The System said this body still belonged to the cat itself.
It had merely lost a portion of itself while passing through the Spacetime Turbulence, and could only return to its juvenile form.
Besides the regular quests, side quests would sometimes appear.
Side quests were optional. There was no punishment for failing to complete them.
The cat asked, “So quests that aren’t side quests DO have a punishment if you can’t finish them?”
【When a Main Quest fails, there is a punishment. If it fails too many times and the quest collapses entirely, the Host will be sent back to the original world. Once the System is stripped away, the Host’s body will revert to its original gravely wounded state. Completing side quests may earn energy or buff effects, kept on hand for emergencies.】
The cat understood.
If the Main Quest kept failing, the cat would be a goner too.
So if there were side quests, doing a few more of them might just save the cat’s life if everything fell apart someday.
Life and death meant little to a cat that had lived a good ten-odd years. It was as natural as snow falling in winter or leaves dropping in autumn, so the cat didn’t dwell on it. The moment the explanation ended, it flopped down and enjoyed a very comfortable afternoon nap.
Later that evening, Yu Zeming, having finished waiting on Tantai Tian, stepped out carrying a small bowl.
The cat, freshly awake, gave a lazy roll, scrambled to its feet, and padded after Yu Zeming with a proper cat-walk.
Yu Zeming set the small bowl and a dish of water at the entrance of the Small Buddhist Chapel.
The cat poked its little head out from inside the chapel and caught the scent of vegetables mixed with a hint of minced meat. It was easy to tell that the meat and vegetables in the bowl had first been rinsed in water before being scooped back out.
Not a trace of seasoning.
The cat yawned, whiskers trembling a few times.
Just as Yu Zeming assumed the cat wouldn’t eat, it moved. With a nimble leap over the threshold, it settled in front of the bowl and ate with elegance.
The cat knew Tantai Tian’s situation was dire. This bit of food had been carved out of his own meager portion.
The cat wasn’t picky.
After eating, the cat washed its face with its paw pads, left side, then right side, and once finished, began licking the fur beneath its neck.
Its fur was short these days, gone in a few licks.
Just as it started slowly gnawing on its paw pad, the cat suddenly realized something.
The cat was being kept.
It wasn’t quite used to the idea of being someone’s pet.
But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and the cat trusted it would adapt just fine.
It rose and mewed at Tantai Tian.
The cat will hunt food for you.
The Small Buddhist Chapel was tiny. At mealtimes, the table could only be set up inside, then cleared away afterward. So whenever Tantai Tian sat there, he could see the black cat outside.
He watched the cat trot off and said only one thing.
“Stay out of people’s sight.”
The abrupt words startled Yu Zeming, who whipped his head toward Tantai Tian, then toward the doorway, only to find the cat already halfway through its sprint outside.
The cat gave a soft mrow. Got it.
The cat trotted through the snow, leaving plum-blossom prints behind.
Its paw pads were frozen stiff, and the cat couldn’t resist giving one a nibble.
Its nimble tail flicked up into its face, so the cat abandoned its damp pad and began chasing its own tail in circles, rolling tracks all over the ground.
It smacked into a tree root, sending snow pattering down.
Dusted head to toe, the cat sneezed and shook off the powdery snow.
In a few bounds it scrambled up a tree, then leaped onto the palace wall and crouched there, golden feline eyes gazing into the distance.
Rustle, rustle…
Someone was coming.
Flicking its tail, the cat slipped away like a little black whirlwind.
An Imperial Guard on patrol spotted the tracks in the snow and gave chase at once.
But this cat was a good cat. A fast cat.
It ran swiftly.
It ran silently.
No human could catch it.
Rather smug with itself, the cat slunk along the base of the palace wall and snagged a hibernating snake.
Excellent. An extra dish for the human.
It loved this new body, so much stronger than its aging one had ever been!
Sparing no effort, the cat dragged the huge snake all the way back to the Hall of Peace and Ease.
It gave Yu Zeming the fright of his life.
Dropping the snake, the cat flicked its tail. What a timid human.
Ignoring the jumpy man, the cat hauled the snake into the Buddhist chapel, then wiggled its little rear as it tugged the snake to the door of the side room. There it sat down, tail curling naturally in front of it, tip swaying slowly.
Human, here’s an extra dish for you.
Inside, Tantai Tian glanced up from the book he was reading by lamplight and said flatly, “It’s venomous.”
The cat was shocked.
It lowered its body and leaned in to sniff the playing-dead snake, and the rudely awakened serpent struck at it on reflex. The cat’s fur exploded outward as it bit down savagely.
“Awoo!”
Fur bristling into a fluffball, the cat bit the nasty snake dead.
Even puffed into a ball, the cat was still small and skinny, yet the fluffy mess made it look like a little pom-pom.
Tantai Tian’s fingers, resting on the page, twitched slightly.
“Nearly scared the cat to death,” the cat muttered to itself. “Nasty snake.”
【Snakes hibernate.】 The System stuck to the facts. 【You’re the one who startled it.】
A snake jolted awake would naturally strike back.
The cat reasoned, entirely self-assured, “Well, its fur didn’t poof up.”
It licked its fluffy self.
A fluffy cat. A startled cat.
【…Snakes don’t have fur.】
The cat didn’t care.
The cat’s logic was the greatest logic.
It obediently groomed itself back into a soothed state, then left the dead venomous snake where it lay and, tail swinging left and right, went scouting for a place to nap.
As for the failed hunt?
The cat had simply gotten off on the wrong paw. It would catch the human something better tomorrow.
The cat does not deceive.
Just as it was about to leap onto the bed, Tantai Tian, without even lifting his eyes, seemed to predict the cat’s every move and said mildly, “Dirty paws. Not on the bed.”
Oh. Oh. Were the paw pads dirty?
The very obedient cat lifted a paw, intending to lick it clean, and Yu Zeming finally couldn’t bear to watch. Mustering his courage, he edged closer and said softly, “This Servant will wipe them for you.”
The cat froze mid-motion and looked up at Yu Zeming.
Even now, seeing that this cat truly understood human speech, Yu Zeming felt a chill of awe.
The cat held perfectly still, and Yu Zeming pushed down his surprise and picked it up.
And so the cat lay boneless in his arms.
Such a soft armful of cat.
So loose it seemed liquid, as if it might shatter if dropped.
Yu Zeming carried the cat out carefully, wiped its paw pads clean with a handkerchief, and only then brought it back.
He glanced tentatively at Tantai Tian, and seeing that His Highness said nothing, set the cat down by the bed.
The cat slid straight off.
After a moment’s thought, it tilted its little head and rubbed once against the back of Yu Zeming’s hand.
Good human. The cat thanks the human.
Yu Zeming smiled without realizing it and quietly withdrew.
Tantai Tian ignored the cat.
He was reading.
But after a while, something furry and fumbling nosed up beside him.
Fluffy paw pads crept secretly onto Tantai Tian’s wrist. The pads were cold, and the chill sank straight into his flesh. Tantai Tian’s brow creased faintly.
Fresh in from outdoors, the cat’s paws were still icy.
The cat quickly withdrew the furry hand.
“Still warm, at least,” the cat said with difficulty. The human isn’t going to fall asleep and just die, right?
【The fever has broken. There’s only residual warmth left.】
With the System’s word for it, the cat reluctantly believed.
So the cat settled down at a spot not too close to the human, but not too far either.
Not clingy, yet still able to keep watch.
At first, the cat’s posture was absolutely perfect.
Round head, round body.
Fluffy from the side, fluffy from the front!
Gradually, the cat melted.
Its hind legs splayed open, exposing a fluffy belly.
Melting onto its back, the cat began lazily licking the fur on its stomach.
Yu Zeming had wiped its paw pads earlier, and along with them the fur on its body.
It was a little damp now, and some of the cat’s scent had been wiped away.
The cat needed to hurry and lick it all back on.
By the time Tantai Tian went to sleep, the cat was still sprawled at the edge of the bed amusing itself. Unlike ordinary cats, it had no need to beg humans for affection.
It seemed that a single cat could be perfectly happy on its own.
Only when Tantai Tian’s breathing deepened and he was truly asleep did the cat, sprawled belly-up with all four paws in the air, silently yawn and slowly gather itself from a puddle of cat back into a lump of cat.
The lump of cat slowly flowed onto Tantai Tian’s chest and melted into a puddle once more.
A puddle of cat would keep Tantai Tian warm through the night.
…
The next morning, Tantai Tian’s eyes opened slowly, and he felt as though he’d spent the whole night trapped in a nightmare, crushed beneath a millstone.
He stared at the black fur on his chest and said nothing for a long while.
Outside the door came Yu Zeming’s voice, pitched low yet impossible to keep the shock out of it: “Where did these sparrows and this rat come from? And is that a snake?”
Squatting outside the door to show off its trophies, the cat nodded in deep satisfaction.
That’s right. That’s right.
All of these were the cat’s kills of the day.
Even small as it was now, the cat could provide for a human.
It sensed movement in the side room before any human could, and burst through the door like a tiny hurricane, coming face to face with Tantai Tian’s dark, fathomless eyes.
“There’s no kitchen in the Hall of Peace and Ease,” Tantai Tian said, a touch coldly. “No way to cook.”
He seemed to understand why the cat had caught all these things overnight and into the morning.
The cat’s eyes went round and wide.
What a pitiful human.
He can’t even make his own meals.
Then the cat’s face fell into gloom.
The cat can’t cook either, sob.
It extended its claws from its paw pads. Was it supposed to shred the prey into strips and serve it raw? But it remembered that only a small handful of humans ever ate raw meat.
Tantai Tian walked over slowly, paused, then lowered himself into a crouch.
Even that movement carried an innate, effortless elegance.
He seemed to consider something for a long moment before slowly reaching out, fingers brushing the paw the cat held raised.
Yu Zeming’s eyes widened slightly at the side. His Highness had never tolerated being touched by others. In daily life the palace attendants waited on him with the utmost caution, and even Liang Ze and he himself never dared violate His Highness’s taboos.
It had been that way since childhood, it seemed.
They had all grown used to His Highness’s habitual aloofness. Never had they imagined this cat…
The instant the human’s hand made contact, the cat’s claws reflexively retracted, leaving only the cool, squishy pad to be touched.
The crouching human is also very large.
One single palm could cover the whole of little him, the cat grumbled inwardly.
Tantai Tian pressed down on the fluffy paw.
Out popped the claws.
Released.
Back in they went.
Each time Tantai Tian pressed, the claws sprang out again.
The cat good-naturedly let the human play.
It knew humans were like this. Back in the day, strangers on the street had loved grabbing its paws for a fiddle too.
“Does it have a name?”
Tantai Tian stared into the cat’s eyes.
The cat looked back at him.
Unmoving.
The human is a bit of a scary human.
But even a scary human who noticed the cat sneaking onto his chest every night to sleep never once drove it away!
Black cat, staring into black eyes.
The golden vertical pupils of a beast, wild and untamed.
Innocent. Candid.
And possessed of a purity all their own.
After a while, Tantai Tian murmured, as if to himself.
“I’ll call you Rendong, then.”
Even if it was a lie, even if the cat had once borne another name, it was his cat now, and naturally it ought to bear a name of his choosing. Tantai Tian had always harbored an ineffable possessiveness over the things that belonged to him.
Just as this oppressive, stifling winter was nearing its end, and what was his would, in the end, return to his hands.
At the opportune moment, the System explained for the illiterate cat.
Rendong, honeysuckle, was the name of a medicinal herb that cleared heat and expelled toxins, so named for the endurance and resilience that let it survive the harshest winters without withering.
“Is the human praising the cat for being frost-proof?” The cat tilted its little head, ears swaying. “Cat is amazing.”
【Mm-hm. That’s praise.】
In the time it had spent with the cat, the System had learned clearly that cats were a somewhat tsundere species that needed to be stroked the right way, a little smug and a little self-assured, and in constant need of compliments.
So the cat lifted its little head high and decided to accept the name.
Rendong rose up on its hind legs and pushed hard against the center of Tantai Tian’s retreating palm, its fluffy ears flattening with the force before springing back up, perky and full of spirit.
Tantai Tian paused, and on a sudden impulse.
“Rendong.”
He said it softly.
“Mew~”
The answer was one sweet, coaxing little kitten cry.
A kitten chirp took real effort to produce, after all.
Which meant the cat liked you, just a little.
Tantai Tian smiled faintly.
Wow!
Rendong’s eyes went huge.
So handsome, so handsome. He’s gone and adopted a human whose smile is especially beautiful.
