Chapter 12: Meow
Back in their own ward, the care worker went straight to the bathroom to wash the lunch box that had been soaking in soapy water since noon.
The little guy had fallen asleep at noon, and the bathroom’s soundproofing wasn’t good. She had also been a bit sleepy, so the lunch box had been left soaking unwashed.
Jing Mimi held Jing Zhi’s hand and sat back on the hospital bed. Suddenly, he spoke: “Papa, can you teach me how to write?”
He didn’t want to be an illiterate kitten.
He heard that humans have to go to school and take college entrance exams. He wanted to study hard, get into college, and become an educated kitten.
“Sure.” Jing Zhi was naturally willing and immediately asked him to take out crayons and cardstock from the drawer.
In a moment, the two characters for “Mimi” appeared on the paper.
Jing Zhi’s handwriting wasn’t considered beautiful. Back in high school, his homeroom teacher always supervised him practicing copybooks, fearing his handwriting would affect his scores on the college entrance exam. After practicing for so long, it could only be considered neat.
Speaking of beautiful handwriting, among the people Jing Zhi had met over the years, Jiang Suifeng ranked second, and no one could rank first.
Jiang Suifeng had practiced calligraphy under his grandfather’s influence since childhood. The couplets pasted on their door now were written by him personally.
Having been together for so many years, Jiang Suifeng had also taught him to write when they had nothing to do. He bought a water-writing cloth that changed color when wet, requiring no ink, which was convenient for amateur learning.
At that time, the kitten Mimi curiously jumped up, dipped its paw in a little water, and left a string of cute plum blossom prints on the water-writing cloth.
Seeing this, Jiang Suifeng dipped the kitten’s tail in some water and used the tip of the tail as a brush to write the words “Jing Mimi was here” on the cloth. It looked even better than what he wrote with a proper brush.
Speaking of teaching Mimi to write, Jing Zhi uncontrollably thought of Jiang Suifeng.
He quickly shook those messy thoughts out of his head, pointed to the two characters, and explained, “This is Mimi.”
If worst came to worst, he could buy copybooks for Mimi or enroll him in a calligraphy class. It wasn’t like he couldn’t do it without Jiang Suifeng.
Jing Mimi examined the two characters with a look of novelty for a long time, gently stroking them with his finger, staining it with a bit of crayon color.
So Mimi’s name is written like this.
Like two beautiful exploding fireworks.
He liked it very much.
Soon, he raised his round amber eyes, looked at the person holding the crayon, and asked, “How do you write Papa’s name?”
Jing Zhi wrote his own name next to “Mimi” and explained, “This is Jing Zhi.”
Jing Mimi examined it for a while and felt that Papa’s name was so complicated. His finger traced along the lines, picking up a deeper color.
Although complicated, he was memorizing it firmly and would never forget it.
Soon, he tilted his little head up again and said to Jing Zhi, “There’s one more.”
Jing Zhi’s fingers holding the pen paused, his fingertips turning slightly white from the force. His originally clear and gentle voice became tinged with nervousness and dryness: “…What?”
Jing Mimi whispered, “There’s one more Papa’s name.”
The care worker auntie wasn’t there, so there was no need to worry about outsiders hearing.
Anyway, Papa had already seen through his identity as a kitten, so he didn’t need to hide it in front of Papa anymore.
Although he had guessed the meaning of the little cub’s words long ago, hearing him say it with his own ears, Jing Zhi still couldn’t control his wildly beating heart.
Perhaps he should explain to him again that he and the other Papa had broken up, and he could only choose one Papa to live with now.
But under the gaze of those clear amber eyes, Jing Zhi lowered his eyes, gripped the pen hard, and wrote the three characters “Jiang Suifeng” next to “Mimi” and “Jing Zhi.”
Jing Mimi’s eyes widened even more.
Why are Papas’ names getting more and more complicated…!
The kitten was about to get dizzy from all these lines pieced together.
His small hand reached out again, gently stroking Big Papa’s name. Because there were too many strokes, he stroked it for a longer time and picked up more color.
Just then, Jing Zhi’s phone suddenly vibrated.
Two gazes fell on it simultaneously.
It was a familiar number without a saved name.
Jing Mimi’s brows furrowed instantly. Reacting even faster than Jing Zhi, he rejected the familiar bad call.
His finger, stained with crayon color, left a faint fingerprint on the phone screen.
Having ended the annoying bad call, Jing Mimi turned his eyes back to continue looking at Big Papa’s name.
Jing Zhi: “…”
For some reason, Jing Zhi suddenly wanted to laugh.
If Mimi knew that the call he hung up was from his other Papa, he wondered what his reaction would be.
Jing Zhi pulled out a tissue, wiped the residual fingerprint off the phone, and cleaned the little guy’s fingers.
While throwing away the tissue, he replied to Jiang Suifeng’s number with a text message: [Talk when you get back.]
Jiang Suifeng replied almost instantly: [Okay, I’ll come back as soon as possible.]
He meant he wanted to talk about Mimi. Jiang Suifeng probably misunderstood, but he didn’t know how to explain it either.
Jing Zhi pursed his lips and exited the message interface.
With his fingers wiped clean, Jing Mimi couldn’t wait to pick up the pen Papa had put down and started copying his movements.
Perhaps due to the age-related skill buff inherent in this four-year-old body, although it was his first time writing, he picked it up very quickly.
Generally speaking, four-year-old children can scribble and draw with a pen. Just like four-year-old children can speak, he mastered it without a teacher after entering this body.
When the care worker came out of the bathroom, she saw the little cub writing seriously.
She walked over curiously to take a look and found that he was writing Jing Zhi’s name by copying a card.
Or “drawing” would be more appropriate. He wasn’t writing stroke by stroke according to the structure, but treating the character as a pattern made of lines and drawing it out.
Jing Zhi was correcting this mistake, holding his small hand and teaching him the correct strokes.
The care worker watched this scene cheerfully and asked casually, “Who is this Jiang Suifeng?”
There were three names on the card: Mimi, Jing Zhi, and Jiang Suifeng.
Jing Zhi had explained the name Mimi to her at noon, saying it was the name of the kitten the family used to raise. His friend named Fang Yuan came over today and mentioned it several times, and somehow the little cub mistakenly thought it was his new name. Since they didn’t know what to call the little guy, they just called him that for now. She didn’t suspect anything and thought it sounded quite smooth; it was just a nickname anyway.
She knew Jing Zhi’s name, but this was the first time she had seen Jiang Suifeng.
Afraid the little guy would answer that it was his other Papa, Jing Zhi rushed to say, “It’s a name in my contacts.”
After saying that, he opened the contacts on his phone with great pretense, scrolled randomly, and very naturally taught the little cub to write Fang Yuan’s name.
The care worker didn’t think too much about it and believed Jing Zhi was just picking random names from his contacts to teach the little cub to write.
Jing Mimi turned into a curious kitten, looking at Papa’s phone interface, and asked, “What are contacts?”
Jing Zhi would actively answer any questions the little cub had about exploring the human world: “It’s something that records other people’s contact information. When Uncle Fang Yuan gets off work, I’ll teach you to call him.”
“Okay!” Jing Mimi’s gaze burned brightly.
Jing Zhi continued to teach him to write.
Because the care worker was watching, Jing Zhi could only stick to the lie and teach him to write the names of people in his contacts.
There were quite a few people in his contacts, recorded from middle school until now. He had even forgotten who some of the names belonged to.
He picked the names of some people who had interacted with the kitten Mimi to teach him.
“This is Shen Luo, this is Shen Ziyuan.”
Jing Mimi blinked. Seeing the care worker auntie looking down at her own phone, he whispered, “Papa, how do you write Chestnut?”
Jing Zhi’s heart moved slightly, and he wrote the two characters for “Chestnut” (Li Zi) on the paper.
Shen Luo and Shen Ziyuan were a couple, and Chestnut was a one-eared kitten they adopted from a rescue station.
Before moving into Happiness Community, he and Jiang Suifeng rented an apartment in another community with a slightly worse environment. Shen Luo and Shen Ziyuan lived in the same building. Shen Luo was a beauty blogger streaming on the same platform as Jing Zhi. Over time, the two families got to know each other.
Mimi and Chestnut got along well. Occasionally, when he and Jiang Suifeng had to travel far for something, they would send Mimi to stay with them for a while.
Two years ago, Chestnut’s life came to an end. Unlike Mimi, it died of old age, a natural death.
After Chestnut passed away, the couple didn’t raise any new cats. Last year, they got married, and Shen Luo became pregnant this year. Jing Zhi often saw their sweet daily life on his social media feed.
Jing Mimi learned to write Sister Chestnut’s name stroke by stroke.
He wondered what Sister Chestnut’s wish would be.
He wanted to help Sister Chestnut fulfill her wish the most.
After writing other people’s names for a while, Jing Mimi didn’t want to learn new characters anymore and started writing “Mimi,” “Jing Zhi,” and “Jiang Suifeng” again.
Jing Zhi couldn’t do anything with him. Afraid the care worker would see through something, he taught him to play Happy Match (a match-3 game) on his phone.
A puzzle game to kill time, suitable for all ages.
For this, he specially logged into the game with his alternate WeChat account so the little guy could start playing from level one.
Not long after, a certain kitten who hadn’t even started learning Chinese properly had already learned English—unbelievable.
His pronunciation was quite standard.
As expected of a British cat.
…
The kitten, new to mobile phones, got a bit addicted. Afraid he would develop an internet addiction at such a young age, Jing Zhi estimated the time and said to him, “Uncle Fang Yuan should be off work now. You can call him.”
Fang Yuan’s off-work time was when the last class of the high school afternoon ended. Although he had graduated many years ago, Jing Zhi still remembered it. After all, time was tight in his senior year of high school. He once rushed into the cafeteria at the bell, finished a bowl of noodles in two minutes, and rushed back to the classroom to continue doing practice problems.
His stomach really suffered following him.
Compared to games, making a phone call obviously attracted Jing Mimi more. He immediately handed the phone to Papa and asked him to teach him how to call.
The steps were simple: open contacts, find Uncle Fang Yuan’s name, click on his card, and then tap the call button.
Fang Yuan picked up very quickly.
Jing Zhi rarely called him directly unless it was an emergency. Unimportant matters were usually left as messages on WeChat.
“Hello? Jing’er, what’s up?”
Jing Zhi smiled and didn’t speak, signaling the little guy to answer with his eyes.
This was Jing Mimi’s first time making a phone call. Clutching the phone with both small hands, he swallowed nervously, his lips moving, unable to find his voice.
Fang Yuan’s voice sounded again, tinged with serious anxiety: “What happened?”
Under the urging, Jing Mimi finally spoke: “Uncle Fang Yuan, I am Mimi.”
The other end of the phone obviously paused for a moment. A few seconds later, a male voice, unconsciously pitched higher, sounded: “It’s Mimi. What’s wrong?”
Jing Mimi answered, “Papa is teaching me to call people in the contacts.”
Fang Yuan: “Oh oh… Mimi is amazing, you made the call successfully.”
Although the praise was awkward, it was clear he was trying hard to learn how to be a kindergarten teacher.
Jing Zhi smiled and took the phone, saying to Fang Yuan, “Go eat. Won’t disturb you anymore. Don’t you have evening self-study tonight?”
Fang Yuan’s unconsciously pitched voice returned to normal. “Eating now. If you’re discharged tomorrow, tell me, I’ll pick you up.”
Tomorrow was Saturday, no work.
But it was uncertain what the results of Jing Zhi’s gastroscopy would be tomorrow and whether he could be discharged tomorrow.
“Mm, we’ll see tomorrow.”
Jing Zhi hung up the phone, pondering how to avoid being taken by Fang Yuan to see that whatever psychiatrist.
Jing Mimi was waiting to take the phone back to look for Big Papa’s name in the contacts when he saw Little Papa plug the phone into the charger and say to him, “Phone’s out of battery. Let’s eat first.”
Jing Mimi had to obediently eat first.
He knew that when his papas argued, they wouldn’t talk to each other. Little Papa definitely wouldn’t agree to call Big Papa, so the kitten could only call secretly.
After eating, Jing Mimi couldn’t wait to get the phone. Jing Zhi, with quick eyes and hands, stopped him, afraid he would get addicted to the internet, and took him downstairs with the care worker for a stroll to digest food.
The snow had stopped.
The snow in December wasn’t too heavy yet, so not much had accumulated on the ground.
There was a self-service printer on the first floor of the hospital. Jing Zhi found a basic copybook for toddlers online, printed a few pages, and brought them back to the ward for the little guy to copy.
Driven by the dream of becoming an educated kitten, Jing Mimi obediently copied all the copybooks Papa printed until his small hands were sore.
Finally finished, he was just about to get the phone when he heard Papa say, “It’s late. Time to wash up and sleep.”
The kitten’s sky collapsed.
…
Middle of the night.
Nestled in Papa’s arms, Jing Mimi suddenly opened his eyes.
He carefully turned over, and in the darkness, moved slowly towards the edge of the bed.
A small hand suddenly reached out from under the quilt, accurately found the phone on the bedside table, and took it down.
He turned on the phone, entered the numeric password he saw Papa enter during the day, and successfully unlocked it.
His small hand impatiently tapped on the contacts, searching for Big Papa’s name.
But after searching from beginning to end, he couldn’t find Big Papa’s name.
Jing Mimi was a bit anxious. He wiggled his slightly stiff body, preparing to search again, when he suddenly sensed something and felt a chill down his back.
Papa’s voice sounded slowly: “Mimi, what are you doing instead of sleeping?”
***
Author’s Note:
Mimi: Want to call Big Papa [Pitiful]
Jing: The cub has internet addiction [Cracking up]
Jiang: Already blocked and removed from contacts [Clown]
British Cat Joke: Little Cat Mi’s breed is a cream-white British Shorthair Scottish Fold. British Shorthair – British Cat.
