Zheng Tan had a look of utter bemusement on his face, since he had no idea who "Buddha" was. He had originally thought Mr. Jiao would bring up the matter of him leaving home, but not only did he not mention his departure, but now there was also this mention of "Buddha". What was going on?
"Oh, never mind, it doesn't seem to know anyway." Jiao Ma returned to the kitchen to continue preparing dinner, not believing that a cat could influence the renowned "Buddha" of Chuhua University to change her attitude.
Mr. Jiao sat down on the sofa and described the general situation of "Buddha" to Zheng Tan.
As soon as Mr. Jiao mentioned a stern-looking woman in her fifties, Zheng Tan thought of the old woman who went to the artificial lake.
It must be her.
"Buddha" was actually named Ye He, Dean of the Physics College, who shared a part of her name with the Buddha lady of the Qing Dynasty, Ye Henala. Adding to that was her serious demeanor and imposing presence, which invited awe from everyone at the Physics College. Furthermore, Dean Ye's husband was the current president of Chuhua University, so at some point she was bestowed with the nickname "Buddha".
Thinking about Dean Ye's appearance and her manner of handling affairs, Zheng Tan thought the nickname was indeed quite fitting.
Mr. Jiao didn't ask Zheng Tan about leaving home, nor did he delve deeper into the matter of "Buddha smiling". He felt that whatever had caused "Buddha" to smile probably wasn't a bad thing.
At dinner time, the two kids woke up feeling much better. The first thing a refreshed Jiao Yuan did was to check on his "treasures" in the fridge.
"Oh, sh*t!"
Jiao Yuan howled in dismay, which happened to be heard by Jiao Ma as she was carrying out a dish. After setting down the dish, she twisted Jiao Yuan's ear, "Cursing again, deduct 1 yuan from your allowance!"
"Hey, come on, I just couldn't help it, it was beyond my control and totally understandable," Jiao Yuan said, rubbing his twisted ear.
No matter how Jiao Yuan explained, 1 yuan was still deducted from his allowance. Watching Jiao Yuan eat with gritted teeth, Zheng Tan figured that Jiao Yuan would likely seek revenge on those three at school tomorrow.
After seven days of quietness, the Jiao family's home was lively once again, the atmosphere warm and lively.
After dinner, the two kids watched TV for a while before heading to their rooms to catch up on schoolwork. After missing a week of school, they had some catching up to do, which they did without being told by Mr. Jiao or Jiao Ma, as they were quite conscientious.
After cleaning up the dishes, Jiao Ma went out to visit her colleagues. She taught English at a middle school near Chuhua and had asked others to cover her classes during her absence. Now back, she wanted to show her gratitude. Since they all lived in the same residential courtyard, the relationships were good and they lived close by. She bought some fruit to take to them.
As for Mr. Jiao, he was now sitting at his desk, reading a collection of essays.
Zheng Tan walked over to take a look at the cover of the book, which was a collection of Mr. Zhou's essays. That meant Mr. Jiao was probably not in the best of moods.
Everyone has moments of dissatisfaction, depression, and irritability, and there are various ways to vent those negative emotions. Some like to curse, some drown their sorrows in alcohol, some fight or engage in intense sports, but Zheng Tan had never heard Mr. Jiao curse or relieve stress through other strenuous activities. Because of the children in the house, he seldom smoked and didn't often drink alcohol, only indulging when good friends visited.
Different from others, when Mr. Jiao was feeling down and had no solution, he would read Mr. Zhou's essays. The last time Zheng Tan remembered him doing this was in August, when Mr. Jiao was waiting for the announcement of the National Natural Science Foundation's awards, and he saw Mr. Jiao reading "The True Story of Ah Q" from Mr. Zhou's collection. Fortunately, a few days later, Mr. Jiao's name was indeed on the list of grantees.
As for today...
Zheng Tan jumped onto the desk and saw that Mr. Jiao was reading—"On 'Damn It'".
...after all, time marches forward, and we cannot go back to the era of "damn it". After much thought and backed by a profound cultural heritage, a phrase more elegant than "damn it", more civilized, and even more satisfying than "cool" was found—"Damn". Comfortably, the phrase "I'm damned" started to be shouted out loud...
Seeing these words, Zheng Tan glanced once more at Mr. Jiao, who was seriously reading the book, and tugged at his ear. Okay, everyone has a different way of venting their frustrations, and he didn't understand Mr. Jiao's thought processes.
Zheng Tan jumped down from the desk and headed to the balcony to get some fresh air. The night air had a refreshing coolness to it, with a faint scent of flowers. Before Zheng Tan could take a deep breath, he heard a unique singing voice coming from the fourth floor.
"I planted a melon under the wall~ I water it every day, I look at it every day~ it sprouted~ it flowered~ it bore a big watermelon~, a big watermelon, oh such a big watermelon, too big to embrace...~"
Zheng Tan: "..."
Hold your granny's paw!
The parrot was busy watering with a little watering can; during the summer, it had spat some watermelon seeds into a flower pot on the balcony, which had accidentally sprouted into melon vines, a development that made it ecstatic for quite some time. Now, whenever it watered the plant, it sang "Planting Melons".
Oddly enough, the melon plant had survived. Considering the bird's owner would sometimes be away for weeks on business trips, leaving no one to water it, it was left to the mercy of the weather, staying hydrated only if it rained.
As for fertilization, well, there was no shortage of bird droppings, so extra care wasn't needed.
Zheng Tan looked in that direction and saw that the melon plant had grown quite a bit, but he wondered how long the poor plant could sustain this growth.
Taking advantage of the fact that the parrot hadn't noticed him yet, Zheng Tan slipped back into the living room, rolled around on the sofa, and closed his eyes to nap. He had to wake up early tomorrow for a run. Recently, completing an entire lap around the campus hadn't been as tiring as when he first started. Wei Leng had said that in a few days, they would step up the training intensity, including tree climbing. So much yet to do...
A night of pleasant dreams.
The next day, Zheng Tan, faced with a bowl of three delicacies noodles, wished he could cry tears of joy. Indeed, having someone at home was wonderful, no need to eat at the canteen.
After finishing the noodles, Zheng Tan strolled leisurely to the big lawn, where Wei Leng was warming up and waiting.
"You're fifteen minutes later than yesterday."
Zheng Tan ignored him, resting a while to settle his stomach.
After wandering around the lawn for a bit, he began his daily run around the campus. The recent running had made the pads of his feet quite rough. It hurt for the first few days, but it got much better after that.
Today's run included a stretch different from usual, a more secluded detour that involved climbing a hill and taking stairs, making the route longer and more tiring.
After completing the run, Zheng Tan's limbs almost scraped against the ground, his body devoid of strength, as he trudged slowly towards the East Residential Area. Wei Leng followed beside him. At this point, if no one was beside him, a tiny Chihuahua might have claimed his life.
As they neared the courtyard of the East Residential Area, Zheng Tan glanced towards the small woods. Ah Huang was rolling in the grass, the sheriff was eyeing a pigeon on a branch. As for Da Pang, after scanning the area, that fellow was still asleep in a pile of rocks.
In the weedy pile of rocks, if you didn't look carefully, you wouldn't notice a cat crouched there, squatting with curled legs, tucked into a shape of a peanut with its head burrowed, sleeping in the bushes.
Just as Zheng Tan was about to walk over there, Da Pang's ears, which had been pressed down by his sleeping position, suddenly stood up. He swiftly got up, no longer droopy-eyed, and looked very alertly towards the road, nothing like his usual groggy self upon waking.
Ever since Da Pang had grown more horizontally, his face got plumper, making his head look bigger and his ears seem much smaller when his fur fluffed up. Nonetheless, his hearing was still excellent.
As Zheng Tan puzzled over this, Da Pang had already run towards him, and at the same time, a familiar car with a military plate drove slowly to the roadside, stopping beside Zheng Tan and the others.
The closed car window began to lower slowly, and before half of it was even down, Da Pang had leapt, darting through the small opening and into the car.
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Zheng Tan wouldn't have thought this fatty could jump so nimbly, and with such precision to fit through just the right gap as the window opened.
However…
Da Pang, couldn't you just wait until the window was fully down before jumping? It's dangerous like that!
This cat is just a shake away from trouble. Later, I'll probably see it squatting over instant noodles again.
As Zheng Tan was thinking about Da Pang's pitiable squat over instant noodles later, Wei Leng beside him snapped a standard military salute and maintained it until the car was far away.
Zheng Tan looked at Wei Leng quizzically, then back at the departing car, still puzzled.
"That was a former leader, who rose in the ranks later on and now is a big shot," Wei Leng explained, noticing Zheng Tan's confusion. No wonder he thought it strange when he first saw that fat cat; it turned out he had been trained by this individual. With that in mind, the cat's behavior that day made sense. It seemed that Da Pang had hidden depths.
Zheng Tan was still in shock, not expecting Da Pang to have such a prominent person in its family.
Wei Leng tossed his empty mineral water bottle into the trash can. Even though he had been discharged from service, his salute just now was purely reflexive.
"Can you jump like that accurately?" Wei Leng asked.
Zheng Tan knew he was referring to Da Pang's precise leap just now. He tugged at his ear, seeming to doubt whether he could manage a jump like that. If the car window were fully open, he could easily leap in, but considering the gap as it was… the difficulty was not insignificant; he might bump his head or get his limbs caught.
In theory, Zheng Tan was not as fat as Da Pang, so it should be easier for him, but he had no confidence.
"Which means, you're still far from matching that fatty," Wei Leng concluded. What he had just seen was only the tip of the iceberg of the fat cat's abilities. He believed that it was capable of much more, and although he hadn't seen it move much since coming to Chuhua University, its keen perceptiveness, alertness, and calculating ability, plus a jumping power that was not inferior to other cats despite some weigh, all pointed to its singularity.
"The revolution is not yet a success, comrade, you must continue to strive!" With that, Wei Leng ran off, not continuing his campus run like the previous days, but heading off-campus to catch up with friends and share today's experiences.
Zheng Tan, now having caught his breath, climbed around in the bushes and waited until noon to go home for lunch.
Meanwhile, Mr. Jiao had returned home to copy a file and just happened to see the moment when Wei Leng saluted toward the car. He had heard from Yi Xin about his cat exercising with someone in the morning, and Old Mrs. Zhai had also mentioned it to him, he was considering investigating Wei Leng, but then he witnessed this scene.
Good to have recognition.
After copying the data, Mr. Jiao went downstairs to Da Pang's house for a bit and came out ten minutes later.
That evening, when the Jiao couple was discussing Zheng Tan, Mr. Jiao said, "Don't worry. Even though the specifics of that Wei Leng's identity are unclear, he can definitely be trusted. Let Heitan learn a few tricks from him, so it won't be at a disadvantage if it travels far in the future."