Chapter 79 The Philosophy of a Cigarette Afterwards
Jiang Ranxu stopped talking and gently rubbed his calf against Meng Weishen's leg: "Why, are you scared? You will like me no matter what I do. You said this yourself. You won't regret it, will you?"
Meng Weishen finally came to his senses: Jiang Ranxu was actually willing to confess his past experiences to him!
He suppressed his pounding heart and pressed on, "Tell me more about your childhood. I'd love to hear. What kind of cat was it?"
"A very ugly cat."
"Cats are all cute, there's no such thing as an ugly one."
Jiang Ranxu chuckled, and his laugh sounded like a sigh, "Do you really have to make me recall?"
“…are these bad memories?”
"It was really ugly. It was a white cat, its fur dirty to a grayish black, its mouth full of blood and drool, just like a zombie." Jiang Ranxu continued, his face calm and somewhat numb, as if he was discussing something completely unrelated to him. "Now that I think about it, it had stomatitis and was almost dead. But at the time, I just guessed it was sick and didn't know how to treat it."
The kitten was not used to being held for too long. It meowed and broke free from Meng Weishen's arms, leaving him covered with broken fur.
Meng Weishen patted the cat hair off his clothes, like shaving noodles. He tried hard to understand Jiang Ranxu's feelings. But such a complex calculation far exceeded his brain's capacity, and his CPU was about to short-circuit.
Why did Jiang Ranxu describe his childhood playmate so badly? Did he hate cats? If he hated cats, would the memory of him be so vivid?
Meng Weishen suddenly remembered that Jiang Ranxu had once described him poorly in front of his lawyer, calling him stupid and a spendthrift. This might be his defense mechanism to isolate himself from the damage.
He knew he had touched the blood scab on the other person's old wound. Even if the other person took the initiative to reveal it to him, he had to be extremely careful: "What happened to the kitten? Why did your father throw it away?"
But Jiang Ranxu, who had been showing his scars for a shorter time than a kitten would allow him to hug, was unwilling to answer him. The other party simply opened a can of food for the cat and ground it into a paste on a porcelain plate.
Qin Shi Huang was the first to smell the meat and, even more excited than the cat, he rushed over with his ears flailing. The kitten was so frightened by the big-eared donkey snatching the food that it hid behind its locker and never dared to poke its head out again.
Jiang Ranxu picked up the porcelain plate in time and used his height advantage to make Qin Shihuang miss it.
Qin Shi Huang only lived in a courtyard, but the situation at home had changed. There were even canned foods that it couldn't eat. It was stunned for a long time and then started to cry loudly.
Meng Weishen forcibly pinched the dog's mouth and said, "Qin Shi Huang, stop barking! If you bark again, the neighbors will catch you and make soup with you."
"It's lost, it's lost." Jiang Ranxu spoke amid the noise. "It's harder to find a home for a local cat than a pedigreed cat. It'll probably stay at our house for a while. The bedroom on the first floor can be turned into a cat room, separate from the dog."
"You don't seem to be so averse to furry animals anymore. In fact, I think you quite like kittens. Let's keep the kitten."
"Thanks to your stinky dog, it vomited on my hand." Jiang Ranxu joked, putting his cold fingers to Meng Weishen's face. "I really thought I was going to die, but in the end I didn't. There's no better exposure therapy than this. Now, as long as animals don't urinate on me, I probably won't go crazy."
"I plan to find you a psychological counseling agency specializing in obsessive-compulsive disorder. You will get better." Meng Weishen rubbed Jiang Ranxu's palm and repeated stubbornly, "So let's keep the kitten."
"No. I'm not cut out for a cat, really."
Jiang Ranxu slowly moved away from his face and stared at his fingers for a long time.
Although Jiang Ranxu refused to keep the kitten, he asked him to go shopping at the pet supplies supermarket after get off work that day.
The pet economy is booming these days, and the pet supermarket is several times more luxurious than the Yonghui Supermarket next door. Two giant stuffed cats and dogs sit at the entrance, hugging each other tightly. Fluorescent light pours down generously, giving the stuffed animals a warm warmth. They walk past the pair and enter a temperature-controlled fairytale world.
They each grabbed a shopping cart. Jiang Ranxu piled his trophies into the cart with each row of shelves he passed: grain-free chicken cat food, canned cat food in three rare meat flavors, an automatic feeder, a plush cat bed, a cardboard cat bed, an automatic cat toilet, a three-tiered cat climbing frame, an ostrich feather cat teaser, a rat toy…
Both shopping carts were overflowing, and Jiang Ranxu was about to add hair removal cream. Even the big spender Meng Weishen felt ashamed and tried to stop him: "Isn't that enough? Maybe the kitten will be adopted tomorrow, so it would be a waste of money."
"Once it finds a new home, all of these can be packed up and taken there."
"You're doing charity, giving away cats and even paying thousands of dollars..."
Jiang Ranxu didn't seem to want to appear too partial, so he casually picked up a group of frozen dog food and asked, "Does Qin Shi Huang need any?"
Meng Weishen pushed the cart and ran away: "No need! The dog snacks we have at home are enough to last until next year."
They shipped the truckload of cats home and redecorated the unused first-floor bedroom. Meng Weishen installed the cat climbing frame, while Jiang Ranxu sorted through the odds and ends. The stray kitten, particularly afraid of noise, still cowered in the back of the closet, unaware that Emperor Number Two's good fortune had struck him.
The supporting frame and wooden boards are fixed with anchor nails and stacked layer by layer. The installed cat climbing frame has a tree-like structure, which is practical and beautiful.
Meng Weishen was particularly pleased with his work, and even before the kitten sat on the wooden cat bed that served as leaves, the cat climbing frame supporting the weight of an adult man remained stable, practically rooted to the floor.
He remembered that when he first moved into Jiang Ranxu's house, he had also decorated the dog's room. He liked decorating the house, and this meant that he could settle down for the time being.
Jiang Ranxu walked over, stopped in front of him, and leaned over to caress his lips. Meng Wei was so engrossed in their lip-to-lip play that before he knew it, they had flipped over and switched positions. Jiang Ranxu took his place, and he half-pressed Jiang Ranxu's waist, while he pinched his calf.
Meng Weishen's trousers were pulled down to his knees when he suddenly heard a rustling sound of laughter. He realized he was on the first floor, with a window facing the residential green belt. His neck was almost numb, and he quickly grabbed his trousers and ran to turn off the lights and draw the curtains.
Jiang Ranxu sat there motionless, silently tempting him to go back quickly.
Meng Weishen hurriedly finished his preparations, and Jiang Ranxu quickly stripped off his jeans. Still feeling nervous, he glanced around and met a pair of dark green eyes—the cat was still hiding behind the closet, timidly witnessing everything that was happening in the house.
Jiang Ranxu turned his head over, not allowing him to look at anything except himself.
It wasn't very safe to do things on a cat climbing frame. Meng Weishen didn't dare put his full weight on it. He just hugged Jiang Ranxu's neck tightly, supported himself with his knees beside Jiang Ranxu's legs, and sat down slowly.
Sitting down to do things felt strange. He couldn't help but twist his waist, looking for a more suitable way to apply force. Jiang Ranxu was unexpectedly touched by him, and he occasionally hummed with satisfaction.
The cat climbing frame is good quality for the price. No matter how hard they try, it only sways slightly, like a boat on calm water.
Afterward, they embraced for a long time. Meng Weishen also loved hugs. A sense of satisfaction swelled in his mind. The tiny flashes of snowflakes exploding before his eyes blocked out all signals from the outside world. He could only hear the signal from Jiang Ranxu.
The kitten quietly walked past them, paused for a moment beside the shameful plastic product, flared its nostrils, and soon realized that the meat was not proper food. It lost all interest and continued to grope towards the automatic feeder.
Meng Weishen had heard that people become talkative and fond of talking nonsense when they feel comfortable and happy. He could remain silent all day at the company, but he always talked nonsense in front of Jiang Ranxu. He started talking nonsense again, talking about the little animals from his childhood.
His mother hated all animals. He could only buy a few silkworms at the school gate, and his grandmother would take him to the suburbs to find mulberry leaves to feed them. Silkworms were stupid and short-lived, spending their limited time wiggling their plump white bodies, munching on mulberry leaves, spinning cocoons, mating, and laying eggs.
His grandfather raised goldfish and had several heavy tanks stacked on the balcony. Goldfish are also stupid, with even shorter lifespans. One day they're bulging their eyes and eating their companions' excrement, and the next day they're dead with their stomachs turned upside down. The fish tank is a coffin for the fish.
If he got out of school early, he could try his luck at the beach. The small crabs and shells he caught often didn't survive until dinner time, having to be steamed or fried.
Looking back, Meng Weishen never had any serious pets as a child. It's all because humans, with their complex emotions and long lifespans, are destined to be lonely in the entire biosphere, hence their obsession with exploring other advanced civilizations beyond Earth. (The subsequent cigarette session is truly the perfect moment to ponder cosmic philosophy.)
Jiang Ranxu finally talked to him about the ugly cat.
There are many wild cats living in the alleys. They often appear on tiled roofs, the tops of ancient trees, and on the hoods of cars. Sometimes they eat mice, sometimes they eat leftovers.
The cat lived on the roof of Jiang Ranxu's house, and one could often hear its rustling footsteps overhead in the middle of the night.
During the summer vacation, Jiang Ranxu saw it catch a mouse as big as his palm. After that, it would lazily lie in the yard to bask in the sun, pretending to let the prey go. When the mouse thought it had escaped, it would slap it back.
The life of a stray cat is always uncertain. During winter vacation, the cat was emaciated, dirty, and limp, squatting on the roof without moving. One day, it stole salted fish from a neighbor's drying room and was nearly beaten to death. The whole yard was filled with the cat's screams.
In the dead of winter, the roof was frozen like an ice cave, and even the cat couldn't survive, so it huddled by his window sill, absorbing the little warmth that leaked out from the cracks. Jiang Ranxu couldn't hear the footsteps on the roof, but he always felt like there was a cat scratching at his heart. In the middle of the night, he secretly opened the window and let the cat in.
At that time, his father often didn't come home for ten days or half a month, and the mother and son were used to it. His mother was religious and didn't object to his rescuing animals. She would always leave a separate portion of meat for the cat when she cooked.
The cat was so hungry that its ribs were visible, yet it wasn't particularly interested in eating. It drooled all day long, a sticky mess that couldn't be wiped away. Cats are also extremely good at enduring pain; even when seriously ill, they would just squat there and remain silent.
As a child, Jiang Ranxu felt strange and pried open the cat's mouth to check. Its gums were scarlet red, and there was a foul, rotting smell. He quickly asked his mother for help, and she told him to try mixing anti-inflammatory drugs into the broth and feeding it to the cat to cure it.
After feeding it soup like this for a few days, the cat's condition actually improved. At least it could pick up some scraps of meat from the soup to eat. The cat gradually became familiar with their home. When Jiang Ranxu was doing homework, the cat would lie at his legs, purring as he drove the motorcycle.
Just when Jiang Ranxu thought everything was getting better, his father came back.
Meng Weishen vaguely sensed that Jiang Ranxu had skipped a significant portion of his memories: his father's failed investments, his mother's feeble compromises, and the intense arguments between father and son... Anyway, Jiang Ranxu said his father had grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck, staggered out of the house, and walked toward the lake. The cat's screams echoed throughout the alley.
Jiang Ranxu ignored his mother's dissuasion and rushed forward. Realizing he wasn't strong enough to stop a grown man, he could only plead with him not to abandon the cat. His show of weakness only gave his father a sense of triumph, and he grew even more excited, urging him to follow closely and watch carefully. His father strode to the lake's edge, found a spot where the surface wasn't frozen solid, raised the cat high in his hand, and tossed it into the water.
The temperature was close to zero degrees Celsius. The cat barely struggled, sinking steadily into the lake like a lifeless stone.
Jiang Ranxu told Meng Weishen that he didn't actually want to sacrifice himself for the cat; he simply wanted to die. He dove into the lake from the spot where the cat had sunk. The water tightened like a wall, obscuring his vision and sealing his breath. He sank slowly to the bottom, but there was no sign of the cat.
His father left without looking back. He really should have died that day. Fortunately, a few winter swimmers were doing warm-up exercises by the lake. Seeing that he hadn't surfaced, they spontaneously formed a rescue team and pulled him ashore.
He was covered in icy lake water, heavy and cold. When a person is extremely cold, his brain will also freeze, all perception will disappear, and he will shiver instinctively.
After discussing it, the old men wrapped him in several large coats and carried him home.
His father told him to get out and not come back in. The uncles were also furious and blocked his door, shouting and demanding justice. He was finally able to go home.
Jiang Ranxu huddled against the radiator, feeling the blood slowly trickle down to his frozen limbs. His cheek itched, and he scratched off a few strands of white cat hair. He remembered how cats used to like to curl up on radiators to keep warm.
"At the time, I had a terrifying thought," Jiang Ranxu said. "The cat's body was rotting in the lake, and the bacteria were contaminating the entire lake. Everyone who passed by would be infected, including myself. My former psychiatrist said that excessive association is the source of obsessive-compulsive disorder."
Even though the room was heated enough for him to wear short sleeves, Meng Weishen was shivering with cold. He hugged Jiang Ranxu in vain: "You are no longer the same as when you were a child. You have grown up and left home. You can protect the kitten. Let's keep the kitten."
——
"cat?"
Guan Ping pondered for a moment, her eyes looking up at the towering dome of the church. "It seems like we once had a cat at home. How long has it been? He still remembers such a small thing."
The woman's nonchalant attitude made Meng Weishen's scalp tingle. He insisted, "This is no small matter. He still remembers it clearly."
Guan Ping finally withdrew her gaze and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ears. People with delicate skin are not immune to aging, and the years have left traces on her neck:
"I remember now. His father didn't want to get rid of the cat, but it scratched his father's shirt. His father said the animal needed a beating before it would obey, but he insisted on talking back. I tried to persuade him to be a good boy and not to go against his father. But he always disobeyed."
Meng Weishen's heart and stomach twisted into a knot. "But he wouldn't kill the cat. The kitten is very important to him, and he has been feeling very painful."
"Pain? Who in this world doesn't experience pain? Try to be more positive."
After these days of contact with Guan Ping, Meng Weishen suspected that her brain had some kind of isolation barrier. Whenever she showed a state like this, it meant that she had hidden in the barrier and could not hear anything.
He struggled: "But..."
Guan Ping couldn't bear to listen any longer. The man picked up the cloth bag with a white dove pattern and said goodbye to him: "You're still going to volunteer with us today, right? I have to go home and make lunch first. You wait for me at the church. I'll be heating up last night's leftovers soon."
"Wait a minute, can I go back with you?" Meng Weishen hurriedly caught up, "I don't want to eat for free, I just want to go and take a look."
Guan Ping's large, empty eyes were like beautiful black holes, slowly swallowing up his figure. Meng Weishen's face flushed, and he quickly avoided her gaze.
"You really care about Jiang Ranxu. You two have a good relationship, right? You're a good kid." Guan Ping smiled. "I've never seen him make any friends before. You're the first one. Okay, come home with me."
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