Chapter 45
Lu Yichuan rubbed his temples with a sigh. “No need. Sorry to trouble you.”
“No trouble at all…” The young property manager, probably new to the job, couldn’t resist peeking inside. “I seem to hear someone crying in your room?”
Lu Yichuan subtly closed the door a little more. “It’s my friend. A stray cat knocked over his model, and he’s upset.”
After sending the property manager away, Lu Yichuan looked at the crying man and tossed his jacket at him with a frown. “Put this on.”
The white cat, in his human form, didn’t look as fat, even rather thin, which was why Lu Yichuan had initially mistaken him for just a strange homeless man.
The man on the floor clutched Lu Yichuan’s jacket around himself, his face tear-streaked, and stared at him. “Your friend can’t eat me! I’m a human now! Humans can’t eat humans!”
“…”
Lu Yichuan sat back down and let the cat out of his arms. He looked at the man, then said after a moment, “You’re the one who gave me the red string that day, aren’t you?”
The man looked at Jiang Heng, then at Lu Yichuan, his body trembling under his impassive gaze. “Y-yes…meow…”
Jiang Heng, perched on Lu Yichuan’s lap, tilted his head and stared at the man, curious. “Are you a demon?”
The white cat froze, then his eyes widened in horror, as if realizing something even more terrifying than being eaten. He curled up into a ball, and with a poof, a pair of white cat ears appeared on his head, twitching slightly.
“No…I’m not a demon…don’t catch me…waa…”
He started crying again.
Lu Yichuan: “…”
He said coldly, “If you keep crying, I won’t have to call the police, they’ll come on their own.”
“Waa…” The man choked back his sobs, his face red, then hiccuped under Lu Yichuan’s gaze.
…
Ten minutes later, a large white…lump was attempting to jump onto the sofa, its dusty paws leaving gray marks. Jiang Heng saw this and swatted it.
“You’re too dirty, you can’t come up here.”
The white cat looked longingly at the soft sofa, but under Lu Yichuan’s cold stare, it obediently lay down on the floor.
Lu Yichuan looked at it. “Can you speak human language?”
The white cat shifted uncomfortably, its expression pitiful, then meowed obediently.
Jiang Heng translated, “He says he can only speak human language in his human form.”
Lu Yichuan pinched the kitten’s ear thoughtfully. “Then can you understand me?”
The white cat lowered its head and nodded obediently.
“Good.” The man’s eyes curved into a smile. “I’ll ask, and you answer.”
“First question, where were you going to take my cat?”
Under his smiling yet chilling gaze, the white cat wished it could disappear into the sofa cushions, but it was a solid lump of fluff, its presence impossible to ignore.
“Meow…”
Jiang Heng translated.
“He says his boss told him to take me back. He was just following orders, he doesn’t know anything else.”
“Then who’s your boss?”
“Meow…”
Jiang Heng paused.
“He says, Boss is Boss.”
“I see…” Lu Yichuan shifted his position. “Let me rephrase the question. Is your boss also a cat?”
The white cat hesitated, then, under the man’s intense gaze, slowly nodded.
A group of cat demons, huh?
The man tapped his watch against the sofa. “Your boss told you to take my cat. Did he say anything else?”
Jiang Heng snuggled closer to Lu Yichuan, listening to the white cat’s meows. After a moment, he said, his voice slightly strained, “H-he said…his boss told him…that he had to take me back, that I’m different from other cats, and that something bad would happen if I stayed with you.”
Lu Yichuan’s fingers paused.
Jiang Heng clung to him anxiously. “Do…do you think they know I’m actually human?”
Lu Yichuan squeezed the kitten’s paw reassuringly, his gaze fixed on the white cat, a hint of scrutiny in his eyes.
The white cat, nervous in its human form, couldn’t help but hiccup again. Finally, unable to bear the tense atmosphere any longer, it picked up Lu Yichuan’s jacket from the floor and scurried into the bathroom.
Two minutes later, the man, now wearing the jacket around his waist, reappeared before Lu Yichuan.
He remembered Jiang Heng telling him not to get on the sofa and sat obediently on the carpet.
The man’s white hair was a mess. He brushed it back, revealing a pair of brown eyes. “I really don’t know anything. Boss didn’t tell me anything, just told me to bring him back.”
Lu Yichuan asked him, “Bring him back where?”
“Bring him…back…” The man stammered. “I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”
“A secret…” the man drawled, “Alright, I won’t ask about that.” He picked up the kitten. “Your boss said he’s different from other cats. Is it because he’s human?”
The white cat’s eyes widened in shock, and he sat down heavily. “How did you know?!”
“…”
Speechless.
The white cat’s shock seemed genuine. Jiang Heng, observing him closely, felt like the word “stupid” was written all over his forehead.
He whispered to Lu Yichuan, “Are you sure this is the one who gave you the red string?”
Lu Yichuan was also silent, as if reevaluating his judgment.
After a few seconds, he coughed slightly. “Then why did you give me the red string?”
“I don’t know, meow. Boss told me to. He said if I memorized my lines and gave you the red string, he would reward me with a can of food.”
“But you’re so mean!”
The white cat became agitated, the jacket slipping precariously from his waist.
“I admit, it was wrong of me to ask you for money, but why did you send so many two-legged creatures to find me?! I didn’t even dare to turn human! I barely had enough to eat!”
Jiang Heng, recalling the cat’s substantial physique, found it hard to imagine it going hungry.
Lu Yichuan finally understood why Li An hadn’t been able to find him even after turning City A upside down. He had been a cat all along.
Thinking of the three million he had given him, his eyes darkened. “So you’re saying three million wasn’t enough to feed you?”
Hearing this, the white cat became even more aggrieved. “I didn’t have a phone, meow, and I lost my bank card, I couldn’t even use it!”
“…”
Silence hung in the air.
After a moment, Lu Yichuan sighed softly, as if giving up.
Finally, Jiang Heng couldn’t help but laugh.
He said to Lu Yichuan, “See? I told you, I’m the smartest cat in the world.”
The man looked down at him. “You seem quite proud of yourself.”
Jiang Heng flicked his tail. “Just a little…”
He jumped down from Lu Yichuan’s lap. “Let me tell you, dealing with cats is a cat’s job.”
Little Jiang Heng, with his 3.5-centimeter legs, padded over to the man and meowed.
“You’re going to take me to see your boss, right? Let’s go now, and let’s take him with us.”
The man looked at Jiang Heng, then at Lu Yichuan, confused. “But Boss didn’t say anything about bringing him.”
Jiang Heng said, “But your boss didn’t say not to bring him either. Your mission is to take me back. If I go with you, your mission is complete. It doesn’t matter if there’s one more person.”
That seemed to make sense…
Seeing the man’s hesitation, Jiang Heng added, “Don’t overthink it. I’ll give you a can of food if you agree.”
The man’s eyes instantly lit up, and he instinctively moved closer to Jiang Heng. Lu Yichuan, seeing this, quickly scooped up his cat.
The man bumped into the sofa, and his loosely tied jacket slipped down. He scrambled to his feet just as a sofa cushion landed on his head.
He clutched the cushion, his eyes shining. “I’ll take you there! Can I have two cans of food?”
Three million might not be enough to bribe a person, but two cans of food were enough to bribe a cat.
…
As the sun began to set, the chaotic day finally came to an end.
Lu Yichuan, the diligent caretaker, cleaned the house and prepared dinner for a cat and…a gas canister.
The kitten ate from a special cat-paw-shaped bowl he had chosen himself. As for the gas canister…
Lu Yichuan found a basin for it in the kitchen.
Jiang Heng stood in the basin, his small body not even covering the bottom. “Are you sure you’re okay eating so much?”
The white cat stared at the food in Lu Yichuan’s hands, its eyes filled with longing.
Small, helpless, but with a bottomless stomach.
“It’s fine. I’m a powerful demon. Demons have big appetites.”
Jiang Heng said weakly, “That’s not a demon, that’s a Taotie.”
Lu Yichuan picked up the kitten from the basin, poured the cat food Jiang Heng disliked into the basin, and watched as the white cat devoured a large mouthful.
Jiang Heng gaped.
The man poked his head. “Little Jiang Heng, I wish you would eat like him.”
Jiang Heng said seriously, “I’m a kitty, not a piggy.”
Lu Yichuan: “…”
But influenced by the white cat’s voracious appetite, Jiang Heng ate a bit more than usual, finishing almost all the food in his bowl, his belly round and full.
Having eaten its fill, the white cat finally remembered its promise and led Lu Yichuan and Jiang Heng to its boss.
It didn’t change into its human form. Its round body waddled forward, each step accompanied by a jiggle.
Lu Yichuan took two steps, and it would jiggle for a minute.
Finally, exasperated, the man picked up the gas canister.
The white cat, constantly rolling around outdoors, was practically gray. Wrapped in Lu Yichuan’s jacket, it looked like a solid rock, its paws tucked in nervously, not daring to move.
Jiang Heng paced back and forth on Lu Yichuan’s shoulder, wanting to climb onto the white cat’s fluffy belly.
Lu Yichuan saw this and gave him a cold look. “Little Jiang Heng, if you dare to climb onto that dirty cat, you’re not sleeping in my bed tonight.”
Jiang Heng: (︿)
White cat: QAQ
After walking for twenty minutes, they finally arrived at the place the white cat had mentioned:
—A dilapidated, abandoned building.
Lu Yichuan looked thin, but he exercised regularly, and he carried the twenty-jin gas canister all the way without breaking a sweat.
He put the white cat down, shook off the dust from his jacket, and looked at the abandoned building, his face darkening slightly.
“Are you sure this is the place?”
The white cat meowed weakly.
Jiang Heng translated, “He says yes.”
Lu Yichuan could only follow it, climbing over the rubble and entering the building.
The further they went, the clearer the faint meows became. The sky was darkening, and the surroundings became increasingly dim.
Jiang Heng, perched on Lu Yichuan’s shoulder, his vision unaffected by the dim light, saw several furry heads poking out from the corners, then quickly retreating when they saw a human.
Back in its happy place, the white cat yowled excitedly.
“Meow! Boss! I’m back!”
The next moment, a dark shadow pounced, knocking the white cat to the ground.
