"Cat, man, man, cat, cat, cat—is this a cat? Is it a cheetah? Cat, cat, man, cat—"
Like a kindergarten student taking an intelligence test, Kuze sat obediently at his desk, repeating the type of protagonist of the photo for each frame of the image on the screen. He felt like he was back in his student days, participating in the psychology experiments of his predecessors. He is an innocent, at the mercy of the subject, and the experimental PI is the cat that concentrates on manipulating the computer.
Kuze didn't quite understand what the test meant, but his cat had been sullen lately, and it was rare to have such an active moment. He would rather spend his time with it.
"Okay, I got it!" The cat raised his left hand to signal the experiment to stop. It let out a long sigh and looked at Kuze with rather complicated eyes. Kuze wondered what conclusion it had come to, but the cat didn't seem to plan to tell him for the time being. The cat's attention turned back to the computer, and his mouth made various meowing sounds, while his hands were busy copying the experimental results onto a piece of paper. In this regard, Kuze wisely remained silent.
The cat finally sorted out the experimental results. Kuze waited for the good news, but the cat still didn't comment on the results. Instead, he turned to Kuze and asked a mindless question: "If I turn black, will I still be a cat in your eyes?"
"Huh?" Kuze was stunned.
The cat tried to explain, but it seemed that it hadn't been able to figure it out yet, and danced around the pages, the screen, and itself for a long time without saying anything clearly. After a long while, the cat slumped his shoulders in frustration: "Forget it, I'll talk about it later."
Kuze had a lot of questions, but before he could open his mouth, the cat raised his head and asked firstly, "Let's cook? I want to eat meow meow meow meow."
"...Huh?" Kusei didn't react, "It's only half past three in the afternoon—what else is 'meow meow meow'?"
Seeing Kuze standing still, the cat trotted over and pushed Kuze out of the study door: "Cooking and cooking—by the way, keep the phone."
"what?!"
In short, Kuze was kicked out of his own study by the cat, and his mobile phone was confiscated. He stood blankly in the living room, feeling as if he were a deceived smuggler. Standing still for a while, Kuze resigned and began to sell his labor.
Kusei doesn't know what "meow meow meow" is, but it's not difficult to guess what the cat wants to eat: a lot of cheese and meat, and maybe macaroni today - the cat mentioned it casually two days ago, and Kuze will remember it Living. The cat's taste is quite strange, sweet and meat-loving, and it must be adjusted to a heavy taste close to Kuze's limit. Kuze's cooking skills are not very good, but it is enough to deal with this kind of easy western food and rough seasoning.
Kuze finished selling his labor and knocked on the door of the study. The closed door swung open. The cat was poking at the phone with its head down. It looked back to see Kuze, and immediately waved to him.
"Come on!" The cat jumped off the office chair and invited Kuze to sit down. Kuze held the cat on his lap, connected the phone to the computer according to the cat's request, and opened the phone album on the screen.
The cat turned sideways to let his vision out. Kuze was surprised to see a photo of a cat on the screen. It was obvious that the cat had just taken a selfie with his mobile phone. The background was the large bookshelf in the study. The photo angles and lighting are well chosen, and the cat looks delicate and beautiful, as bright as a TV commercial. Kuze turned his head and glanced at the cat, and felt a little unreal for a while.
"What?" the cat asked.
"I think you're cuter than the photo," Kuze commented honestly.
The cat blinked: "That's not the point."
It wants to hide its shyness. Kuze thought. This is awkward, and along with shyness, is the place where cats are cuter than photos. But he kindly remained silent.
The cat clicks the mouse to move to the next picture. Kuze didn't see the difference at a glance, but after careful observation, he realized that the color of the cat's eyes in the photo had changed. The eyes of the blue tourmaline have turned into pure black, with a sense of incompatibility.
"Tell me, what did you see?" the cat asked.
"It's you...?" Kuze replied, somewhat unsure of what the cat wanted to know, "You painted your eyes black."
"So what?" The cat turned to the next picture, and this time its dazzling golden hair also turned black. If Kuze took off his glasses and glanced at it from a distance, he might have mistaken it for a photograph of a human being. He carefully looked at the details of the photo. From the facial bones and muscles, it was obvious that the cat was a cat.
"What did you see? A cat? Or a man?" the cat urged.
"Or are you... uh, wearing adult makeup?" Kuze chose a suitable wording.
"Adult makeup?" the cat repeated.
"It's like the musical "Cats," you know? Human actors dress up as cats and act out cat stories. But yours is a human-cat flipped version." Kuze explained, "It's clearly a cat, pretending to be an adult —”
Kuze paused. He stared at the cat and said cautiously: "Actually, there is no difference between a person or a cat. I like you the most. You know what?"
"Of course there's a difference," the cat rolled his eyes. "Cats can't fuck, right?"
Kuze let out a long breath, leaned his head back on the back of the office chair, and put his right arm across his eyes. Ah, he shouldn't have taken the initiative to bring up such a topic. How can this cat say words like "do/love" and "fuck" without shame. He felt his cheeks burn.
"Pay attention to the language..." Kuze muttered to himself.
But of course the cat wouldn't listen to him.
While Kuze closed his eyes and reflected on himself, the cat started fiddling with the phone again. Kuze quietly opened one eye and looked through the gaps between his fingers to see that the cat seemed to be modifying the last photo. Its profile face is so serious and focused, it's not quite like the usual naive and naughty cat with a bad temper. Kuze admired it for a while, then closed his eyes again before the cat looked up, pretending that he didn't see anything.
"Okay." The cat patted Kuze's arm and motioned for him to look. Kuze Yiyan opened his eyes and saw a strange photo.
Still a modified version of that photo. It's his cat - but not a cat anymore, it's human. The hair and eyes are all black, and the facial features have also been modified to be more human-like. The contours of the face have become lighter, and the shape of the eyes has been slightly adjusted. At first glance, it looks a little strange, but if you look closely, you can still see that there is a cat-like appearance on his face. It's not much different from the previous picture, but it contains a subtle visual impact, like a small but heavy hammer that continuously hits a certain nerve—
very scary.
Kuze turned his face away abruptly. He took a deep breath, his fingers trembling slightly. The cat noticed his strangeness and looked over in surprise.
"Nothing..." Kuze said. He could hear the weakness in his voice, and apparently the cat heard it too.
"But you don't look good." The cat looked at him blankly, then turned to look at the screen again, "This photo—"
"Do you know the uncanny valley effect?" Kuze interrupted. He didn't want to hear the cat mention that picture again. He resisted the urge to yell at the cat and bluntly diverted the topic.
The cat had apparently never heard of this complicated term.
"It means... the similarity between a non-human thing and a person, the perception of it, the connection between the two. Take a robot as an example, when it is very different, for example, an industrial robot, only a machine Arms and powerplants, people generally don't have a special opinion about them."
In this stereotyped narrative, Kuze gradually regained his rhythm. He continued: "If there are some similarities, such as the movie "Wall-E", a robot with eyes, arms, body, and vocal organs, but clearly distinguishable differences, people will feel a little clumsy and cute. If it is exactly the same as a human being, and indistinguishable in any sense, then people will treat it as a human being, and they will like it as much as ordinary people. These are all natural.
"But between 'exactly the same' and 'slightly similar', there's another degree of resemblance at first glance, but it's non-human that can be distinguished from a closer look—"
When Kuze said this, his voice choked. He took a deep breath and continued: "For example, extremely realistic puppets and wax figures... A lot of people will feel creepy when they see it. People's average favorability to those who are 'like but can tell they are different' It will suddenly drop to a negative value, feel nausea, disgust, hatred... This effect of the sudden drop in favorability is called the 'uncanny valley effect' by robotics expert Masahiro Mori."
Kuze involuntarily quickened his breathing, and he felt his heart beating faster. If the cat hadn't mentioned it at this moment, he would never have thought that he would remember this concept so deeply.
The cat still seemed to be confused: "I seem to have heard of it... But isn't this about robots and corpses? What does it have to do with this photo?"
It turned its head sideways, trying to spot any possible unnaturalness in that picture. This action directly exposed the photo to Kuze's field of vision. He took a sharp breath, feeling numb all over. Every beat of the heart brought a sharp line of pain. He slumped forward almost uncontrollably, his hands gripping the edge of the desk.
The cat quickly discovered Kuze's discomfort. It was stunned for half a second, then immediately turned off the screen, and wrapped his arms around Kuze's body in worry. The cat is warm and cute, but Kuze couldn't forget the scene he just saw. The cat in his arms reminded him every moment of the details of that picture. He felt nauseated.
"Why do you have to be human..."
Kuze buried himself at the cat's neck and muttered to himself. The cat's embrace stiffened. Kuze knew he was wrong. They fell silent at the same time, reason and fear tugging back and forth, stirring sharp pains in Kuze's mind. Kuze tried his best not to push the cat's hug away, but he couldn't restrain the negative emotions in his heart. The quagmire was surging, and those pains condensed into spikes, all pointing to the cat.
Why can't the cats just stay in that human-like but obviously inhuman, somewhat cute safe zone before entering the Uncanny Valley, and let Kuze know that they are different from each other? Why do you have to use the identity of a cat to enter the human world and destroy the boundaries that Kuze finally set? Is there anything that Kuze hasn't done well enough? He has already asked for anything, he can be infinitely tolerant and coddled, what else can a cat be dissatisfied with? Why does it have to be human
The cat's body was warm, but Kuze felt cold.