Scripture of Days Past

"No, I'm not discriminating against cats that don't drink cat wine. I just want—"

"I, I, I, I, I. All you talk about is yourself and what you want. Have you even considered what we truly want?" Lulu cut in, interrupting Qiao Zhi mid-sentence.

"You think you can use cat wine to make us work for you, is that it?" White Rice asked.

"What if we don't want to work? Should all cats who don't work just drop dead?" Lulu demanded angrily. "I've never seen any orange cat work a day in their life!"

"It's not like you're an orange cat," Qiao Zhi scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean? Are you looking down on orange cats now?" an orange cat yelled.

"No! I'm an orange cat myself," Qiao Zhi cried, his exasperation growing by the second.

"Are you judging a cat's worth based on whether they can work or not?" White Rice yelled.

Qiao Zhi had to start grooming himself just to maintain his composure.

"That's not my intention. Aside from working ability, a cat's moral character is also very important."

"Moral character is important?" Lulu sneered. "Times are so hard right now. What is our moral character supposed to do for us? Can it feed us?"

"You're just a specist!" the same orange cat from before accused. "You're discriminating against color! You're a self-loathing orange cat!"

"Surely I'm not the only one who thinks all orange cats are lazy good-for-nothings!" Lulu exclaimed, looking around for support.

"This is pure slander!" the orange cat protested angrily. "You're spreading a harmful and unfair stereotype!"

"Don't try to make this a bigger social issue. I'm just stating my own observation," Lulu scoffed. "Why do you orange cats always make a big deal out of nothing?"

"Are all cat fiends like this?" Chu Qiguang asked, his eyes full of exasperation as he watched the cat fiends argue.

"No, it's just that... most cat fiends are very argumentative. There's also a lot of fur color discrimination. On top of that, many believe that working hard is shameful, and we're all stubborn and rebellious, so the more we're told to do something, the more we resist," Qiao Zhi explained awkwardly.

"In that case, how were you trained to be so capable?" Chu Qiguang asked.

You were the one who made me like this! Qiao Zhi thought. He shuddered involuntarily, and it seemed like many traumatic memories had been dredged up by Chu Qiguang's question.

Chu Qiguang smiled as he stroked Qiao Zhi from head to tail, then decided, "I think the best approach is to train them in the same way that you were trained."

Qiao Zhi shuddered again, clearly unwilling to accept the idea.

Chu Qiguang continued stroking Qiao Zhi as he encouraged, "Relax, Master Qiao. I owe you as my mentor. My sister is still young, and she's also an idiot. As for me, I haven't married, and I certainly don't have any children, so I'll be sharing my future empire with you. For now, we need to work together to create that empire. These cat fiends are all going to be your future subordinates, so you need to whip them into shape."

He's right! Qiao Zhi thought. Chu Qiguang will only gain more subordinates in the future, so I need to secure a place in his empire for us cats!

"What's the first step of the training?" Chu Qiguang asked.

"The first step is to beat them into submission!" Qiao Zhi declared. "We have to beat the insubordination out of them!"

"Sounds good to me," Chu Qiguang approved with a pleased nod.

What followed was a completely one-sided beating.

White Rice and Lulu were the most capable martial artists among the cat fiends, yet even they were only first-state martial artists. As a result, they were unable to put up any real resistance.

After being struck by a paw to the head, Lulu howled in pain. "You're a traitor! I knew all you orange cats were scum!"

Qiao Zhi straddled White Rice and rained punches down on his head, but White Rice's resolve remained unshaken.

"Beat me all you want! Death before submission!"

You fool! I'm doing this for the future of our cat race! Qiao Zhi communicated telepathically, then bit off a chunk of fur from the top of White Rice's head.

The sudden coolness on his scalp made White Rice collapse to the ground in despair.

"My beautiful white fur... it's gone..."

Lulu was just about to burst into laughter at White Rice's expense when he suffered the same fate, reduced to a bald cat in the blink of an eye.

Chu Qiguang watched as Qiao Zhi picked up the cat fiends one by one, then forced them into a row. However, their lazy, crooked stances made it clear they had no intention of submitting.

He didn't interfere with Qiao Zhi's training. Instead, he stood up and began clearing away the food in the yard.

"What are you doing?" White Rice shouted.

"My name is Chu Qiguang," he declared. "From now on, I won't be giving out free food. If you want to keep eating, you'll have to complete your daily training."

The cat fiends immediately started complaining, but Chu Qiguang ignored them. He simply told Qiao Zhi to beat them until they quieted down.

He carefully searched every corner of the yard and all the rooms, digging out the hidden food, cat leaf, and cat wine, then confiscated everything. This elicited another enraged response from the cat fiends.

If it weren't for the fact that even all of them combined couldn't beat Qiao Zhi in a fight, they would've already torn Chu Qiguang to shreds with their claws.

Meanwhile, Qiao Zhi had already begun the first stage of training, which he called military training.

The military training was very simple, consisting of just four commands: sit, lie down, shake hands, and play dead.

"Sit!" Qiao Zhi yelled.

White Rice bared his fangs and hissed in defiance.

"Lie down!"

White Rice kept hissing.

"Shake hands!" 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

White Rice lashed out, trying to scratch him, but Qiao Zhi quickly dodged.

He slapped White Rice to the ground and instructed, "Play dead."

White Rice struggled back to his paws.

Chu Qiguang shook his head in dismay at the sight of their insubordination.

"It seems their bellies are still too full. Master Qiao, stay here and keep an eye on them. I'll have Chen Gang bring food every day, but only for you."

Over the next few days, Qiao Zhi did as he was told, staying in the courtyard to keep a close eye on the cat fiends.

At first, the cat fiends continued to resist, unwilling to comply with the training. However, as time passed, hunger and their craving for cat wine grew stronger. Watching Qiao Zhi eat in front of them only made it worse, and some of the cat fiends began to give in.

After two days without food, even the most stubborn White Rice and Lulu began to take part in the training in exchange for food.

That was when Chu Qiguang and Chen Gang finally moved into the new courtyard to live with the cat fiends.

Chen Gang watched in shock as the cat fiends lined up in neat rows, then repeated the same actions over and over, sitting, lying down, shaking hands, and playing dead.

What is Brother Chu up to this time? This all looks so unsettling...

Meanwhile, Chu Qiguang sat at his desk, writing something down.

The training is going smoothly, but there are some other things that Qiao Zhi isn't good at organizing, such as ideological and political education. It'll be up to me to cover those fronts. Not only do they need to be put through physical training, ideological reform is also just as important. Man, whoever thought of this cat-training regimen really is an unmatched genius! It'd be no exaggeration to call them a cat savior!