Ch10 - It’s me, I’m Lu Feng

Our pawn shop had never explicitly stated that we only accepted non-living things, but I never really thought that someone would come to try and pawn off their cat, and a purebred ragdoll to boot.

The young woman who claimed she was the owner of the cat produced a whole heap of certificates for us to examine and stated that the ragdoll was an expensive acquisition from overseas. Since it was born, it was only fed imported food, and the asking price for this barely one year old male cat was a hundred thousand renminbi. 

I spent two months learning to appraise the value of luxury items, so I could give an estimate on whether a piece of jewellery was worth a hundred thousand, but I really had no expertise in the field of pet cats. Plus, it wasn’t like we had cat food or cat litter, so it wouldn’t be easy for us to take care of it either.

“Unfortunately, we don’t accept living things to be pawned off here. I suggest perhaps heading to the pet shop on our left and asking them instead?” I said, pointing at a general direction for her.

 

 

The young woman looked at the certificates sprawled out and scooped them all up again, rolling her eyes at me. Then in one swift movement she took the pet cage with her cat enclosed and walked away, fuming.

“If you can’t accept it, why didn’t you tell me earlier!” 

The cat, which had already grown to be quite built, stared at me through the metal confines of the cage. It’s azure blue eyes were confused and innocent at the same time, and I pitied the cat looking at it.

 

Without being able to help it, I was reminded of another cat from my memories..

Young people were always the most adept at adapting to new situations, and after I realised my feelings for Sheng Min Ou, in three days I had wholeheartedly accepted this development.

Falling in love at an early age was becoming such a common occurrence, so when it happened to me, it wasn’t entirely shocking.

 

If my feelings were strong, there was no way I could forget about him no matter how much I willed it, so even if I spent days thinking about ways to move on I wouldn’t be able to come up with a solution. If my feelings were shallow and I didn’t think about it, then over the years I would come to forget him, so there was even less of a need to agonise over the situation.

Ever since my father had passed away, I understood one principle – if you want to do something, set out to achieve it early, because you don’t have as much time as you imagine to spend on hesitating.

When I smashed the mirror with my hand in a fit of hotheadedness, it was the epitome of recklessness that was characteristic in adolescence. The aftermath was a painful lesson for the rashness of my actions. The tendon connecting my index finger and my middle finger had been torn, and not counting the surgery to get stitches, my hand also had to be put in a cast for a month.

 

I was pretty happy about not doing homework for a month, but my mother always looked at me with a disapproving frown, sighing frequently as she thought about all the work that I would have to catch up on. 

So I proactively suggested having Sheng Min Ou tutor me on the weekends and help me with my studies.

At first, my mother had her reservations, as she was scared that I would go to Sheng Min Ou’s house to slack off. However, I swore to the skies that I would work hard and in the next monthly exams at school, I maintained my rank in the top 50 of the grade. Seeing this, my mothers concerns were finally assuaged and she went to call Sheng Min Ou.

I was actually pretty scared he wouldn’t agree. We already started contacting him less and less then, and the few points of contact we maintained throughout our estranged relationship was completely due to it being a matter of habit. Every time we said our goodbyes and I saw his disappearing figure down the staircases, I would always have the misperception that I was about to lose him.

Fortunately, he agreed in the end. When his foster mother called to ask for a favour personally, he would at least do it for her sake. Though he did say that he only had time to tutor me after seven p.m. at night, as during the daytime he had his part time job to attend to. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

I thought about it, and the timing worked out perfectly. I could head to his place after eating dinner.

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When I arrived at the neighbourhood where Sheng Min Ou lived, I didn’t think it would be that coincidental, as I saw him head home. 

He had his back facing me and didn’t realise I had arrived right after him. By his feet was an orange kitten, playfully circling around his legs.

At 7 p.m., the skies had completely darkened. In the old neighbourhood, there weren’t many street lights, only a flickering yellow light bulb which was installed at the corridor entrance, feebly illuminating the small area it covered.

 

Sheng Min Ou and that cat were right at the outskirts of the dim lights, subsequently engulfed by the darkness.

The cat did not appear to be too afraid of people, as it nudged at Sheng Min Ou for a long time, intermittently letting out soft and cute purring sounds. 

Sheng Min Ou’s eyes flickered downwards as he looked at it, and did not move to chase the cat away. He stood in silence and let the cat continuously nudge itself against his leg.

My mother wasn’t very fond of animals that shed fur, so despite myself crying and pleading for her to let us adopt a dog when I was younger, she had never wavered from her firm stance. I thought Sheng Min Ou was similar to my mother, both having mysophobia and not being able to tolerate pets shedding hair all over the place, and so I didn’t expect him to behave in this way at all.

The scene of him and the cat was truthfully adorable and fun to watch, so I stopped a few paces away from them and watched silently, not wanting to interrupt their moment together.

This continued for two minutes longer, then it was as if someone flicked a switch on in Sheng Min Ou, as he slowly bent down and moved an outstretched hand towards the cat, lifting it up from the ground. 

He stood, looking the cat in the eye, and the orange fur ball obediently meowed back in a small, cutesy tone. However, Sheng Min Ou’s eyes did not look any softer at this show of affection.

That gaze for some reason made me think of jackals and wolves, the natural predators of the animal world. Hunger, excitement, cruelty… my heart thudded heavily in my chest without any reason as I stepped out of my spot, calling his name in my mouth.

“Sheng Min Ou…”

I don’t know why I chose to call out his full name, as if everything had already been predetermined at this moment. Fate held my hand and told me – I had to stop him, I should stop him. 

Sheng Min Ou heard the noise and looked as if he was abruptly jerked from his thoughts, as he came back to his surroundings. He immediately released his grip on the cat and looked at me. The orange cat meowed softly and after nimbly landing on the floor, ran off in an instant.

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I had never seen such a shocked and unguarded expression from Sheng Min Ou, as if he had just experienced a nightmare that had just shook his soul to the core. Whilst reality and his dreams were still indistinguishable in his mind, he recognised me. In his daze, I appeared to be a part of his nightmare, and as a result exacerbated his fear.

“It’s you…” Even his voice was shaking slightly.

I thought it was because of my arrival that scared him, so I hastily apologised, “Ge, sorry, I wasn’t thinking of scaring you. It was, just then…” Just then, I didn’t even know what was happening, so I could only come up with a lie on the spot, “I saw that the cat seemed quite cute, so I wanted you to hold on to it and not let it run away, so I could… so I could pet it for a bit.” 

Sheng Min Ou looked all around us, and perhaps it was because of the shock that he had just received a moment ago, as even his tone of voice wasn’t as harsh and cold as it usually was.

“I think.. it ran away.”

I smiled as I approached him, “That’s alright, if it ran away then let it be. There’s always a chance I’ll see the cat again next time.”

Yet when I next saw the cat again, it was stuffed in a gift box that was white as snow, and placed on Sheng Min Ou’s bed. Its whole body was covered in pink lace as decoration, but its belly had been ripped open, the guts spilling out, and even in death the cats eyes remained wide open. 

Life flashes by the eyes, and in a lot of cases, there actually will never be a ‘next time’ coming.

My mothers health deteriorated by the day, and now she wasn’t able to leave her bed. The doctor said it was possible that she wouldn’t be able to live past this winter.

 

This diagnosis wasn’t hidden to her, as she was aware of the fact that she did not have many days remaining. When she spoke to me, she had less reservations with saying what was on her mind, and she didn’t avoid the topic of life and death.

“It’s almost the New Year, whatever I do I have to make it until then to not ruin it for you, so you can celebrate it properly.” She laid on the bed, breathing in the oxygen, and even when she spoke it took strenuous effort. I didn’t know how she was going to stick it out for another month when her body was like this. 

“Don’t worry about me.” I clasped her hand, and I wanted her to know that if holding on was too painful and hard, then there was no need to continue fighting, and that she could take a rest… but every time I thought of saying this, the words were stuck in my throat.

Despite preparing myself for it several times, I still dreaded and was terrified about a future where I was completely alone.

Confidently saying goodbye was a really hard thing to do.

After leaving the nursing home, I saw that it was still early in the day, so I wanted to go to the shop to take up an extra shift, but halfway there I received a text from Yi Da Zhuang. 

Sheng Min Ou had left Mei Teng Pharmaceutical two weeks ago, and had broken off the engagement with Xiao Mo Yu.

A lot of people had expected a huge commotion from the ex father-in-law but none of it happened. Xiao Sui Guang not only informed the whole company and thanked Sheng Min Ou for all the valuable contributions he had made over the years, but also personally escorted him to the doors, and gave him a warm embrace before saying their farewells.

It was evident that he felt guilty towards Sheng Min Ou, and probably after knowing all the wrongdoings his daughter had done he had assumed that Sheng Min Ou was resigning to leave this upsetting place.

To sum up, Sheng Min Ou was very successful in leaving Mei Teng Pharmaceuticals, and the way he resigned was impeccable, having not gotten on anyone’s bad side and having boosted the feelings of sympathy other people might have for him. It could even be used as an exemplar in a textbook on how to cleanly resign from a company without offending anyone. 

Yi Da Zhuang’s investigation should have stopped after the day we commenced the operation to ‘remove the grass’ but for some reason he misunderstood what I had told him, since every few days he would send me updates on what Sheng Min Ou was doing. As for me, because of obvious reasons, I didn’t exactly stop him.

Today was the first day Sheng Min Ou’s law firm opened up for business, so he sent over a text message letting me know, and also added the address of where his new firm was.

I took a look at the location, and it was honestly very close to where Prosperous Pawn Shop was, it was in the office building at the department store nearby, and wouldn’t be more than two kilometres away if I walked.

I wanted to go out for a walk anyways, so I got off a stop early at the department store and went to the florist to buy a bouquet of flowers, writing my congratulations for the new firm opening, then went on my way to the address that Yi Da Zhuang had sent to me. 

The location of this place was already quite good, and the office building was extremely affluent looking, so the rent couldn’t have been cheap. If Sheng Min Ou had decided to rent a room in this building in such a short amount of time, then it was clear to see that he was very ambitious with his new firm and felt confident that it would succeed.

Sheng Min Ou’s law firm was called ‘Jin Shang Law Firm’, and it was very easy to find. Once I came out of the lifts and made a left turn I saw it in front of me. In the corridors, there were two neat rows of flower baskets, all with congratulatory phrases being sent from some individual or company and wishing the new law firm a prosperous opening. The grandiose of the flower baskets were beyond my imagination, and in comparison, the flowers in my hand appeared ugly and shameful.

Xiao Sui Guang had also sent over a flower basket, and it was placed closest to the entrance. The flowers were still vibrant, yet the arrangement and the overall theme was elegant, so in one look it was clear that it was different to all the other vivacious arrangements surrounding it.

“Sir, you are?” The receptionist stood up and walked towards me to greet me, seeing me holding a big bouquet of red roses in my hands. She paused for a second, as if unable to ascertain whether I was a client or a delivery boy here here to pass on flowers. 

I gave her a smile, “Is Lawyer Sheng here?”

The receptionist looked to be a honest young woman, who’s cheeks reddened at the smile I gave her and slightly shyly responded, “Lawyer Sheng is not here, he’s out seeing a client and will be back in the afternoon.”

 

It was only their first day opening and already there were clients to meet, it appeared things were going quite well.

“Can I wait here for him?” I asked again, “I want to give these flowers to him personally.” 

The receptionist hesitated for a moment, then at the same time a tall, thin framed man with neatly combed hair walked out from one of the rooms inside the office. Seeing this man, the receptionist’s eyes lit up as she called him over.

“Lawyer Wu, this gentleman says that he wants to personally hand over the flowers to Lawyer Sheng, do you think we can let him go to the parlor so he can wait there…”

The young lawyer with the surname Wu held a cup of water in his hands and turned around, looking at the red roses in my lap and arched an eyebrow slightly in response.

He put his black and gold mug on the front desk and picked out the congratulatory card I had written for Sheng Min Ou to celebrate his business opening. 

“Qing Wan City’s temperature may be cold, but my love for you has always remained in the summer, in the moments that are most feverishly hot.” He shivered slightly after reading it out loud. “Wow, it’s so sappy, it’s signed by someone called ‘Lu Feng’ at the bottom, I haven’t heard of Sheng Laoshi mentioning this person before.”

I took the card from his hand and tucked it back into the flowers.

“….” He stared at me inexplicably.

The corners of my lips tugged upwards in a slight smile. “It’s me, I’m Lu Feng.” 

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