After the butler called Jiang Xiaoyu over, his old face pulled taut as a bowstring. He didn’t care whether a cat could understand human speech or not and unilaterally assigned Jiang Xiaoyu the task of catching rats. Then, without any courtesy, he tossed Jiang Xiaoyu into the underground garage and shut the elevator doors, as if afraid he’d regret it and run away.
Jiang Xiaoyu stood there in a daze, completely baffled. How had he ended up having to catch rats? But with things as they were, he could only resign himself to fate and start wandering around the garage.
The garage was spacious, with a dozen or so cars parked haphazardly inside. Jiang Xiaoyu knew nothing about cars, but his instincts told him these were expensive—after all, they had that “priceless and way beyond my budget” look about them.
He stopped in front of a stretched black sedan. It wasn’t the iconic Celebratory Goddess Statue on the hood or the eye-catching Leopard License Plate that caught his attention, but the fact that this was the exact car from the case photos—the one the victim had been riding in before death.
Jiang Xiaoyu circled the car once, then hopped onto the hood and pressed his face against the window glass to peer inside. The interior was spotless, without a single extraneous item. He pulled back, about to jump down, when he spotted his own paw prints—plum blossom-shaped—from the glossy paint job. He couldn’t help but grin awkwardly.
“If that butler sees this, he’ll get mad again,” he muttered, smearing at the prints haphazardly with his paw pads before jumping down and crawling under the car.
“This is way too clean,” Jiang Xiaoyu tsked. The car looked like it’d been meticulously cleaned—even the tire treads were spotless—as if its owner had severe OCD.
And the owner of this car, Ye Lian, was currently chairing the company’s quarterly business strategy meeting. As a globally leading energy extraction firm, they were reviewing a key project involving billions in investments.
Ye Lian sat at the head of the conference table, seemingly listening to the report absentmindedly while actually staring at the surveillance feed of Jiang Xiaoyu’s movements, lost in thought. He rarely used this car lately, the last time being…
“President Ye, what do you think?” The middle-aged man seated in the middle of the table asked respectfully after finishing his report.
Ye Lian withdrew his gaze from the screen and coolly scanned the room. “This is the risk assessment and contingency plan you’ve been working on for two months?”
His tone was flat, his expression even mildly amiable, yet it silenced the entire room. Cold sweat broke out instantly on everyone’s brows.
The conference room fell deathly silent. In this agonizing lull that tortured every wage slave present, Ye Lian’s gaze returned to the surveillance feed.
On the screen, Jiang Xiaoyu eyed the bizarre creature before him suspiciously—a thing with a rabbit head and a squirrel tail—paw raised, hesitant to strike. “This is a rat…? …” He’d never eaten a rat or even seen one run before. Staring at this round, quivering lump, he doubted it thoroughly. No matter how he looked at it, it resembled a chinchilla from an animated film more than any rat.
Afraid of catching the wrong thing or letting the right one escape, he didn’t dare act rashly and just circled the trembling little thing endlessly. The poor critter, under the Cat Officer’s predatory gaze, lasted barely two laps before it shuddered and peed itself.
“ΩДΩ!” Jiang Xiaoyu startled, hopping back with a yowl. “Hold it in!” If it got discovered like this, wouldn’t the old butler blame him?
He’d just jumped in fright and bolted, but the poor thing was truly scared out of its wits by his movements. It flopped into the puddle with a thud, belly up, dead as a doornail.
Jiang Xiaoyu gawked, paw raised and lowered several times, unable to convince himself to pick it up amid the pungent stench.
Ye Lian was amused by his frantic circling and utter helplessness. He let out a light chuckle—not too heavy, not too light. The sound was soft, but in the pin-drop silent conference room, it rang out crystal clear. The man who’d just reported shifted uncomfortably, pulling out tissues with trembling hands to wipe his sweat.
Smiling, Ye Lian spoke. “I remember at last quarter’s meeting, I asked everyone to delve deeper into the risk assessment for this project and look further ahead. However,” he paused, his face darkening, “from that report just now, your submitted plan doesn’t seem to show much improvement or breakthrough.”
“Come Monday next week, if I don’t see a good plan, pack your bags.”
With that hammer blow, he ended the unpleasant meeting and strode out of the conference room first. His life assistant waited by the door, bowing. “Sir, Second Master is here.” Right as he spoke, a cheeky voice called from behind, “Bro!”
Ye Lian said, “How does Wangan have time to come over?”
Ji Wangan let out a drawn-out “Aiya,” saying, “Don’t ask. Old Madam put me in lockdown, and I came straight to you the moment I got out.”
“Oh? What did you do to get locked down?”
Ji Wangan stiffened for a moment, then awkwardly turned his head. “Nothing. Hey bro, lend me that Ferrari Enzo of yours.” He’d spotted it last time he borrowed a car—insanely cool, and he’d been coveting it for ages.
“Just go grab it yourself.” Ye Lian’s eyes curved in a smile.
—
In the end, Jiang Xiaoyu couldn’t bring himself to drag the corpse from the puddle with his paws. He hopped up to hit the elevator button and went to find the old butler. The Ye Residence grounds were vast, but Jiang Xiaoyu located him easily—not due to any great tracking skills, but because the old man was pruning leaves while belting out robust operatic “Ooh-oohs.”
He padded over lightly on cat feet, sat down, looked up, and meowed, “I’ve caught it.”
The singing cut off abruptly. The old butler glanced down at him with some arrogance. “Acting cute won’t cut it. You have to actually catch the rat.”
What did he mean by acting cute? Jiang Xiaoyu, who’d done nothing of the sort, tilted his head, his emerald green eyes brimming with confusion.
Chen Yiqu eyed his round, fluffy form and snorted. “Little Slob, it’s only been a few days since your bath and you’re filthy and matted again.”
Jiang Xiaoyu was speechless, too lazy to argue about his curly fur issue again. He drew out his meow, raising a paw to point insistently toward the garage for the man to collect his “prize.”
In the garage, Chen Yiqu saw the puddle of urine and the stiff-as-a-board chinchilla. His face fell longer than the Mariana Trench as he blamed Jiang Xiaoyu. “How’d you make such a mess?”
Jiang Xiaoyu rolled his eyes. “I knew it.”
The old butler grumbled and complained endlessly in disgust, then used tongs to toss the chinchilla corpse into the trash before throwing down a rag. “Go wipe the floor clean.”
Jiang Xiaoyu’s cat face was full of disbelief. He wanted to point at himself with a paw but remembered that was too human-like, so he dropped it and let out a big meow. “You want a cat to mop the floor?” Had the guy’s brain rusted from age?
Who would’ve thought the old butler assumed he couldn’t understand and demonstrated wiping motions in the air over the puddle with the rag. “Like this, got it?”
Jiang Xiaoyu scowled. “Don’t got it.” He was a cat; of course he didn’t understand.
Chen Yiqu paused, giving him a meaningful look. “You’re filthy-looking enough, but how are you this dumb too? I taught you and you still can’t do it? If you can’t, get out and don’t come back in the house.”
“Which house cat mops floors?!” Jiang Xiaoyu meowed indignantly. “Who? WHO?!” Fur bristling in fury, he slammed both paws on the rag. What he meowed was, It’s me! Me!
Holding his breath, he dragged the rag across the floor. Then the old butler picked at the smell on him as an excuse. Jiang Xiaoyu slammed his paws down hard, comforting himself inwardly: Endure it, endure. If he messed this up, the mission would really be toast.
Chen Yiqu observed the cat’s expressions too, worried he’d push too far and scare it off, depriving Sir of his entertainment. Seeing good tolerance, he nodded curtly. “Alright, not bad today. I’ll get you a reward.”
And so Jiang Xiaoyu glowered as the man dumped an oversized can of dog food in front of him. “Eat up.”
No way was he eating it, but Jiang Xiaoyu figured he could stash it to feed the dog later. Still stone-faced, he nudged the can; it rolled off with a clatter toward the courtyard.
Chen Yiqu raised his phone and stealthily snapped the scene, sending it to Ye Lian.
The next day, Jiang Xiaoyu slacked off a bit. After breakfast at the mountain base and a breeze, he returned to the mid-mountain, shifted form, and sneaked to the yard’s edge. No sooner had he poked his head out than the elusive old butler blocked him. “Go on, keep catching rats.”
Jiang Xiaoyu was incredulous. “Aren’t they all caught?” He’d wandered the garage yesterday for ages and seen nothing else besides that not-rat-looking thing.
Ignoring him, the old butler muttered to himself, “Aigh, where are all these rats coming from?”
Down in the garage, Jiang Xiaoyu cornered a plump guinea pig and bellowed skyward in rage. “You meow-fucking call this a rat?”
Chen Yiqu, hunkered in the Monitoring Room, cleared his throat. He admitted it was a stretch. No real rats available, so he’d bought these from the pet store and tossed them in. They were all rodents, all in the muridae family—how weren’t they rats? They were rats! He schooled his face into stern righteousness.
Jiang Xiaoyu bared his furry fangs in curses, yapping more that morning than in a year as a human. “Bastard turtle egg, whose pet cage broke and let ’em loose?!” Fur exploding, he caught one after another. As he stuffed one into a cage, he heard a car entering the garage.
“Little kitty, what are you doing here?” The driver opened the car door for Ye Lian, who asked in apparent surprise.
Jiang Xiaoyu hurriedly slammed the cage door shut, twisted his body around, and meowed at him: “Where have you been?” It seemed like he hadn’t seen him for the past few days.
Ye Lian smiled faintly, fine lines crinkling attractively at the corners of his eyes. “Have you eaten lunch yet, little guy?”
“No.” Jiang Xiaoyu replied, then nudged the cage with his head to signal for him to look.
Ye Lian bent down. “Did you catch it? How are you so awesome, little cat?”
If Jiang Xiaoyu were in human form right now, his fair neck would probably be flushed pink, but since he was in cat form, he meowed shamelessly without restraint: “Not bad. My professional rat-exterminating record is verifiable.”
Laughter bloomed in Ye Lian’s eyes. He gestured for the driver to pick up the rat cage and beckoned to Jiang Xiaoyu. “Come here. I’ll take you to lunch.”
After struggling for many days and catching a messy pile of those freakish rats, Jiang Xiaoyu had finally stepped through the gates of the Ye Residence.
