The white rose I picked up cried and said she liked me.

How should one begin when getting a cat?

For Xu Nian and Xu Xi, this was almost an unsolvable problem.

After all, they were all wild children without parents to care for them, so how could they have the experience to take care of a wild little life?

Fortunately, the answer was in Xu Nian's pocket.

It was a business card from a pet hospital, which the taxi driver had handed to him when he left home that morning.

After changing her clothes, Xu Xi and Xu Nian went to the pet hospital listed on the business card.

It's called a hospital, but it's actually just a small clinic filled with densely packed cat and dog kennels, one cubicle after another, like hospital wards.

A curly-haired woman was squatting in front of a cat cage, teasing a gray kitten inside with a toy.

I suppose she must be the driver's wife.

"Oh dear, was it just born recently?"

The curly-haired woman immediately put down the toy and took the towel from Xu Nian's hand.

"We probably found it next to the trash can," Xu Xi said softly, pulling her mask up slightly.

The woman looked at the kitten and frowned. "This little guy isn't doing well. I'll take him to get checked out first. You wait a moment."

"it is good."

......

After a while, the curly-haired woman came out of a room carrying a kitten.

"The kitten has contracted feline panleukopenia, no wonder its mother abandoned it. This disease is highly contagious and can easily infect the entire litter."

The woman's words made both Xu Nian and Xu Xi's hearts clench.

Is it possible that their first adopted child is about to leave them so soon?

"But don't worry too much, feline panleukopenia isn't a terminal illness. I just gave it an injection and did some basic treatment."

As the woman spoke, she found an empty cat house and put the kitten inside.

"However, it will need to stay with me for a while and receive further treatment to ensure its recovery."

Upon hearing this, both of them breathed a sigh of relief.

"Can we come and see it?"

"Yes, of course."

The curly-haired woman found a baby bottle, poured in some prepared goat milk, and handed it to the two of them: "Now you can feed it."

"Okay."

Xu Nian took the bottle and carefully brought the nipple to the kitten's mouth.

It was his first time feeding a cat, and he had no experience whatsoever. He moved very gently, barely daring to breathe, for fear of disturbing the fragile little life.

Fortunately, sucking is an instinct for almost every animal.

Upon noticing the pacifier, the kitten opened its mouth, bit down on it, and gently sucked.

As the amount of goat milk in the bottle decreased, Xu Nian's anxious heart gradually calmed down.

Watching the man carefully feed the cat, Xu Xi's vision blurred.

The scene before me seemed strangely familiar.

Ten years ago, this man had found another poor kitten.

He had never been loved for a single day, yet he clumsily and diligently built a loving little home for the kitten, a haven enveloped in a sense of security that the kitten had never experienced before.

After the kitten finished nursing, it regained some strength and meowed softly a few times in the direction of the man.

"Little Creek, look! The kitten is meowing at me!"

Xu Nian's face was filled with a relieved smile.

Xu Xi wiped her eyes and smiled too.

"Sister, are all the cats and dogs here sick and hospitalized here?"

Xu Xi looked around and saw that the cat and dog kennels in the store were basically full, with many kennels even housing several cats and dogs together.

Even so, there were many individual cages outside the cattery, and they were all packed.

"Well, actually, not many people are really sick."

The curly-haired woman sighed helplessly.

"Most of them were abandoned by others and left here with me."

She pointed to a melancholy Ragdoll cat: "This one is called Xue'er. She was abandoned at my shop's door one rainy night last year. I only found her when I came to the shop the next day, and I almost let the little guy freeze to death."

She then pointed to a tabby cat below: "This was brought to my shop by a boy before the New Year. He was seriously ill. I told him it would cost some money to treat him, and he went out to say he would call to raise money, and then he disappeared in a flash."

"And then there's DouDou. About six months ago, a little girl brought her here to stay. She paid for a week's stay, but she hasn't shown up since."

"So you've been raising them all this time?"

The curly-haired woman smiled helplessly: "Yeah, that's right. All the money I earned from running the shop went to them, and I even had to trouble my husband to drive out on the first day of the Lunar New Year to earn money to cover the remaining deficit."

"But what can we do? They are still little lives. If I don't take care of them, no one else will."

"Abandonment is truly the most hateful thing in the world. If those owners could take some responsibility and couldn't keep the pets anymore, they could at least find them a better home."

Xu Xi nodded silently.

On the other side, Xu Nian was carefully stroking the kitten's fur with her fingers.

The dirty water on its body had been wiped dry, revealing its original fur color.

Its body is mostly orange, but its neck, mouth, nose, four little paws, and belly are pure white.

As for its little tail, it's orange and white, like the caterpillar bread sold in convenience stores.

"It's best to avoid touching it as much as possible until its ringworm is cured."

The curly-haired woman patted Xu Nian's arm, reminding her.

"Okay."

"You guys should give this kitten a name, so I can call it that later."

"Want to name it?"

Xu Nian subconsciously turned her head to look at Xu Xi.

Asking him to name a child, someone who has absolutely no literary talent, is truly a bit...

Xu Xi walked to the man's side, squatted down, and quietly watched the kitten.

After thinking for a long time, she smiled slightly.

"Let's call it MaiMai."

Its skin is predominantly wheat-colored, resembling a golden ear of wheat.

Wheat ears were the most cherished thing for farmers who worked hard all year in ancient times; they were the hope for a family to have enough to eat and to survive.

Hope, like a bountiful harvest of wheat, descended upon this little cat.

Because she encountered two abandoned wild children, the fate of this abandoned little wildcat was rewritten, and she had the hope of opening her eyes to see the sunlight.

"Okay, let's call him MaiMai then."

Xu Nian turned her head and looked at the clump of wheat in the cat house.

"How's it going, Wheat Wheat? Do you like your new name?"

"Meow."

The kitten let out a soft meow and wagged its little tail, seemingly in response to the man's words.