Mr. Wang shuffled over, trembling, and asked, "What's wrong? Why are you whining like that?"
It turned out that the kitten, which looked like a burlap sack, had a splinter on the sole of its paw. Old Mr. Wang squinted, but couldn't find the splinter.
Huaiyu came over and, without saying a word, pulled it out.
"Oh dear, you're so silly. If you want to sharpen your claws, come here to sharpen them," Mr. Wang scolded with heartache. "Come here, remember that. Seriously, let me tell you, a cat's claws absolutely need to be sharpened. If you don't sharpen them, the claws will get too long, bend backwards and dig into the soles of your paws, and it will hurt, making it impossible to walk."
He led the cat to a wooden board; "Do you recognize it? Don't go outside to grind, or you'll get pricked by some pillar or strip. You're not allowed to go outside anymore!"
The cat could only appease him to keep things lively. Mr. Wang was satisfied.
People and heads are interdependent, life after life. He was accustomed to the ban on smoking and to being imprisoned.
"Not allowing them to go out is like putting them in jail. Mr. Wang, why don't you buy a wicker cage and lock them all up? You're used to cats, but you won't be." Zhigao couldn't stand it.
Mr. Wang was immediately offended.
He pretended not to hear and said to Huaiyu, "Huaiyu, don't go running around with people. You need to settle down, develop your skills, and make something of yourself. Come to me often, and I'll teach you some principles."
"I still need to help Dad set up his street stall." (Huaiyu Gate)
"It's been a long time since I've seen you on the overpass. It's almost Chinese New Year, are you going up tomorrow?"
"I haven't been too keen on meeting people or being in the light lately."
Suddenly, just as Zhigao had forgotten his unintentional mistake, Old Man Wang gave a sinister smile and asked, "Zhigao, how is your mother?"
Zhigao froze, the little ball he was playing with with the cat slipping away and wobbling. He glanced quickly at Dandan, but Dandan wasn't paying attention, continuing to play with the other cats.
Zhi Gao said coldly, "I don't have a mother!"
As if he had gotten his revenge, Mr. Wang chuckled and pursed his lips, like a cat that had unexpectedly scratched you and, having gained some goodwill, escaped to the side to watch you get angry.
Huaiyu, observing the old man and the young girl with a cold eye, couldn't help but step in to change the subject, also for the sake of his brother. In front of this unfamiliar young girl, he acted out of loyalty:
“Mr. Wang, if you don’t let the cats out of the passageway and keep them in your arms all day long, they will suffocate.”
“One of them died two months ago. I heard it’s in the mountains.” Zhigao seized the opportunity to retort: “How pitiful.”
"You little rascal, you have a gap in your teeth!"
"Honey, honey, I'm asking you, are you going to go up the overpass tomorrow?" Huaiyu asked hurriedly.
"No, it's no big deal to do things like matchmaking or fortune telling. Everyone lives like this, it's all predetermined. We live where we live, and we die where we die. Sigh, all that calculation and revealing of secrets just to make a quick buck is meaningless. I'm not doing it anymore."
"Everyone says you're accurate."
“You could predict other people’s fates, but not your own,” Old Man Wang sighed softly, his voice sharp and cold, like a wronged woman: “My life has been so unjust, I’ve been a servant all my life, bowing and scraping. There’s nothing I can do, I can only live on in this world and hope for the next. Alas, I love my cat so much, I treat her like my lifeblood.”
Zhigao suddenly realized that he had gone a bit too far with Mr. Wang:
"You are a good person too."
Dandan saw two tall boys talking to an old man who looked like a grandmother, sighing and complaining all the while; it wasn't fun at all. The cat in her arms had fallen asleep again, so she gently put it on the bed and was about to leave. Oh dear, she wondered if the people watching the "ghost-hunting" had dispersed, and how frantically her uncle was searching for her everywhere. She jumped up:
"I'm leaving."
As he spoke, he knocked over a bamboo tube.
This bamboo tube is a yellowish-brown color, perhaps from being handled too much; there are faint indentations from fingers. It's an old bamboo tube, almost turning into a ghost. That's why it's so unsteady.
Bamboo skewers were scattered all over the ground, forming a mottled picture, an irregular weave, and a poorly written character.
Dandan busied herself tidying up, and Zhigao and Huaiwang also came over, hurriedly putting the items back into the bamboo tube.
"How many hexagrams are there?" Zhigao asked.
"Eight times eight equals sixty-four."
"Bamboo skewers are so strange, they're all sharp."
—A child didn't understand. This isn't bamboo; it's "zhe." It's a kind of grass, two or three feet tall. The old folks use the lower half of its stem for divination. It originally grew in front of Confucius's tomb. Confucius said… Therefore, it's very effective. Old Master Wang relied on these sixty-four hexagrams to describe all the joys and sorrows, the rise and fall of life. Until he himself grew tired of it and didn't want to recount these fleeting events from the beginning. That's all for now.
"Tell us a fortune, please?" Huaiyu pleaded urgently. "Tell us a fortune, and see if our future will be better? I don't believe it's going to be like this."
"Honey, are you going to calculate it for us? One last time?" Zhigao gestured to Dandan.
"I've come to ask my husband to tell my fortune, come on."
The three of them tugged and swayed, and Old Man Wang laughed. A person who acts coquettishly is no different from a cat that acts coquettishly. "I won't give in, I won't give in, I won't give in!" These are unclaimed lives. They've come to this world, at least they've been here, who knows what their fate holds?
Who knows what fate brought these unrelated people together? The four of us met today; it must be a predestined connection from a past life.
Old Master Wang told them to each grab a branch.
Dandan closed her eyes, held her breath, and grabbed a branch first. Then came Zhigao, then Huaiyu. Just as she was about to hand it to Old Man Wang, a cat, like an arrow on a bowstring, seized an opportunity and darted out...
"Ouch!" Dandan was jostled by the small, lonely beast that had broken through the encirclement, and dropped the grass in her hand to the ground. Because of her sudden movement, she bumped into Huaiyu, who was about to help her up when she dropped the grass in her hand as well. Zhigao was caught in the crossfire, and the grass in his hand also fell to the ground.
Suddenly, the fates of the three seemed to be in chaos.
"It's that again!" Dandan, with her sharp eyes, recognized it as the black cat that had darted across the Great Buddha Hall of Wanfu Pavilion. —What a cunning cat.
"Honey, I'll help you win her back." Dandan was convinced that this was someone close to her, forgetting her own divination.
Mr. Wang said, "Let it be."
"Didn't you forbid them from going out?" Zhigao asked hurriedly.