Chapter 66
The first to notice something was amiss was the white cat, diligently eating.
A primal instinct made it look up from its meal.
The villa had large windows, the glass doors extending to the adjacent wall, letting in plenty of sunlight. A woman was standing in the garden, her gaze fixed on Jiang Heng, her features, which shared a slight resemblance to Lu Yichuan’s, contorted with hatred and resentment.
“There’s a person outside,” it said to Jiang Heng.
Jiang Heng turned his head, a mouthful of congee, and saw Qian Lu’s face.
His ears perked up in alarm, and before his mind could process the situation, he darted to the door and locked it, right in front of her.
Click. The glass door separated them.
Qian Lu’s face turned green. “Open the door.”
Jiang Heng, as if the gesture could block out her words, covered his ears with his hands. “No.”
The woman’s delicate fingers tightened around her handbag, her knuckles white. She took a deep breath, maintaining a semblance of composure. “You don’t know who I am, do you? I’m Lu Yichuan’s mother. I’m here to see him.”
Jiang Heng, one hand covering his ear, the other holding his bowl of congee, quickly took a mouthful to calm his nerves. “He’s not home. You can leave your contact information; I’ll have him call you when he returns.”
Qian Lu emphasized, “I’m his mother.”
Through the clean glass door, the boy with cat ears blinked. “So?”
Qian Lu took another deep breath. “So you should let me in.”
So stupid, why was everyone around Lu Yichuan so stupid?!
Jiang Heng said bluntly, “Call Lu Yichuan. I’ll open the door if he tells me to.”
If Lu Yichuan had wanted her inside, Qian Lu wouldn’t be standing outside the villa while he was at work.
She stared at Jiang Heng, her gaze sweeping over his flawless features. “What’s your relationship with Lu Yichuan?”
His arm was getting tired from holding his ear.
He realized his attempt to block out her words was only making him more conspicuous, so he lowered his hand. The bell on his collar swayed, resting against his delicate throat, drawing attention to it.
Jiang Heng looked at the woman, remembering her volatile nature, and after a moment of consideration, chose a relationship he thought wouldn’t provoke her too much. “Master and servant.”
A cat and its owner.
He was the master, Lu Yichuan the servant.
Qian Lu looked at his ears, then at the collar around his neck, then at his ill-fitting shirt, her face darkening.
Seeing her expression, Jiang Heng took a step back. As Qian Lu opened her mouth to speak, he yelled, “Xiao Du! Xiao Du!”
“Yes, I’m here!”
“Quick! Close the curtains!”
With a whoosh, Qian Lu’s face disappeared behind the closing curtains. He could still faintly hear her angry shouts, so he turned up the music, the cheerful melody of “Good Luck Arrives” filling the villa.
As the song played, Jiang Heng finished his congee, feeling like he needed something else to calm his nerves.
He turned around with his empty bowl, only to find the small plate beside it also empty, a fat white cat squatting next to it, burping contentedly.
Jiang Heng: “!!”
He put down his bowl and grabbed the white cat’s neck. “My pan-fried buns! My steamed dumplings! My breakfast! Spit them out!”
The white cat remained motionless, its eyes closed peacefully.
“…”
Good luck arrives, wishing you good luck,
Good luck brings joy and love…
Jiang Heng changed the song to “Wishing You Peace.”
He picked up his phone and called Lu Yichuan.
The man had just finished a meeting, cheerfully chewing out the department heads, Li An standing beside him with a file.
He was in the middle of a report when the phone rang. He made a “pause” gesture.
Li An closed the file, took two steps back, lowered his head, and discreetly perked up his ears.
Lu Yichuan stood by the window in the corridor, his hand in his pocket, looking at the traffic below.
Jiang Heng’s first words made his face darken. “Lu Yichuan, your mother came to the villa today.”
He gripped his phone tightly. “You saw her?”
Jiang Heng scratched his ear. “I don’t know if it counts as ‘seeing her.’ I locked the door. She was outside, I was inside. We exchanged a few words, then I closed the curtains.”
He asked Lu Yichuan, “I was…a bit scared of her. Was it rude of me to do that? She is your mother, after all.”
The man on the other end of the phone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “No, you can do whatever you want. You don’t have to change anything for me.”
“Besides…” Lu Yichuan’s eyes turned cold, “She and I are no longer related.”
Hearing this, Jiang Heng relaxed. “Then why did she come looking for you?”
Lu Yichuan explained briefly, “She and Lu Cheng are getting a divorce.”
As for why she came to the villa while he wasn’t there, that wasn’t something Jiang Heng needed to concern himself with.
“Stay home and don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay…”
To Jiang Heng, Qian Lu was less terrifying than the pile of unfinished practice tests upstairs.
He complained to Lu Yichuan, “While I was talking to your mother, Big White ate all of my breakfast! Everything! All of it!”
“Lu Yichuan, I have nothing to eat for breakfast.” He said pitifully.
The man, seeming to know what he was going to ask, didn’t speak.
As expected, a few seconds later, Jiang Heng asked, “Can I have instant noodles?”
Lu Yichuan said, “Since I don’t agree, can you withdraw your request?”
Jiang Heng, channeling his inner CEO, said, “I’m informing you, not asking you.”
The informed man raised an eyebrow silently.
Qian Lu was already gone when Lu Yichuan returned to the villa, a hydrangea bush by the entrance trampled and broken.
The door was locked, and he couldn’t open it, so he rang the doorbell.
After a while, the curtains parted slightly, a fat white cat head peeking out.
Seeing Lu Yichuan, the white cat instinctively flinched.
Then Jiang Heng opened the door. “Lu Yichuan, you’re back!”
His tail, which had reappeared at some point, swished back and forth excitedly.
Lu Yichuan looked him over, then, seeing that he was unharmed, relaxed slightly.
The aroma of instant noodles lingered in the air. The container was on the table, half-eaten.
Jiang Heng slurped his noodles, describing the earlier events with dramatic flair. “It was utter chaos! Your mother was standing right outside the door, just a centimeter away from breaking in! Could I let that happen? Of course not! So, in just one second, one second, I dashed from the table to the door, so fast that Big White only saw a blur.”
He took a sip of the broth. “She saw me coming and immediately turned green, trying to force her way in despite my protests! Could I let her take our door? No way! I had only one thought in my mind, to defend our territory! Facing her imposing presence, I extended my hands…”
He slurped some noodles. “She attacked me with the force of a thousand mountains, I countered with the strength of a raging ox, she unleashed the secrets of the Jade Maiden Manual, I…burp—”
Jiang Heng burped, realizing his story was getting a bit out of hand.
He hid his face behind the container of noodles, peeking out with his round eyes.
Lu Yichuan sat across from him, put his phone on silent, and checked the surveillance footage while responding to Jiang Heng’s dramatic retelling, “And then? What did you use against her Jade Maiden Manual?”
Jiang Heng finished the last of his noodles. “I used my ultimate technique—Lingering Sound.”
The man looked at him quizzically.
Jiang Heng admitted sheepishly, “I closed the curtains and played ‘Good Luck Arrives.’”
Killing with sound, Little Jiang Heng’s mental attack power level had reached 100.
Lu Yichuan: “…”
He finally understood why the hydrangea bush at the entrance was so badly damaged.
He took a tissue and wiped a noodle stain off the kitten’s face. “What did you talk about?”
Hearing this, Jiang Heng perked up again.
His tail swished excitedly. “We were so close! Her eyes were so scary! She told me to open the door, and I, of course, refused, so I…”
A head appeared beside his hand. “Your noodles smell so good! Can I have a sip of the broth?”
He immediately grabbed the white cat’s neck. “Eat, eat, eat! All you think about is eating! You’re going to bankrupt me!”
The white cat pleaded weakly, “Just a sip of broth…”
Jiang Heng’s face fell.
White Cat: QAQ
Not even the broth?
…
A minute later, the white cat was happily slurping noodles from the container while Jiang Heng, holding his tail, tried to remember his conversation with Qian Lu.
“She didn’t seem to know who I was. She thought I would immediately let her in after she told me she was your mother. I’m not stupid! Did she think she could just throw five million yuan at me and make me leave you?”
Lu Yichuan asked him, “If she gave you five million yuan, would you leave me?”
Jiang Heng visibly hesitated.
Lu Yichuan: “…”
Lu Yichuan watched as he struggled with this difficult dilemma for a whole minute, then finally said decisively, “I’ll choose you.”
He said coolly, “How…touching.”
Jiang Heng chuckled. “After all, you can earn several five million yuan.”
This time, Lu Yichuan didn’t ask the self-esteem-damaging question of who he would choose if he couldn’t earn five million yuan. He simply ruffled the kitten’s head.
“And then?”
“Oh, she also asked me about our relationship.”
“What did you say?”
Jiang Heng stroked his fluffy tail, smoothing the fur. “She didn’t look very…stable, and I didn’t want to provoke her, I didn’t dare to tell her we were…you know…so I chose a more…subtle way of putting it.”
“How subtle?”
The tip of his tail twitched happily. “I told her we were master and servant.”
“…”
After a long silence, Lu Yichuan asked, “Jiang Heng, do you still remember you’re a human now?”
Jiang Heng froze mid-stroke. “Oh no, does she think you’re my…kept man?”
The young man, tail in hand, furry ears on his head, silver-gray hair messy, a collar around his neck, wearing an oversized shirt, his skin soft and delicate,
Because his transformations were still unstable, he could only stay in the villa, struggling with his studies, then peering longingly out the window, yearning for freedom, like a caged bird.
Except his cage wasn’t made of gold, but of occasionally appearing ears and tails, Xue Jinxing textbooks, and Wang Houxiong’s practice tests…
Boop!
Jiang Heng clutched his forehead.
“Why did you hit me?”
Lu Yichuan slowly retracted his hand. “Just checking if it’s broken.”
Jiang Heng: “…”
He bared his teeth. “I really will bite you!”
…
Lu Yichuan took off his suit jacket and grabbed a small shovel, going to rescue the only victim in this villa – the nearly leafless hydrangea bush.
Jiang Heng peered around, making sure no one was watching, then went to stand beside Lu Yichuan, his tail wrapped around his arm. “What happened to this flower?”
The man bent down to pick up the broken branches. “It was ruthlessly…violated.”
Many of the hydrangea’s branches were broken, drooping sadly, their survival until spring uncertain.
Jiang Heng circled the bush. “So uncivilized.”
Lu Yichuan agreed, “Indeed, very uncivilized.”
