same fish, so why are you so eager to eat each other?
"..."
Yes, she turned into a fish last time too.
What will she become next?
If she turned into a legless animal, she wouldn't be able to go home.
Even now, she can't go home.
Between being heartbroken and eating vegetable leaves, Cheng Shiyun chose to be heartbroken and eat vegetable leaves.
There was mud on the vegetable leaves, and Cheng Shiyun choked so much that her neck almost stretched two miles out.
After filling her stomach, Cheng Shiyun returned to her den. Her fur was dirty and stiff, curled up in a ball like a steel wool ball.
She's not planning to leave.
The residents of the community wouldn't drive her away. When she was hungry, she would rummage through the trash cans, and when she was sleepy, she would take a nap anywhere.
Most importantly, she can see her parents every day.
Kittens consume electricity quickly; they want to sleep after they've eaten.
Cheng Shiyun licked her paws and found a comfortable position in her nest to prepare for sleep.
The moon is exceptionally large and round tonight, but dark clouds are swirling around it, making it look like it will rain soon.
Cheng Shiyun dislikes rain; the raindrops that drift in will dampen her bed.
Under the clear moonlight, footsteps could be heard in the distance, and a figure slowly approached.
The man was tall and thin, wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and carrying a brown paper bag. His shadow stretched long in the moonlight.
Cheng Shiyun subconsciously shrank further into the cardboard box.
The people in the community are very nice, but the security is not strict, and bad people always sneak into the community to catch stray cats and sell them.
The man walked to the entrance of the apartment building, stopped, and took something out of the brown paper bag.
He skillfully disassembled the broken lampshade, pinched the old light bulb between his fingertips, and gently twisted it to remove the light that had been dark for several days.
With a "click".
After the new light bulbs were installed, the entire hallway was instantly filled with light.
He tilted his head back to adjust the lights, the bright light illuminating his profile.
His face was clean and thin, with wisps of hair hanging down his forehead, partially obscuring his brow bone.
Cheng Shiyun narrowed her eyes, her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
It was Xie Shijin.
Her high school deskmate.
Xie Shijin didn't notice the cat in the cardboard box. He put the old light bulb away, stuffed it into a paper bag, and walked upstairs.
Who is Xie Shijin looking for here?
The kitten's brain is incapable of thinking.
As if by some strange twist of fate, Cheng Shiyun followed after them.
A note from the author:
----------------------
It transforms into different animals in stages, from one to another, and then from one to yet another. [Let me see]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com