The Art of Being a Cat

Having dealt with the self-important Forest Cat, the black cat paced back to his own "tree-stump throne."

Before the throne lay a heap of tribute offered by the cat group.

Staring at the motley assortment for a while, the black cat stretched out a paw, swiped left, then clawed right. In mere moments, he had tossed all the miscellaneous junk aside, leaving only several large dead rats.

"Roar!"

The black cat raised a paw and pointed at the pile of dead rats before him, roaring again. At the same time, he swept his imposing gaze around, then pulled the pile of dead rats closer and made a gesture of gathering them into his arms.

The foolish cats finally seemed to get it. Meowing, they darted back out of the woods.

Watching the cats' retreating backs, the black cat purred in satisfaction, then ambled back to the other tributes he had tossed aside and began pawing through them, picking and choosing. Though most of the items were worthless to him, there was always the chance of a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse.

For instance, that obedient little Ragdoll Kitten had brought back a palm-sized little tailed scorpion. This scorpion was called a Yachiyo Mountain Scorpion, a rare hermaphroditic species. It was blackish-purple all over, barely venomous, and as timid as its venom was weak. Whenever it encountered a natural enemy, it often played dead to escape. Unfortunately, it had run into an even more timid Ragdoll Cat. That little female cat did not even dare touch grasshoppers hopping around, and since this scorpion happened to be playing dead, she simply picked it up and brought it back as tribute.

Although Zheng Qing did not know the twists and turns between Ragdoll Cats and Yachiyo Mountain Scorpions, he could not