Five years later, "Cat Sister" Cao Junling has finally found a home for her stray cats.
This home is located in a street-front shop in Shizhiding Logistics Park, Pinghu Street, Longgang District. A sky-blue signboard with the words "Blue Cat Planet Pets" written neatly stands out among the surrounding old industrial parks.
But if you push open the door and go inside, you will find that this home is simple yet warm. In the bright and clean house, there are dozens of stray cats of various breeds. Although most of them are physically disabled or suffer from diseases, they are all treated gently by their owners: each cat has its own name, territory and health record, and the owner knows each cat's temperament and personality by heart.
"The one with only three legs is called 'Lisa,' and she loves to climb on me and knead my breasts; the one that's ugly but cute is called Dora, and she's very clingy; that one over there is Little Ma, a heroic mother who helped me raise several babies..." Cao Junling introduced them one by one as she pushed open the door and entered the room.
As she spoke, several restless cats swarmed around her, meowing affectionately at her ankles.
A gentle stream of love begins with a knock on the door.
To this day, Cao Junling still can't forget the knocking on the door five years ago.
It was an afternoon in early 2019 when a series of urgent knocks sounded at Cao Junling's door. Opening the door, a little boy, about six or seven years old, stood there, looking at her with teary eyes: "Auntie, Auntie, please, please save it!"
Cao Junling looked down and saw that the boy was carrying a cat in his arms—a cat that was soaking wet and covered in wounds, wrapped in his wet school uniform.
Cao Junling suddenly realized that the boy she didn't know had come to her door because of her "meddling": At the beginning of that year, her family moved to Ronghu Central City in Pinghu. Not long after, she found that some children in the community often chased and played with stray cats. Every time she saw this, she couldn't help but step forward and scold them. Over time, the children in the community all knew her.
The cat in the boy's arms was a stray that had just been thrown into the pool. After rescuing it, the boy didn't know who to contact, so he knocked on Cao Junling's door.
Without hesitation, Cao Junling quickly took the stray cat from the boy's arms to the vet. Unfortunately, despite the doctor's best efforts, the kitten ultimately succumbed to its injuries.
The Choice of the Lone Warrior
The night the stray cat died, Cao Junling thought a lot.
She thought of the boy she had never met before. If a six or seven-year-old child would go to great lengths to save a cat, shouldn't she, as an adult, do something too?
She also thought of her son, who is in elementary school. Her kind-hearted son has been a member of an animal protection organization in Shenzhen since he was young and has even adopted a dog. If he knew about the plight of the stray cats, he would probably be heartbroken...
After that, Cao Junling bought a lot of cat food to keep at home. Whenever she had free time, she would take the cat food downstairs to feed the stray cats that came from all directions.
But she soon realized that this wouldn't really change the plight of stray cats.
In the neighborhood's WeChat group, the debate about stray cats has been ongoing: some say that when stray cats are in heat, they meow incessantly at night, keeping people awake; some say that stray cats often scratch children's hands and feet; and some even say that the property management office should euthanize all of these stray cats...
A friend who works in animal rescue also told her that simply feeding stray cats is not enough; the key is to spay or neuter them. "Spaying or neutering may seem cruel, but it is actually the most practical help for stray cats. Only in this way can we prevent stray cats from breeding indiscriminately, maintain the ecological stability of the area, and at the same time reduce the impact of cats in heat on humans."
So Cao Junling invited a veterinarian from a nearby pet hospital, and together they took dozens of stray cats in the neighborhood to be spayed or neutered one by one. But after a while, she discovered that many of the stray cats had various injuries and illnesses, and some even suffered from several serious diseases at the same time.
She then realized that she seemed to have boarded a train to rescue stray cats. The road ahead was long and fraught with difficulties, but she had no choice but to bravely move forward alone.
Spending 100,000 yuan just to save a cat
He is called a lone hero because rescuing stray cats is indeed a time-consuming and expensive task.
Putting aside everything else, just the cost of spaying or neutering dozens of stray cats is considerable. Then there's the follow-up expense: bathing, deworming, and vaccinations all cost money. Most importantly, if a stray cat is diagnosed with an illness at a veterinary clinic, further treatment is necessary. Minor ailments are manageable, but serious conditions can cost as much as major surgery for humans…
Cao Junling was aware of all this, but she still chose to accept it all.
Firstly, she felt that her financial situation was still good, and as long as she could afford it, she wanted to do her best to complete the task. Secondly, when faced with a series of vibrant lives, she simply couldn't bring herself to say the word "give up."
"Sheng Sheng" is a stray cat that Cao Junling can never say "give up" to.
Cao Junling found "Sheng Sheng" one evening in March 2022. In the parking lot at the entrance of the residential area, "Sheng Sheng," who was only a little over one year old at the time, was lying under a car, making intermittent, weak cries. Cao Junling, who was passing by the car, looked in the direction of the sound and found "Sheng Sheng," who was badly injured and on the verge of death, under the car.
She immediately took "Sheng Sheng" to the vet. The examination left her speechless: liver damage, kidney failure, abdominal perforation... it had almost every disease and injury a cat could get.
The doctor repeatedly reminded her, "You need to be mentally prepared; its condition is very serious. Even if we use every means possible, it may still die in the end."
She didn't hesitate: save them. Even if there's only a sliver of hope, she would save them.
She named it "Sheng Sheng"—meaning "life goes on and on." She asked for nothing more than for it to live.
After that, "Sheng Sheng" underwent four major surgeries, the longest of which involved a six-month hospital stay, costing Cao Junling nearly 100,000 yuan in medical expenses.
Unfortunately, after battling illness for more than a year, "Sheng Sheng" finally passed away.
The day it passed away, Cao Junling was in tears. The feeling of helplessness—the inability to stop a life from passing away despite all her efforts—carved a deep scar in her heart.
Only when you have a home can you feel at ease.
Cao Junling looked back at the past five years. In those five years, she rescued more than 200 stray cats and spent more than 1 million yuan. People around her didn't understand her efforts, and there was almost no entertainment. She stumbled along the way.
She knew she wasn't a hero who fell from the sky, nor an omnipotent god. She was a person of flesh and blood; when she couldn't walk anymore, she felt weary, and when she couldn't hold back her tears, she would burst into sobs.
For example, after spaying or neutering the cats, she didn't release them all back into the community. Some of the cats, who hadn't fully recovered, were taken to her white liquor store downstairs in the community and carefully fed.
This caused her some inconvenience. Once, she brought home several newborn kittens. To feed them, she carried an alarm clock with her, which rang every two hours, prompting her to rush to feed them. Her husband joked, "You might as well just sleep at the shop; you don't need to come home."
Another time, the shop got infected with feline distemper from somewhere. Overnight, all the newly bought cat food, cat bowls, and cat cages had to be thrown away. She picked up disinfectant, both amused and exasperated, and disinfected the entire shop inside and out.
For example, after the cats were spayed/neutered and released back into the community, she built them more than a dozen shelters that provided protection from the wind and rain and provided them with cat food at regular intervals every day. But at first, she was hesitant to feed them openly because some people would make sarcastic remarks: "If you people who feed cats love cats so much, why don't you take them all home?"
She could only sneak downstairs alone in the middle of the night to feed them.
She also realized the importance of providing a home for these stray cats. Only when they had a home could she feel at ease.
Friends also advised her to open a pet shop. Firstly, it would provide better care for stray cats, and secondly, it would allow her to earn some money, making the business more sustainable. Otherwise, even with a comfortable financial situation, how many five-year periods could she sustain her current approach?
She eventually accepted her friends' suggestion. After careful selection, she found a home for her stray cats at the Shizhiding Logistics Park on Pinghu Street.
The house has two floors. The first floor sells pet supplies, and the second floor is her stray cat shelter, as well as a place to board and groom cats. She personally handled everything from layout design to decoration and procurement.
But she is ultimately a very sensitive person. She was afraid that people would say she was profiting from stray cats, so she repeatedly emphasized that she opened the shop mainly to allow more people to adopt stray cats—everyone can adopt, she doesn't charge a penny, but she will screen each adopter individually.
As for whether or not to make a purchase at her store, she said it was up to fate.
Yes, it's all about fate. Everything she's done over the past five years seems to be attributed to these two words.
