Chapter 14

A wrung-out cloth wiped over the grimy cat again and again, clearing the dust and bits of grass from his fur. Then he was set beside the hand warmer, damp little tufts of hair drying in its heat.

Such comfortable grooming should have lulled Rendong straight to sleep.

Instead, the cat stared with wide, round eyes.

The human was acting strange.

The small furry face pondered gravely.

The human’s own hands had done all the grooming, but after setting the cat by the warmer to dry, Tantai Tian had been wiping down a blade this whole time.

Not the one he had used inside the house. A new one.

Over and over, he drew the cloth slowly along the edge, as if the repetitive motion were soothing something in him.

A strange, restrained sort of endurance.

“System, is the human sick again?”

Rendong slipped into suspicion, old hand at this by now.

It wasn’t obvious, but he caught that bitter smell again.

[After analysis, combined with the earlier incident, the System has roughly determined that Tantai Tian suffers from some form of mental illness. This System is not equipped with medical skills and cannot make a more precise diagnosis.]

A mental illness?

Rendong began digging at the rattan bowl, one paw strike at a time.

It was a modest little rattan bowl.

Its neat curve fit exactly one handful of cat, with only a bit of fur puffing out over the edges.

If it were a sickness of the body, then all he had to do was be good, listen to the doctor, and take his medicine. But if it was a sickness of the mind… Rendong knew what that meant. He was, after all, a cat who had lived more than ten years. Shallow as that was beside a human lifespan, for his kind it already counted as long life.

Even in the world Rendong had come from, humans couldn’t cure many illnesses of the mind.

Things might improve, but the odds of a true, complete cure…

“System, is there anything you can do?”

Rendong let out a mournful mew.

Cats hate sickness!

Super duper hate it!

Rendong had already failed to keep one human alive.

He refused to lose a second one.

A worried cat liquefied into a puddle, flopping into the rattan bowl in dejection.

The System ran a search.

[This System has no medical functions installed.]

[However, the Level-3 System Mall contains an exchange item that matches the Host’s needs.]

<Demon Blood>: Seems to possess miraculous properties, capable of enlightening a living creature into human form, granting it the possibility of cultivation.

Cost to purchase: 500 Points

Note: Usable only by living beings who have attained sentience.

Rendong gave the System’s meaning careful thought. Then his pupils grew even rounder.

That was a cat on high alert.

“Then the cat would turn into a Demon!”

Rendong was floored.

And it cost 500 points. The cat only had 50, and he’d already spent them all!

[Correct.]

“Then as a Demon, could I save the human?”

[Demons possess Demonic Power.]

Simple, crude, and brutally direct.

As a System assigned to the ancient world, this solution was the only one the System could offer, and only within the bounds of the ancient.

[As the Host is an animal Host, the System can unlock additional permissions and open the Level-3 Mall early for exchange.]

Rendong gave a gloomy mew.

“But it still costs 500 points.”

If only the cat had saved up those 50 points.

Still, the cat only stayed glum for a moment before brightening right back up.

Having a way forward, even one that still took effort, was so much better than having no way at all, mew.

Rendong climbed out with his spirits restored, bouncing and rolling over to the human, reaching out a front paw toward Tantai Tian. His paw pad, warm and toasty, pressed against the human’s wrist, and the human flinched as if scalded, grabbing the pad on reflex.

The human’s grip hurt a little. Very strong.

But Rendong didn’t mind.

Did the human want to squeeze the paw pads?

Then the cat would let him.

Rendong pushed the pad forward a little more. What a generous cat.

“Rendong.”

The cat heard Tantai Tian call his name.

The tone was a little cold.

“Are you a real cat?”

The human’s skin was still chill, his breath carrying the same bite as this winter day.

By now the cat had noticed a pattern: whenever the human had an episode, his body temperature turned cold.

That slow, drifting, weightless voice gave nothing of his mood away, but the cat felt the grip on his paw pad tighten again, and without thinking, his claws slid out.

Pink little toes blossomed open.

Back when he was a stray, some humans used to get excited like this.

Rendong paid no mind to the crushing, nearly imprisoning strength of that grip. What worried him was something else. Of course he’d heard what that Sixth Prince said, and the System had confirmed the human really was ill. Had he relapsed so badly that he couldn’t even recognize Rendong anymore?

But Rendong was a real, genuine cat!

How could he snap Tantai Tian out of it and make him understand he wasn’t some illusion?

Agony.

So thought the cat.

Whenever a cat got hurt, that was when a cat’s mind was at its sharpest.

Because pain ignited a ferocious will to survive.

The cat opened his tiny, fearsome maw and hesitantly nibbled at Tantai Tian with his canines. But that featherlight pressure couldn’t have torn anything. It barely qualified as a nuzzle.

The cat couldn’t bear to hurt the human. Pain hurt, after all.

But the human’s grip seemed to loosen slightly, and Rendong seized the chance to pull his paw free. Then one bound, light as a wisp of black cotton.

Descent!

Back paws braced against Tantai Tian’s chest, front paws planted on his shoulders, the little cat rubbed his head against the human’s face. A cat’s body ran warmer than a human’s.

Like a toasty scarf snug against his neck, Rendong mewed, soft and small.

Purrrr, purrrr—

Rendong was a very, very loud little tractor, and a real cat!

The cat was working hard to prove his own authenticity.

Perched on Tantai Tian’s shoulder, the cat strayed endlessly close to the human’s throat. One reach, one bite, and that vital point lay wide open.

But the cat bustled back and forth, all for the sake of shedding as much fur onto the human as possible.

His long, light tail swept back and forth, brushing across Tantai Tian’s nose again and again.

Too noisy.

After the fading of those maddening ravings, having such a vivid, noisy little creature at his side brought a strange, bustling clamor.

Tantai Tian had always known he was ill.

From childhood, wild ravings had whispered constantly at his ears, and once they started up, there was no pulling free. In the worst of it came hallucinations, reality and illusion melting together until the two could scarcely be told apart.

Yet for all its severity, this affliction had never caused him trouble.

Because even in the deepest extremity of madness, he could almost always tell what was real and what was not.

…Then why had Tantai Tian believed Rendong to be a cat he had dreamed up?

When the cat was a living, breathing creature.

His eyes were very dark. Those hollow, gloomy eyes shifted, regarding the cat who was single-mindedly shedding all over him with a strange, almost amused expression.

Tantai Tian’s hand came to rest on the blade.

That thirst for blood grew sharper with every one of Rendong’s displays of affection.

Warmth. A heartbeat. The sound of breathing… Another living creature. Warm. Purring… His cat.

His.

In the instant those last words flashed through his mind, Tantai Tian’s taut body unconsciously loosened, just for a breath.

“Rendong.”

Tantai Tian called him again.

This time, the tone wasn’t so cold. It sounded almost the same as before.

Rendong leaned in nervously, fur brushing right up against the human’s lips.

Could the human still recognize the cat?

At last, Tantai Tian released the blade. His cool fingers pinched one of Rendong’s thin, winglike ears with perfect precision. The sensitive tip fluttered frantically, but no amount of flapping could shake off those detestable fingers.

The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile that raised the fur along the spine.

“Rendong is my cat.”

He said it in a soft, gentle murmur.

It sounded like a mild enough sentence, yet something cold and damp and dark seeped through it, like vines climbing upward along that icy breath.

“Completely, entirely, a thing that belongs to me.”

The warm little kitten couldn’t help a shiver through his fur.

“So…” Tantai Tian gathered the cat into his arms. That bone-chilling Baleful Qi made Rendong instinctively want to bolt, but with his paws planted on the human’s arm, he couldn’t bear to scratch, “you won’t run. Will you?”

A strange, mad, bestial delight poured unchecked through Tantai Tian’s body. Like damp vapor, that malice pressed in from every side, finding its way through every crack.

The crushing embrace squeezed a squeak out of the cat.

A very pitiful one.

Too tight, too tight, too tight!

Rendong finally couldn’t take it and unleashed a Black Cat Heart Strike—

Hah!

Rat-a-tat-tat, hammering on the human’s chest.

Human, snap out of it!

Cats do not do abandonment!