"What are you doing?" Papa Jiao asked as he watched Yuan Zhiyi do whatever it was he was doing.
"I'm just paying my respects. We earned a million-yuan contract all thanks to this cat. Who knows what else it will bring us in the future." Yuan adjusted the chopsticks in the porridge while saying, "One last bow!"
"Since when did you start believing in these things? I don't remember your father having this habit."
"My father was a scientist through and through , but my mother liked all this stuff."
Papa Jiao and his classmates would still mention Mr. Yuan during a conversation as if he were still alive instead of intentionally avoiding his name.
Yuan returned the bowl to the dining table and turned to sit down. He asked Papa Jiao, "You are attending the conference being held in the neighboring province the day after tomorrow, right?"
"Yes, there's an annual scholar meeting. I have to go because several experts will be presenting this year. It's a rare opportunity."
"Good. Since you're there, you can come with me and take a look at some equipments. . Yesterday I contacted the boss of a biological company. His company had some accidents so he's closing the company and selling off some equipments. I told him to let us have a look first. Some of the stuff are still within the warranty period, the owner still has all the necessary. I've been thinking, if the equipments are in decent condition, we could purchase them for emergency use. After all, new equipment costs too much and at this stage we won't be using any of those complex functions."
"Ok. I'll contact you after the conference. When will you be leaving?"
"I'm leaving tomorrow.I'll bring an engineer with me. But I'm planning to just have a look first. After all, those equipments, even second had ones, cost over ten thousand, some cost even more. The owner won't be willing to take that big of a lost when reselling these expensive machines. This money is nothing for a tycoon like Changwei Group , but we are in financial strain and have to think and rethink every penny we spend."
Papa Jiao was going on a business trip and had many things to arrange.
Mama Jiao's recent hospital visit showed she was almost recovered. Papa Jiao can therefore leave without worry. As for his on-going work at the university, the hardest part was over and the project was running smoothly. Yi Xin had already submitted an article with a decent impact factor to a foreign periodical ahead of his peers . He already started work on another article. If things go smoothly, the department's Academic Excellence Award and the national scholarship with be his for sure .
Papa Jiao will be gone for three to four days. These days, Zheng Tan seldom went out in the evening. The temperature in the evening was low and all he had was his short fur to keep him warm. He couldn't wear leather jackets or down coats like when he was human.
Mother Jiao had bought him a pet coat, but he never wore it. It was constraining and really troublesome. He couldn't even climb trees while wearing it. Besides his morning jog and exercise, Zheng Tan only went out during daytime on sunny days. He had no interest in torturing himself with cold weather.
Today, Zheng Tan played outside for half a day and was planning on returning home. He wandered to the Bio Building only to find Papa Jiao's office unlocked.
He jumped from a tree branch onto the windowsill to check if anybody was inside. If other people were there, he wouldn't go in.
Luckily, only Yi Xin was there. He was napping on the desk.
Yi Xin didn't count as other people. In the past, he picked kids up from school, taken care of cat and even helped Papa Jiao grade papers. Where do you find such a fine student?
Zheng Tan opened the window and jumped in.
The computer was still turned on, Yi was working on his second essay. It was all in English and the frequent technical terms in latin was way beyond Zheng Tan's biology level. He had no interest in this paper.
What he was interested in was a small notebook laid aside on the table. Zheng Tan had seen experiment notepads before, they were larger than this. This well worn notebook was obviously used for other purposes.
Did it contain any secrets?
This arose Zheng Tan's interests. Now that he had free time on his…well, paws, he needed to hace some fun to kill time.
He smirked.
Suddenly a noise startled him, Zheng Tan paused. He thought his was caught. He cautiously looked over to Yi only to find the boy fast asleep, without any hints of waking up.
WTF, he was grinding his teeth in his sleep. He started to smile. This freaked Zheng Tan out.
Zheng Tan twitched his ears and returned to the notebook.
It contained lots of things--- the front few pages recorded brief summaries of academic reports. Despite of Yi's crooked but tiny writing, the records were quite neat.
Zheng Tan was disappointed at the notebook's boring contents. As he was about to close the notebook, the edge of the notebook caught his eye. The stack of pages at the back of the notebook showed more stains and appeared to be more frequently used. Zheng Tan flipped to the last few pages.
Zheng Tan was greeted by Yi Xin's "accompanying records and extracts".
He was speechless. In front of him was poems of all kinds, all original all obviously amateur.
There were ones on lost love, such as:
"I miss you like antibodies miss antigen
Your beauty is like acetyl choline, it makes me impulse
Springs and autumns represent numerous nights
Each basic group stands for our permanent oaths
Looking forward to the day
When we can reunite
Interweaving into the most wonderful double helix in the world.
There're grieves, such as…
My heart is broken into pieces just like kinetochore in the last period of cell division.
We are just like chromosomes
Moving to the other side.
Fog covers the pavilion road
Green grass stretches far into the sky
Only our shadow becomes lighter
Finally as the chromosome in the last period
That would never meet…
There are puzzle ones, such as…
Lights in the sunset,
Plants in it are so transparent
That oxygen arising from chloroplast can be seen clearly.
Hydrogen returns CO2 into sugar,
Silently gathering energy.
Everything is in a hurry,
Are they as well worrying the quietness in the dark night
Paddle in the silence?
There were ones professing his love, such as…
"You are a cell nucleus,
In charge of my inheritance and metabolism.
You are mitochondria,
Without you I would lose energy.
You are chloroplast,
Giving me nourishment.
You are lysosome,
Which can dissolve everything in me.
And actually you are ribosome
Capturing me like amino acid.
You are Golgi apparatus,
Parceling me and abandoning me easily.
Why
Since I love you so much
There were ones on life and whatnot, such as: "…
The figure of a great man is fading away,
Just like an individual in the river of time, dissipating as clouds.
Their thoughts deposit in the idea basement,
Just like genes in gene pools,
Passing down from generation to generation,
Reforming the predecessors' thoughts
Adding complexity,
Just like genetic recombination,
Complicated but common.
Silently
I'm thinking
Whether my consideration is genetic recombination or variation.
The person who wrote these poems, Zheng Tan thought, must have been occupied by deoxy nucleotide, ribonucleotide and amino acids.
Closing the notebook, Zheng Tan swung his tail, jumped off the desk, opened the window and left. He didn't forget to shut the window on his way out.
Leaving the Biology Department, Zheng Tan walked towards the Eastern Residential quarters. As he was in the bushes turning a corner, he overheard people chatting about a campus hot topic.
A graduate student committed suicided in his dormitory. It was said that he had a mental break down due to the pressure of failing too many exams. Zheng Tan didn't think too much about it when he first heard the news. It was not a rare occurance for a university.
"I heard students from the same dorm say that the police found handcuffs, tape, masks and even anesthesia in his closet. Besides, there was also a tiny DVD player which contained hardcore porn…"
Zheng Tan's step paused and recalled the events of the past few days.
Was this the doings of Mr. Zhao and Zhao Le?
They were efficient.
Father Jiao mentioned to Yuan Zhiyi that Zhao Dong had friends in the underground world. They found his cat, finding a human wouldn't be hard at all. At the same time, Mr. Zhao was ruthless. He won't give the person a second chance.
He listened to the student gossip some more then continued his walk home. However, before he could go nay further, Zheng Tan was stopped in the tracks by the words of a guy riding a bike. The guy was shouting to his friend: "Come, quick, a big group of foreign visitors are going to the International Academic Auditorium. We need to go early, or else there wouldn't even be any room to stand!"
Zheng Tan was shocked! A chesty foreign visitor?! [1]
International Academic Auditorium? The place was close by.
Zheng Tan turned and headed towards the auditorium. He was planning to run as fast as he could but was stopped by a figure pouncing out of the bushes. The figure stopped in front of him an waved his paws. The paws were white as if wearing gloves.
Zheng Tan was not in the mood to play. He was confused---Why was Sheriff here? Shouldn't he be napping somewhere near the Eastern Quarters?
Indeed, the figure was Sheriff. Soon, Zheng Tan saw Tiger and Fatty appear behind him.
Zheng Tan turned his head and saw a Chihuahua on a leash with its owener heading towars the school gate. Sheriff must have followed that Chihuahua. Tiger joined because he could and Fatty followed hehind them, his eyes half shut, showing interest in nothing.
Zheng Tan still had the "Chesty foreign visitor" on his mind so he headed towards the auditorium. The three cats followed him.
There were ots of people near the auditorium. However, lucky for Zheng Tan, there were two trees on either side of the front entrance. He climbed up a Chinese parasol tree and squated on a branch to observe the surroundings.
The chesty foreigner was not here yet.
Seeing Zheng Tan squat on a branch, the other three followed suit and the four cats formed a line.
Zheng Tan looked around for foreign visitors.
People crowded outside the auditorium. After the doors were opened, staff arranged for everyone to enter and the foreign visitors arrived five minutes later accompanied by the headmaster himself. These foreign visitors must be important people.
But…where was the chesty foreign visitor? These were all middle-aged men.
Zheng Tan racked his head thinking--- wait a minute. A big group not chesty. Damn!
Zheng Tan examined the group of foreign visitors and managed to find two good-looking ladies. The two assistants were quite attractive and one look at the their chest area made him thirsty.
Zheng Tan was fixdated on the beauties as the visitors entered the auditorium. As they passed the tree the cats were on, a middle-aged professor leading the group stopped and asked his assistant to take a photo.
This professor was a cat lover who also had a pet cat back home. He saw these four cats which resembled his own pet, and suddenly wanted a picture of them.
The professor stodd under the tree, the assistant took a series of pictures of both man and cats. Due to the distance between the professor and the cats, the assistant had to try several times before she managed to capture man and cats in the same picture.
The others just stood nearby and smiled, no one bothered them nor took pictures. Some were uninterested in cats and others were too ashamed to do so.
No one foresaw this photo would be enlarged and preserved and hung on the wall of the auditorium.
Below the photo was a brief introduction of the subject of the picture who went on to become a Nobel laureate. The picture was taken infront of the ChuHua Universtiy Auditorium. But the first thing to catch people's eye would be the four cats sitting in a line on the branch. People would stand in front of the picture and discuss what attracted the cats. Some guessed it was because the cats forsaw the physics professor winning the Nobel prize. Some said the school had the scene arranged and the cats were specially trained because it was well known that the professor liked cats
No one knew the real cause behind the picture was that the black cat wanted to see a "Chesty Foreign Visitor".
Translator's Thoughts Alex in Wonderland
[1] A Chesty foreign visitor and a big group of foreign visitors are made up by the exact same words in Chinese. The difference between the two sentences is how the words are grouped into phrases.