HCKSAB ~ 03

Chapter – 03

The living room was lit with warm yellow light. Shao Sui sat at the dining table preparing his lessons, but he didn’t get much peace—his family kept calling him one video after another.

He didn’t even glance at them, just muted them directly. Right after came a string of voice messages, urgent as if his life depended on it.

Afraid he wouldn’t listen, they also sent text versions.

The gist was that he’d reached the age to settle down and needed to find a partner. Were there any female teachers among his colleagues he had his eye on? Best if he brought one home for the Mid-Autumn Festival so the relatives could have a look.

As if bringing home a piece of merchandise were that easy.

Shao Sui ignored it completely.

After finishing his lesson prep, he rubbed his sore neck.

The study was completely silent—the cat didn’t make a single sound. Shao Sui sat for a while, then opened a delivery app and ordered a few cans of cat food.

As overpriced as the stuff was, he couldn’t just stand by and watch the cat starve.

This was what they called sunk cost.

Letting a life he’d spent thousands of yuan to save die of starvation over a hundred yuan’s worth of canned food would be like burning real money for a dead object—completely meaningless.

Well, not entirely—at least it would contribute to the pet hospital’s GDP.

While waiting for the delivery, Shao Sui moved through the overly tidy house, mopping and disinfecting back and forth, until finally he stepped into the bathroom, turned on the tap, and drenched himself from head to toe.

By the time he was done, the cat food had arrived.

He’d thought about going into the study to open a can, but the cat would probably startle awake the moment he opened the door, then stare at him warily with those round eyes again, as if he were some irredeemable villain—so he dropped the idea.

Anyway, a post pushed by the algorithm had just said that cats usually don’t eat at all on their first day home.

Before bed, Shao Sui checked the community group chat—still no word from the cat’s owner.

The photo he’d posted was from the first day: the little calico lying on the hospital’s pet tray, its wet fur plastered to its body, looking pitiful and only about three or four months old, like it was on the verge of death.

So ugly that its owner might not even recognize it.

Following Cheng Ke’s suggestion, Shao Sui posted again on social media, describing its specific features—calico pattern, tan-brown pupils, long-haired all over, a triangular patch of white chest fur extending all the way to its forehead, black fur on both sides of the eyes with a hint of golden-brown mixed in, as if wearing beautiful eye shadow.

Oh, and most importantly—it was male.

After all, even the vet had said male calicos were one in a million. The owner would definitely recognize it from that detail.

The next morning, Shao Sui had just woken up when he found his comment section had exploded—99+ notifications, not to mention a bunch of people privately messaging him, cursing him out and wishing death on his whole family for clickbait. The comments themselves were relatively tame.

Leke: The hell do you mean “chest fur”? That’s called a bib.

mimi: Don’t you know all calicos are female?

Love Big Radish: Next thing you know, you’re gonna crowdfund to save the cat, right? [laughing emoji]

Ragdoll Bro: Probably a new cattery. Move along, folks. Where do you get a male calico?

Occasional Fool-hater: That’s a torbie, not a calico. Blogger thinks he found treasure—just let him have his fun!

…

Shao Sui raised an eyebrow, entirely unbothered.

After all, when you consider that behind these comments might be some underage student in his class who hadn’t even finished compulsory education, it suddenly didn’t seem worth getting worked up over.

As for what breed the cat actually was, he didn’t really care—he just wanted to find its owner and get it out of there as soon as possible.

Of course, there were also some kind kids or adults who believed he wasn’t lying, thought the cat hadn’t been taken to the hospital yet, and were willing to pitch in money to save it.

Shao Sui pinned his own reply: Treatment already completed. This post is solely for finding the cat’s owner.

Soon after, several people with the same IP as him claimed to be the owner—but when asked for old photos of the cat, they all hemmed and hawed, and some even sent pictures stolen from the internet.

Shao Sui didn’t keep cats, but he did know his way around the internet.

He patiently blocked each of them.

There was also one netizen who had actually lost a cat and sent photos that did look quite similar—but they adamantly insisted it was a female cat, convinced that Shao Sui had misidentified it, repeating several times that there was no such thing as a male calico.

The person got more and more worked up and finally sent a voice message: “If you don’t give my cat back, I’ll post about you online!”

Shao Sui was getting a bit annoyed too. Expressionless, he walked into the study, knelt down on one knee in front of the cat, which had just woken up and was still looking dazed, lifted one of its hind legs, and took a photo of its testicles.

Click.

The calico stiffened, turned its head, and stared at Shao Sui.

Shao Sui actually caught an expression of disbelief on the cat’s face, as if to say: “What the hell are you doing?”

After staring back for a while, Shao Sui pinched the bridge of his nose. His emotions really had been unstable lately. What was the point of getting into a fight with some netizen? The other person was probably younger than half his shoe size.

So he simply sent the person three words: *Go ahead and post.*

The calico’s private photo was barely spared.

Before Shao Sui put his phone away, he glanced at it—the testicles were so tiny, it made sense that it couldn’t reproduce.

The calico let out a completely non-threatening “Hiss.”

Delete it now!

“Time to change the dressing.” Shao Sui acted as if nothing had happened, put on his gloves, and hauled the cat out of the bookshelf compartment. “Behave.”

The minor wounds had mostly healed during its hospital stay. The main issues were the broken left front leg and extensive skin damage on the left hind leg—the vet wasn’t even sure if it had been burned.

He removed the gauze, sprayed on the medicine, and wrapped it back up. The little calico was quite cooperative throughout—no scratching or clawing.

The vet had said the bandage on its head could come off; just two more days of spraying would do.

As he peeled off the gauze, its round, triangular ears stood upright on both sides, twitching every time he touched them.

Shao Sui deliberately slowed down, touching them several more times just to enjoy the calico’s put-upon expression as a cat living under someone else’s roof.

It was obvious—the little thing had wanted to bite him many times but held back.

Kind of amusing.

Shao Sui felt that his earlier impression wasn’t wrong—this calico was unusually intelligent, almost as if it understood every word he said.

To test this, Shao Sui took out two oral pills: “Take these yourself, and I’ll open a can for you.”

The calico slowly approached, sniffed around left and right for a long time, licked it cautiously twice, and then took the pills into its mouth.

“Can you swallow that without water?” The human made no move to open a can at all.

The calico hobbled back to its triangular spot among the books, turning its back on Shao Sui and ignoring him. It wasn’t taking the medicine for the sake of a can—it just wanted to get better faster!

“Suit yourself.”

Shao Sui chuckled. The moment he’d entered the study, he’d noticed that although the water was untouched, the kibble was half gone. Still, he kept his word and brought a can of cat food for the obedient pill-taker.

He tapped the can with his knuckle: “Turn around and look. Don’t think I opened it in advance and poisoned it.”

The cat, which had been hanging its head, quietly lifted half its face to sneak a peek.

Shao Sui moved the book that was slanted over the cat, opened the can, placed it inside the shelf compartment, and pushed it next to the cat’s mouth: “Only this once—never again.”

The calico: “…”

*So poor you can only afford one can?*

As it turned out, it couldn’t quite grasp every single thing Shao Sui said.

His “never again” meant that from now on, it wasn’t allowed to eat on the bookshelf—it had to use the “cat dining area.”

Having misunderstood, the little calico savored the canned food with great care after Shao Sui left.

Maybe I should save half for tomorrow.

—

By the time Shao Sui finished brushing his teeth, washing his face, and had a quick breakfast, the clock hand was pointing at seven. Back when he was a homeroom teacher, he’d have to leave the house by six.

Shao Sui stared at the light stubble in the mirror for a long while, then furrowed his brow and put down the razor. He decided he’d take the mirror down when he got home tonight—out of sight, out of mind.

He arrived at school in about ten minutes, but before he could even get to the office, the dean intercepted him.

The dean’s surname was Cao—balding on top, with a potbelly. He looked Shao Sui up and down with a smile: “That’s great, you know—men need a little stubble to have character. Though your outfit could stand to be a bit more old-fashioned.”

Shao Sui sighed: “I’m doing my best.”

Dean Cao slapped his thigh: “I get it—you’ve got a good build, so you look good in anything! My advice? Eat more rich, greasy food. You still hit the gym, don’t you?”

The gym environment felt too murky for Shao Sui.

“I work out at home.”

“If you ask me, just stop working out altogether. You’re not a woman—what do you need such a good figure for? Once your belly gets as big as mine, naturally the students won’t stare at you anymore.”

Shao Sui didn’t hold back: “Last time, you told Teacher Cheng not to wear makeup to work—to make herself look gaunt and sallow.”

Dean Cao wasn’t embarrassed at all: “What can I say—that’s the job. I’m not trying to make things hard for you, but students these days are a handful. You can’t hit ’em, can’t scold ’em. Every day you have to watch out for them dating each other, and on top of that, you have to watch out for them falling for the teachers.”

Just mentioning it made Shao Sui frown.

Dean Cao sighed and continued: “And times have changed—not only do you have to watch out for heterosexual relationships, now you’ve got to watch out for same-sex ones too! Students goofing around with each other is one thing, but we’re role models. If things blow up, we lose our jobs.”

“Mm.”

“Your sexual orientation is normal, right, Teacher Shao?”

Shao Sui glanced up: “Do I need to find a partner of the opposite sex and date them to prove it?”

“Absolutely not!” Dean Cao looked horrified. “Please don’t date anyone—I beg you! That kid’s parents found his secret diary about his crush on you, and over summer break he was throwing tantrums, threatening suicide, saying he’s depressed. If he finds out you’re seeing someone, what if he jumps off the school building?”

Shao Sui’s head was starting to ache: “Then what do you suggest I do?”

“Keep a low profile, minimize contact with the kid, act a little cold—but not *too* cold!” Dean Cao said earnestly. “Just hang in there another six months—his mother says he’ll transfer schools next semester.”

Shao Sui said: “He should see a psychologist.”

Dean Cao clicked his tongue and rattled on: “My dear Teacher Shao, you can’t say things like that! Times have changed—homosexuality isn’t a disease. If word gets back to that kid and it triggers him and he goes down a bad path, can you take responsibility? Just say that to me and let it be—”

Shao Sui said flatly: “I wasn’t talking about his sexual orientation—I meant his personality… has some issues.”

“Do you think I don’t know?” Dean Cao sounded helpless too. “But the parents don’t see mental illness as a real illness. What can we do? If we actually bring it up with them, they’ll just get angry. Better to just suck it up and deal with it.”

“Okay.”

“Alright, I’m off.” Director Cao waved his hand. “Keep it up, kids are all about looks, so make yourself look uglier!”

Shao Sui turned around and ran right into the new homeroom teacher who had just finished morning reading.

Cheng Ke sighed emotionally, “The resentment in my heart suddenly dissipated.”

Shao Sui: “.”

Cheng Ke asked with a smile, “How’s Mimi doing?”

Shao Sui’s tone softened a bit. “Getting by.”

Cheng Ke could hardly imagine Shao Sui running after a cat calling out “Mimi.” “It’s not going to be stuck with that name forever, is it? That’s way too generic.”

Shao Sui was impervious to persuasion. “Once we find its owner, it can go back to its original name.”

Cheng Ke smiled but said nothing.

Shao Sui only had one class in the morning, and the student who had written in their diary that they liked him wasn’t in that class, so overall things were relatively calm.

During his break between classes, he sat at his desk twirling a pen for a while, then picked up his phone and typed a line into the search bar: What are cats usually named?

The search results that popped up were a bit out there. The first netizen’s cat was named “Ah Xiba,” and the second one’s was called “Sang Biao.”

So if these people’s cats ever got lost, would they have to go around the neighborhood yelling, “Ah Xiba, come out! Ah Xiba!”

Or sob and call out, “Sang Biao, Sang Biao, where did you go!?”

Neighbors in the know might not laugh, but those who didn’t might call the police.