Lin Song’s cat is named Xiao Xiao, from the word xiaosǎ, meaning “dashing” or “free-spirited.”
This British Shorthair was a gift from the “Cat Auntie” in Building 7 of his apartment complex. The Cat Auntie keeps seventeen cats. Xiao Xiao and his three siblings were born to the same mother, and he was the runt of the litter.
When the Cat Auntie placed Xiao Xiao in Lin Song’s hands, she confidently told him it was a female. “Taking a cat from me,” she declared, “is like taking home a bundle of good fortune.”
Lin Song was, in fact, less than thrilled. He had no extravagant hopes of getting rich to begin with. But the Cat Auntie was a woman of her word, resolute in her decisions. A cat given was like a sneeze sneezed—it could not be taken back. Left with no choice, Lin Song stuffed the two-month-old kitten into a burlap sack and carried it home. The little creature was timid, entirely lacking the calm, aristocratic air of the eight-year-old British Shorthair at the café near his building.
Back home, Lin Song released the kitten from the bag. To his surprise, Xiao Xiao showed no fear. Full of vigor, it inspected every corner of every room before finally stopping to sit poised in the center of the living room. This, Lin Song had to admit, was quite satisfying. It seemed the feng shui of his home was decent after all.
Last Thursday, however, when Lin Song took Xiao Xiao for its vaccinations, Dr. Liu at the vet clinic took one look, felt with two fingers, and stated definitively, “This one’s a male. He’ll have to go under the knife when he’s older.”
So be it, Lin Song thought. There’s no shortage of offspring among city cats. One less wouldn’t make a difference.
Lin Song had once read in a book that cats first left the wild and entered human granaries about nine thousand years ago. Mice ate the grain, and cats hunted the mice. This was their initial pact with humanity. From then on, cats began to keep company with people.
But cats, it seems, are not keen on making friends with other cats. They are born loners, with no leaders and no hierarchy among them. As solitary hunters, they lack coordination, which makes hunting for food and fending off predators in the wild exceedingly difficult. They fear the cold; rainy days drastically reduce their vitality. Their ancestors hailed from the arid heat of the Middle East or North Africa, and their fur offered poor protection against the cold.
And so, upon discovering humans—these “large companion animals”—cats made a decision that would shape the destiny of their entire species. They presented their neotenic, kitten-like features to humans, skillfully leveraging human empathy. Humans would willingly care for the highly vulnerable kittens, providing them with shelter and food. In this way, cats chose the city and were destined to become a part of human life. They exchanged their seemingly “useless” companionship for the security of propagation.
When he was on a business trip in Shunde, Lin Song’s breakfast was always the same: two slices of toast from the toaster, a fried egg, a few leaves of lettuce, and a thick spread of peanut butter. He suspected he might be slightly allergic to peanuts, but over time, his body seemed to have learned to compromise.
But he dared not be the slightest bit careless with Xiao Xiao’s diet. After lunch, Xiao Xiao required a meal of pumpkin mixed with chicken breast. If this dish was in his bowl, he would absolutely not touch his cat food. If it wasn’t there and he was truly hungry, he might deign to have a few bites of the kibble in his cage. Milk was also a daily necessity, and not fresh milk, but formula powder from a can that cost over two hundred yuan, carefully prepared.
Every night before bed, Lin Song had to clean the cat’s eyes, swab its ears, brush its teeth, and even wipe its bottom. Xiao Xiao protested vigorously against the butt-wiping, but its resistance was futile. As night fell, Lin Song had to have him cleaned from head to toe before he himself could feel at ease.
In the future, will humans fall in love with AI? The meticulously groomed cats in TikTok videos seem to be smirking from behind the screen.
Some people are inherently “allergic” to other humans, including themselves. And so, they can only choose the company of cats. Lin Song sometimes thinks that if he starts doing more good deeds now, perhaps in his next life, he could be reincarnated as a cat. What a fortunate fate that would be.
On Saturday morning, the radio played its usual soothing songs. Lin Song didn’t go to the car wash. He was waiting for the next rain, a downpour that could wash away the dust.
His mind wandered, and for a moment, he almost rear-ended the car in front of him. He slammed on the brakes. The backpack on the passenger seat tumbled headfirst onto the floor. He was stuck at the approach to the Zhiyin Bridge, where the tall buildings on either side of the street looked as if they’d been split apart by a giant axe, leaving only a sliver of sky. The red light ahead flashed relentlessly. He couldn’t squeeze through.
Whenever his wheels rolled over the stained marks on the expressway, Lin Song would begin to silently recite the mantra that Qi Lin had taught him, a prayer for the souls of the departed creatures: “Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ…”
For the cats that lose their way on the city’s expressways, these roads are their killing fields. There is no one to blame, Lin Song thought. Not the drivers, not the cats. If anything is to be blamed, blame this unyielding city and the helplessness of fate.