Our Little Source Home has been sheltering cats with poor breed characteristics and helping them survive. We have two bungalows in the suburbs that provide shelter and food for the cats.
We have received a lot of financial assistance from kind-hearted people, which has helped us get by for the time being.
Please don't abandon it again, thank you.
Wen Zheng felt uneasy and ignored the private message. After spending the morning polishing his manuscript, he opened Weibo again during his lunch break and found that there were still no meaningful replies.
Most of the comments were jokes, but in his private messages, two similar organizations advised him not to abandon his pet again, saying that if he really had to, he should leave it with them, as someone would pay to take care of it.
Unable to resolve the dispute, Wen Zheng first replied to Xiao Yuan's family.
@Z-bkc: Can you raise them?
Xiaoyuan's Home quickly replied: Yes, our shelter currently houses over a hundred cats! Many of them are actually very well-behaved, just with some physical or physical defects. Occasionally, families with limited financial means also come to adopt them.
More than a hundred.
Wen Zheng got goosebumps just imagining the scene of so many cats meowing together.
Having seen many such inquiries, Xiaoyuan's family quickly sent photos and videos to Wen Zheng.
The reality was a little better than he had imagined: two bungalows, and a yard of two or three hundred square meters with cat trees and other things installed.
The cats huddled together inside, forming small groups, looking lazy and not at all like they were starving or being abused.
Wen Zheng found it laughable.
World Cat Day: Buy a cat at 20% off. Bought it, thought it was ugly, and threw it away.
Wen Zheng typed a line of text indifferently: I'll think about it some more.
After a while, Xiaoyuan's Home replied: Okay. If you can keep them, please be patient with them.
Wen Zheng turned off private messages, and the blood-red characters in his pinned Weibo post assaulted his optic nerve—
[Don't keep cats; I recommend suicide.]
No, I won't raise one.
Wen Zheng thought stubbornly.
I just want to wait a little longer.
There wasn't much work to do in the afternoon, so everyone leisurely drank tea and chatted.
Wen Zheng silently revised the manuscript for a while, then started calculating some data.
Jin Fanrong suddenly appeared again: "Wen Zheng is so diligent, but the director is away on a business trip today..."
Seeing that Wenzheng ignored him, Jin Fanrong wasn't annoyed and chuckled, "Alright, I know you're aloof. What are you going to do with the cat? If all else fails, send it to a shelter. Your house doesn't seem very big, it's not good for the cat."
Wen Zheng continued to verify the data.
Jin Fanrong: "...Wen Zheng? Wen Zheng!"
"Huh?" Wen Zheng calmly looked up, as if only then realizing there was someone there: "What's wrong? I can't hear well."
Jin Fanrong: "..." God, you can't hear me.
"My brother-in-law said he's going to treat you all to dinner next month, the whole office is coming, are you coming?"
"No," Wen Zheng refused outright.
Jin Fanrong was stunned for a moment, his smile forced: "So you're not giving me any face?"
"Um."
Wen Zheng buried himself in calculating data, and after a while, Jin Fanrong left.
He breathed a sigh of relief and saved the calculated file.
The girl my mentor introduced me to yesterday just sent me a message, arranging a time and place and asking if I had any questions. Wen Zheng replied with an "O," too tired to even type a "K."
The tea restaurant was also in the area, but Wen Zheng was too lazy to go back to change his clothes and planned to go there directly after work.
Seeing that he still had some time, he took out an old notebook from his bag.
These are his mother's belongings.
The kraft paper hard cover has dark water stains, indicating poor storage conditions and frequent use; the inner pages are also yellowed.
It contains records of daily grocery expenses, things to buy when going out, recipes found online, and some fragments of poetry and prose.
Wen Zheng glanced at the delicate and lovely handwriting and turned to a page in the second half of the notebook, where a string of numbers was written.
[30, 15, 24, 19, 2, 28, 24, 1, 15, 24, 19, 15, 25, 24, 20, 15, 25. 9, 20, 24, 13, 8, 28, 20, 31, 20, 15, 24, 3, 25, 28, 4, 28.]
This is a password.
The arrangement is unordered, contains repetitions, and is separated by periods. There are seventeen numbers before the period and sixteen after the period.
There's no discernible pattern.
Wen Zheng didn't pick up a pen, but stared blankly at the paper for half an hour, his hand stroking the side of the paper. He kept reading until it was time to leave work, then stuffed the notebook back into his bag.
He didn't even need to look at the notebook; he already knew that string of numbers by heart.
It wasn't a confidential document; it was just a little puzzle left to him by his parents. Wen Zheng even used it to ask many people for help.
But nobody knows how to solve it.
After get off work, the cat slept soundly all day.
Wen Zheng placed the insulated box containing the cat on the ground and stood by the roadside outside the office building, waiting for the pre-arranged automatic taxi.
A female colleague passed by and asked in surprise, "Wen Zheng? Aren't you walking home today?"
This female colleague wasn't gossipy or spread rumors, and Wen Zheng had a pretty good impression of her, so he nodded to her and said, "I have something to say."
His female colleague smiled at him and said, "You even bring your cat along when you're busy?"
What can I do if I don't bring it?
Wen Zheng thought irritably, "I can't just leave it at home. What if it suddenly wakes up and the incubator goes off? What if I'm halfway through my meal and say, 'Goodbye, I'm not eating anymore, my cat has woken up'..."
No.
He would never let that happen.
The self-driving empty car stopped precisely at the side of the road, and Wen Zheng got in and placed the cat carrier on the passenger seat.
Unbeknownst to him, the black cat narrowed its eyes slightly, and a flash of golden light appeared.
Author's Note: Wen Zheng: Are your cats bigger than mine? Are they heavier than mine? No? Ha.
(I shared the "Don't Get Angry" song on Weibo! You can listen to it if you're interested. The tune is from that song, "Summer, Summer Quietly Passes By, Leaving Little Secrets"—)
(Weibo @Yuanyouxingxingxing)
Chapter 4
Suiyu Tea Restaurant is affordable and stylish, and is a legendary spot for matchmaking.
Wen Zheng wore a black vest over a white shirt, with his employee ID card still tucked into the shirt pocket.
Despite the lack of effort in his attire, his physique somehow managed to give off a uniform play vibe. The muscles in his exposed forearms rippled but weren't overly bulging, and the slight exertion while holding the box accentuated their defined lines.
The seats have been reserved; they are for four people.
Wen Zheng put the cat down on the seat next to him, stared blankly at the motionless cat for a while, and then stared at it again.
He arrived ten minutes early, while his blind date was twenty minutes late, making it half an hour in total, which left him with a cold expression.
"Hi, sorry, there's a little traffic on the road..."
The young woman sat down.
Her long hair was slightly curled, she had large eyes, exquisite makeup, and long, curled eyelashes that seemed to flutter in the wind.
Wen Zheng recalled the hundred ways Deng Puyue had taught him to tell if a girl was wearing no makeup. After a little experimentation, he realized that the eyelashes were fake.
There's nothing wrong with a girl wearing false eyelashes; overall, this girl's attire was quite proper.
According to the rules, Wen Zheng directly linked her to the previous one, the one before that, and the one before that... and so on.
If you put all the girls he's dated together in a matching game, Wen Zheng thinks he might get stuck and lose his dream of becoming a streamer, and then be hung on the pillar of shame and ridiculed by everyone.
Wen Zheng promptly stopped daydreaming, pushed the menu to the other person, and gestured for her to order.
The woman smiled, her face suddenly turning red.
After she ordered, the two faced each other awkwardly. The woman asked him first, "Professor Xu told me that you own a house?"
"Wutongyuan, three bedrooms and one living room, an 83-year-old family house, will not be demolished in the near future."
Woman: "..."
Wen Zheng continued smoothly, without a gentlemanly smile.
"I don't have a car, I walk to and from get off work, and I play video games on my days off. I spend all my savings each month, occasionally go into debt, and I don't go shopping with others."
The woman forced a smile, paused, and then said, "It's fine. Um, has Professor Xu told you about my situation?"
Wen Zheng: "Hmm."
The girl's expression softened, and a hint of expectation flashed in her eyes: "Do you remember where I studied abroad?"
Wen Zheng: "Abroad."
Woman: "………………"
Isn't that obvious?
A plate of sweet and sour pork was served. The girl looked at it from left to right, and after taking a couple of bites, she finally found a new topic to talk about.
You brought... a cat?
Wen Zheng paused for a moment, cleared the right half of the table, and brought the insulated box up.
The girl loves cats very much.
Her eyes lit up the moment she saw the cat. But she quickly became shocked: "How did it get so badly injured? What did you do to it?"
Wen Zheng paused for two seconds before explaining, "I picked it up on the road."