☆, Chapter 11: The Phenomenon
The enthusiasm of the small animals left Hao Ren feeling overwhelmed by the favor. At first, it was more surprise than scare, but it quickly transformed from a pleasant surprise into a complete scare.
One morning, she woke up to the horror of finding her room floor covered with a dense crowd of mice. The mice were excitedly holding up all sorts of snacks, scrambling to have Hao Ren eat what was in their hands. Hao Ren recognized at a glance that these were from Hao Yi’s food cabinet.
The mice had come to pay homage a few days ago, even bringing her a bag of grain and a few plump caterpillars, so Hao Ren was quite surprised to see them again now.
The large mouse in the lead seemed to sense her confusion. Waving a chocolate bar that Hao Yi loved with its two front paws, it explained to her, “We heard that Her Majesty the Queen was being abused by bad people and had no breakfast… so, we raided the bad person’s food cabinet!”
Looking at the mice’s righteous indignation, Hao Ren didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The first “bad people” of course referred to the Hao family trio of Mr. and Mrs. Hao and Hao Yi, while the latter “bad person” definitely referred to Hao Yi.
The Hao family indeed did not provide breakfast. Hao Yi and his parents always ate out, but the allowance the Hao family gave Hao Ren was only 300 yuan a month. After deducting meal expenses and the occasional cost of school supplies, the remaining money was barely enough to support Daizi. When Hao Ren was younger, she used to make her own breakfast, but if she made a portion for one, they would look displeased. If she made a portion for the whole family, they would still look displeased and would accuse her of wasting food. Later, to avoid their sour faces, Hao Ren simply stopped eating breakfast. Once she got used to it, it was fine.
Regarding Hao Ren’s pitifully small allowance, Mr. and Mrs. Hao never felt it was abuse. Their justification was quite righteous: “Daughters should be raised poor, to prevent them from becoming arrogant and having unhappy families in the future. Sons should be raised rich, so they will have the courage to do great things when they grow up.” The one who said this was not Auntie Mei, but Hao Ren’s deranged father. Thanks to them, Hao Ren had indeed learned a good set of survival skills for adverse situations, and skipping breakfast was one of them.
Although Hao Ren didn’t have the stubborn pride to refuse handouts, it didn’t mean she would accept stolen goods from mice.
“I have food to eat!” She quickly took out the bag of beef jerky that Hao Yi had thrown over earlier, which she hadn’t finished. “You should hurry and put the things back.”
At first, the mice insisted on having Hao Ren accept the items, but when they realized that Hao Ren truly disliked them engaging in such robbery, they reluctantly returned the things.
That guy Hao Yi would be in his third year of high school next semester, so at this time, he should be in class. Hao Ren wasn’t worried about the mice being discovered.
The incident of the mice raiding the food cabinet ended with Hao Yi finding a few mouse droppings in the cabinet, then asking Auntie Zhang to buy some glue traps. All the snacks inside were thrown to Hao Ren by Hao Yi to feed her dog. Looking at the large pile of recovered snacks, Hao Ren didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because of her prior warning, no mice were sacrificed on the glue traps.
What Hao Ren didn’t expect was that the mice raiding Hao Yi’s food cabinet for her was just the beginning. A bigger scare was yet to come.
One day, she was in her room, engrossed in rewriting a novel she had written in her past life, when she suddenly heard the sound of the TV from the living room.
“For unknown reasons, a large number of wild animals have been migrating to our city. The section of the highway towards S City has been closed due to frequent crossings by small animals. Urban traffic has also been affected to some extent. We advise all drivers to pay attention to road conditions and slow down…” What Hao Ren heard was the voice of the female anchor of H Channel’s highest-rated news program.
“…The sudden appearance of a large number of bird flocks has seriously affected the operational safety of the suburban airport. The airport is urgently implementing various bird dispersal measures. As of now, the airport is considering whether to cancel some flights, which may affect the travel of some citizens…”
The voice suddenly switched to that of an expert with a calm voice: “…It may be that the recent continuous rise in temperature has caused a disturbance in the animals’ internal magnetic fields. We ask the general public to rest assured. Our city is not on an earthquake belt, and this is not a sign of an impending earthquake… As for a tsunami, that is also impossible… The animals are migrating towards H City, not fleeing from H City…”
“On the contrary, the animals choosing our city as their habitat proves that our city is a livable place recognized even by animals with strict environmental requirements. This, from another perspective, proves how visionary and beneficial to the nation and its people the decision of our city’s leadership, with Comrade Zhu Jianhuan at its core, to build an ecological H City has been…”
“Tch, H Channel is really the government’s mouthpiece. They don’t even forget to suck up to the municipal party committee in a program like this!” After Hao Weiguo’s complaint, the sound of the news abruptly stopped and was replaced by a Korean drama playing on S Channel, in which the female protagonist was shouting “Oppa, Oppa.”
“If you don’t like it, then don’t watch it.” It was Auntie Mei’s voice.
“Who said I’m not watching! What’s the point of watching those mono-lidded fake handsome guys all day?” Hao Weiguo grumbled.
“There’s a point, of course there’s a point! You won’t let me watch, I think you’re just jealous!”
The sound of a struggle for the remote control came from the living room. Every room in the villa had a TV, and although the screens weren’t as big as the one in the living room, they weren’t small either. Fighting over the remote control was probably a form of amusement for Mr. and Mrs. Hao.
“Don’t you want to know why a snake suddenly appeared in the garden in broad daylight?” After a bit of a struggle, Hao Weiguo finally won with this sentence.
“…This station’s news, a car accident caused by a leopard cat crossing the road just occurred on Qingfeng Road. The leopard cat’s leg was injured, and the driver sustained minor injuries. Both the leopard cat and the driver have been sent to relevant hospitals for treatment…” The news program was still on, but the news it brought was not good.
Hao Ren, who had been typing, felt her heart skip a beat. She closed the document and looked at Daizi, who was lying at her feet.
“Uncle Daizi, why are they all running to H City?”
Daizi had been feigning sleep with its eyes closed. Hearing this, it quickly raised its head. “Why do you humans all run to the Imperial Capital? It’s the same thing. The place where you are is the Imperial Capital for animals!”
“Is there a way to stop them from coming?” That leopard cat was one of the lucky ones; there were quite a few small animals that had met with misfortune because of this. Knowing that she was the culprit behind it all, Hao Ren’s mood instantly grew heavy.
Daizi shook its head.
Hao Ren wanted to continue asking it how to reduce the casualties of the small animals, but the door to her room was kicked open again. Then, her half-brother rushed in with a murderous look.
“I heard you, I heard you talking to the dog!” As soon as he entered, he stretched out his right hand and pointed at Hao Ren in the same way Conan points out a culprit.
“If your injury isn’t healed, go back to your room and rest properly. Don’t come into my room spouting nonsense!” The guy’s head indeed hadn’t fully healed; there was still a bandage wrapped around his forehead. Although it wasn’t as exaggerated as before, it still looked very stupid.
“I know! The things on TV are all because of you! Just like in Harry Potter!” Hao Yi didn’t fly into a rage this time. Instead, he stared at Hao Ren with burning eyes, his face showing the expression of someone who had discovered a great secret.
“What happened before wasn’t my hallucination either. I really saw the owl and the Hogwarts acceptance letter. It was your magic, right? Unlucky Ren, who on earth are you?”
Looking at the guy’s certain expression, Hao Ren felt a headache coming on. She shouldn’t have played the magic academy acceptance letter game with him. With this guy’s personality of getting to the bottom of things since he was a child, it seemed she had gotten herself into quite a bit of trouble.
“Who am I? I’m your sister!” Left with no choice, she had to play dumb and hold on.
“Sister?” Hao Yi frowned, clearly not satisfied with this answer.
“Good boy…” Hao Ren ignored his conflicted expression, stood on her tiptoes, and patted his head. They had grown up together, but this was the first time she had done this. The feel of human hair was indeed different from an animal’s.
“Hmph! You’re only two months older than me, what kind of sister is that?” Hao Yi angrily swatted her hand away. “Don’t think you can fool me. I know you can communicate with small animals!”
This guy’s intuition was simply heaven-defying. Hao Ren was extremely frustrated.
“Daizi, roll over!”
Daizi looked at her as if she were an idiot and sat still.
“Lucky, come here!”
Lucky, who was lying on the desk staring at them, didn’t move. Instead, it stretched out a paw and swatted Hao Ren’s pencil holder, made from a potato chip can, to the floor. The pencil holder fell to the floor with a clatter, and the pens inside scattered everywhere.
Hao Ren could only bend down to pick them up, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Lucky’s acting was good; it had an expression of complete innocence.
“Hahaha… you think I don’t know? You’ve already colluded!” Unfortunately, the performance was ineffective. The sharp glint in Hao Yi’s eyes didn’t disappear; instead, it grew even brighter.
Hao Ren let out a long sigh. Fortunately, this guy had been unreliable since he was a child. Even if he told someone, they would only suspect he was having another episode.
“Can you find out which pet hospital that leopard cat was sent to? I want to go see it!” Since this guy wasn’t much of a threat, Hao Ren decided to use his status to do things for her. Might as well use him since he was there!
Sure enough, upon hearing this, her foolish little brother didn’t get angry. Instead, his eyes lit up, and with a flattered and overwhelmed expression, he immediately patted his chest and said it was on him. Then, he happily ran off to take care of it for Hao Ren.
Hao Yi’s group of friends was surprisingly resourceful, and they quickly found the address of the pet hospital. Hao Yi pestered her to go with him, so Hao Ren had no choice but to change the visiting time to after his school let out.
Going with Hao Yi actually had its benefits. The guy had permission to use the company car. With one phone call, the driver came over to pick them up. Hao Ren’s presence was so low-key that the driver, Old Wang’s, first reaction upon seeing her was to joke with Hao Yi, asking if he was taking his little girlfriend out to play. This immediately made Hao Yi’s face turn bright red. What surprised Hao Ren was that the brat didn’t refute it. From the bottom of her heart, she didn’t acknowledge Hao Weiguo as her father, so she was even less likely to refute it.
By this time, the interviewing media had already dispersed. The leopard cat was wild and had no owner, so it was lying there all alone in the pet hospital. She didn’t know if animals had a unique mechanism to recognize their king, but as soon as Hao Ren appeared, the creature immediately became excited. It tried several times to get up and bow to Hao Ren, but was forcefully held down by her.
“Is it okay?” Hao Ren asked the vet.
The vet was a young girl. Hearing the question, she glanced at the leopard cat in the cage with a pitying look and sighed, “It won’t die, but the leg injury is quite severe. Even if it heals, it won’t be able to be released back into the wild. We’ve just contacted the H City Zoo, and they’ve agreed to take it. It looks like this one will have to spend the rest of its life in a zoo. Sigh, I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse for it. What a shame, why did it have to run into the city?”
Except for gifted beings like Lucky and Daizi, who even possessed heaven-defying skills like entering dreams, ordinary animals couldn’t understand human language, so the leopard cat in the cage looked as usual. But Hao Ren’s mood grew even worse.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” Because mental communication didn’t require speaking out loud, Hao Ren wasn’t worried about Hao Yi, who was standing next to her.
“Your Majesty, will my injury heal?”
Although she didn’t have the heart to, Hao Ren still told it the truth. Hearing the truth, the leopard cat was silent for a long time.
“My kittens…”
The leopard cat stared fixedly out the window. To her surprise, Hao Ren saw a few small leopard cats peeking out from the bushes outside. The sense of smell of wild leopard cats was truly amazing; they had managed to find their way here.
After a long hesitation, the leopard cat finally spoke again: “Tell the kittens I’m okay, and tell them not to look for me!”
Hao Ren nodded with a heavy heart. Every animal was a spirit of nature. If there was no other choice, their lives should not be spent in a zoo.
After bidding farewell to the mother leopard cat, Hao Ren took Hao Yi and found the three little leopard cats hiding in the bushes. Hao Ren had been worried that they hadn’t been weaned, but after seeing their size, she let out a sigh of relief. At their current size, they would have no problem surviving on their own in the wild. After relaying their mother’s words, the three little leopard cats followed Hao Ren into the car, dejected.
Leopard cats are distinctly different from ordinary cats. Hao Yi immediately started shouting how cute they were and said he wanted to adopt the three of them. He even rashly reached out to pet one of them and was scratched by the already unhappy little leopard cat, tearing his clothes. The little leopard cat probably held back because Hao Yi was Hao Ren’s companion. Although the scratch looked fierce, it didn’t draw blood.
Hao Yi was very innocent. He had only reached out because he saw the leopard cats snuggling obediently in Hao Ren’s arms. He never expected his own turn to be so tragic. But after this, the way he looked at Hao Ren grew even brighter.
After consulting the three little ones, Hao Ren took them to a small park near the villa complex with excellent greenery. There was plenty of food there, and even if they couldn’t catch prey, they wouldn’t starve by rummaging through human trash cans.
After releasing the three little leopard cats, Hao Ren returned home with Hao Yi, her heart heavy. She decided to have a good talk with Daizi about the migrating small animals when she got back. Although it wasn’t her fault, I did not kill Boren, yet Boren died because of me. She couldn’t just stand by and watch this situation continue.
***
Translator’s Notes
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I did not kill Boren, yet Boren died because of me (我不杀伯仁，伯仁却因我而死): This is a famous historical allusion from the Book of Jin. It refers to a situation where one feels indirectly responsible for another’s misfortune or death, even without direct intent to harm. Hao Ren uses it here to express her guilt over the animal migration and its consequences.