The first weekend after start of summer brought heavy rain.
If the spring breeze of March was like scissors, then May's gale was a butcher's cleaver.
It hacked the whole world into fragments.
May's rain already carried some of summer's fervor. Before dawn had even broken, raindrops the size of beans pattered against the windowpanes, playing a lullaby for the young wizards in their dreams.
There were no classes today.
Zheng Qing enjoyed a rare sleep-in.
It was not until Dylan returned to the dormitory, drenched from head to toe after his evening class, that Zheng Qing slowly rolled out of his four-poster bed and headed for the washroom. Fat Cat Tuantuan had unusually not curled himself into a ball. Instead, he stood on the Fat Wizard's chair, paws raised on tiptoe, tail hanging low, forehead pressed to the glass as he gazed profoundly at the rain outside.
"What are you looking at?"
When Zheng Qing was driven out of the washroom by Dylan with a toothbrush in his mouth, he found the fat cat still standing by the window. Curious, he could not help leaning beside the cat's head to peer outside.
The curtain of rain joined heaven and earth like an enormous brush, painting the entire world gray. There was hardly anyone to be seen on campus, but a few small animals were frolicking in the rain.
Following the fat cat's gaze, Zheng Qing happened to spot several calico cats playing and tussling in the rain. They looked familiar to him; they seemed to be fruits from the Cat Fruit Tree as well.
He tilted his head and glanced at the fat cat.
"Men."
Shaking his head, he muttered through a mouthful of foam. In the feline world, richly colored calicos were synonymous with beauty. To an ordinary