Chapter 28 Cat professional

My aunt told me that his father was not doing his job properly. Others were busy making money in the cellar weaving straw sandals, but his father was wandering around with two big cats in his arms.My aunt said that when he was born, the People’s Liberation Army’s artillery team fired live ammunition on the saline-alkali land behind the village, and there were puffs of smoke standing on the wasteland, some white and some black.The sound of the cannon was so loud that it shook the window paper. When he was seven years old, he fought with me, scratched my cheek with his hands, bit my ear with his teeth, and bled a lot.When he was bumped into by his aunt, his aunt scolded him: "Da Xiang, you wild cat, why do you still bite people?"

He kept licking his lips with the tip of his tongue, like a cat licking rat blood from his lips, his eyes were narrowed, and he didn't speak or move amidst my aunt's scolding.A blue cat jumped out of my mill house with a mouse in its mouth. The mouse was so big that it dropped the cat's head.His squinted eyes suddenly opened, and a ray of light shot out from them, bright green.With his hands raised to his chest, his body shrank, and within a moment, he flew straight to the cat and caught the big mouse.The blue cat screamed a few times, bared its teeth at him as if crying, but had no choice but to slip against the wall and slipped into the mill house again.My aunt stopped wrapping my ears with corn husks, and her mouth was half-opened stiffly without speaking.My aunt and I both stared at the loud noise of the big mouse in his hand, and there was a mysterious smile on his face that seemed stupid or maybe cruel.

Later, Da Xiang followed his father to the east of the Guandong, and once he went there, he never heard from him again.Two years before I joined the army, an old Kanto guest who was a bit confused returned to his hometown. I sat with him to weave thatch for the production team. When I asked about Daxiang’s family, the Kanto guest said with a narrow eye, “Daxiang’s father is dead.” , Da Bang was eaten by a lynx.When asked about the shape of the lynx, the Kanto guest was full of gossip, and only said that it looked like a very ferocious beast that was bigger than a cat and smaller than a dog. Even tigers and bears were afraid of it.

Da Bang was eaten by a lynx, and I didn't feel sad, but I suddenly remembered the enigmatic smile on his face that seemed cruel or maybe stupid. Lao Guandong died a year after returning to his hometown, and was buried in the old cemetery in the east of the village. The villagers all said that this is called returning to the roots, and it is hard to leave his homeland. No matter how poor he is, he will never forget it. In the early winter of another year, conscription began, and the People's Liberation Army who came to lead the troops were all wearing big-toed leather shoes and sheepskin coats, and they were told that they were from Heilongjiang.Immediately, I remembered the mysterious legends of the old Guandong guest about the Kanto, and I remembered the big sound that was eaten by the lynx. Everyone was shocked... At that time, life in the countryside was not good, and young people wanted to be soldiers, and they fought hard.Because my aunt married Xing Mazi, the commander of the militia company, in the first two years, I got the honor and got the notice of enlistment without fighting or grabbing.Sitting in a stuffy truck, I drove northwards for an unknown amount of time, until I arrived at the edge of a big forest. There were dazzling trees and snow, and the wind howled. At night, the forest was full of wolves howling.When the chief heard that I had raised pigs at home, he assigned me to raise dogs.When I was raising a dog, I often sneaked a red meat enema for the dog. I was criticized, but I couldn’t change it, because when I saw the red enema, I felt restless as if I was mentally ill, and I had to eat it. Eating can't calm down the restless mood... Now I still dare not recall the shape and taste of the red enema... When I was eating the red enema, two mirages appeared alternately in front of my eyes: a loud noise hit the cat's head like electricity, Rats are intercepted.A silly or cruel smile on the face... The lynx licks the loud bone with its barbed tongue, licking the smile like it erases writing on paper...

It was as if I had seen a lynx before, with the vigilant and ferocious face of the lynx floating in my mind. Because my bad habits were hard to change, I was transferred to the cooking class and was responsible for lighting fires and feeding pigs.One day, the instructor and the cooking squad leader went to the mountain to have a heart-to-heart talk, and they caught three kittens, bobcats!The pattern on the whole body is intertwined with black and gray, and the black one is particularly bright. The ears are erect and sharp, which seem to be sharper than that of a domestic cat, and the rest are not much different from that of a domestic cat.The story of the bobcat eating Da Xiang is over.

A few days after the little bobcat was captured, the veterans were demobilized. As soon as the list was announced, the cooking squad leader was the first and I was the last.The cooking squad leader has been in the army for five years, and it is rumored that he will be promoted to chief of staff. He is active in his work and often does ideological work for me.I served in the army for two years and was demobilized because I stole red enema!Demobilization is demobilization, and I finally had enough food for two years, and I was issued several sets of new clothes and hats from head to toe, inside and out, enough to last half my life!I have been a soldier for two years, and my life is not in vain.I think so.But the cooking squad leader didn't think so. When he announced the demobilization list, he fainted on the spot as soon as his name was read.The hygienist pricked him with a needle for a long time before he woke up.When he woke up, he was crying and screaming.Later, he chopped off the heads of two little bobcats with a kitchen knife—he pressed a little bobcat on the cutting board (the little bobcat thought he was joking, meowed and scratched his paws) hand), raised the kitchen knife high, and shouted: "Company commander! Damn you!" At the same time, the kitchen knife fell like lightning, the cat's head rolled to the ground, the kitchen knife stood on the cutting board, and black blood flowed from the cat's cavity.The cat's eyes blinked, and the cat's tail straightened up with a creaking sound. After standing up for a while, it slowly fell down.He pressed the second little bobcat on the cutting board again. On the plate full of cat blood and next to the corpses of its compatriots, this little bobcat was crying frantically.With his mouth crooked and eyes red, the cooking squad leader pulled out the knife from the cutting board, held it up high, and cursed: "Instructor, your mother!" As soon as the knife fell, the cat's head fell to the ground, and the cat's blood spattered his chest.People rushed over, including company commanders and instructors.The cooking squad leader squatted on the ground, his mouth crooked, and two tears welled up. He said, "Instructor...company commander...leave me...I don't want to go back..."

The little lynx that was not beheaded by the cooking squad leader was put into a cardboard box by me and brought back to my hometown.The cooking squad leader killed the cat and begged to no avail. He took the same car with me, went to the train station with a sad face, and took a coal-fired train back to his hometown.It is said that his hometown is even poorer than mine. Fearing that the lynx would be fined by the conductor for barking on the train, the deputy company commander gave me an iron tube of fish soaked in shochu, fed the cat drunk, and let it sleep.The deputy company commander said, you can feed it with fish as soon as it wakes up.The deputy company commander is from my hometown. He said that there is a plague of rats in his hometown and there is a shortage of cats.

Although I no longer believed in the nonsense that Da Xiang was eaten by a bobcat after seeing the bobcat, but when I ran into him on the street, I still had a "Gorden" in my heart, and looked at each other, first looking at each other's faces firmly, and then from scratch. Sweep up and down on the ground, and then call each other names. His body has grown a lot, but his face still has the same expression from decades ago. When he doesn't speak, there is that mysterious smile on his face, which seems stupid and cruel. "'Kaba' said you let the lynx eat it!" The "Kaba" I said was the name of the old Kanto.

He grinned and asked, "Lynx?" Even field mice have come into the village. With beans in their mouths and bulging cheeks, they run slowly on the street. Cracks in walls, haystacks, rat holes that can be seen everywhere on the side of the road. "Have you ever seen a lynx?" he asked me. I told him that I brought a little lynx back from Kanto, and it was lying at my aunt's house, and I haven't really sobered up yet! He was so happy that he immediately asked me to take him to see the bobcats. I insisted on seeing his home first. His home was the work-keeping room used by the production team, and he bought it.There are four rooms, with earthen walls and wooden lattice windows. There are three rows of tiles on the house, two rows of tiles are blue, and one row of tiles is red.Two big cats are lying on his kang, and three kittens are playing games on the kang.Dozens of mouse skins were nailed to the earthen walls.Next to his pillow was a book, khaki paper, bound with black thread, with a few stupid black characters written on the cover with a brush: Asahi mouse urges cat.I opened the book curiously. There were no words on the book, but there were some strange patterns drawn on it.Maybe there were words on other pages, I don't know, I just took one look at the patterns and he snatched the book away.He yelled at me sharply: "Don't look!"

My face turned red a little, I felt so myself, and asked embarrassingly, "What kind of broken book? I'm afraid people will read it." He seemed a little embarrassed, stroked the book and said, "This is my father's book." "Written by your father?" "No, my father got it from Taoist Wu." "Is it Taoist Wu who guards the tower?" "I do not know either." I know that tower, the cracks in the bricks are full of withered grass, and it has been like this for decades.The Taoist priest lived in a small house in front of the pagoda. He wore a black robe, often bald, with the skirt tucked in his waist, and worked hard to hoe the ground in front of the pagoda.

"Don't be caught by a demon!" I said. He grinned, that stupid, cruel smile on his face.He put the book in the box and locked it with a big bronze lock. He muttered something in his mouth. All five cats squatted up, bowed their waists, and stared at his mouth with round eyes. My back was a bit chilly, and I seemed to hear the whistling sound of the extremely distant mountains and forests in my ears. I was about to say something when I heard a slap, and saw a snow-white red-eyed rat fall from the beam and fell to the ground. In front of the group of cats, he was dumbfounded and his body did not tremble.The white mouse also seemed to have that stupid and cruel smile on its face. Da Xiang caught the mouse, looked at it for a long time, and said, "Let you live!" Then he muttered a few words in his mouth, the cats flattened their backs, and let out a few lazily calls. The old cat lay down to sleep, and the little one The cat bit its tail and played.The red-eyed white-haired mouse suddenly became angry and spirited, jumped down from Da Bang's hands, crawled along the wall, and crawled back to the beam head. The old dust fell down, making my nostrils itchy. I was very surprised at that time, and seeing the enigmatic smile on Da Xiang's face, I felt even more mysterious about him.For a while, even the cats, and even the old dusty New Year pictures on the earthen wall seemed to be supernatural beings, and they all opened their condescending, superhumanly intelligent eyes, looking at me in the dark and sneering. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked loudly. Loudly chased away the smiling man and said to me seriously: "Dude, everyone is running professional households to make a lot of money, so let's start a professional household too! Raise cats." Professional cat owners!Professional cat owners!It's a fun, mysterious, and very normal and attractive business. "I heard that you brought back a little bobcat from Kanto?" He asked again. In the evening I gave the little bobcat to Da Xiang, who was so excited that he kept rubbing his hands. I went to my aunt's house to drink. After drinking three cups of wine, my uncle blushed, and in the shadow of the electric lights, thousands of points of light shone on his face.He filled my wine cup and filled his own cup, put the wine pot on the "immortal furnace" to burn, cleared the mulberries, and said: "Nephew, in the blink of an eye, it will be a month since you came back. Slipping around, not doing business, your aunt and I see it, and we don’t want to talk about you. You are not young, and you eat here every day. Even if your aunt and I don’t say anything, we are afraid that we are neighbors I want to laugh at you too! Now it’s not the past two years. At that time, the village raised idlers, and they got a lot of work points when they wandered around. Now the village doesn’t support idlers, and they can’t eat without working. Your aunt and I don’t know what you think Yes, should we divide the land into a few acres or go out and find something to earn money?" My heart was a little desolate, and after drinking, I said: "Uncle, aunt, I am a young man, so naturally I can't eat at your house for nothing! Although I am an important relative, after all, it is not my home, or my parents' home. You can’t eat without working. I’ll pay you as much as you eat.” The aunt said, "Your uncle is not trying to kick you out, nor is he feeling sorry for those meals." I said: "Understood." But my uncle said: "It's good to understand, but I'm afraid of being confused. What score did you type?" I said: "These days, I have discussed with Da Xiang, and the two of us will raise cats together." On the paper ceiling, rats screeched and ran. My uncle asked, "Why do you keep a cat?" I said: "Rats are rampant in the village. Daxiang and I set up a professional cat breeding household, selling kittens and renting out big cats..." When I was about to tell my uncle about the grand plan Dahiro and I had conceived, my uncle sneered. My aunt also said: "Oh my God! How did you get together with such a psychopath to mess around? The big noise is for his father's slutty clapper, and you are the son of a decent family." Uncle sarcastically said: "There are thousands of professional households, and I haven't heard of professional households that keep cats! You two might as well build robots together!" My aunt said: "Your uncle and I have thought about it for you. I'm afraid it won't work for you to plunge into the crop fields. People who have served in the army are like this. The loudspeaker has been calling for the past few days. The county construction company is recruiting workers. I work for seven yuan a day, except for food and drink, and there are three or five yuan left. You can work for three or two years, earn three thousand and two thousand, ask for a daughter-in-law, even if you get married and start a business, I will be worthy of your parents La!" I saw Da Xiang again, and told him that I was planning to work in a construction company to earn money and couldn’t raise cats with him, and he said coldly, “It’s up to you.” From now on, it will be very difficult for me to see Da Xiang's face.When the construction company was on vacation, I went home to visit Daxiang. The two broken doors were locked tightly, and there was a line of big characters written in chalk on the door panel: professional household who raises cats and catches mice.There is a small print on the side that says: To catch a mouse, only one yuan will be charged as a reward.General Tie is holding the door, but this man is not there.But I still yelled a few times: "Loud! Loud!" There was an echo in the yard, as if calling between two mountains.I put my eyes on the door leaf and looked in. The yard was empty, and there was rainwater in the low-lying places. The white mouse I had seen ran in the yard, and a piece of mouse skin was nailed to the wall. The loud neighbor, the old lady of the Sun family, came to meet me, with two phosphorescent eyes shining under her white hair.She was leaning on a prickly ash wood crutch, and a layer of white skin was cracked on her dry calf.She asked, "Did you ask Da Lou to take out the mouse? He's not here." "Grandma Sun, I want to play with Da Xiang. I am the son of the old Zhao family. Don't you know me?" The old lady leaned on a cane with one hand, and covered her brow bone with the other. She looked at me and said, "Everyone wants to be named Zhao, and they all say that he is the son of the old Zhao family. There is honey on 'Zhao'! Is there sesame oil?" I immediately understood that the old lady was also confused. She turned around with a quickness that was inappropriate for her age, and said to me: "Da Xiang is a good boy. He made a fortune. He bought me honey to eat, and you bought me poison. Think of good things, but I won't eat them!" For a few years, you poisoned the rats and poisoned all the cats to death, don’t even think about it, don’t think about it..." When I went home and told my aunt about the big noise, my aunt said, "This lunatic! He's not a lunatic, he's also a monster!" Uncle interjected, "Don't say that! Da Xiang is not a simple person. I heard that he made a fortune in Forty-Eight Village, a stretch south of the Mo River!" The rumors about Da Bang were like thunder in 1985. At that time, I was recruited to boil water in the cadre cafeteria of the county party committee compound. I got married and my daughter-in-law’s belly was also bulging. I hoped that she would give birth to a son. But she didn't live up to it, and finally gave birth to a daughter. After my daughter was born, I took a month off and went home to serve my wife during confinement.In these days, there was a loud noise once, and he sat in the yard and did not enter the house.He was a little thinner than before, but his eyes were piercing, and his words were more mysterious, but after careful consideration, he seemed to be normal.He said: "Brother, congratulations, joy has fallen from the sky! The universe is so bright! I don't have time to cook chicken soup, eat rats in the south, and travel a lot to stay healthy. I can't live forever! I will give you two hundred yuan to add clothes to my sister-in-law and niece." .” He patted a red paper bag in my hand, turned around and left.Before I could give in, I saw his black figure had melted into the shadow of the moon in the distance.A willow whistle is heartbreaking.I don't know if the willow whistle was blown loudly.A few days later, in search of traditional Chinese medicine, I rode my bicycle to Ma Village in a neighboring county. There was a large Chinese medicine shop there, which was famous in all three counties.When I rode to a small village not far from Ma Village, I saw men, women, and children in the village stumbling towards the village. I got off the car and asked, saying that there was a master who set up a ritual field in the village and wanted to arrest all the rats in the village. drowned in the pond.I was stunned, and immediately thought that it was a loud noise, so I pushed the cart and followed the crowd.When approaching the pond, I had already seen men and women forming a big circle.Under the weeping willow tree, stood a tall and thin man, wearing a black cloak, with fluffy hair, like a puff of green smoke.I lowered my straw hat to cover my brows, set up my bicycle, and squeezed into the crowd, hiding my head behind a tall man, for fear of being seen by Loud. At first I thought that this person might not necessarily be Loud, his eyes sometimes slackened and sometimes condensed, when slackened they flickered like two pools of starlight, and when condensed they were like two puddles of blue water and cold air, as if piercing through the heart of the viewer; then I thought he must be Loud.Because no matter whether his eyes are slack or frozen, the enigmatic stupid or cruel smile that I am extremely familiar with always hangs on his face.Behind him, squatting eight cats. He seemed to be the head of the village—an old man with a gray beard walked up to Da Xiang and said in a hoarse voice, "You have to do your best to catch a mouse, and I will give you a dollar, and I will take care of you at noon." Good smoke and good food; no rats... This place is not far from the police station, and the day before yesterday, a woman who was a great dancer was arrested!" Loud didn't say anything, but made that unforgettable smile even stronger.The gray beard retreated into the crowd.Da Xiang lifted a copper gong from behind the cat and struck it three times.He was barefoot, and the black robe was painted with strange patterns, hundreds of mouse tails were adorned on the robe, the sleeves of the robe swung, and the rat tails rattled softly.He held the gong and beat it urgently, turning his body while beating the gong.The black robe spread out like huge bat wings.The group of cats also jumped with him, sometimes they jumped chaotically, sometimes they jumped in an orderly manner, but no matter whether they were chaotic or orderly, the lynx I brought back from Kanto undoubtedly always acted as the leader of the group.I haven't seen him for two years, and he has grown a lot. I can only recognize him from his extra sharp ears and the extra bright black stripes that wrap around his body.Its body is bigger than the seven cats, which is exactly what the old Kanto guest said "bigger than a cat and smaller than a dog".I always feel that the expressions on the faces of the group of cats, especially the lynxes, are closely related to the smile on Da Xiang’s face. They are consistent, common, and interoperable in nature, and belong to a group that has not yet been fully understood by human beings. It is the obscure category of mysterious spiritual phenomena. When the cats jump and dance in unison, they are like eight planets revolving around the loud noise.The sun is shining brightly, shining on the shiny cat's fur, weeping willows are kissing the pond full of green weeds, and dragonflies are gliding silently.The cat's body is very long and thin, and the eight cats are connected end to end, like a slippery silk. Loud and the group of cats twirled and danced, about the time it took to smoke two bags of dry cigarettes. When everyone was dazzled, the sound of the gong stopped, and both the people and the cats stood still, like actors appearing on the stage.The weather was dry and hot, and there was a layer of sweat on Da Xiang's face.Everyone stared at him with good eyes. He spoke plausibly, his voice was vague, and he couldn't make out what he meant. Two white bubbles hung on the corners of his mouth.The immobilized cat moved in his "spell", and the cat's mouth let out a meowing sound, the cat's legs were raised and lowered slowly, and the eight cats were walking on the stage like eight thick-soled boots. Traitor. The crowd gradually became a little annoyed. The scorching sun basked in their blue-blue scalps. Anxiety was an annoyance, but no one dared to speak out.In private, I was worried about the loud noise. Could it be that the mice in the whole village would come to jump into the pond so stupidly? Suddenly, the cat meowing stopped, and eight cats lined up in front of Da Xiang. Panting, the cat's eyes turned green, and the thin pupils stood straight up, like golden threads.My sweat immediately became cold and greasy, there were many phantoms in front of my eyes, bells and drums were ringing in my ears, and I saw a group of horses galloping on the cold desert outside the Great Wall, and yellow sheep fleeing in the decayed grass... I hurriedly shook my head to calm myself , there are still only eight cats showing their power in front of them.Da Xiang took out a willow flute from his waist, and played it beeping, the sound of the flute was continuous, full of mournful sobs.Looking sideways, the audience around them all tightened their heads and necks, and beads of cold sweat hung on their faces.I don't know how much time passed, there was a lot of noise behind the people, the sound of the flute was suddenly high-pitched like the chirping of autumn geese, and the group of cats also yelled loudly.Someone turned around and shouted "coming", the crowd suddenly parted, and a thoroughfare was opened. Thousands of rats squeaked, mixed in size and mottled in color.flocked.Everyone didn't dare to breathe, their bodies tightened, and they were all short.Da Xiang closed his eyes and just played the willow flute. The cats stood on end with their fur standing on end, looking at the rats in a majestic way.The rats showed no fear, one by one dumbfounded, jumping into the pond one by one, the green weeds in the pond were in a mess, and the mice that fell into the water swam vigorously, plowing out traces on the water covered by the green weeds.Then they all sank, struggled, exposing the red tip of the nose to breathe, and later, even the tip of the nose disappeared. The willow flute stopped, and the group of cats stretched their waists and wandered, loudly standing upright under the scorching sun, with their heads lowered, like a withered tree. The water in the bay was calm, and everyone came back to life, but no one dared to speak.The village steward with a gray beard staggered up to Da Xiang, called "Sir", Da Xiang opened his eyes, and smiled sweetly, almost breaking my heart. I rode my bicycle and fled quickly, feeling completely powerless. I found a peanut field, and then I threw the car down. Before I could lock it, I fell down and fell into a deep sleep.When I woke up, the red sun was flat, and the nearby fields and distant mountain shadows seemed to have been smeared with blood. The bitter taste of the crops hit my nostrils. I pushed the cart home and recalled what happened in the morning, like a big dream. When I got back to the county, I told people about the amazing power of the loud noise. At first, no one believed it, but later they saw that what I said was well-founded, so they became half-believing. In early winter, the leaders of neighboring counties asked the leaders of our county about the big news, and Secretary Mo of the county party committee answered wittily. Secretary Mo came to find me in the kitchen to find out about Daxiang, and I told him everything I knew about Daxiang. Da Bang became a celebrity, and relevant departments in the city also sent people to investigate.Half a year passed like this. When the wheat was harvested, rats were infested in the No. 1 storehouse of the County Grain Bureau, and they were going to invite loud noises to catch the rats.The news spread quickly. The city TV station sent reporters with video equipment, and the provincial newspaper also sent reporters with cameras and pens. It is said that several big leaders also came to watch. That morning, the fireproof pool of the No. 1 grain depot was filled with clean water, and a row of tables were lined up beside the pool. White cloths were spread on the tables, and cigarettes and tea were placed on the white cloths.The county leader sat there with some dignified people smoking and drinking tea. In the middle of the morning, a black car drove into the yard, and got out of the car with a loud noise.He was wearing a pair of leather shoes and a navy blue suit hanging on his body, looking very awkward.I searched for that enigmatic smile on his face. It took about ten minutes to get the eight cats out of the car. The cats were very restless, especially the lynx. Finally, the scene started. The reporter shone bright lights on Loud's face, and his smile trembled like thin paper in a fire.The strong light hit the cat's face, and the cat screamed in horror. The show is a complete failure.I heard a scolding. A man wearing glasses stood up by the pool, said coldly: "It's a complete scam!" and then walked away. Secretary Mo hurried to catch up, his face covered with sweat. There were beads of sweat on my face.