In the fourth grade, Feng Yiping wrote an essay entitled 'My Family's Cat,' which won first prize in the county's elentary school composition competition that year, the best result in their elentary school years. The Chinese language teachers in the school were full of praise for that essay and passed it around for everyone to read, but Feng Yiping can't rember what it was about now. He only rembers that the comnt from his horoom teacher, who was also their class's Chinese language teacher, seed to be, 'It expresses your true feelings.'
Keeping a cat at ho was also out of practical necessity.
Although the family was poor when Feng Yiping was young, there was still quite a lot of stored food in the barn, cupboards and on the beams. Apart from the two staple foods of rice and wheat, there were also peanuts, soybeans, sorghum, sesa seeds, zucchini, sweet potatoes and many other things, all of which attracted mice. At night when Feng Yiping went to bed, he could often hear the mice rustling and scurrying around.
You have to buy rat traps, but they don't work very well. You have to be careful when using rat dicine, and it doesn't work very well either. The most practical solution is still a cat.
It is said that cats are a noble animal, and indeed they are. Their nobility is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
First, it is clean. Cats are very hygienic. You don't see them bathe, but they are always clean. After every al, they always lick their paws and any other areas of their body that have beco sticky with food or grease. And they avoid people when they need to go to the bathroom. When they are done, they bury their droppings.
Second, its bearing. Although it grew up in a commoner's household, when it walks, it is always unhurried, neither humble nor arrogant, indifferent and unconcerned, just like those officials in Beijing opera who pace around. No matter how urgently you call to it, at most it will lazily look up at you and then keep to its original rhythm.
The cat never lies on the ground; it either crouches on the ground in a standard position, or it takes up a chair and crouches on it. Sotis it will jump onto the stove, onto the high cupboard, and perch there like a crouching tiger. Only in the cold winter will it relax a little, lazily lying on the chair by the fire to warm itself.
Third, cats are very independent. It is hard to feel like you are the owner of a cat. It will never fawn on you, and it won't wag its tail at you because you threw it a piece of fish. Of course, in the countryside, only during the New Year, Feng Yiping would have the opportunity to throw a piece of fish to the cat without his parents knowing. At that ti, it would ow once, then jump over quickly, and after eating, it would not ow for more, but would just squat there silently for a while, and then eat so more. It would ignore the fish bones and at on the ground.
More often than not, the family can only feed it leftovers. If you give it face, it will eat a few bites. Many tis, after everyone has finished eating, it will ow a few tis. When you serve the food in its bowl, it will go over and take a few looks, then jump back to its chair and sit down. Then, at so point, it disappears. By the next al, it will eat the uneaten food that is given to the pig, and then serve it hot food again, but it still takes a look but doesn't move a bit.
If it is thirsty, it won't just drink from any water bowl. It will jump onto the edge of the bowl, lean its head down and lap up the water with its tongue.
Another thing is that cats will never fawn over their owners. If you tease it, it won't mind when it is in a good mood, but if it is in a bad mood, it will definitely scratch you.
Of course, it knows when to stop, and as long as you don't go too far, it won't use its claws too hard.
Finally, cats are very generous. At night, the mice co out again, scurrying about, and then suddenly there is a short scream, and then silence. That's the cat hunting. Then at night the mice co out less and less, and they are more and more careful, and the cat never claims credit from you.
Also, Feng Yiping has seen the scene of the cat playing with the mouse at least twice. At that ti, the cat's grace and bearing were truly impressive. To draw an inappropriate analogy, it was similar to the story of Zhuge Liang capturing and then setting free ng Huo seven tis.
From the ti Feng Yiping can rember, the first cat the family kept was a small yellow cat that his grandfather had given them. That cat grew up and one day went out and never returned. At the ti, Feng Yiping's parents told him that soone had been catching cats with a net, and that the cat had probably been caught.
The second cat had quite a story. It wasn't caught from soone else's ho, but could be said to have co to the door itself.
It was a winter evening. A family in another village had a baby boy and were throwing a party during the day and showing an outdoor movie in the evening. In an era when televisions were not yet commonplace, this was a rare form of modern entertainnt in the countryside. Of course, Feng Yiping went with his mother and sister to watch it on a stool. Halfway through the movie, a cat jumped straight into his sister's arms and slept soundly without any sense of embarrassnt. His sister tried to put it on the ground a few tis, but it kept coming back. It even followed them after the movie was over and wouldn't go away, no matter how hard they tried to get rid of it. Later, his mother said, 'Just bring it along.
It was a good-looking cat with jet-black fur that was as smooth as satin, except for a patch on its chest that was pure white. The contrast between black and white was very beautiful. Its eyes were slightly blue and very expressive, and it had three whiskers on each side of its face.
This cat was amazing.
That year, the new house had not yet been built, and we were living in the old house in the village. Because we had incurred so many debts treating my mother, we only had less than a fifth of the usual amount of food left after we had killed the annual pig. We sold the rest to pay off our debts. We also only bought so cabbage and vermicelli, and we were very careful with our money, barely enough to eat for a few days over the New Year, and then entertain guests during the first month.
It was the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, and the next day would be the Chinese New Year's Eve. Starting in the afternoon, it began to snow heavily. At that ti, electricity had not yet been connected, so oil lamps were lit. However, with the snow outside the window reflecting on them, they made the room brighter than usual.
In the evening, after having just entertained a group of debt collectors, Feng Yiping, his mother and sister were about to eat the leftovers when the door creaked open and the cat squeezed through and ca in. His sister had sharp eyes and looked back. She saw that it seed to be dragging sothing behind it. She put down her bowl and chopsticks and went over to take a look. Then she exclaid, 'Dad, Mom, co and look, the cat has caught a rabbit!'
Everyone was surprised. They went over to have a look and sure enough, it was dragging a fluffy grey rabbit, which looked bigger than the cat itself. No one knew how it had managed to catch it. The fat rabbit, of course, beca a delicacy on the table at the New Year's Eve dinner, and it was one of the rare things that brought joy to the family during the not-so-prosperous Spring Festival.
This happened more than once. At that ti, there were few varieties of vegetables. In June of the following year, the vegetables from the previous season in the vegetable garden were old and out of season, and the seasonal vegetables had not yet grown. In i Qiuping's words, it was a ti when there was a shortage of food. It was difficult for a clever housewife to cook without rice, and the housewives tried every ans possible. During that period of ti, most families could only eat various pickled vegetables or dried vegetables to make ends et.
Dried vegetables were considered better food, and generally included dried radishes, dried daylilies, dried lantern gourds, or so wild vegetables left over from the previous year's drying.
During those one after another lean days, Feng Yiping ate a lot of dishes that he could never eat again.
His least favourite dish was peanut shoots. When pulling the peanuts, so always got through the net. After a few days of rain, the peanuts sprouted and erged from the ground. People picked them up while working in the mountains, washed them, stir-fried them, added water and cooked them, then served them on the table. It was a rare dish with green on the table at that ti. Peanut shoots are not as tasty as bean shoots. They have a strong greenish taste and the older ones are a bit bitter. Feng Yiping could tolerate the strong greenish taste, but not the bitterness. He could never get used to them. So he just made a little soup with them and ate pickles instead.
The autumn was not bad when there was a shortage of vegetables. When clearing the vegetable garden, the peppers were pulled out, and the small peppers that had not grown were not deseeded. They were fried with oil and were very tasty with rice.
There were also green onions, and a large handful of them were pulled back, washed, and fried with oil. They were very fragrant and quite good.
When the weather cools down in autumn, a few families get together to make tofu, which will not go sour even after a few days. Tofu can be pan-fried, stir-fried or deep-fried in many ways, and is considered a good dish. If a few families share it, each family will not get much, and it will not last for many als. No one is extravagant enough to make tofu to eat every few days. In the countryside, life is not lived that way.
So i Qiuping found a way to get the leftover soya residue from making tofu back, added oil and cooked it, sprinkled it with paprika and then with chopped spring onions. Although the sll of soya was still strong, at least it wasn't pickled vegetables.
Just when they were in between als, one evening the cat returned with a salted fish! Another unexpected surprise, so the family didn't care where it ca from, they had so at for a change.
Who knew that just a few days later, it brought back another one! This ti, i Qiuping was a little uneasy. At that ti, in the countryside, losing one or two fish was actually no small matter. Many families would cross their arms and scold the whole village from the hill if a small gourd disappeared from their vegetable garden. Losing at least two salted fish like this was really worth the housewives scolding on the hill for half a day.
But no one in the village ever complained about missing fish, so everyone praised the cat, saying that it was really sensible and really thought about the family.
Of course, there was one ti when the cat really gave Feng Yiping a fright. It was one sumr afternoon, Feng Yiping was taking a nap in bed, half asleep when he suddenly saw a black paw reach through the mosquito net and stretch out towards him. He was instantly covered in cold sweat. When he ca to his senses, he saw that the cat had co to bed to sleep too. Because of the angle, the black cat's paw looked huge, and it looked exactly like the claw of a demon in Feng Yiping's imagination.
As Feng Yiping grew up, the cat grew old. It was such a good-natured cat that understood and cared for the family, destined to be a mber of Feng Yiping's family. One early winter morning in the first sester of Feng Yiping's fourth grade, it went out and never returned.
A few days later, it happened to be Sunday morning, and Feng Yiping's fourth uncle ca to the house and said that he had seen the cat sitting on a tung tree on a hill, and it had already gone.
Feng Yiping did not go with him at the ti. Feng Zhenchang and his uncle went together, took the cat down from the tung tree, and then buried it on the mountain.
This magical cat was like a gift from heaven to their family, and even the way it left this world was so extraordinary and noble.
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