"I recommended your place to my female colleague. Since you've taken such good care of delicate breeds like Ragdolls and Chinchillas, a prized Abyssinian cat would definitely be in good hands. Would that be convenient for you?"
Convenient!
Extremely convenient!
The price of a purebred Abyssinian cat is in no way inferior to that of a Ragdoll. Originating from Ethiopia, its slender, elongated body shape is similar to a Siamese's, yet it is slightly more robust. It is one of the oldest domestic cat breeds.
As an aristocrat among short-haired cats, it is dignified, noble, and elegant. With its long legs, it's also called the ballet dancer cat.
"When can we pick it up? Where? I can even visit in person!... I wish I could say that, but pregnancy really has nothing to do with whether you can keep a cat or not." Lin Lan, who was in her new house training kittens in the eighteen ways of being adorable, stood in the spacious living room talking to Xu Xiangfei, her fine eyebrows furrowed. "Cats pose no harm to pregnant women at all. What era are we in that people still think like this?"
"Telling me this is no use," Xu Xiangfei said, pointing to his own head. "The fact is, my colleague has explained this to her mother-in-law who knows how many times, but some older folks... you understand. They stubbornly believe only what they want to believe. You could tell them ten thousand times that to get infected with a cat's toxoplasmosis, you'd have to ingest a fresh pile of its waste, and they'd just shake their heads saying 'I won't listen, I won't listen.' My colleague has become haggard over this. Unable to win against the elders, she can only pull some strings to find a good home for it."
Lin Lan finally arranged with Xu Xiangfei to pick up the cat at his colleague's home on a weekend.
People who can afford such a cat usually come from well-off backgrounds. Sure enough, Xu Xiangfei took her to an upscale residential complex in the city center of West City. After obtaining the homeowner's permission, the two smoothly arrived at the residence.
The door was opened by the cat's owner, a young woman with a visibly pregnant belly, surnamed Yao.
Probably because the cat was being given away, Ms. Yao looked quite unwell, but her good upbringing made her try to maintain a smile for her guests. "You're here. Please, come in."
Following the owner inside, Lin Lan immediately spotted a cat carrier, cat food, a cat bed, cat toys, and a whole series of other cat supplies placed in an open area of the living room. The brands and styles were quite high-end, clearly showing the owner's great care for the kitten.
The cat was already inside the carrier, lying down. Large almond eyes were set in its small head, and one could vaguely make out its petite, slender body and reddish-brown coat.
"His name is Pudding. He's two years old." Ms. Yao handed the carrier to Lin Lan, her words flowing non-stop with instructions. "Pudding's favorite is the 'Pure Balance' brand cat food. Sometimes he'll eat some 'Acana' as a treat, but his absolute favorite snack is cod jerky. He has a very quiet temperament, a bit delicate. He loves sleeping on the sofa or in someone's arms the most. He likes playing with the electric mouse and the jumping pig toy, and he also really likes lying on this cat mat... I've prepared all these things. The cat food and treats I just stocked up last month, enough for Pudding for half a year... And these beds and toys, they're all his favorites. Please take them all back, so he won't feel too... too..."
The more she spoke, the redder Ms. Yao's eyes became, until she choked up, unable to speak coherently.
The quiet reddish-brown kitten in the carrier suddenly became restless. It pawed at the carrier's small window, calling out towards its owner.
"Meow—" (Mom, don't be sad.)
The Abyssinian cat's meow is recognized as very pleasant, a delicate, silvery voice like a bell.
This sound immediately made tears roll down Ms. Yao's cheeks.
"Pudding!" After two years of living together day and night, even if she couldn't understand cat language, as the owner, Ms. Yao intuitively grasped the meaning in her beloved pet's cry. "Wah...! Pudding! Pudding!"
She held the carrier tightly, pressing her head against it through the wall, tears streaming down.
The scene made both Lin Lan and Xu Xiangfei feel rather reluctant to witness.
"Ms. Yao, if you really can't bear to part with him, you can take him back after you have the baby," Lin Lan couldn't help but suggest.
Ms. Yao, who was unwilling to let go of the carrier, looked up in surprise, her tear-filled eyes holding a glimmer of hope.
"You can think of it this way: as it's inconvenient for now, you're just temporarily boarding Pudding with me." Seeing her expression, Lin Lan also smiled, explaining gently. "Xu Xiangfei probably told you, right? I'm going to open a cat café later. Helping clients who need it board their pets will be one of the café's services. After you have the baby and recuperate, pick a convenient day to come to my place. After paying the boarding fee, you can take Pudding home. How does that sound?"
Ms. Yao's previously haggard face instantly brightened. She almost blurted out, "I'd like that..."
"No! Once this cat is sent away, it's not allowed back!" An old woman's voice loudly interrupted her. An elderly lady had appeared in the living room at some point! "These cats and dogs shed hair like crazy. What if the child accidentally inhales it into its nose! Can't you be a responsible mother!"
“But... Auntie, cat and dog fur is coarse and long, a baby's nose can't inhale it...” Xu Xiangfei offered a weak defense, only to be immediately shut down by the old lady.
"I say it can be inhaled, so it can be inhaled! Anything that could harm my grandson is not allowed near! No cats, no dogs, nothing is allowed!"
Xu Xiangfei immediately retreated several steps, defeated by the invincible momentum the old lady had honed in her younger days in the village.
"Mom!" Ms. Yao sounded on the verge of breaking down upon hearing this. "How can you be like this!"
"What's wrong with me! I'm only doing this for your and the baby's good! If something happens because of this cat, can you bear the consequences!" The old lady glared, her demeanor fierce. "I said no keeping it means no keeping it! If you really dare to bring it back later, believe me, the next day I'll take it far away on a bus and abandon it!"
The atmosphere in the living room was extremely tense. The young pregnant woman looked unsteady, her knuckles on the carrier turning white from gripping it so tightly.
The stubborn old woman keenly sensed her daughter-in-law's emotional shift. She didn't continue the confrontation but switched to a softer expression, sighing with the tone of someone who's been through it all. "Daughter-in-law, I know you don't want to send the cat away and you don't like me acting this way, but I'm doing it for your own good."
She glanced at the carrier, her eyes sweeping over the cat inside with evident dislike and impatience—Lin Lan didn't miss that—before turning back to her daughter-in-law with a changed attitude.
"Think about it. After you give birth, will you really have the energy to take care of this cat like you used to? Before having a child, you could get up early and stay up late every day preparing its food and midnight snacks, spend your days off cleaning up its fur, buying it toys to play with, taking it to the vet when it's sick. After having a child, will you still have time for all that? It would be like taking care of two children, with no free time at all."
Ms. Yao opened her mouth, only to find she couldn't bring herself to affirm it, because...
"Daughter-in-law, before you got married, you told me that even after having a child, you wouldn't quit your job to stay home and raise the baby. I agreed to that. But once the baby comes, you can't just ignore it completely after work, can you? And I certainly won't help you take care of that cat of yours. Are you sure you'll have the energy to manage both—working, caring for the cat, and looking after the child—without dropping the ball on anything? This cat is so delicate; without someone meticulously tending to it, it'll surely fall sick at the drop of a hat, won't it?"
Ms. Yao fell completely silent. She lowered her head, but then, bit by bit, slowly straightened her arm, gradually passing the cat carrier over to Lin Lan.
Though the action was difficult, it clearly indicated the choice she had made in her heart.
Lin Lan quietly took the carrier, holding it steadily in her hand. Ms. Yao opposite her looked at the carrier for a moment, then suddenly covered her face with both hands, let out a low sob, and ran to a room in the back.
It was guilt, and also escape.
Lin Lan said nothing. Together with Xu Xiangfei, she gathered all the things the cat's owner had provided, carried them away, tossed them into the car's trunk, and drove straight back to the little house.
The next day, at the new little house.
"Honestly, I don't know what to say either. That old lady's later points actually made some sense. Ms. Yao's final choice, unwilling to give up her career, can't exactly be called wrong. It's just that, as the old saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too." Sitting on a cushion in the new house, Lin Lan recounted the incident to Cheng Fengyang, who had just finished the design sketches, her tone somewhat downcast. "It's just hard on this little cat who got given up."
As she spoke, her gaze fell on the cat carrier in the corner. This Abyssinian cat had been brought back for a day now. No matter how she called to it or tried to play, it hadn't made a single sound. Thankfully, feeding it went smoothly, indicating it was just in very low spirits, not yet withdrawn into a complete dead end.
"But hasn't Ms. Yao done what she could? Entrusting the cat to someone who can take good care of it is much better than abandoning it outright," Cheng Fengyang offered a different perspective. "Raising a pet really isn't much easier than raising a child. Take my Xingxing at home—keeping him clean, tidy, smart, healthy, affectionate, and lively took a lot of effort. And that's for a real child! Having a child brings all sorts of inconveniences, it's true. When my sister first gave birth to Li Mengmeng, I thought she'd become completely neurotic, prone to emotional breakdowns at the drop of a hat. If she'd had to take care of a cat or dog on top of that then, given her temper, I think she might have gone mad."
"Hmph! When you get down to it, it's the husband's family that's failing, isn't it?" Lin Lan's face flushed with indignation as if she'd thought of something. "Ms. Yao gave up the cat precisely because her in-laws were too cold. Not only was no one willing to help look after the little cat, they even had plans to throw it out. She had to give the cat away for its own safety. That day I was there, the whole confrontation was just between that mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The men in the house might as well have been dead, they were so absent! If my future in-laws dare treat me like that when I get married, forcing me to get rid of my cat the moment I'm pregnant, I'll absolutely make them know what regret feels like."
By the end, she wore a cold smile. If Uncle Yu or that international student guy from before had been present, they would have immediately recognized it as the exact same smile she had when talking about how she dealt with her cheating ex in the Rolls-Royce.
Oh no, in her anger, she'd accidentally revealed an unflattering side!
Realizing this was not good, Lin Lan quickly reined in her expression, coughing awkwardly and trying to laugh it off. "Um, I was just joking..."
"You're absolutely right, that's exactly how it should be!" Cheng Fengyang slapped his thigh in strong agreement, his face sharing her righteous anger. "Keeping a cat or dog has nothing to do with whether a woman is pregnant or not. Why should they have to give up their furry family members because of other people's ignorance? If it were me, I'd be the first to disagree! That Yao family man has no backbone; hearing about it makes me angry too! His wife's salary isn't low, is it? Yet she married him, bore his children. They both contribute to the household; it's not like he's solely responsible for the expenses. And as a husband, he can't even manage to solve the pet issue for his wife? Utterly useless! What a piece of work!"
Cheng Fengyang truly meant what he said. Putting himself in that position—if he married a wife, and she and her family forced him to abandon Xingxing because of a pregnancy, cornering him with all sorts of nonsense—he would definitely lose his temper.
No way, in the future, he must marry into a family that also likes pets!
As soon as this thought flashed through his mind, he suddenly froze. His eyes involuntarily drifted to Lin Lan sitting opposite him and the large group of cats behind her. She was also staring at him blankly at that moment, the flicker of pleasant surprise in her eyes making his own heart skip a beat.
"Ahem, well... let's continue looking at the design sketches. This is just a preliminary draft. See if there's anything you don't like or need changed, and tell me."
"Oh... right, yes. Let me see!"
The pair, suddenly finding themselves at a loss for words, began using the business at hand as an excuse for communication, their dialogue becoming somewhat vague.
Looking at the design draft Cheng Fengyang provided, Lin Lan was delighted. After listening to her requests, he had not only incorporated all her requirements into the draft but also offered some unique designs that perfectly matched her tastes. Being professional, the results he designed were even better than what she had imagined on her own.
"This is amazing! Even better than what I imagined!" Lin Lan didn't hide her thoughts at all. Pointing at some of the clever designs in the draft, she was overjoyed. "Look here, here, and here! I was just thinking about putting up wallpaper like this, painting patterns like these. This warm-toned side table and round stool in this corner are absolutely perfect! When I saw this corner before, a vague image like this flashed through my mind—this is exactly it! I never even mentioned these things to you, yet you managed to think of them to this extent. Cheng Fengyang, you're so impressive!"
Lin Lan was pleasantly surprised, but Cheng Fengyang was even more so. For some details the homeowner hadn't thought of or requested, the designer had to consider how to decorate them, which involved personal aesthetics and preferences. Often, the finished product didn't necessarily receive positive feedback; sometimes it was even criticized as worthless. Many professionals in design-related fields were quite accustomed to this situation.
But someone like Lin Lan, whose preferences and aesthetics aligned so closely with his own, perfectly hitting the mark of his inner thoughts—such a person was rare, not just among clients, but even among friends.
Cheng Fengyang felt genuine joy in his heart.
She likes your design, which means you two have some similarities in aesthetic taste.
His sister Cheng Xingyu's words unconsciously surfaced in his mind.
Watching Lin Lan, who was still chattering enthusiastically about the design draft, Cheng Fengyang's previously unacknowledged and very vague notion suddenly became clear.
