Officer Tao's Cat Apprentice

Tao Chuan had just been promoted to head of the city’s criminal investigation team when his retired mentor called. He wanted to recommend a recent graduate to the city bureau and asked Tao Chuan to show her the ropes.

Tao Chuan hated anything that made life more complicated, but he couldn’t turn down his mentor, so he agreed.

The first time he saw Miao Ti, Tao Chuan thought she looked familiar.

Almond-shaped eyes, a pert nose, soft, rounded cheeks with a hint of childishness.

She looked like a cat.

After spending some time with Miao Ti, Tao Chuan decided there was something strange about her.

She kept fish on her desk and tucked talismans into her phone case. She said that since she dealt with the dead every day, keeping fish would improve the feng shui and the talismans would protect her.

Then Tao Chuan accidentally discovered that she kept ice cream in the forensic examiner’s fridge. After coming back from a case on a sweltering day, she would sneak off to grab a bar.

Though the police dogs were exceptionally well trained, she kept as far away from them as a cat that had spotted a dog.

When chasing a criminal, she would leap off a three-story building without a second thought.

She didn’t eat cilantro.

But she would eat it if Tao Chuan sprinkled it over the fish he cooked.

He had never met anyone who loved fish as much as she did.

Before long, he was hanging around with groups of fishing enthusiasts whenever he had free time, asking everywhere where he could catch good-tasting wild fish.

Tao Chuan considered himself an excellent judge of character, rarely mistaken, yet he could never figure Miao Ti out.

He didn’t know that although he had met countless people, Miao Ti wasn’t human at all.

*

When he was young, Tao Chuan was too busy with work to date. After finally retiring, he was rehired to teach, and in the end he didn’t even manage to find himself a wife.

At last, when he had some free time, Tao Chuan got a calico cat. He named her “Titi,” meaning graceful and beautiful.

Titi lived up to her name. She grew more and more beautiful, and she lived a long life, too.

She stayed with Tao Chuan for seventeen whole years. It wasn’t until he was seventy-six that Titi finally passed away of old age.

While she was alive, Titi really was a good cat.

She never scratched up the sofa or curtains, never drank from human cups, and never hit anyone with paws that had just buried her poop.

And so, good cat Titi earned a chance to be reborn.

She chose to return to 1980, when the old man was still young, hoping to see with her own eyes whether those heroic exploits he bragged about were true.

And also,

with her by his side in this life, perhaps the old man wouldn’t have to be lonely for so long?

Theme: Companionship is the most enduring declaration of love