63 Don't hate you
“Young miss?!” Meimei, the maid of An Xiulan was started as they saw An Qinyan coming with An Xiulan. She was low-key shivering when she saw the both of them coming at an unexpected moment.
“What’s wrong?” An Qinyan asked as she narrowed her eyes at the young girl. She had seen enough of the world to tell that something was wrong with the staff. They were all frightened and appeared as if they had committed a grave sin. She couldn’t help but wonder if everything was right. After what happened today, she couldn’t shake off an uneasy feeling from her heart.
“Madam–”Meimei opened her mouth to make an excuse as An Xiulan was still present there.
“Speak!”
One order and they all shivered like mice.
“Madam, the cat ate all of the young miss’s chicks.” A brave maid said in almost a whisper.
Thud.
An Qinyan’s heart stopped beating for a minute. One would think she had such an exaggerated reaction because she had come to care for those ugly looking chicks whose colour had fainted after her daughter used to scrub them with her limited edition body wash every day. No, it wasn’t like that at all.
Slowly, she turned her head to look at a blank An Xiulan. There was nothing on her daughter’s face. Nothing at all. Neither sadness nor any other reaction. It was as if the girl was not capable of reacting at all. And it was scaring An Qinyan to no end.
“I’m going to my room,” An Xiulan said, meeting her mother’s eyes and went back to her room.
The head maid bowed her head as she gestured to Meimei to back off and let her handle the situation, “I apologise madam. I had sent another maid to buy those chicks but Apparently, he was late. It’s a little hard to find similar chicks”
An Qinyan nodded and offered a small smile to ease everyone’s tension. The living room was so tense that she was finding it hard to breathe there and so she said, “There is no point in getting her chicks again. Similar or not. She would have recognised them anyway. Don’t buy her those chicks anymore. If the cat ate them again, she would be sadder.”
An Qinyan understood that it was not the staff’s fault and nor was it that of the cat. The food chain had its own rule and there was no point in scolding the staff for something they had no hands in. Also, she believed that they would never do such a thing intentionally, given how all of them adore An Xiulan so much.
It was late at night and An Xiulan was staring at the ceiling, thinking nothing at all. Perhaps, she was thinking about something yet she wasn’t thinking about something at all. It didn’t make any sense and she knew it. Wasn’t it the exact reason why she was still awake trying to figure out these senseless thoughts?
It was at this moment that she heard a noise out of her window. She got up from the bed to find the ugly yellow cat whimpering in pain. As to how she could recognize the cat even in darkness, she could never forget the being that had taken away her honey chicken. Nope never at all.
Not just honey chicken, but her peri-peri chicken, garlic chicken, sweet and sour chicken, Kung pao chicken and all those yummy chicken dishes that she might have enjoyed with a can of coke if not for this ugly yellow thing! ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
At this moment, she couldn’t contain her curiosity and walked towards the back garden where the cat was whimpering. That pitiful thing was melting her heart even when it shouldn’t.
An Xiulan patted her chest lightly and said, “That’s because you are a good person. You can feel emotions for the ugly yellow cat even after it shattered your heart into tiny tiny pieces by taking away your honey from you. An Xiulan, mom will be proud of you.”
She found the cat whimpering in pain lying behind the bushes, bathed in blood.
“Oh, no…”An Xiulan whispered as she looked at the creature that looked as if it was in a lot of pain.
She sat on the ground and said in a soft voice, “Hey, wake up. What’s wrong with you?”
The cat meowed painfully, making her heartbreak.
An Xiulan softly asked, “Are you in pain?”
Before An Xiulan could do anything for the cat, it took her last breaths before her. It was as if it was waiting for her to come to her.
An Xiulan’s eyes teared up when she saw how the cat was not moving or whimpering in pain anymore. She knew that it had died but she still couldn’t stop hoping for it to meow once again even though the same cat brought her hurt by eating her chicks.
“Rest well, okay?” An Xiulan murmured like an understanding person, ” I don’t hate you. I know that in order to survive in a great ocean the bigger fishes have to swallow smaller ones. I understand your plight. Sleep well, kitty.”
Before she could say anything else, she heard soft whimpering once again and when she carefully saw there were two newborn kittens hidden under the cat’s body. It had died protecting her kittens. It was not easy to look clearly in the darkness at those kittens. She ran inside and woke up her maid and brought her back to the garden with her in order to help the kittens.
“Meimei, what can we do?” An Xiulan asked, her doe eyes shining with apparent concern.
“Missy, the cat has died,” Meimei said in hesitation as she was afraid that her young miss, who has the most tender and precious heart in the entire world, would start crying. “However, the kittens are still alive.”
“Can we save the kittens?” An Xiulan asked as knew that meimei knows a thing or two about cats.
….