Chapter 5 Four

Joe and his books (3) "Ah, Lisa, please speak slowly." Joe struggled to spit out these words, and an unknown anger rose in him. He hated this little woman very much. But Lisa suddenly disappeared as if she had appeared suddenly.Joe was thinking about the strange things that happened that day, and his mind was in a mess. Jo's wife, Maria, was weaving tapestries on the loom, her hobby and a skill she used to subsidize the family, and neighbors hung her crafts.Today she is weaving the pattern of the scorpion. The dark brown scorpion is hidden among the exotic flowers and plants, which looks novel and exciting.Maria was strong and well-proportioned, with skilled hands with nimble fingers and short nails.Although in his late twenties, he has good eyesight and thick brown hair pulled back in a bun.

Two African cats meowed non-stop on the grass outside the door, but it didn't seem like spring.This is a cat bought by Maria. It seldom meows and haunts the surroundings like a ghost. "There are some problems in the company today." Joe said thoughtfully. "I've heard that too." Maria glanced at her husband. "You? Listen to whom?" "Lisa. She was here." "Don't listen to her nonsense." Joe impatiently threw the leather bag in his hand heavily on the sofa. Maria got up from the loom, walked across the table to Joe, and helped him put the briefcase on the shelf.Then she put one of her own hands on Joe's shoulder.

"Don't be impatient, it's no big deal. You are an old employee of the company, how could that old fox Vincent leave you? But Lisa came here for something else, her family has problems." One very strange thing was that Maria kept referring to Vincent as "the old fox".In this matter, Joe can't understand his wife's feelings. In his opinion, the boss is not a cunning person, but he is a little hesitant in doing things.But let her call his boss that way if she liked, and Joe didn't want to press her. "What's the problem?" "According to Lisa, it has something to do with an Arab woman. Vincent is living with that black-veiled widow without telling her."

"Living together? Doesn't he go home every day? I see him in the company almost every day." "That's right. But Lisa said that others saw her husband in that Arab woman's house every day. What's going on? I think it's the 'separation method'." Joe was not used to Maria saying those strange things. He knew that she had always had that habit, and her habit even infected the two African cats in the family.The other day, the brown tabby mother cat bit their son. "A man who goes to work on time, comes home on time, has no bad habits, but someone sees him at his mistress' house every day. Isn't this a strange thing? Could it be another person? But he himself admitted it. Li Sha is desperate, what happened to her is the most sinister."

When Maria said these words, she sat back at her loom and wove a few times after saying a word.Joe stared at the huge scorpion, and felt a chill rise up his spine.The whole room became very air-conditioned, and Maria swayed in front of her eyes, as if floating in a thin mist, while the sinister cat squatted under Joe's own feet.He staggered and struggled to go upstairs to the study.Maria muttered something over there, and Joe looked back, the loom was empty, where was she talking? It wasn't until she sat down at the desk and opened the Japanese book that Jo's mind became clear.As Joe read the plot of the story aloud, he felt deeply that his life had recently been completely turned upside down, and that daily life had become a series of dreams.Although he was reading stories that happened in the East, as he was reading, the girl in clogs walked gracefully into the square surrounded by sycamore trees that he had been operating for more than two months. Behind the trunk of a thick sycamore tree, only the hem of the kimono was blown by the wind to reveal a triangle.Joe's eyes became fixed, and he couldn't read any more.

While Joe and Maria were having dinner in the kitchen, the cat came unexpectedly and stalked Joe, rubbing against his pant legs and purring.Maria's gray eyes, shining calmly, were watching Joe.Joe bent down and patted the cat on the back, and suddenly his hands felt tingly.Is this cat electrified?Does Maria have such supernatural powers?Joe looked at his wife puzzled.There was an eager look on her face, was she waiting for something to happen?What on earth does she do at home during the day, apart from housework?It seems that the energetic wife has turned this home into her own little kingdom.

Joe's son, Daniel, is a seventeen-year-old lad who goes to boarding school in the West and returns only twice a year.For some reason, the relationship between their father and son is a little cold, probably because both of them are too focused on their own little world.Joe didn't know what Daniel was most interested in, but he vaguely recognized the boy in the yellowed photograph in his hollow gray eyes.Usually, he was more at ease around his mother, which was also seen in his relationship with the two cats.Those two ghostly cats seemed to be the protagonists in the conspiracy between Maria and her son-Jo often couldn't help thinking so.Once, Joe bumped into the mother and son squatting under the flower shed behind the house talking about the two cats, their voices were high and low.At that time, the cats were squatting proudly on the stone table, their fronts were very straight, and they seemed to be dismissive of human talk.As soon as Joe appeared, their conversation came to an abrupt end.

"My uncle's family ordered this tapestry, and I will pick it up tomorrow night. Now I feel a little empty."