“Misunderstanding? Tell me about it,” Li Xianyu said.
“It said it didn’t want to do it either. It used to live by a reservoir twenty kilometers away, but six months ago, it was forced to come here. It was also asked to gather all the rats near the town,” the owner of the Hui family said.
“Who forced it?”
“The cat on the mountain.”
Great-Grandma said, “Raise the enemy to use as its own. This cat has something to do with it.”
Li Xianyu seemed to have predicted something and asked, “What about the purpose?”
The owner of the Hui family said helplessly, “It doesn’t know. The cat just made it come here and tell the rats to destroy and eat as much as they like. As the creature had to be there to keep the rats from separating, he had to stay on the mountain. But after a while, the cat told him to go to the river to destroy the boats along the way and not to let the fishermen go into the water to fish. Oddly enough, the cat specifically told it not to take any lives. Its IQ is not good. So far, it is still ignorant.”
“I see.” Li Xianyu hung up the phone. “Great-Grandma, let’s go back and meet the one behind the scenes.”
The two turned and left the rat hole. The rat spirit kneeled on the ground and sent the two terrifying characters away.
Just as they stepped out of the cave, a strange wind blew and the leaves rustled. The whole forest was shaking like a ferocious writhing ghost shadow.
In the strong wind, two red lanterns floated from a distance. When it was close to Li Xianyu, Li Xianyu saw that it was a pair of scarlet pupils, as a huge striped tiger stepped on the fallen leaves and approached.
It was the largest cat Li Xianyu has ever seen in his life, with a body length of more than five meters, a tail length of two meters and a shoulder height of more than two meters.
“The clouds follow the dragon, while the wind follows the tiger, no wonder there’s a chilling wind every time it appears.” Li Xianyu was slightly scared.
The cat was too oppressive and its ability was higher than a senior employee, I’m afraid this is its true form.
“Look at yourself, you are nothing like a mountain god. You’re a monster.” Li Xianyu shouted.
“The ancient books recorded that: In the mountains, forests, valleys, hills, the appearance of clouds means the coming of storms, and people would treat spirits as gods,” Great-Grandma said. “The mountain gods are the monsters in the mountains. The human mountain gods in the mythological tales are the imaginary ones.”
“What do you mean?” Li Xianyu didn’t understand.
“It means that the mountain god is a spirit, and it is both good and evil,” Great-Grandma said.
“Hey, you’ve done so much just to get people to continue paying offerings to you, right?”
The giant cat spoke with great authority, “Well, I don’t care about the human offerings, I’m just punishing these fickle humans.”
Li Xianyu’s gaze flickered. “In that case, why don’t you go down the hill and start a massacre, and order the residents of the town to give you offerings for your cultivation? Isn’t that simpler and more effective?”
The giant cat snorted and seemed dismissive. “Leave the mountain quickly. Don’t get in my way, or…”
Smack! A rock hit its skull.
“So much bullshit. Fuck it.” Great-Grandma made a gesture of Wu-Song-hitting-the-tiger and looked heroic.
Hey, hey, don’t be so reckless. This guy doesn’t look easy. Li Xianyu panicked in his mind.
“Foolish humans, you seek death.” The giant cat was furious, and with a roar, pounced with its claws out.
The strong wind was blowing at their faces, and the ferocious momentum was like a tsunami. Li Xianyu was choking, as he activated the protection of the shield device and retreated in a panic.
Great-Grandma leapt, jumped up against the strong wind. She clenched her fists, her hair flying around her.
The giant tiger pounced from the height, looking ferocious and Great-Grandma advanced bravely. She clenched her fist and took off in the air. Both parties were in the air, the tiger was on top and, Great-Grandma was below, and both parties were about to clash.
Snap!
The flash of light flashed through the darkness.
Meow meow meow?
In a flash of light, the giant cat, which was still ferocious a moment ago, crouched on the ground, licking its claws gently.
Elegant and beautiful.
Great-Grandma missed. She was confused.
Li Xianyu held his mobile phone in a state of confusion.
The scene just now was as beautiful as a picture, the beautiful woman was fighting the beast, which had a tragic and magnificent visual impact. It happened that the mobile phone was around, and Li Xianyu snapped a photo of it.
However, the cat deity’s response caught him off guard.
The giant cat licked its two claws, and its body stiffened. It reacted with frustration and fury. “Damned human beings have used such a despicable trick against me.”
A gust of wind roared and it appeared in front of Li Xianyu. His mobile phone flew out of his hand as the cat slapped it with its paw, spinning as it disappeared in the dark.
Great-Grandma tried to jump on the giant cat, but the giant cat reacted faster and quickly struck. Great-Grandma flew out due to the blow.
It’s so fast… The thought had just risen from his mind, and Li Xianyu’s gaze blurred. He then found himself flying out in the mist.
He didn’t even see how the cat got its claws out.
The shield device was torn straight away, with deep claw marks and lacerations in his chest and flesh.
Great-Grandma rushed back again, significantly faster than just before, but the cat deity responded faster. With a flexible little jump, it avoided Great-Grandma’s attack, and hit Great-Grandma with a paw.
“Not dead?” The cat deity froze and then a storm of fists descended.
It turned into an afterimage in two moves. The muffled bang bang bang reverberated through the mountains, as the rocks below Great-Grandma shattered. The earth caved in and it was beaten into the ground.
“The, the fastest punches in history?” Li Xianyu was stunned.
He thought of the video he had seen online, and the two cats snapped at each other. The speed was so fast that one couldn’t see the images quickly.
The explosive power and reaction speed of cats are the best among the animals. Human eyes could not keep up with the punching speed of the ordinary cat, not to mention this massive cat that had become a spirit.
Li Xianyu was worried for Great-Grandma, when suddenly he felt a feeling of weakness. He felt hollowed out and a sharp pain in his waist.
The swift and ferocious punches stopped. It was not the cat deity who wanted to stop, but was forced to interrupt. Great-Grandma blocked the giant cat’s double moves with both hands.
The giant cat’s expression changed and tried its best to get rid of the human girl below it, but everything was in vain. The human girl’s power exploded several times without warning, and had far outperformed it in strength.
“It feels like tickles.” Great-Grandma gave a cold hum and hit out a punch. “Hadouken!”
The giant cat’s five-meter-long body was hit and flew out. While it was in mid-air and had no place to land, it was temporarily unable to use it’s speed. Great-Grandma pounced, rode the cat and threw punches at it.
Li Xianyu thought that this battle had ended but he underestimated the giant cat. It raised its body mid-air, flipped 1440 degrees in the air, and threw Great-Grandma out.
The giant cat rushed into the woods, as Great-Grandma chased after it. Both parties started a fierce pursuit in the woods, breaking pieces of trees.
Li Xianyu cradled his waist and tried to exert force. However, he could barely keep up with them and could only look at their backs from afar.
The giant cat was not blindly beaten, and could even fight back occasionally and accurately hit Great-Grandma. On the other hand, although most of the time Great-Grandma was attacking, but nine times out of ten she had missed. Had it not been for Great-Grandma’s invincible physique, the victory would have belonged to the Giant Cat.
It turned out that it still took a lot of effort for an assassin type to fight with a warrior type, not to mention that Great-Grandma was a warrior with high defense and high resistance.
The battlefield continued to shift, and gradually went into the mountains. The many mountains had many advantages where they could fight with relish. If such a battle happened in Shanghai where there were no mountains, it would have caused social panic.
Li Xianyu found that Great-Grandma slowly couldn’t keep up. This creature was huge, but it was as light and fast as the wind.
“Hey, if you run again, I’ll go back and smash your broken temple!” Li Xianyu roared.
The effect of his words were immediate. The giant cat no longer escaped but turned its head to attack Li Xianyu.
With a swerve, it avoided Great-Grandma’s kick from above, and crossed hundreds of meters in two or three seconds.
“Big, big guy. I take back what I said just now, I take it back.” Li Xianyu turned his head and ran.
A strong wind blew behind him and as Li Xianyu turned back, he activated the shield. At the same time, he thrust out the laser sword in his hand.
The resistance did not change his ending in any way. The giant cat swatted away the laser sword in his hand effortlessly. With a roar, it pressed Li Xianyu to the ground like a mouse.
Li Xianyu spurted out a mouthful of blood, feeling like his defecation was also going to be pressed out.
Now, the giant cat was truly furious. Its cold pupils overlooked Li Xianyu as it bared its teeth. Its appearance was truly ferocious.
Seeing a killing intent in the creature’s eyes flash, Li Xianyu’s scalp turned numb and roared before his head was bitten off. “You must be lonely!” he shouted. “You really want the residents of the town to come and worship you again.”
The air quieted down violently.
The vertical pupils of the giant cat looked chilling and disturbing in the dark. It was incredibly furious and with a hiss, it roared at Li Xianyu.
“Great-Grandma, don’t do it.” Li Xianyu raised his hand, and motioned for his great-grandmother behind him to keep quiet. He then gazed at the giant cat’s pupils.
“You drove the rat spirit to make trouble in town to gnaw on crops and grain, but told him not to hurt people’s lives. What you did was not so much to punish the people under the mountain, but to show your existence. You replicated the plague of the rat, because you want to get everyone’s worship again. You want the dilapidated temple to be brilliant again.”
“Hmph, I don’t care about mere offerings,” the giant cat said.
“Then why do you have to stay here?” Li Xianyu looked directly at the creature and said, “I have a fuc-friend who loves cats. She told me that cats are actually very loyal animals. They are proud and cold and not clingy, and are seemingly not as warm and obedient as dogs, but that is due to character.”
“She also said that cats are actually very homesick. The last rodent disaster was more than a hundred years ago, right? When did the people in town stop worshipping? It’s been decades, but why are you staying here?”
“You love this land very much, it gives you glory and the warmth of a family. You help the people in the town eliminate the rat infestation, so that they have food and clothing, with a happy smile to worship you. You think this land needs you, and people who live in it need you. You’ve been on this land for more than a hundred years, but now they don’t need you.”
“You understood this yourself, so you have brought in a rodent disaster, hoping that the town people will wake up and remember that there is a cat who can solve the rat infestation in the place where they have lived for generations. You hope they will bring their families to worship you.”
“Cats are such animals, when their owner hugs them enthusiastically, they will run away, escape into the distance and look at their owners with a disdainful face. But when their master ignores them, they will come and rub and yearn for their attention.”
“Shut up!” The giant cat growled and bit down.
Great-Grandma had been on guard for a long time and swept it away with a kick. This time, Great-Grandma did not let it escape. Cats were known for their explosive forces amongst animals, but like any animal with explosive power, durability was generally not their strong suit. They suffered from physical exhaustion quickly, and this was true for cheetahs too.
After a long period of fierce fighting, the giant cat had been exhausted, but Great-Grandma became fiercer.
With continuous punches from Great-Grandma, the giant cat bled from its seven orifices, twitching all over.
“Almost. Come and devour the essence and blood. The cat is so powerful that this harvest will be no worse than the previous dragon salamander.” Great-Grandma turned her head and looked.
Li Xianyu took off his gloves and approached the creature. Cats were animals that would succumb to injuries quickly. Perhaps it was too badly injured, or knowing that it would die, the faint light in its pupils slowly dimmed. It stared at Li Xianyu for a moment and closed its eyes slowly.
Two streams of tears slid down from the corner of the eyes, hidden in thick fur.
Once upon a time, an ascetic monk found a muddy cat in the ruins after the war. It was dying and could not live. It was the ascetic who saved its life. From then on, it was raised by his side.
The cat grew up, watched the ascetic monk do good deeds and listened to him recite the Buddhist scriptures. One year, it suddenly gained spiritual enlightenment, and awakened the bloodline.
The ascetic monk was rather happy. He patted the cat and taught it to cultivate qi. A monk and an animal walked through most of China, into the mountains to collect medicine, and to help the world. They killed evil foreign species and brought blessing.
After many years, the ascetic monk was close to death. Before he died, the cat wailed and asked, “Where can I go after you die?”
The ascetic monk patted its head and answered, “The road is at your foot and Buddha is in your heart.”
The cat wandered around for many years, walking a road that it never knew the end, looking for the Buddha in its heart. At last, it came to a place called Huangshui Town.
There was a rodent disaster and plague in Huangshui Town. The people were suffering. The cat stopped here and destroyed the rat spirit, exterminating the rodent disaster. It transformed into a person, and pretended to be a physician. It got medicine to save people and cured the plague.
The people in the town thanked the divine cat and built a temple on the hill. It stood on the branch and watched the people be grateful and pious. Suddenly, it felt blessed and felt that he had found the Buddha’s heart.
Thus, the cat lived on the mountain and guarded the crops for the people under the mountain for a hundred years.
When the original group died, the incense offerings of the temple began to wither. For decades, fewer and fewer people worshipped it, and the story of the divine cat exterminating the rat infestation slowly became a legend. No one believed it and only smiled after listening.
Occasionally, only a few families went up the mountain to offer incense and worship the cat deity.
About ten years ago, a Buddhist temple was built in the next town. People in the town would rather burn incense and worship Buddha by car for half an hour than come to the temple on their own mountain again.
The cat had always lived on the mountain. Year after year, looking at its gradually falling temple, it could only remain speechless.
Six months ago, it found a rat spirit nearby and replicated the plague.
Then, it would be on the mountain every day, with its ears upright and listening to the movement at the foot of the mountain, thinking that it would not be long before the town would send someone up to repair the temple. Everyone was suffering from a rodent disaster, and they would remember it again…
It could continue to guard a good field for the people under the mountain for a hundred years, as it did then.
But day after day, no one came to visit its dilapidated temple.
Day after day, it crouched on the top of the temple, motionless.
The young man squatted down next to it, his warm palms pressed against its head.
Its era was over.
“Misunderstanding? Tell me about it,” Li Xianyu said.
“It said it didn’t want to do it either. It used to live by a reservoir twenty kilometers away, but six months ago, it was forced to come here. It was also asked to gather all the rats near the town,” the owner of the Hui family said.
“Who forced it?”
“The cat on the mountain.”
Great-Grandma said, “Raise the enemy to use as its own. This cat has something to do with it.”
Li Xianyu seemed to have predicted something and asked, “What about the purpose?”
The owner of the Hui family said helplessly, “It doesn’t know. The cat just made it come here and tell the rats to destroy and eat as much as they like. As the creature had to be there to keep the rats from separating, he had to stay on the mountain. But after a while, the cat told him to go to the river to destroy the boats along the way and not to let the fishermen go into the water to fish. Oddly enough, the cat specifically told it not to take any lives. Its IQ is not good. So far, it is still ignorant.”
“I see.” Li Xianyu hung up the phone. “Great-Grandma, let’s go back and meet the one behind the scenes.”
The two turned and left the rat hole. The rat spirit kneeled on the ground and sent the two terrifying characters away.
Just as they stepped out of the cave, a strange wind blew and the leaves rustled. The whole forest was shaking like a ferocious writhing ghost shadow.
In the strong wind, two red lanterns floated from a distance. When it was close to Li Xianyu, Li Xianyu saw that it was a pair of scarlet pupils, as a huge striped tiger stepped on the fallen leaves and approached.
It was the largest cat Li Xianyu has ever seen in his life, with a body length of more than five meters, a tail length of two meters and a shoulder height of more than two meters.
“The clouds follow the dragon, while the wind follows the tiger, no wonder there’s a chilling wind every time it appears.” Li Xianyu was slightly scared.
The cat was too oppressive and its ability was higher than a senior employee, I’m afraid this is its true form.
“Look at yourself, you are nothing like a mountain god. You’re a monster.” Li Xianyu shouted.
“The ancient books recorded that: In the mountains, forests, valleys, hills, the appearance of clouds means the coming of storms, and people would treat spirits as gods,” Great-Grandma said. “The mountain gods are the monsters in the mountains. The human mountain gods in the mythological tales are the imaginary ones.”
“What do you mean?” Li Xianyu didn’t understand.
“It means that the mountain god is a spirit, and it is both good and evil,” Great-Grandma said.
“Hey, you’ve done so much just to get people to continue paying offerings to you, right?”
The giant cat spoke with great authority, “Well, I don’t care about the human offerings, I’m just punishing these fickle humans.”
Li Xianyu’s gaze flickered. “In that case, why don’t you go down the hill and start a massacre, and order the residents of the town to give you offerings for your cultivation? Isn’t that simpler and more effective?”
The giant cat snorted and seemed dismissive. “Leave the mountain quickly. Don’t get in my way, or…”
Smack! A rock hit its skull.
“So much bullshit. Fuck it.” Great-Grandma made a gesture of Wu-Song-hitting-the-tiger and looked heroic.
Hey, hey, don’t be so reckless. This guy doesn’t look easy. Li Xianyu panicked in his mind.
“Foolish humans, you seek death.” The giant cat was furious, and with a roar, pounced with its claws out.
The strong wind was blowing at their faces, and the ferocious momentum was like a tsunami. Li Xianyu was choking, as he activated the protection of the shield device and retreated in a panic.
Great-Grandma leapt, jumped up against the strong wind. She clenched her fists, her hair flying around her.
The giant tiger pounced from the height, looking ferocious and Great-Grandma advanced bravely. She clenched her fist and took off in the air. Both parties were in the air, the tiger was on top and, Great-Grandma was below, and both parties were about to clash.
Snap!
The flash of light flashed through the darkness.
Meow meow meow?
In a flash of light, the giant cat, which was still ferocious a moment ago, crouched on the ground, licking its claws gently.
Elegant and beautiful.
Great-Grandma missed. She was confused.
Li Xianyu held his mobile phone in a state of confusion.
The scene just now was as beautiful as a picture, the beautiful woman was fighting the beast, which had a tragic and magnificent visual impact. It happened that the mobile phone was around, and Li Xianyu snapped a photo of it.
However, the cat deity’s response caught him off guard.
The giant cat licked its two claws, and its body stiffened. It reacted with frustration and fury. “Damned human beings have used such a despicable trick against me.”
A gust of wind roared and it appeared in front of Li Xianyu. His mobile phone flew out of his hand as the cat slapped it with its paw, spinning as it disappeared in the dark.
Great-Grandma tried to jump on the giant cat, but the giant cat reacted faster and quickly struck. Great-Grandma flew out due to the blow.
It’s so fast… The thought had just risen from his mind, and Li Xianyu’s gaze blurred. He then found himself flying out in the mist.
He didn’t even see how the cat got its claws out.
The shield device was torn straight away, with deep claw marks and lacerations in his chest and flesh.
Great-Grandma rushed back again, significantly faster than just before, but the cat deity responded faster. With a flexible little jump, it avoided Great-Grandma’s attack, and hit Great-Grandma with a paw.
“Not dead?” The cat deity froze and then a storm of fists descended.
It turned into an afterimage in two moves. The muffled bang bang bang reverberated through the mountains, as the rocks below Great-Grandma shattered. The earth caved in and it was beaten into the ground.
“The, the fastest punches in history?” Li Xianyu was stunned.
He thought of the video he had seen online, and the two cats snapped at each other. The speed was so fast that one couldn’t see the images quickly.
The explosive power and reaction speed of cats are the best among the animals. Human eyes could not keep up with the punching speed of the ordinary cat, not to mention this massive cat that had become a spirit.
Li Xianyu was worried for Great-Grandma, when suddenly he felt a feeling of weakness. He felt hollowed out and a sharp pain in his waist.
The swift and ferocious punches stopped. It was not the cat deity who wanted to stop, but was forced to interrupt. Great-Grandma blocked the giant cat’s double moves with both hands.
The giant cat’s expression changed and tried its best to get rid of the human girl below it, but everything was in vain. The human girl’s power exploded several times without warning, and had far outperformed it in strength.
“It feels like tickles.” Great-Grandma gave a cold hum and hit out a punch. “Hadouken!”
The giant cat’s five-meter-long body was hit and flew out. While it was in mid-air and had no place to land, it was temporarily unable to use it’s speed. Great-Grandma pounced, rode the cat and threw punches at it.
Li Xianyu thought that this battle had ended but he underestimated the giant cat. It raised its body mid-air, flipped 1440 degrees in the air, and threw Great-Grandma out.
The giant cat rushed into the woods, as Great-Grandma chased after it. Both parties started a fierce pursuit in the woods, breaking pieces of trees.
Li Xianyu cradled his waist and tried to exert force. However, he could barely keep up with them and could only look at their backs from afar.
The giant cat was not blindly beaten, and could even fight back occasionally and accurately hit Great-Grandma. On the other hand, although most of the time Great-Grandma was attacking, but nine times out of ten she had missed. Had it not been for Great-Grandma’s invincible physique, the victory would have belonged to the Giant Cat.
It turned out that it still took a lot of effort for an assassin type to fight with a warrior type, not to mention that Great-Grandma was a warrior with high defense and high resistance.
The battlefield continued to shift, and gradually went into the mountains. The many mountains had many advantages where they could fight with relish. If such a battle happened in Shanghai where there were no mountains, it would have caused social panic.
Li Xianyu found that Great-Grandma slowly couldn’t keep up. This creature was huge, but it was as light and fast as the wind.
“Hey, if you run again, I’ll go back and smash your broken temple!” Li Xianyu roared.
The effect of his words were immediate. The giant cat no longer escaped but turned its head to attack Li Xianyu.
With a swerve, it avoided Great-Grandma’s kick from above, and crossed hundreds of meters in two or three seconds.
“Big, big guy. I take back what I said just now, I take it back.” Li Xianyu turned his head and ran.
A strong wind blew behind him and as Li Xianyu turned back, he activated the shield. At the same time, he thrust out the laser sword in his hand.
The resistance did not change his ending in any way. The giant cat swatted away the laser sword in his hand effortlessly. With a roar, it pressed Li Xianyu to the ground like a mouse.
Li Xianyu spurted out a mouthful of blood, feeling like his defecation was also going to be pressed out.
Now, the giant cat was truly furious. Its cold pupils overlooked Li Xianyu as it bared its teeth. Its appearance was truly ferocious.
Seeing a killing intent in the creature’s eyes flash, Li Xianyu’s scalp turned numb and roared before his head was bitten off. “You must be lonely!” he shouted. “You really want the residents of the town to come and worship you again.”
The air quieted down violently.
The vertical pupils of the giant cat looked chilling and disturbing in the dark. It was incredibly furious and with a hiss, it roared at Li Xianyu.
“Great-Grandma, don’t do it.” Li Xianyu raised his hand, and motioned for his great-grandmother behind him to keep quiet. He then gazed at the giant cat’s pupils.
“You drove the rat spirit to make trouble in town to gnaw on crops and grain, but told him not to hurt people’s lives. What you did was not so much to punish the people under the mountain, but to show your existence. You replicated the plague of the rat, because you want to get everyone’s worship again. You want the dilapidated temple to be brilliant again.”
“Hmph, I don’t care about mere offerings,” the giant cat said.
“Then why do you have to stay here?” Li Xianyu looked directly at the creature and said, “I have a fuc-friend who loves cats. She told me that cats are actually very loyal animals. They are proud and cold and not clingy, and are seemingly not as warm and obedient as dogs, but that is due to character.”
“She also said that cats are actually very homesick. The last rodent disaster was more than a hundred years ago, right? When did the people in town stop worshipping? It’s been decades, but why are you staying here?”
“You love this land very much, it gives you glory and the warmth of a family. You help the people in the town eliminate the rat infestation, so that they have food and clothing, with a happy smile to worship you. You think this land needs you, and people who live in it need you. You’ve been on this land for more than a hundred years, but now they don’t need you.”
“You understood this yourself, so you have brought in a rodent disaster, hoping that the town people will wake up and remember that there is a cat who can solve the rat infestation in the place where they have lived for generations. You hope they will bring their families to worship you.”
“Cats are such animals, when their owner hugs them enthusiastically, they will run away, escape into the distance and look at their owners with a disdainful face. But when their master ignores them, they will come and rub and yearn for their attention.”
“Shut up!” The giant cat growled and bit down.
Great-Grandma had been on guard for a long time and swept it away with a kick. This time, Great-Grandma did not let it escape. Cats were known for their explosive forces amongst animals, but like any animal with explosive power, durability was generally not their strong suit. They suffered from physical exhaustion quickly, and this was true for cheetahs too.
After a long period of fierce fighting, the giant cat had been exhausted, but Great-Grandma became fiercer.
With continuous punches from Great-Grandma, the giant cat bled from its seven orifices, twitching all over.
“Almost. Come and devour the essence and blood. The cat is so powerful that this harvest will be no worse than the previous dragon salamander.” Great-Grandma turned her head and looked.
Li Xianyu took off his gloves and approached the creature. Cats were animals that would succumb to injuries quickly. Perhaps it was too badly injured, or knowing that it would die, the faint light in its pupils slowly dimmed. It stared at Li Xianyu for a moment and closed its eyes slowly.
Two streams of tears slid down from the corner of the eyes, hidden in thick fur.
Once upon a time, an ascetic monk found a muddy cat in the ruins after the war. It was dying and could not live. It was the ascetic who saved its life. From then on, it was raised by his side.
The cat grew up, watched the ascetic monk do good deeds and listened to him recite the Buddhist scriptures. One year, it suddenly gained spiritual enlightenment, and awakened the bloodline.
The ascetic monk was rather happy. He patted the cat and taught it to cultivate qi. A monk and an animal walked through most of China, into the mountains to collect medicine, and to help the world. They killed evil foreign species and brought blessing.
After many years, the ascetic monk was close to death. Before he died, the cat wailed and asked, “Where can I go after you die?”
The ascetic monk patted its head and answered, “The road is at your foot and Buddha is in your heart.”
The cat wandered around for many years, walking a road that it never knew the end, looking for the Buddha in its heart. At last, it came to a place called Huangshui Town.
There was a rodent disaster and plague in Huangshui Town. The people were suffering. The cat stopped here and destroyed the rat spirit, exterminating the rodent disaster. It transformed into a person, and pretended to be a physician. It got medicine to save people and cured the plague.
The people in the town thanked the divine cat and built a temple on the hill. It stood on the branch and watched the people be grateful and pious. Suddenly, it felt blessed and felt that he had found the Buddha’s heart.
Thus, the cat lived on the mountain and guarded the crops for the people under the mountain for a hundred years.
When the original group died, the incense offerings of the temple began to wither. For decades, fewer and fewer people worshipped it, and the story of the divine cat exterminating the rat infestation slowly became a legend. No one believed it and only smiled after listening.
Occasionally, only a few families went up the mountain to offer incense and worship the cat deity.
About ten years ago, a Buddhist temple was built in the next town. People in the town would rather burn incense and worship Buddha by car for half an hour than come to the temple on their own mountain again.
The cat had always lived on the mountain. Year after year, looking at its gradually falling temple, it could only remain speechless.
Six months ago, it found a rat spirit nearby and replicated the plague.
Then, it would be on the mountain every day, with its ears upright and listening to the movement at the foot of the mountain, thinking that it would not be long before the town would send someone up to repair the temple. Everyone was suffering from a rodent disaster, and they would remember it again…
It could continue to guard a good field for the people under the mountain for a hundred years, as it did then.
But day after day, no one came to visit its dilapidated temple.
Day after day, it crouched on the top of the temple, motionless.
The young man squatted down next to it, his warm palms pressed against its head.
Its era was over.
