Chapter 4

That night, I went to bed around 1 AM. The last one to go to bed was Qin Ye. He had a long phone call with his wife in Guizhou, followed by another with his mistress in Shenzhen. Qin Ye wasn't particularly handsome, tall, or wealthy, but he had an incredible way with women, something I always envied.

We didn't have classes the next morning, and no one was really sleepy, so Qin Ye and I lay in bed chatting. Around 2 AM, I could still hear occasional bits of conversation and laughter from Lao Jiang and Yi Ge, while the sound of keyboard typing came from Fei Rong's room.

Suddenly, I heard someone rummaging around outside the living room. At first, it was just an occasional rustling sound, which I thought might be the wind. But then it became more frequent, definitely someone or something was going through our things. I noticed the house had gone silent—everyone must have heard it. Qin Ye sat up in bed, staring into the dark living room without moving. After a while, I heard the distinct sound of a book falling to the floor, echoing loudly in the quiet house. I jumped in surprise, and Qin Ye immediately shouted, "Who's there?!" But the rummaging continued. "We've got a thief! Damn!" He quickly jumped out of bed, and I hurried out with him. At the same time, I heard Yi Ge and Lao Jiang as well.

The living room was pitch black, and we couldn't see anything, but the sound of rummaging continued. At that moment, I felt it couldn't be a thief—what thief wouldn't run away when people woke up? Suddenly, the room was flooded with light, and I saw Fei Rong by the door, having turned on the lights. When I turned to where the noise was coming from, my legs almost gave out—I saw a dark, shadowy figure rifling through the books we had left on the sofa, scattering them all over the floor. I realized that shadow was a cat. As the light came on, it turned its "head" and glanced at us. My mind went blank—what I saw wasn't a head at all, but a flattened, twisted half of a cat's face. It leaped off the sofa and darted into the kitchen. As it passed me, I saw its crushed skull, with no blood or brain matter, just a dark, flattened mass. We all stood there, frozen in shock, except for Yi Ge, who immediately turned on the kitchen light and chased after it. That snapped me out of my daze, and I turned to look at Fei Rong, whose eyes told me he was as terrified and confused as I was. Then I rushed to the kitchen, followed by the others, all eager to see if Yi Ge had caught the cat. We found him staring into the toilet at the far end of the room. Before I could ask, Yi Ge spoke, his voice trembling, "No way… this… this can't be…"

"What is it? Where's the cat?" I asked, not even sure why I assumed it was a cat.

"It… it…" Yi Ge stammered, looking back at me before glancing down at the toilet again. I moved closer to see, but there was nothing there. Yi Ge's face was pale as he said, "I saw it jump in here just a moment ago…"

"How could a cat fit into a toilet bowl? It's impossible…" Qin Ye, still angry, trailed off as he realized he had just pointed out the obvious—something everyone was already thinking.

By now, my legs were trembling with fear. I quickly turned to Fei Rong and asked, "That cat—wasn't it the landlord's cat?"

Fei Rong stammered as everyone turned to look at him, "I… I don't know…"

"But it was dead last night, wasn't it? There was blood all over the stairs! How is it still alive?!" As I said "alive," I realized I wasn't sure if that cat could even be described as alive anymore.

"Wait, you're saying the landlord's cat died? Last night? And that blood was from it?" Lao Jiang asked, completely baffled. I didn't respond.

Qin Ye was even more confused. "What the hell? I was gone for one night, and this is what I come back to?"

I remained silent, just looking at Fei Rong.

Finally, Fei Rong spoke, "Last night, I accidentally kicked the landlord's cat to death…" He used the word "death" again, but I realized that using "alive" or "dead" to describe that cat no longer seemed appropriate.

"Well, if it's truly dead, then how come the cat's body is missing? And just now, we saw it alive and kicking!" I continued to press Fei Rong, as if everything I didn't understand was somehow his fault.

And indeed, it was. Fei Rong continued, "I… I was worried last night, unsure if the cat was really dead, so I went out to check and found it really was dead. I was scared the landlord would find out, so I threw it away…"

I couldn't believe someone as usually timid as Fei Rong would do something like that. Stunned, I quickly asked, "Are you sure it was dead?"

"It was definitely dead… I mean… I saw it still had a bit of breath left, so I stomped on it again…" When he said that, I couldn't help but see him in a new light. He ignored my shocked expression and continued, "I threw it onto the sixth floor… I wrapped it in tape… and tossed it up there…" Fei Rong's eyes were vacant. Maybe confessing had given him some relief, but it only made tonight's events even more terrifying.

I tried to imagine how he did it last night. There was an empty space beside the iron gate and the stair railing on the sixth floor. He must have tossed it up there; it's a blind spot you can't see without opening the iron gate. My first reaction wasn't to think about how inhumane his actions were but rather how extremely childish and stupid they were—dude, if you're going to dispose of it, at least don't throw it back inside the building! Take it down to the trash bin outside, for crying out loud!

"And the bloodstains? Did you clean them up?" Lao Jiang asked.

"Yes… it was too dark last night, and I couldn't see well, so I didn't clean them. I wiped them off as soon as I woke up in the afternoon…"

At this point, Fei Rong couldn't continue, so I filled in the gaps. Everyone couldn't help but harshly criticize Fei Rong's actions. What he did wasn't much different from a murderer trying to cover up their crime.

Then Yi Ge suddenly brought up a question everyone had overlooked: "How did the cat get in?"

Our first thought was the front door, but we found it tightly locked. But if it could escape through the toilet bowl, could it have entered through there too? Although we might never know how it managed to do so.

That night's events could easily be written into a "World Almanac of Animal Superpowers," but no matter how terrifying that cat was, it wasn't as frightening as what Fei Rong did. From that day on, everyone started to avoid Fei Rong, and he became increasingly silent. His departure from our group was just around the corner.

By the time we were done with everything, it was already past 4 AM. It was like we had pulled an all-nighter, and we were exhausted, sitting on the floor in the living room—no one dared to sit on the sofa. Lao Jiang and I smoked half a pack of cigarettes before we calmed down a bit, but I'm sure none of us will ever forget that half-headed cat for the rest of our lives. We sat there silently until about 5:30 AM, when the first light of dawn appeared, and we finally went to bed. Even after lying down, neither Qin Ye nor I could fall asleep.

Qin Ye suddenly asked me a question, "Did you get a good look at that cat's head?"

"…Of course, I did…" I figured all five of us must have seen it clearly.

"That wasn't a living thing… it was something unclean." I agreed with the first part but not the second.

"There's no such thing as that kind of stuff… don't scare yourself," I said.

Qin Ye was silent for a while, then took a deep breath and slowly said, "Let me tell you something, something that happened to my dad when he was young. It also involved a cat. Maybe after hearing it, you'll start to think differently."