Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Many cat owners have similar experiences: their own cats running outdoors to play and coming home when they’ve had enough fun. But they didn’t always come back alone. There might be a bug or the corpse of a small animal in their mouths, like a dragonfly, butterfly, rat, or lizard, placing them at the feet of their owners like they were presenting a gift.
Even indoor cats that never went out had that same kind of hunting instinct. They would use any and all opportunities to brush up on their hunting skills and then gift the prey to their loving owners. For example—cockroaches.
Even with houses that didn’t have cockroaches, those perceptive cat owners would also notice that after getting their cats, the number of mosquitoes indoors would also greatly be reduced. That was because the cats had used mosquitoes as their practice targets. They would also present the mosquitoes to their owners as gifts, but due to the small size, most of them wouldn’t notice it.
No matter what kind of corpse they received, most owners wouldn’t be too happy about it, especially ladies. The sight of bloody rat corpses and cockroaches wasn’t the best thing to see. They might even wonder whether their cats were scaring them on purpose, taking revenge on them because they bathed them too violently…
When receiving these gifts, most owners might wonder whether the cats had gone hunting because they didn’t have a full meal, and that was why they were pressed to go hunt. Many of them ended up trying to tell them not to do so anymore. Some might even hit or punish them, telling them to not make the same mistake again.
This time, cats really weren’t at fault.
When receiving punishment, the cats must be confused—why was their kindness being punished?
No one actually knew why cats did this.
There was a possibility that cats didn’t actually treat humans as their owners, but instead as really stupid cats—stupid enough that they couldn’t even catch mosquitoes and cockroaches and were relying on the cats to feed them. If they didn’t bring food back for the humans, they would starve to death.
Cats that brought back gifts for their owners definitely had a really deep bond with them. To cats, it was the greatest honor for a human to be treated as one of their own. Cats were solitary animals after all, so if they were willing to share their space with another stupid cat and willing to take up the responsibility of caring for this stupid cat, it showed that despite the owner’s clearly lacking intelligence, they had gained its attention and it was fond of them.
So if cats often brought back gifts and prey for their owners, this was a piece of their sincerity. The owners shouldn’t be angry, and even more shouldn’t punish them for it, for they would be lost and confused, not knowing what they had done wrong, and this might affect their relationship.
If the owners really didn’t need rats and cockroaches as gifts, the thing that they should’ve been doing was throwing the rat’s or cockroach’s body outside right before the cat’s eyes, opening a pack of cat food, and pretending to consume it. Their cats would then understand that even though the owners were stupid cats, they didn’t have to eat rats and cockroaches to survive.
Conversely, if their cat had never brought home gifts, they should be looking into how they had been taking care of their cat.
Zhang Zian explained the reason carefully and logically to Gao Ke, and he had an epiphany—cats really could be used as hunting partners.
Besides Gao Ke, Wei Kang and the other two researchers were also very absorbed in his explanations, nodding their heads subconciously. Even though they researched cats, they did specialize in the area that they researched in. Their focus was the biological change and evolution of cats through time, not cat psychology. Most importantly, none of them had actually had cats.
Gao Ke looked at Fina and then back at Zhang Zian, his eyes shimmering with admiration. “I get it now. Then this cat has definitely brought back a lot of prey for you, right? Like rats or cockroaches?”
Zhang Zian said nothing.
“What is it?” Gao Ke realized that Zhang Zian looked more like he was constipated.
Even though Zhang Zian knew about all of these things in theory, he sadly recalled that Fina had never actually brought back anything for him. It had instead taken away diamonds and money from him…
This showed that knowing the theory didn’t mean that one could recreate it in practical situations, and the ones selling the cats weren’t the most proficient in rearing them.
He forced out a smile. “Of course! It’s brought back a lot of things for me! It even brought me a dung beetle this morning!”
Now it was Gao Ke’s turn to look constipated. He could accept cockroaches and mice, but dung beetles…
Zhang Zian suddenly felt a cold wind blowing at his back, a piercing gaze latched onto his back. “Dung beetles are just what we call them. Their official name in Egypt is scarabs!” he added. “Legend says that ancient Egyptians saw that the sun rose and set tirelessly everyday and were confused by that, wondering where the sun got the energy to do so. Then they saw dung…I mean, scarabs pushing along balls of dung and had an epiphany. Weren’t dung balls were pretty similar to the sun? They’re both round in shape. So they thought that the sun must be pushed around by an extremely huge scarab every day. Look at its forehead. Doesn’t it look like it has a scarab on it?”
Everyone’s eyes suddenly focused on Fina’s forehead, and they really did find what looked like ancient Egyptian scarab wall drawings on its forehead. They nodded in agreement.
Zhang Zian sighed, continuing, “So, we’re going to Egypt now. That’s its hometown. It has a scarab on its forehead, and it brought me a…scarab this morning. I think this is a sign! Like a sign of success, telling us that we will definitely succeed this time and bring back a victory! Professor Wei, what do you think?”
Wei Kang was almost thrown off track by his words, and he snapped back, avoiding his real words and intentions. “Well…about that. I think you have good intentions and good thoughts. But we are scientists and look at everything from the viewpoint of science, so let’s not talk about all these superstitious beliefs.”
Zhang Zian had completely pulled that out of his *ss from his will to survive. Other than the myth of scarabs being true, not a single word that he had said was. But after hearing what Wei Kang said, he couldn’t help but think of Vladimir. It must approve of this man, since he was not superstitious at all.
The cold glare on his back had finally dissipated.
Gao Ke noticed his expression and asked, concerned, “Are you feeling unwell? Look at all your sweat.”
“No, no, I’m alright.” Zhang Zian was just glad to still be alive and wiped his sweat with the back of his hand, “My luggage is too heavy. I worked up a sweat moving all of it in. It’s no issue.”
The explanation was barely passable, but all their energies were focused on Fina. All they could think right now were the cat rearing facts that Zhang Zian told them earlier, and didn’t muse over his words more.
