My family has raised several Dragon Li cats over the years. The most remarkable one was a male cat, yet it had never caught a single mouse!
On the very first night it arrived at our home, the mice moved out overnight. Not only did the mice that had been causing a ruckus in our house leave, but within a few days, even the neighbors’ mice disappeared~
Back then, in the countryside, the floor slabs were made of wood, and the granaries were placed upstairs to keep them dry. There was no need to see with our own eyes whether there were mice or not. As long as we didn’t hear the sounds of mice chasing and playing upstairs at night, it meant the mice had run away.
It was the proudest Dragon Li cat I had ever seen. If you tried to tease it with the tricks you used on other cats, it would look at you as if you were a fool.
Other cats would beg for strokes and hugs, but it always had that “get the hell away from me” kind of grumpy face. It didn’t care to pay attention to anyone, except when my mother called it for dinner. If you insisted on petting it while it was eating, it wouldn’t even get angry. It would just turn its head, refuse the food, and run off.
It had its own nest. The location of the nest was chosen by itself, and the materials for the nest were also snatched by itself. It had to drag away the clothes my mother had just put away to make its nest. At that time, cats were quite precious, so my mother just let it take the clothes.
It stayed with us for two years. Later, it couldn’t bear a bunch of naughty kids coming to harass it punctually every day. Until one time, the kids pushed it off the balcony. That day, its eyes were cold, with a murderous look that seemed unable to be suppressed and could erupt at any moment. In the evening, it silently finished the small fish and lard rice my mother made for it, howled twice at my mother, and then left without looking back.
When it was wandering around, it would occasionally pass by our house. When it saw my mother, it would still howl. When my mother came out, it would come up and rub against her, and then go off to explore its own world. Later, it came home less and less frequently, and we didn’t even know when it disappeared completely.
It had a home, but it wasn’t a house cat. It adjusted its own fate and returned to the jungle.
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