Chapter 325: Item from Ancient Times
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Recently, Fina was quite satisfied with her quiet and trouble-free days. She could enjoy meals on time and sleep soundly without being bothered by noisy birds. But sometimes she felt quite pathetic that she was contented so easily — after all, she once lay on the sacred throne of the Goddesses. In the current buzzwords, someone would doubt whether Fina was the real Fina Paris XIII.
However, she didn’t even bother to think about the reason she felt satisfied easily. She just wanted to use those times to take a nap, hoping to see her owner’s face again while half-asleep.
Today was another quiet day, Fina climbed on the highest rack of the cat tree and narrowed her eyes to take a nap. Since the pet shop had been refurbished, the cat tree set against the wall also had a new look. Each rack was not only made from a piece of wood, but a washable cotton pad was added on top, which made Fina feel very comfortable and warm when lying on it. There was also an interlayer of the cotton pad, according to the man called Guo Dongyue, where a heating pad could be placed within it, so that Fina wouldn’t feel cold on the freezing days.
Fina admired such a careful man, feeling that he had the potential to become a good servant, unlike Zhang Zian, who made her very angry. Zhang Zian actually thought Guo Dongyue’s improvement to the cat tree was unnecessary, because he was the one who had to wash the cotton pads in the end…he only shut up after Fina found him intolerable and showed him her claws.
Fina looked outside through the window, where the cold winds were blowing and made everything extremely melancholy. Going outside was the last thing she wanted to do in such weather.
Fina had never experienced such a cold winter, and she heard that the coldest time hadn’t even arrived yet. But Fina was still looking forward to the snow. She had never seen what snow looked like before, but figured it could never be worse than rain.
Fina yawned. As her dangling tail moved slightly, she felt as though some warm air was spraying around the end of her tail. If Fina guessed correctly, it was Snowy Lionet who had seized the opportunity to approach her tail, sniffing and sticking out its tongue like a dog. Fina swung her tail like she was getting rid of flies.
Hearing some noises outside the shop, Fina slightly opened her eyes and glanced at the situation. After saying something to a girl, Zhang Zian demanded Wang Qian and Li Kun, who Fina considered the servants of her servant, to go out and move things.
She closed eyes for lack of interest. Ever since buying a princess bed for Fina, Zhang Zian hadn’t brought home any decent things that deserved her attention.
The automatic glass door was really useful. Wang Qian and Li Kun were holding the heavy statue with four hands and without pushing the door, it had opened automatically. They didn’t know where to put this extremely heavy statue, so they just put it behind the door to get out of the way.
Gently putting it on the ground, the two of them were also very curious about this statue. Since their Master was still outside, they squatted down to observe it carefully and even pulled out their cellphones to take a few photos.
Half-awake, Fina had heard the noises made by them but was too lazy to open its eyes, until she sniffed the touch of a familiar smell that came from ancient times like she did.
Fina suddenly opened her eyes, stood up on the rack of the cat tree with her tail turning tight, and saw the statue of the Cat Goddess.
At the same time, Snowy Lionet, who was gazing at Fina’s tail affectionately, was also aware of the appearance of the strange smell in the air. Not sure what it was exactly, Snowy Lionet just felt there was some source of disturbance permeating the pet shop that made it restless. Snowy Lionet was indeed a cat, but it was merely an imaginative Elfin rather than a real cat, so the influence by the statue upon it was relatively minor.
Yet, Old Time Tea was different.
As soon as the cat statue was moved into the shop, from its intuition as an experienced warrior, Old Time Tea had sensed some sort of existence that possessed the power of suppressing things, which even aroused Old Time Tea’s warrior spirits to fight against it.
While Wang Qian and Li Kun were squatting and observing the statue, Fina jumped in front of them, glancing at them with her fierce eyes and looking very serious. They were surprised by her sudden appearance, so they stood up and took a few steps back.
Old Time Tea also arrived in front of the statue vigilantly besides Fina, so that it and Fina could render assistance to one another if anything happened.
Snowy Lionet didn’t know what was going on, but as Fina’s loyal servant, it also moved its four short legs and went to the statue.
Wang Qian and Li Kun suddenly felt something was wrong. The kittens that were chasing and playing around the pet shop had all cuddled to one corner, fearfully watching the statue.
After carefully looking at the statue for a moment, with its wisdom, Old Time Tea had seen that the statue was tied with Fina in numerous aspects, and it asked, "Your Majesty, will this statue be dangerous?"
Fina shook her head, "Not for now. It’s just a fake."
Although it was a fake, it was a very delicate and beautiful one, which could easily be mistaken for the real statue.
In the time where Fina came from, there was not only the belief of the Cat Goddess, but there was also the worshipping of evil gods in the dark corners, and the very statue was one of the symbols of worshipping evil gods. This fake statue looked almost the same as the authentic statue of the Cat Goddess, with the biggest difference lying in the nose ring. The orthodox statue of the Cat Goddess could have earrings, but would never have a nose ring, for a nose ring was often associated with the image of hell and the devil.
Of course, in terms of the power, purity and popularity of the Strength of Faith, the belief in the orthodox Cat Goddess prevailed over the worship of evil gods, which were after all sordid practices. Fina just didn’t expect that these things could have endured such a long time and be preserved through generations.
As Fina had learned, unlike in the East, where house cats were loved dearly by people, in Western history, house cats had been through a long period of darkness when they were regarded as the devil’s advocate and were thrown into fire with notorious witches to be burned to death. The origin of such a rumor that house cats were linked to the devil lie in the worship of evil gods emerged in ancient Egypt.
Fina was very puzzled. She had seen the authentic statue before, so she could tell the one in front of it was a counterfeit at first glance. However, no matter how similar the fake looked to the real one, the dispositions couldn’t be imitated, so why did the fake statue still retain the scent of worshipping evil gods?
Fina turned around and looked at the kittens in the corner. Having felt the evilness emanating from the statue, they were trembling and staring at the statue, frightened...
Eyes wide open nervously, Old Time Tea looked at the statue and then turned to look at Fina. Even when confronting the Rainbow Fighters and the Qing Ren, it had never been so nervous before. But after all, it was facing an invisible opponent from ancient times that it had never fought before. If not for the mighty warrior spirits inside its body that were continuously withstanding the powers released by the statue, even Old Time Tea would have felt a little bit frightened.
Fina got even closer, so close that her body almost touched the statue. She closed her eyes, and used her sense of smell to find out the source of the peculiar existence. This thing could only be done by Fina, because only Fina had once come into contact with the evilness from ancient times.
Her neck became stationary, and immediately Fina opened her eyes, staring at the golden nose ring, which emitted the most powerful source of evil in the statue. Fina struck out her claw and pulled at the nose ring.
Scratched by Fina's rather sharp nail, a layer of oxide was scraped off the surface of the nose ring, revealing the inner layer which still had a trace of oxidation, indicating that the real history of the nose ring was much longer than that of a modern replica.
Fina and Old Time Tea looked at each other and understood at the same time. This statue was a fake, but the nose ring was real, probably poached by the creator of this statue from the grave of some evil god worshipper. Perhaps the creator did not know the meaning of the nose ring, using it only to make the replica resemble the original statue to the maximum extent. However, by merging the real nose ring into a fake statue, the evilness from ancient times had shown signs of reviving.
Fina kept focusing on this ancient nose ring, the history of which may even be longer than Fina’s existence. It was very precious, witnessing an era. Yet it was very evil, so evil that it must not continue to exist anymore.
Although a little bit pitiful, Fina understood that there was only one way for this to be done. This task couldn’t be accomplished by Fina, whose claws were sharp, but not so sharp as to cut clean through iron as though it were mud.
Fina cast a decisive look at Old Time Tea.
Old Time Tea smiled calmly, "At your service, Your Majesty." Then, it stretched out its claws, intensified by the Strength of Faith.
As it waved its claws, the nose ring fell from the statue.