After playing four or five more matches, Ling PingAn stretched and checked the time. It was almost midnight.
He stood up, planning to close the store and go to bed.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of meowing.
Meow…meow…
It sounded really pitiful.
Ling PingAn's conscience would not allow him to ignore a little kitten in distress.
After thinking it over for a bit, he opened the door and walked outside.
Tonight there was a misty fog hanging over everything. It was so dark in the alley that Ling PingAn couldn't even see the fingers in front of his face.
The kitten's aggrieved meowing sounds were coming from not too far away.
Ling PingAn followed the sound and came upon a kitten, curled up next to the trash can in the street that ran in front of the bookstore.
It was hard to see in the fog, but Ling PingAn could see that its tiny little body looked really dirty. Its fur was a mess, and there seemed to be bloodstains on the fur. It looked scrawny and frail.
When it saw Ling PingAn, fear and caution sprang up in the kitten's amber-colored eyes.
"Poor little guy…" Ling PingAn's sympathetic nature was awakened as he imagined the story of a kitten who'd just been born and then was placed in the hands of a cruel owner. It had been mercilessly abused every single day and even cruelly tortured. In the end, the kitten, at the brink of death after all the torturing, was ruthlessly abandoned by its owner in the middle of the night.
Immediately, Ling PingAn's heart began to overflow with sympathy.
"Don't be afraid, little one…" He squatted down and slowly approached the tiny kitten. "I won't hurt you…"
But the little fella seemed extremely terrified...
It curled up small and moved backward.
At last, it even hissed at Ling PingAn and showed its little teeth.
This only made Ling PingAn's sympathy overflow like a flooded river.
He gently extended his hands and took the little thing into his arms.
But the little fella seemed rather stubborn.
Once in Ling PingAn's arms, it struggled with all its might.
"Looks like your master treated you really badly!" Ling PingAn sighed as he gently stroked the kitten's body.
The kitten continued to shiver in fear. The fur all over its body seemingly got harder.
"Poor little thing!" Ling PingAn stroked it and couldn't help but imagine that this kitten probably had such a conditioned reflex due to all the abuse it had received from its previous owner.
"Little guy…" He stood up with the kitten in his arms and walked back to his house, "...you'll stay with me from now on!"
"I have enough fish for you!"
The Federal Empire contained the Pacific Ocean as their inner lake. From the mainland to the other side of the ocean in the Kingdom of Nanzhou, its waves that spanned thousands of miles were the Empire's fishing grounds.
Therefore, its fish production was extremely high.
Also, the price of fish was very cheap in all the markets.
Especially sardines and pomfret, which have an annual production rate of millions of tons. Their prices were also really low. Generally, it was possible to buy average fish at to per pound.
He returned to the store with the nervous kitten in his arms.
He placed it on the counter.
Then something that Ling PingAn had never expected occurred.
The kitten leaped up from the counter. Ling PingAn was worried that it would run out and try to escape.
However, the kitten walked to the side of the glass door at the store's entrance...
As if it had found its home.
Its tiny body curled up in a ball in the corner at the side of the door. Its little paws held itself firmly in place as it stuck its pink little tongue out and started licking himself.
It was like…
...like it was acting like a baby with its mother and being cute in the arms of its owner.
Ling PingAn was dumbfounded as he looked at it.
"What's the meaning of this?" He shook his head. "Am I worse than the corner?"
However, being rational, Ling PingAn knew that it was ridiculous to be jealous of a corner.
Thinking like this, on the contrary, made him feel even more compassionate.
"Perhaps…," he thought, "...in the past when this little guy was being abused by his previous owner, he would always go find a little corner and hide within its shadows…"
"Over time, it got used to doing this."
"How pitiful!"
He walked over, picked up the little fella, and said to it, "Do you like this place?"
"I'm gonna give you a bath, and then we'll come back here, okay?"
As he spoke, he carried it upstairs, ignoring how the kitten was struggling. Arriving in the bathroom, he found a small basin and filled it with some warm water.
It was strange.
According to whatever knowledge Ling PingAn had about pets, cats should be resistant toward receiving a bath.
But this kitten was very quiet in the tub.
It only resisted for a brief while when Ling PingAn was washing it with shampoo.
However, it didn't fight that hard.
Maybe that was due to the fact that it was too frail. Gradually, the kitten gave up struggling, allowing Ling PingAn to scrub it in whatever way he wanted to.
Swiftly, the bath was over.
Ling PingAn took a clean towel and wrapped it around the wet kitten.
Then he dried its fur using a hairdryer.
Looking at the kitten once again, he seemed completely different now.
Underneath the bathroom lights, there appeared an adorable kitten with a beautiful black coat.
Its eyes were bright and amber in color. It had a tiny head that was at most the size of a fist, a few golden whiskers around its mouth, and soft fur that made it really nice to touch.
Ling PingAn lifted it up and looked at it carefully.
"Yo!" He smiled, "You're a little lady!"
With the kitten in his arms, he went to the refrigerator, opened it, and took out the sardine that he'd bought a few days before. Then he found a small plate and cut up the sardine on it.
"Dig in!" Ling PingAn placed the kitten in front of the plate and encouraged it to eat. "Good girl…"
Unfortunately, not only did the kitten not even look at the sardine on the plate, it backed away.
Ling PingAn couldn't help but scratch his head.
He thought of the kitten happily settling in the corner downstairs.
So he picked it up, went to the door of his bedroom and placed the kitten behind the door in the corner. Then he offered the plate to her again.
However, the kitten still acted very terrified.
Ling PingAn shook his head. With no other option, he carried the kitten downstairs, went to the original corner that the cat had found behind the front door, and put him down again.
As expected, as soon as the kitten landed on the ground, it quickly ran to the corner and lay down carefully.
Finally, Ling PingAn once again put the tiny plate with the sardine on it in front of the kitten.
This time, it looked at the plate hesitantly, then cautiously stuck its tongue out and tested it, seeming to try and confirm whether the fish was edible.
Realizing it was edible, the kitten anxiously pulled the plate close to its chest, placed its tiny little head near the plate, and started to nibble at the sardine carefully and cautiously.
Ling PingAn couldn't help but laugh as he watched its behavior.
This little cutie, it seems that she really wants to stay beside this door. He left the kitten to its dinner, went to the entrance, and pulled down the roller door.
Then he went back to the counter and shut down the computer.
"Little fella…" Ling PingAn grabbed his phone, walked to the door, and looked at the kitten who was snuggling up in the corner beside the glass door, "...looks like you're planning to sleep there, huh…"
After some thought, Ling PingAn went back to the counter, took out a towel from the cupboard behind the counter, then went back to the kitten and placed the towel under it.
"Good night!" Ling PingAn said.
Subsequently, he turned off the lights in the store and went upstairs.
Thud, thud, thud….
The wooden stairs creaked and moaned as they always did. In the dead of night, this noise was enough to make people feel terrified.
Amid the darkness, the kitten raised its head.
It looked around.
Within its amber eyes, a space, silent yet strange like an abyss, could be seen.
An asphalt-like liquid slowly crept from the edges of its eyes.
Pairs of peculiar eyes opened and closed.
The kitten leaned toward the edge of the glass door.
The eyes of the kitten could see an eyeball that was constantly spinning and always staring, or to be more precise, guarding the abyss.
Looking at the eyeball, the kitten felt very comfortable.
It yawned, lowered its head, lay down on the fuzzy towel, and happily rolled up into a ball.
It felt safe and comfortable like never before.