Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Modern Egyptians were famous for being lazy, matched only by the Indians in the developing countries.
It was okay to be poor. Everyone had been at that stage at one point in time. One could just work hard to make riches, using your hard-working hands to build a beautiful home. But, to be honest, modern Egyptians didn’t have the luck of Europeans, though they had their problems.
Even the most basic form of courtesy in a modern society, punctuality, was followed by few. Other than people in certain industries, like the government, travel, shipping, and finance, it was normal for Egyptians to be more than half an hour late for any sort of meeting, and they weren’t even embarrassed by it. One could imagine how low their work efficiency was.
Of course, everything had exceptions, just like Jack, whom they’d met earlier. He was one of the rare punctual people, waiting for Zhang Zian and Wei Kang since the morning. It might’ve been due to his mixed blood and higher education. That was why he was different from most locals.
It looked like the professors of the University of Cairo still treated Wei Kang and his expedition team seriously and had chosen a smart and capable young man to help them.
After Fina finally got past the knot in its heart, it went back to its holier-than-thou attitude, nitpicking at every single thing it saw.
Galaxy wasn’t afraid of the heat or dirt either. No matter how thick a layer of dirt it had just walked over, its four paws were still completely spotless, and it didn’t have a single complaint about the burning sun. It rushed forward enthusiastically, looking at every interesting thing that came in its way curiously, but still careful to avoid all of the people that were walking down the streets.
Pi was curious too, its beady eyes widening as it absorbed every single small detail of this foreign country like a sponge as a reference for its novel later. It was more timid and shier than Galaxy, and it stuck to Zhang Zian’s side like a tick, grasping his shirt for dear life, worried that it would lose itself in the hustle and bustle.
Old Time Tea instead liked leaping through the tall areas, getting a better view, and using the shade of the buildings to block the sun.
“Meow! There’s a cat.”
Galaxy suddenly stopped in its tracks.
Cat?
The moment he heard that, Zhang Zian immediately thought of the most important mission that they had here in Egypt—looking for traces of the original Egyptian cats. The first thought that ran through his head was that their luck could actually be through the roof and they were about to meet an Egyptian cat.
Then he immediately dismissed that impractical thought. Even if the aborginal Egyptian cats really did exist, they wouldn’t show up in this extremely big city of over twenty million people. The cat that Galaxy saw was most likely a stray.
“Cat? Where? Where?”
Vladimir immediately perked up at the mention of a cat.
“Right in front.” Galaxy raised a paw, pointing forward.
Zhang Zian was taller and could see further, and he spotted the cat.
There was an adequately sized orange cat, lazily lying on a shady spot in front of a shop and yawning.
It seemed to have noticed Zhang Zian and Fina too, immediately standing up, eyeing them alertly, and watching their every move.
With this attitude, it was most likely a stray.
Zhang Zian had seen too many strays back at home. Most strays were afraid of humans and would run at the first sight of them. Unless they saw the humans that had forged a bond with them by feeding them, they were definitely more cautious than friendly toward humans.
But this cat from Cairo didn’t seem to be afraid of people. No matter how close the people walked to it, it barely even twitched.
Even with the change in time, a catastrophic change in the world, and though the Egyptians living on this land were no longer the same Egyptians as two thousand years ago, cats still did receive exceptional treatment here.
Even in the “Notes for Chinese Citizens Going to Egypt,” they had also specially mentioned this: Egyptians respected cats, regarding them as they would gods, and treated them as the spirits of gods. In Egyptians’ hearts, cats were a representation of the female god. They were a symbol of luck and a national animal that demanded respect.
In other words, one needed to take note of what they said in Egypt. It didn’t matter whether one liked or hated cats.
They were the national animal!
You could think of cats in Egypt like the Great Pandas in China.
If modern Egyptians were so, one could imagine just how reverent the Ancient Egyptians were of cats.
Exactly because of that, not only was this stray not afraid of humans, it was in fact a little fierce.
But when it saw Fina, it shivered on the spot before fleeing in a cloud of dust.
“Wait! Hold up!”
Vladimir couldn’t let it just run away. Every single cat was a possible member of the Meow Meow Doctrine, so it ran after the cat as soon as it could.
“Vladimir, don’t run too far! Remember to come back!” Zhang Zian knew that it would take off like that, so he could only call a reminder after it.
“Got it!”
Its voice came from far away.
The further they walked, the more often they started to see strays, but they all fled in a hurry at the sight of Fina.
Fina wasn’t bothered by it at all. It cared more about where it could go to fill its tummy.
“There are so many strays here.”
Famous pointed in another direction.
“Woof woof!”
Zhang Zian looked over there, and he saw two or three strays darting out of a temple and squeezing through the streets. They weren’t tiny dogs either. A few female tourists scrambled out of the way in fear.
This was almost Cairo’s city center. If this had been China, it would’ve been almost impossible to have stray dogs running around.
These three dogs weren’t a rare case. The more they went into Cairo’s alleys, the more packs of dogs they saw running around with their tongues out or gathered together to rummage through the trash bins. Even on the busy roads, some dogs would ignore the fact that there were cars around and rush across the road. Thank goodness the situation on the road was too bad for the cars to be going fast, or it would be dangerous for the people and the dogs.
Even though the dogs didn’t get the same worship as cats, they didn’t have to worry about food or shelter. There was enough rubbish around to provide enough food for them.
Very few people knew that Egypt was the country with the largest amount of stray dogs.
Egypt had more than 15 million stray dogs, but with more than 95% of its land being desert, most of the dogs were concentrated near the suburbs and cities. Cairo only had a population of 20 million.
Dogs and cats were different. Cats would only destroy the environment, but the lawless dogs would pose a huge threat to humans themselves.
These strays weren’t afraid of people either, and they would even bare their teeth threateningly if people got too close.
Other than that, they brought with them a lot of dog sh*t.
Dogs weren’t as clean as cats, who would bury their own poop. Dogs would instead just walk off after finishing their business.
Of course, that was just a generalizing statement. Some dogs would instead poop, eat it, and leave.
From these strays, it was clear just how much of a mess modern Egyptians’ management of the city was.
