Strange Life of a Cat

Chapter 3: This Is How You Teach a Cat

Laboratory mice were calm and gentle, which was the nice way of saying they were slow and stupid. Maybe it was due to inbreeding.

Recently, Zheng Tan often saw Papa Jiao mention them in PowerPoint slides for his course on genetics. Now looking at the five mice in the cage, he couldnt help but think that Papa Jiao was not lying. He did not see any hint of fear in the eyes of those mice. Instead, they begged for food as if the feeder was here.

Papa Jiao took a mouse out of the cage and said to Zheng Tan, Watch it; dont let it run around.

Zheng Tan and looked at the mouse that had no idea what it was about to face and lifted a paw to pin the mouse by the tail. The mouse did not struggle too much, but it did try to crawl forward.

Here, you had the difference between the wild and the domestic. If a mouse in the wild was pinned at the tail, it would either struggle as hard as it could to break free or turn around and fight back.

Papa Jiao put the other four mice into a cardboard box so they couldnt see what was going on outside.

"I dont know how your kind catch or kill mice, but Im going to tell you how we usually do it here in the lab, Papa Jiao said as he took the mouse from Zheng Tan.

"Well, here we go. In any lab in China, the basic method is to break its neck. Its probably the method that causes least pain for the animal. If carried out precisely, the mouse doesnt feel a thing. Its somewhat aligned with the whole animal welfare thing foreigners talk about. "

Zheng Tan sat on the side and watched quietly. Papa Jiao was in his lecturing mode. Sometimes at home, after Papa Jiao made his lecture PowerPoint, he would do a run through of what he was going to say in class. His subject was usually Zheng Tan.

He knew exactly what was coming when he heard the words here we go.

"Breaking the neck is really dislocating the cervical spine, which breaks off the spine and brain stem. One way to do it is to hold the mouse by the neck with one hand and hold his tail with the other. Tug to opposite directions in one swift but fierce movement and voila. Theres another way we often use; it might be easier for you. Watch carefully. "

Papa Jiao seized the tail and grabbed either sides of the mouses neck and pressed down hard.

The mouse shuddered. Then, it was motionless.

Zheng Tan watched the limp body of the mouse lying still on the desktop. Then he looked back up to Papa Jiao who had a hopeful I have faith in you. His ears twitched.

"Look, the operation is actually very simple. Even if you never did it before, youll be fine. Ive seen the speed at which you beat up Tiger; catching a mouse certainly is no problem.

The Tiger that Papa Jiao mentioned was a yellow Tabby cat. He was another one of Zheng Tans cat buddies. Unlike Sheriff, Tiger always managed to get himself in some fiasco. Zheng Tan always had to suppress the urge to physically knock some sense into him. Somehow though, Tiger was never around these days.

Papa Jiao took out another mouse and motioned for Zheng Tan to give it a try.

It took Zheng Tan three presses before he could kill this first mouse. He used too much force killing the second one, but at least this one did not suffer.

Zheng Tan felt fortunate that he became a cat. The further down on the food chain, the harder life would be.

"Cervical dislocation is easy, the mouse's cervical spine is very fragile. You just need more practice." Papa Jiao pointed out.

"Dont hesitate next time. Try to break the spinal cord and the brain marrow, instead of pulling off the head. You need to control your force to do this. I had some students use too much pressure resulting in the mouses eyeballs exploding.

Zheng Tan was speechless.

That was f-ing horrifying.

Papa Jiao seemed so calm while he said those things. In that moment, Zheng Tan felt as if he saw a cold gleam in the mans eyes.

Zheng Tan suddenly remembered chatting about this with his clubbing buddies back in the day. One of them had commented that in fact, the scariest killers were not those who appeared vicious. It wasnt the people who carried knives and had big tattoos with rings in their nose. It was those people who could kill easily but managed to remain cool and calm all the way through it.

Now that he thought about it, experienced lab technicians had a surprising amount of similarities with killers.

Zheng Tan thought about it again and realized Papa Jiao was probably the only person in the world who taught his cat how to kill mice using lab methods.

He got better killing the third and the fourth. At least these two had a more decent death, if that was possible. Soon five mice corpses lay on the lab table. One killed by Papa Jiao the other four by Zheng Tan.

Cleaning up the five mice, Papa Jiao went back into the inner room and came back with a slightly larger cage. In it were five mice again. This time, however, they were much larger.

"These are the bigger albino house rats. You can kill them using the same method. Do you need me to show you how its done again?

Zheng Tan shook his head.

"Good boy."

Like Papa Jiao said, killing the rats was harder but after getting through them, Zheng Tan considered himself a pro.

"Do you want more practice? Papa Jiao asked.

Zheng Tan shook his head.

"Well, Then thats it for killing rats. Here we go, let me just say"

And Papa Jiao was in professor mode again.

"In our laboratory, in addition to the using cervical dislocation, there are other execution methods. For instance we kill frogs with just a needle. Next week, in my anatomy class, we are dissecting a bullfrog. Ill bring one home to show you. Papa Jiao waved his hand.

Anyway, what I really want you to pay attention to is death by air embolization. Thats how we kill dogs and cats in the lab. "He paused and looked at Zheng Tan:"Do you know what it is?

Zheng Tan shook his head. His muscles were stiff, and the furs on his back and tail were still sticking up. He was starting to feel a tad cold.

"Basically it is pumping air into the veins.

Zheng Tan shuddered. This he understood. Even without much prior knowledge in biology, he knew what would result from that.

"When air gets into the blood circulation system and enter the lungs, it will end up blocking the pulmonary artery and causing a temporary shock or even death.

For example, when you swim upwards from somewhere deep under water, the pressure change could lead to gas expanding in the lungs, which could lead to expansion of the lungs themselves. It is quite dangerous if the excess gas is not removed in time. Some of the passengers on the Titanic died this way.

Papa Jiao realized that talking to a cat about the Titanic was probably of no use, so he went back to what he was saying before and came to a conclusion. "You must be careful. Stay away from possible danger and learn self-help.

Now that Zheng Tan had mastered the art of mice killing, they had achieved what they came for. Zheng Tan still loathed the idea of having to catch mice, but that was expected of a cat. Even that moron Tiger could do it. Zheng Tan felt he would be alright.

Back at the eastern quarters, Zheng Tan saw a car with familiar army license plates parked in the empty lot. So fatty was back.

While Papa Jiao went to park his scooter in the shed, Zheng Tan jumped onto the first floor balcony and peeked inside.

There was a bag of instant noodles on the desk near the window. On it sat a chubby Chinese Li Hua Cat.