Peerless Beauty – Chapter 121

Extra Chapter 3

A Cat-Raising Chronicle

Early in the morning, after waking up, Jian Qing noticed a slightly raised lock of hair on Lu Yinxi’s head and reached out to smooth it down.

Lu Yinxi swatted away her hand and pressed down the unruly tuft of hair herself.

“I want to raise cats!”

“They’ll shed,” Jian Qing said, glancing at a strand of hair on the pillow. She picked it up and tossed it into the garbage bin outside the door.

“I won’t let them into the master bedroom,” Lu Yinxi clung to her from behind, negotiating, “I’ll clean up after them.”

“Them? How many do you want to raise?”

Lu Yinxi held up two fingers: “Two, just two, so they have company. One would be lonely.”

“Are we buying them from a cat shelter or kidnapping two off the street?”

“Let’s kidnap two from your school.”

Most stray cats are Chinese field cats, which are wild in nature but easy to raise.

Jian Qing contacted the stray cat rescue volunteer team at her school and brought home two neutered orange cats.

Some animal-loving doctors at the medical school, upon seeing stray cats on campus, would often catch them and take them to the lab for free neutering, then hand them over to student volunteers for care.

After bringing cats home, Lu Yinxi spent every evening tinkering with the cat bed, planting cat grass, and playing with the cats on the balcony, reducing her time spent with Jian Qing.

Jian Qing, alone and feeling neglected, sat in the study. When she came out, while Lu Yinxi wasn’t around, she looked at the cats with the eyes of a love rival. She meowed twice, attempting to intimidate them.

The orange cats, however, thought their owner was expressing affection and rubbed their little heads against her pant legs, covering them with cat hair.

She walked away expressionlessly to remove the fur from her pants.

The two kittens followed her, and she took a brush to groom their fur to prevent more shedding.

When the two went grocery shopping together, Lu Yinxi crouched in front of the shelves, picking out cat toys and canned cat food, while Jian Qing lingered by the snack aisle, choosing snacks that Lu Yinxi liked.

After a while, Lu Yinxi went to the fresh food section to select meat.

Jian Qing followed, thinking she was going to pick ingredients to cook for her.

“Choose a steak,” Jian Qing said.

She was craving pan-fried steak.

Lu Yinxi walked to the beef section, muttering to herself: “Need to add some liver too.”

Jian Qing, pushing the shopping cart behind her, asked: “What’s the liver for?”

“For cat food, of course. It’ll make the cats’ fur smoother and shinier, nice to touch.”

Jian Qing fell silent for a moment, then asked: “What about me?”

What about her food?

Lu Yinxi turned her head, raising an eyebrow: “You? You have hands and feet, you can cook for yourself.”

Jian Qing turned away, ignoring her.

Lu Yinxi looked at her and smiled.

She turned back: “What’s so funny?”

You’re such a grown-up, yet you’re still jealous of cats.

This thought she only dared to grumble in her heart, Lu Yinxi didn’t say it out loud, fearing retaliation from this petty person.

Lu Yinxi took a step back, her left hand grasping Jian Qing’s right hand, gently swinging it as they walked.

As they swung, Jian Qing’s heart softened, and she was no longer angry.

She always softened easily for her, from the beginning until now.

Lu Yinxi wanted to buy some fruit, and Jian Qing said, “Let’s buy from the small stand near the school gate.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s run by a cancer patient’s family member.”

Jian Qing had been bringing fruit home every day recently. Sometimes when she bought too much, Lu Yinxi would take some to give to an elderly person living alone downstairs.

The small stand was set up at the school gate, where an elderly woman with graying hair and a hunched back sat on a small stool. In front of her were baskets of bananas, mangoes, apples, and other fruits. Next to her was a QR code for payments, printed by her family. She would keep the stand open until 10:30 at night.

Her son had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and friends and family had pooled money to send him for treatment at the nearby oncology department.

The family was in financial difficulty, and she didn’t want to burden them further, so she set up this stand to earn money for her own living expenses and save some for her son’s treatment.

Students usually finished their evening classes at 9 PM, and those studying in the library would return to their dorms before 10 PM, except during final exam months.

Kindhearted students, coming out of the teaching buildings, would see this lonely old lady sitting at the gate and couldn’t help but walk over to buy something.

Jian Qing, however, was not only not soft-hearted but had become even more wary of patients’ family members than before.

Ironically, one time after class, as she was coming out of the teaching building, this simple old lady recognized her as a doctor from the oncology department and kept trying to give her oranges and mangoes. When she refused, the old lady said in dialect: “No charge! No charge!”

She said, “It’s not about the money.”

The old lady still insisted on giving her the fruit.

She wanted to transfer money to the old lady, but the old lady hid the payment QR code.

She didn’t have cash on her, so she went to exchange some at a nearby convenience store and left it on the old lady’s fruit stand. She even took a photo as evidence, in case she was accused later of accepting favors from a patient’s family.

The old lady silently watched everything, thinking she was being disliked, and didn’t say anything more. After that, she never dared to offer her fruit again.

Jian Qing observed for a while, and only after two or three months did she dare to buy fruit from this old lady’s stand.

She brought Lu Yinxi to buy bananas, oranges, and mangoes from the stand.

On the way home, Lu Yinxi peeled a banana, took a bite, and said, “It’s so bitter.”

Jian Qing looked at her: “Doesn’t it taste good?”

Lu Yinxi shook her head: “The patients and their families, their lives are so bitter.”

Jian Qing nodded, agreeing that their lives were indeed bitter.

Lu Yinxi finished the banana and said, “Dr. Jian, I want to donate a large sum for a serious illness assistance fund to your hospital. Can you help me contact your leaders?”

“When poor, cultivate oneself; when prosperous, help the world” is a Chinese saying.

She was once so poor she could only afford to eat noodles with vegetables. Now, although she still couldn’t help the entire world, she wanted to do her part.

“We’re not raising children either. In the future, when we leave this world, we can donate our money too. Isn’t it said that good deeds accumulate virtue? If there’s an afterlife, I don’t ask for great wealth and prosperity in the next life, I just hope to meet you again.”

This sudden declaration of love made Jian Qing smile slightly, and she agreed to this matter.

Back at home, Lu Yinxi took the initiative to cook, pan-frying the steak and making cat food, pleasing both human and cats.

Jian Qing washed the fruit and went out to the balcony to change the ropes on the cat climbing frame.

Through the glass window, Lu Yinxi watched the scene on the balcony – one person and two cats – feeling a sense of contentment and joy in this ordinary life.

After frying the steak, Lu Yinxi brought it to the balcony and called Jian Qing over to eat.

She asked Jian Qing, “Is it too salty?”

Jian Qing said, “No.”

“Is the texture good?”

“Yes.”

She asked again, “Do you love me very much?”

Jian Qing paused for a second while cutting the steak, her eyes filled with twinkling laughter, and looked up at Lu Yinxi: “Yes, I love you very much.”

Lu Yinxi covered her cheeks, her eyebrows relaxed and eyes smiling.

【The End】

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LP: Complete!

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