That Weird Child

The boy jumped. He almost dropped his pencil and would have jumped out of his chair if he didn't suddenly remember he was still in class.

The teacher looked his way and the boy hurriedly sat straight and pretended to write something in his notebook.

The boy could see there was a furry animal outside the window. Judging by its shadow on the window, he realized it was a black cat.

Zheng Tan was worried the kid would scream or jump out of his seat and draw attention to him. Fortunately, the boy remained calm.

Zheng Tan looked past the boy and surveyed the classroom.

He found Jiao Yuan and his group. They were sitting close to each other in the middle of the classroom. The homeroom teacher assigned them seats that allowed them to see the board clearly without breathing in chalk dust.

Jiao Yuan had no idea at the moment that his cat was spying on him.

Zheng Tan left to check out the teachers' office. He didn't find Mama Jiao, her office was probably on the second floor.

Zheng Tan didn't climb up to the second floor to search for Mama Jiao. He wandered around campus for a little longer and left.

Mama Jiao came to the window to rest her eyes. She had been grading homework earlier and was tired. She looked down and just happened to catch sight of a small black figure jumping onto the fence. She was too far away to see the animal clearly, but there were a lot of black house cats in the world and Chuhua University was some distance away, so she didn't think it was her cat. However, the figure did look somewhat familiar. She shook her head.

After class, the boy sitting in the back row opened the window to look outside. He didn't see any cats.

"What are you doing Fu Lei? Close the window, the sun's too bright!" a student sitting next to him yelled, trying to catch up on some sleep.

"Oh, ok." Fu Lei closed the window but ripped off some newspaper so if the cat came again, he would at least be able to see more of it than an eye.

He went back to his seat and eyed the group sitting in front of him. Everyone knew there was a special group of kids in the class. They got preferential treatment from all of the teachers. Most of his classmates were envious of them. He, on the other hand, didn't care about school and thought the whole issue was boring.

Zheng Tan took the same route home and was able to walk faster now that he knew the way.

He decided to include this area in his daily walk. Youzi would go to the same school in a couple of years, so he would be coming to the middle school often in the future. He noticed there were a lot of cats in the area. He saw two on his way to Jiao Yuan's school and saw another two on his way home. These two cats were in a standoff when Zheng Tan approached them. One was startled and slipped. The other took the chance to slap its opponent off the wall.

The victorious cat turned to Zheng Tan. Its back was still arched and all the fur on its tail was standing on end. However, Zheng Tan kept walking and the cat backed down. It meowed a warning but eventually decided to jump off the wall and run away.

Zheng Tan looked ahead at the long and winding 'cat road' made up of connected walls and fences and realized he would be running into more cats on these walls.

Jiao Yuan left to attend training after dinner. They still hadn't decided who was participating in long distance running, but Jiao Yuan was already taking part in a four-hundred meter relay.

They needed to practice passing the baton.

Youzi and Zheng Tan went to watch them train. Sometimes, university students would talk to them and give them advice.

"Let's run Charcoal," Youzi put down her backpack and said to Zheng Tan.

He didn't mind running and was happy to accompany her.

There was a sports tournament at her elementary school too. Youzi didn't sign up for anything this year. Zheng Tan always felt that elementary school competitions were for fun mostly. Youzi played a part in the opening ceremony. She had hidden the pictures Papa Jiao took of her and refused to let anyone see them.

The competition was held on one of the university track fields. Parents and students gathered around to watch. Youzi was in charge of logistics and didn't participate in any sporting events.

Youzi warmed up before she started running and joined Jiao Yuan when he started his second lap. Zheng Tan followed behind her.

Many were surprised to see this. People sometimes brought their dogs along for runs, but seldom their cats.

Jiao Yuan and his friends managed to find the energy to increase their speed even though they were tired. Youzi had joined in and they didn't want to be left behind by a girl younger than them.

The group finished training and returned to the eastern quarters. Jiao Yuan and Su An encouraged Xiong Xiong to call classmates to see if anyone would volunteer for the fifteen hundred meter race. He would have to step in if he couldn't find anyone. Jiao Yuan knew he could barely run 800 meters let alone run 1500 meters.

The next day, Zheng Tan walked Youzi to school, then headed to Jiao Yuan's middle school.

He took his time to observe the neighborhood. He memorized the names of roads and bus stations whilst enjoying the scenery.

The buses were always packed. Little old ladies were very skilled at squeezing their way onto the bus. He saw an old lady squeeze past a strong man and take his place on the bus. The man couldn't do anything. Afterall, we're told to respect the elderly, aren't we?

Zheng Tan didn't see yesterday's kitten. Instead, he came across an unfamiliar fat cat who was taking a nap on the wall. It completely ignored Zheng Tan, who had to jump over it. He foresaw a lot of jumping in the future.

He came to a small intersection. On one side was an alleyway. He was just about to jump onto a new wall when he heard voices.

A dark alleyway was indeed the perfect location to start a fight. However, it was morning. Who had fights in the morning?

Zheng Tan could tell from the voices that the people in the alleyway were underaged.

Jiao Yuan's middle school was close by. Could they be students attending that school?

The closest high school was at least a few bus stations away.

Zheng Tan decided to go see what was going on. He followed the voices into the alleyway.

The alley was narrow smelled of trash and pee.

Bang!

A backpack flew over Zheng Tan and hit a wall.

He could hear the sound of fists on flesh clearly. He carefully poked his head around a corner.

It was the boy from yesterday!

There were two other boys with him. He was the shortest of the three, the other two were obviously in ninth grade or maybe even high school.

Strangely enough, the short boy was the only one standing straight. The other two were on the ground, and one was even crying.

The boy spotted Zheng Tan.

Fu Lei finished and shook his hand. His hands were scraped and parts of his body hurt, but he had suffered nothing serious. He went to retrieve his backpack when he caught the black cat watching.

Was this the cat from yesterday?

He sniffed and tidied up. He picked up some pens that had fallen out and patted the dust off his bag. All the while he kept his eyes on Zheng Tan.

He looked up at the sun, then left. He hesitated at the crossroad but decided to wait patiently at the zebra crossing.

Zheng Tan was curious. The boy was Jiao Yuan's age but was an expert fighter.

Where was the boy going? He didn't have to cross the road to get to school. Was he going to the hospital? Zheng Tan didn't see any hospitals on his way here.

He decided to follow the boy.

The boy saw the black cat following him, but didn't say anything.