Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In the row of dilapidated rooms in front of him, disorderly weeds grew everywhere. The broken plaque was mottled with paint and the original handwriting could not be seen clearly.
Perhaps 100 or 200 years ago, it was the long term residence of an imperial concubine that had been thrown into the cold palace. They would have lived the rest of their tragic life with an oil lamp in front of a Buddha––or maybe an old eunuch who had been very popular for a while but suddenly fell out of favor had hung himself there with a white ribbon. It was even more likely that it was neither of those things.
The rumors of ghosts in the Forbidden City had been talked about for a long time because there were so many unknown secrets in the Forbidden City.
Zhang Zian thought of those things while Wen Li shouted at the empty house and he felt his back turn cold. He was not afraid, but instead felt that it was quite weird. After all, it was broad daylight. Even if there were ghosts, they would not be able to do anything… He just thought that Wen Li, as an employee in the Forbidden City, should not engage in such feudal superstitious activities, right?
After Wen Li finished shouting, she moved the board in front of the door, which practically served no purpose, aside, and went into the house herself. A second after that she noticed that Zhang Zian did not follow her in, so she walked out again.
“Please enter,” she said, her facial expression normal.
“This… there’s something I feel as though I should ask, Who were you talking to just now?”
Wen Li was stunned and instantly understood. She smiled and said, “Oh, I was talking to Zhuang Zhuang!”
It turned out that every night, the Forbidden City employees would lock up all the doors of the palaces when they ended work, and the next day, when they started work, they would get the keys to open the doors of the palaces.
Before opening the door, most employees would follow a conventional rule: cough loudly, or shout “I’m coming in.” It was not to shout at the ghosts wandering in the Forbidden City, but to shout at the small animals living in the Forbidden City. They would tell them that someone was coming in so they wouldn’t be frightened.
The Forbidden City was mainly made of wooden buildings, but there were many trees and a lot of grass. It covered a large area. The environment in the open area was quiet, and the whole Forbidden City was almost empty at night. In addition to stray cats, there were also other small animals, such as weasels, snakes, hedgehogs, and so on. No one knew when they moved in.
By yelling outside the door, they were trying to remind the little animals to be prepared. Those that should hide should hide, and those that should run should run. They wanted to prevent them from getting shocked into hurrying out of the door and hurting or scaring people.
The tradition did not start in the present day, but it could be traced back to the Qing Dynasty. More than 8,000 houses in the Palace Museum could not have people living in all of them, so vacant houses were occupied by small animals. Shouting before entering the door let small animals voluntarily withdraw. The humans did not want to offend the animals.
After she explained in detail, it suddenly dawned on Zhang Zian. Sure enough, the industries were all different. If they did not explain the rules, one would not know. All types of industries had their own old rules, as did the cultural relics workers of the Forbidden City and the pet industry. Just as the The Classic of Cats Appreciation said, “Don’t buy kittens under four months.” It was someone’s own experience that they wrote about, but few people followed it now.
Zhang Zian put his heart back into his stomach and followed her into the dark room.
“Be careful, the house is dark. Don’t sprain your ankle,” Wen Li reminded him out of goodwill. She waved at the corner. “Zhuang Zhuang, we came to see you.”
There was also another special part about the Forbidden City: Inside the palace, there were very few lighting devices. Its main purpose was to prevent fires, but it caused every palace to be very dark. After walking from the very bright outside into the house, one’s eyes were not accustomed to it instantly.
Zhang Zian stood still for a while, and when his eyes became accustomed to the light, he followed Wen Li’s line of sight towards the corner.
There was a straw mattress with an orange tabby squatting on it. Beside it was an aluminum alloy food basin and a water basin.
In terms of the average size of a cat in the Forbidden City and the average size of the orange tabby, the orange tabby was not fat––it could even pass as slim.
Its head drooped listlessly, like it was not awake yet. It heard Wen Li’s call and looked up at her. From his gaze, Zhang Zian could tell that it knew her, but it soon dropped its head again.
The room was dark, and the cat was quite far away. It was hard to tell the exact situation, but Zhang Zian could see transparent and shiny water dripping out from the corner of its mouth.
Wen Li introduced it, saying, “This is Zhuang Zhuang. It has been here since before I started my job. It’s quite an old cat; we are not sure of its exact age. The last two days, it has become very lethargic…It drips saliva from time to time. We thought that maybe it was due to its age.”
After Zhang Zian entered, he kept standing at the doorway, blocking the entrance.
Fina’s natural curiosity made it want to enter the room to take a look, but because he blocked the entrance, it could not enter. It did not want to lower itself by jumping in through the window, so it kept pulling on the corner of his pants from behind, wanting Zhang Zian to move.
Zhang Zian put one hand behind him and kept waving in the dark, signaling to the elfins not to follow him in and to play in the yard.
He was not a professional veterinarian, but he had quite a good understanding of the common illnesses in cats and dogs. With one look he could tell that the cat’s condition was not right, and it could be that it had some kind of infectious disease. If the elfins followed him in, they could be in danger of being infected.
Wen Li wanted to walk in to carry Zhuang Zhuang out into sun, but Zhang Zian stopped her. “Wait, it could have an infectious disease,” he said, and pulled out a pair of disposable plastic gloves from his pants pocket.
It was not like he could tell the future, so how could he have prepared disposable gloves? The gloves were a gift from breakfast place outside the Forbidden City so that customers’ hands would not be covered with oil while they ate. Because he wanted to feed the elfins, he had bought more breakfast. The stall owner thought he bought for more than one person, so he gave him more disposable gloves. After he used one pair, he was reluctant to throw the other pairs away, so he slipped them into his pocket. He did not think that he would actually use them…
Now that he thought about it, the capital was very particular. Even breakfast stalls thoughtfully provided disposable gloves, letting the white-collared workers and the CBD elite be able to eat their breakfast without having to go through the trouble of washing their hands. Of course, the prices were also very high. After all, wool came from the sheep’s body.
Wen Li did not know the details, but upon seeing that he actually brought disposable gloves with him, she admired him even more. She thought in her heart that he was indeed a professional and different.
The calico cat, Snowy, was also following behind them. Zhang Zian had Wen Li stop it so it wouldn’t come in the room.
He slowly got closer to Zhuang Zhuang.
Zhuang Zhuang did not welcome his arrival at all. It shook its head in annoyance, spitting out its tongue and salivating everywhere. Because of its exhaustion, it could not resist any further or escape, which also showed that there was something wrong with its nose; it could not smell Fina on his body.
Zhang Zian extended its hand to the back of its neck, and he unexpectedly grabbed it from the back, picked it up, and half-forced it to open its mouth. He saw a large ulcer in its mouth and on its tongue.
