【单选题】

Once (41) a time there was a cat, which lived in a small house, where there were a lot of little mice (老鼠). Not only did they live on the master (主人), but they also ate everything up. (42) the master didn’t know that but later, when the mice became (43) , they began to worry.

One day, the cat received an order: he (44) catch the mice, or if he didn’t, he could go somewhere else. (45) this reason, he began to eat them (46) .After that, the old leader of the mice (47) a meeting.Everybody agreed that they would not fight with the cat. (48) that, they should choose the peaceful (和平的) solution (方法): they had to change their home. (49) the cat heard the mice’s meeting, so he started to think about (50) he could do.
A．Since
B．Instead of
C．Instead