The Versatile Master Artist

The Death God proudly held its head high, fearlessly facing the glaring afternoon sun. Its body slowly tensed up, like a strong crossbow being tightly wound, all its muscles knotted together, and its pupils shrank into thin lines, looking just like a little flower-colored leopard.

Just at the moment when the beast was about to shoot out like an arrow off the string.

An annoying paw caught the scruff of its neck, lifting it up.

”Meow! Meow meow meow!”

The Death God watched as the little toy it had been observing for so long disappeared into the grass, letting out an extremely mournful and wistful moan.

Jasmine forcefully lifted the cat by the scruff of its neck.

”Ah Wang! Those dragonflies and butterflies are flying around in the yard just fine, why do you always have to bother them!”

The little girl let the big hunk of flesh flail its claws powerlessly in the air, scolding it: ”The director auntie said if this continues, there won’t be any insects left to pollinate the wildflowers in the yard.”

No!

My dragonflies!

The cat’s claws had just been trimmed by the big sister who smelled of strawberries yesterday; otherwise, it would have definitely pounced up and given this wicked little girl a couple of swipes.

I was perfectly fine in the yard chasing dragonflies, why does this brat always have to bother me!

Ah Wang is not happy.

Ah Wang is very angry.

Ah Wang wants to bite someone.

Ah Wang chooses—

”Your claws were cut so that you don’t grab and eat dirty things. Plus, Sister Sakai said you already have stomatitis, from eating too many hard bones. If this continues, your gums will bleed a lot. She specially bought you canned cat food; for the time being, you can only eat this.”

Jasmine grabbed Ah Wang by the scruff with one hand, and supported her bottom with the other hand, carrying her like a large bag to the open can next to the gatehouse.

”Here.”

The young girl took the cat toy with a plastic dragonfly hanging by a fishing line from the side, chastising: ”Sister Sakai also bought a cat teaser. If you want to catch dragonflies in the future, you can catch this, but the teachers at school want us to recite Shelley’s ’Ode to the West Wind’ Fifth Canto, you can play after finishing homework, during this time you need to be good and eat your own cat food, got it!”

The smell of imported grain-free chicken cheese premium formula cat food drifted in the wind.

Ah Wang licked its nose.

It suddenly felt it wasn’t that angry, and it might not be a bad idea to temporarily forgive the other party.

A gentleman takes revenge, ten years is not too late.

For the sake of cat food, playing with the little girl for a while isn’t something unacceptable.

Heaven have mercy.

Ah Wang, being the thrifty old man’s yard cat used to catch mice, getting an untouched rib to chew on was already a good improvement in life.

How could it resist the seductive allure of special formula cheese cat food’s test of corruption?

The past few days have been like Cinderella putting on the glass slipper, a stray cat entering the Grand View Garden.

Aside from having to serve the wicked little girl playing house, Ah Wang is having so much fun it doesn’t even want to stay with Old Wu for a second, day and night hoping to be taken to the orphanage by Gu Weijing.

Even its waist and bottom have become rounder.

Jasmine poured the canned cat food into a cat bowl on the side, then filled a ladle with water, watching Ah Wang calmly eat with delight.

She herself took out a textbook from her backpack and began to slowly read it.

”...

The trumpet of a prophecy! (awakens the drowsy earth)

Oh Wind, (asks the west wind)

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? (If winter has come, can spring be far behind?)”

In the distance, in the courtyard of the orphanage, two easels were set up side by side.

Even while seriously drawing, the elegant young girl listening to the children’s recitation of Shelley’s English poem sketched smoothly with a charcoal pencil on the canvas.

The theme of the Singapore art exhibition is ”Human World’s Clamor.”

Models posed in static studios are neither sufficiently ”human” nor ”clamorous.”

Having gradually felt the sense of integrating reality into her work, Miss Koizumi Katsuko decided to paint outdoors.

Without a predetermined fixed theme in mind.

Capture a breeze of human worldly variety, blowing it under her brush.

As her heart desires.

Paint as she envisions.

The scene before her of the little girl reading a poem to a cat clearly touched Shengzi’s gentle state of mind, and her charcoal pencil quickly traced the pre-drawn lines on the board.

Hesitated for a moment.

The girl gently pinched the charcoal stick again, writing a few short verses in the blank space on the canvas.

”Mist, under the locust tree shade, a girl teaches a cat to read Shelley’s poem - Koizumi Katsuko.”

Miss Shengzi hummed softly with the unique long and short rhymes of Japanese, reciting this sentence.

This short song is adapted from a representative poem ”Spring Rain—Under the Watermelon Vine, A Child Teaches a Cat to Dance a Spiral Dance” from the famous haiku collection ”Ichazo, Cat, and Four Seasons” by the 1820 Edo poet Kobayashi Issa.

Koizumi Katsuko casually adapted it with the scene in front of her eyes, adding a certain flair of humor.

”What are you saying?”

Gu Weijing heard Shengzi’s soft chanting.

He couldn’t understand Japanese very well, so he asked curiously.

”A haiku I made up casually, do you want to hear it?”

Koizumi Katsuko translated the short song into English and sang it softly again.

”It’s quite lovely, sounds nice.”

The rhymes of the Latin and Sino-Tibetan language families are completely different.

Nevertheless, the whole of Japanese culture being borrowed and adapted from Dongxia culture, Gu Weijing could barely discern the three points of charm conjured by these literary imageries.

Koizumi Katsuko is a very sensitive and literary girl; being skilled at this is not surprising at all.