As we all know, in the "Journey to the West World" dominated by "Journey to the West", there are groups of monsters, from animals to plants to human bones, from flying in the sky to running on the ground to swimming in the water, almost all of them can become monsters. However, there is no one monster in this world, that is, a cat demon. It should be known that cats are not uncommon creatures in China from ancient times to the present.
In the "Fengshen World" created by another classic mythological literature, "Fengshen Yanyi", there are also groups of all kinds of elves, and almost all things can become sperm, and there are only cats. Looking at the disciples under the master of the Tongtian Sect, there is no name for "cat". You must know that the disciples under the master of the Tongtian Sect are composed of various animals, plants, and other elves in the Three Realms. Then, the "Journey to the West" and "Fengshen", which created the two major mythological worlds in China, why do they not see the figure of the cat alone?
In fact, over the years, many scholars, experts and book fans have thought and explored this. The current mainstream interpretation is: to circumvent the political environment of the Ming Dynasty. As everyone knows, Mr. Wu Cheng'en, the author of "Journey to the West", and Mr. Xu Zhonglin, the author of "Fengshen Yanyi", both live in the same dynasty, that is, the Ming Dynasty. Among them, the dynasty in which Mr. Wu Cheng'en lived was the dynasty ruled by the Jiajing Emperor. The dynasty in which Mr. Xu Zhonglin lived was exactly after the reign of the Jiajing Emperor.
The Jiajing Emperor was a cat lover. As long as you read the relevant historical materials, you can know that the Jiajing Emperor is even obsessed with cats. During his reign, he gave official titles to the cats, and you can imagine how much he loved cats. However, in 1542 AD, this year there was a "change in the palace of Nongyin", and the Jiajing Emperor was almost strangled to death by the palace women who could not bear it and planned the palace change. After this difficulty, the Jiajing Emperor was also seriously injured. Later, according to Ye Shi, the Jiajing Emperor even had to rely on "sucking cats to refine Dan" to survive.
Since the emperor loved cats so much, and since the significance of cats to the emperor was so important, upward and downward, good and inferior, the Ming Dynasty's "Great Ming Law" also appeared such a provision: it is strictly forbidden to demonize cats, and violators are exiled or killed; those with serious nature are connected to the nine tribes. Since there is such a legal system, no matter how bold Mr. Wu Cheng'en is, he does not dare to demonize the cat. And mr. Xu Zhonglin's dynasty was not long from the rule of the Jiajing Emperor, and he naturally had to avoid it. Therefore, this also caused the phenomenon of "Journey to the West World" and "Fengshen World" to be full of monsters, but there were no cat demons.
It can be seen that every literary work carries the mark of the times to a greater or lesser extent, and can more or less reflect the characteristics of the times. Even if they are as great as Mr. Wu Cheng'en and Mr. Xu Zhonglin, they do not dare to rebel against the imperial power and the law, and can only hide the "cat" in the work. Of course, this reason is only the current mainstream view, and perhaps the two gentlemen have other unknown reasons, which need to be further explored and discovered by future generations.