The black tabby cat, Congcong, is the cat that impressed me the most.
When I was a kid, I raised several cats in the countryside for several years. Among them, the one that impressed me the most was the black raccoon cat.
Cats in the countryside enjoy the incredible freedom that pet cats now seem to have. In addition, cats are independent. You can often see big cats lazily in the corner of the wall, squinting their eyes and enjoying the red sunset, or running wildly on a wall with four or five small female cats chirping behind them. I can even feel the pride on the face of my big cat, Congcong…
The survival ability of raccoon cats is very strong. There are several things I have learned from them. I think I will never forget what happened to this big raccoon cat.
Cats in the countryside can catch mice, climb trees, and sometimes catch birds on branches. They are very flexible, smart, and playful by nature. Once, my grandmother found that he had neatly arranged his spoils in a row but did not eat them. My grandmother and I were quite surprised at the time.
The big raccoon cat, Cong Cong, is as smart as its name suggests. Once by chance, we found that he had learned how to push the back door and shake the door plug on the door down along the slot. A claw reached into the crack of the door and the door was opened by him…
However, the most legendary thing is this one.
There are mice in the northern rural areas where grain is stored. Some families keep cats, and some families use poisonous food to lure mice and poison them. That time, I think it was because Congcong was too hungry when no one was at home and ate mice by mistake. As a result, he got sick. The illness was very scary. Even I, who had kept cats for two years before, had never seen it. Congcong’s eyes began to ooze pus and he couldn’t open them. Soon his eyes became blind and turbid. Slowly, his eyeballs completely turned into blood-red balls. He bled and urinated blood. He fell down after walking a few steps.
At that time, my father married a young female teacher and ignored the old cat that had been catching mice for many years. Congcong went straight to the fire pit because it was too cold. Fortunately, we found him in time. He only got a little ash and burned a little hair. The two people who were watching TV leisurely at that time said that cats always meowed and they were annoyed and wanted to throw them outside. That was the first time I felt that people were much scarier than animals.
At the early stage of Congcong’s illness, my grandmother and I took him to the veterinarian for an injection. The doctor looked at the cat’s pupils and shook his head and said that he would definitely not survive.
My grandmother and I did not give up. Later, we injected the same medicine again. Then he finally stopped moving and stopped meowing. He became the only plant cat I have ever seen… In such a cold winter, my grandma and I put him on the warmest kang, where people always sleep, and watched over him day and night. After a few days,
something magical happened. He slowly moved his eyes, and everything returned to normal… he was full of life… It was like a miracle when I thought about it a few years later…
A few months later, I lived in the school dormitory and there was no one at home to feed him. When I went back, I found that he was gone and had not come back. My grandma said that cats are old and need to return to the mountains.
Just like that, I thought everything was over. The second year after he left, I raised another kitten. The little black cat was very dependent on me. The limbs and feet of the little black cat were white. I called him “Treading Snow”
. Just when I felt that I had entered the days of living with cats again, one snowy day, I found a big cat walking It was snowing and he was squatting outside my bedroom window, looking at me. I was a little dazed at the time because there were so many civet cats around who looked like Congcong. Maybe it was just a feeling that made me recognize him at once. When I wanted to carry him into the house from the front door, I found that his shadow was gone from the window. When I returned to the house, I found that he had opened the back door and came in by himself…
The two cats lived together for a while. Then one day the little black cat died unexpectedly. A few days later, I found that the big cat Congcong had also died of old age under a tree in the yard, lying on his side as if he was asleep, with a few leaves floating on his body.
From then until now, I have never kept a cat again.
So, living with a cat,
what I see in him is more than just intelligence.
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