Ch24 - A Primary School Student with Heavy Responsibilities

Sparta is in primary school now!

Editor: Vez 

On Sparta’s first day of primary school, his human gave him a gift: a collar.

Xin Qin especially ordered a customised collar after he did his homework, researching the advantages and disadvantages of cat collars, before finding a reliable breakaway cat collar. This was a new type of collar which had been developed recently. If the cat’s collar accidentally gets stuck, its buckle could be extended a certain degree with small force to prevent the cat from being strangled. The main purpose for Xin Qin to get this collar was in case Sparta got lost. Although Sparta had a chip in his body as a domestic cat, it was reassuring to know any nice passer-by could contact him using the information on the nameplate if Sparta got lost. 

Sparta’s large gold chain worked only as an accessory, which he had gotten customised to have a longer chain so as to be easier to remove. But Sparta seemed to like it. As long as it was around his neck, he would keep it there the whole time and would not take the initiative to get rid of it. This made Xin Qin assume that Sparta was not against wearing a collar. Compared to the previous large gold chain, Sparta’s new collar was very simple. Solid red material with gold thread, with a small bone shaped gold-plated nameplate—Xin Qin thought that a bone shape suited Sparta better, and insisted on using the bone shaped name plate despite the seller’s strong recommendation—with Xin Qin’s contact information engraved on it. The collar would be closer to the cat’s neck and would not hinder his movements. 

When he received the final product, Xin Qin carefully inspected the collar and tested it on himself first. Once confirming that there was no issue, he removed the collar off of himself after a while before calling for the Dragon Li. First he rubbed the collar on both sides of the cat’s cheeks. Because the collar had his scent, Sparta did not have a large reaction. Sparta would be more accepting of wearing the collar once it had his own scent. Xin Qin carefully removed the gold chain before replacing it with the red collar. He watched, allowing the Dragon Li cat to have time to adapt. Then feeling worried, he repeatedly showed the cat how to quickly break free from the collar. Although from the perspective of others, if a cat learns how to break free from the collar, it becomes meaningless to wear one. However, Xin Qin had a strange feeling that as long as he told Sparta not to take off the collar, the Dragon Li would listen, since his Sparta is an extremely smart cat.  

Xin Qin adjusted the collar for the Dragon Li cat, scratching the cat’s neck alongside. Sparta drooped his eyes with happiness. Xin Qin patiently explained to the cat, “You already know that this collar isn’t a terrible thing at all. As long as you wear it, I will have a chance to find you again no matter where you are. So, don’t take it off yourself as long as it’s not uncomfortable, all right?”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Sparta instinctively responded with purring. He really like Miwu’s touch, how seriously Miwu talked to him and the things Miwu gift him. Although it felt strange wearing this thing around his neck and it prevented him from scratching the itch, as long as it was something from Miwu, he would like it. The shiny thing in the centre also carried Miwu’s pleasant scent. He would accept it if Miwu scratched his neck for him. Meow, Miwu is talking to me again. Although I do not understand human language yet, it’s best if I reply with something once in a while. Humans sure like to show affection. 

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Xin Qin could not hold back his chuckle. “You are such a tacky little parvenu.” Then he kissed the Dragon Li. 

Miwu…Sparta lowered his head in confusion and tried to identify what was around his neck. When he found the big gold chain was back, he soon became happy again. Meow, I love Miwu’s gifts. His sisters have told him before that if a human likes him, they will give him many things. Some might look bizarre , but it is how a human expresses their love. Alas, Miwu must love me to death judging from this many gifts, meow.

Sparta began his first class of cat primary school with collars that screamed local tyrant aura. After entering primary school, the number of cats in each class was reduced to about ten. Most of the cats attending primary school are around three to six months old. They have been separated from their mothers and siblings and now occupy a video window by themselves. Sure enough, Sparta was still the oldest cat, so he looked more aloof. He chose to stay in the upper left corner and rested his eyes, not interested in the social activities of greeting and making friends on the screen. 

“Oh hey, Sparta! What a coincidence!”

The loud meow woke Sparta. Opening his eyes, he lost his drowsiness in an instant. Why does it have to be this fat Cong Baohui again!? 

Compared with the gloomy Sparta, Cong Baohui looked very excited. “It must be fate for us to be assigned to the same class again!” He happily wiggled from side to side, shaking his plump body. “Oh right, why couldn’t I find you on my friend list? Does that mean we need to add each other as friends again?”

Sparta lowered his head and licked his paw, pretending he did not hear it. 

Fortunately, the teacher appeared just in time, silencing the class to announce the official start of the class. The cat class commenced per schedule, two in the morning. The teacher was a white cat with curly fur. The beautiful curly fur reminded Sparta of those stupid toy poodles he met before. The curly hair teacher also had big ears, a delicate head like a fairy, and a big flower on his slender neck, looking very fashionable. If Sparta was a human, he would be able to tell the flower around the teacher’s neck was pink, which brought out the cat’s noble aura. The teacher introduced himself, “You can call me Mr. Chiron.” His voice was strangely inconsistent with his appearance. Very deep and rough, the voice of a hero. Sparta immediately had a favourable impression of this teacher. 

“First of all, I would like to congratulate all of you on successfully passing the preschool class. Now let us begin our class.” Mr. Chiron did not do much greeting and quickly jumped into today’s topic, “Today’s content is: Introduction to Training Humans.” 

Sparta pricked his ears. Meow, can a human be trained?

“Everyone must have finished the exercises before class. Now, please share the difference between your human’s response or attitude before and after you perform the three movements of lying down, stretching paws and tilting your head.”

Kitties were all talking over each other and could not wait to share their experiences. Among them, Cong Baohui was the loudest as he shared, “My human opened a can for me! I don’t know why but they have not let me eat cans recently. I never expected my male human to open one for me just from me showing my belly. It was amazing!”

Sparta yawned. Why else but because of your plump self.  

Other kittens also retold the magical things that happened to them. 

Mr. Chiron nodded as he listened, swept among the cats and finally focused on Sparta. “Sparta, do you have anything you want to share with your classmates?”

Sparta looked up and thought carefully. “No.” He replied. Miwu had been very good to him from the start. Miwu was nothing like other humans who suddenly became obedient and did something to make the cats happy. Miwu is the best!

When the teacher heard this, he quietly studied Sparta before looking away. He slowly concluded, “So most of you discovered a very interesting thing: it is possible to predict and intervene a human’s behaviour. In fact, as a domestic cat, it is important for you to learn how to correctly tamper with their behaviour in an unassuming way.  

“First, you need to quickly judge which human under your care you need to direct the focus of your strategy on, except when you only have one human in your human family. But if your human family is composed of multiple humans, a smart cat must always know who is worth the effort. 

“In most cases, the first people to be excluded are those who have clearly expressed their interest and affection for you. These humans are usually the female human in the family, and they pose us no threat. Secondly, you can exclude human cubs. Although they can be hazardous to us at times, they have no voice in the human family. You usually just need to spend some effort to amuse them and they usually would not cause us to be thrown out of the door.

“This is a simple process of elimination. Excluding the above categories, you will find that the ones that need to be considered thoroughly are those adult male humans. They are usually the human family’s economic pillar and have the absolute authority. Since they cannot urinate to claim their territory at will, they like to insist on other things to show their poor male prestige. During your transition period of assuming responsibility over the human family, you need to pay extra attention. If only the female human agreed while the male human in power did not agree as now and there is the start of opposition. You need to quickly execute a strategy to conquer this human male—we generally recommend doing it for a duration of one to two months—otherwise, you will have a very difficult life in the future, at least less valued than anticipated. If you succeed, you will replace this human male and become the member with the highest authority in the human family.

“Of course, the above is the normal situation. If there are special circumstances, such as the human family you care for has interchangeable status between the human male and female, then the target of your strategy would naturally need to be flexible. Similarly, if you only have one human and need to plan to establish your own authority, you can also use the following tutorials to achieve your goal. You need to figure it out yourself as a smart cat on such a simple basis. 

“In our next course, we will take an unfriendly human male with highest authority as an example. The main strategic steps you need to master are as follows: 

“First, ignore him.”