Rendong had originally planned to have a happy time playing with his Cat Teaser Wand, but after sprawling beside Tantai Tian, purring away, he had drifted back to sleep in a daze.
When he woke again, he found himself in a completely unfamiliar place. The roof overhead looked rounded, not made of wood, and every so often the noisy bustle drifting in from outside stirred the cat’s curiosity.
Rendong padded back and forth, then trotted up to Qinglian and let out a soft mew.
That delicate little cry melted Qinglian’s heart on the spot. She quickly crouched down, speaking to Rendong in the gentlest of whispers.
“Don’t be afraid, Little Ancestor. We’ve arrived at the Capital Garrison,” Qinglian said as she took a comb from her pouch and smoothed down his sleep-tousled fur. “In a little while, you’ll get to see His Majesty.”
The palace attendants who served the cats had long known how clever Rendong was, and that he could understand their words.
After treading a few circles around Qinglian, Rendong did the same around Qingyun before finally wandering off for a drink.
Glug, glug. The cat drank so much water.
Qingyun watched him drink with pure delight, thinking that the eunuchs at the Imperial Cat Bureau who claimed cats never drank water had clearly been lying. Just look at that little pink tongue. Oh my.
Once he’d finished, Rendong licked his nose, then began washing his face with a furry paw. After grooming himself spotless, he raised his tail high and headed for the exit.
Qinglian hurried over with quick little steps. “Little Ancestor, it’s very chaotic out there. Perhaps we should stay inside for now?”
At her words, Rendong only flicked his ears back and forth, then shot out like a streak of smoke.
The cat has arrived.
The old Rendong would never have been this reckless.
A stray cat’s instincts had taught him caution. He had always preferred ambush-style strikes, attacking enemies with assassin’s claws.
But these past few days, ever since the human he’d adopted became Emperor, the cat’s territory had grown, and so had his nerve!
Once outside, Rendong slithered along in an absurd serpentine weave before springing up into a tall tree. Only from a high vantage point could one survey the surroundings. Some nameless cat had once said so.
Perched high on the branch, the cat let his tail dangle and sway, swinging back and forth. There really were a great many people coming and going, carrying a lively energy the Imperial Palace had never possessed. Everything was orderly, though, everyone dressed in neat, complete armor. Was this a military camp?
Rendong was a cat of common sense. He had also watched plenty of TV dramas.
Generally speaking, when a protagonist came to a military camp, it was for a military review.
Though the cat couldn’t for the life of him understand what was so impressive about lining people up to march back and forth, waving things this way and that.
Maybe there was strength in numbers? Very imposing, presumably!
After all, a whole bunch of cats gathered together could be pretty fearsome too.
Humans had their numbers.
But what about the humans the cat had adopted?
Rendong stretched low and long, and halfway through the stretch couldn’t resist clawing at the branch beneath him, sending a few wood shavings drifting down. A passing procession got showered with the fluttering shavings. The man at its head shielded his face with a fan, looked up at the cat in the tree, and then curled his lip in disgust.
Rendong looked right back at him.
Winter wasn’t even over yet, and this person was using a fan. Was he an idiot?
“Where did this beast come from? Kill it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The attendants behind him bowed, two of them peeling off from the group to hunt for tools, clearly intending to catch the cat.
“Your Highness, looking at that cat, it might well be the new one His Majesty has been keeping,” the eunuch trailing a step behind the man murmured. “Perhaps we should send it back and see whether it is or not.”
The man addressed as Sixth Prince frowned, his face darkening as he shot the cat in the tree a sideways glance.
“…Fine. Catch it and bring it along.”
He had heard about it, after all. These past few days, their dear older brother, their dear Emperor, had truly been indulging himself, letting some beast claw at the dignity of his ministers. Utterly absurd.
But even if scorn filled his heart, he still had to put on a proper front.
Lest the new Emperor’s first fires, freshly lit upon his ascension, come burning down on all of them brothers.
Rendong was not a cat who sat around waiting to die.
The moment the attendants brought a ladder up to the tree, he exploded into a sprint and lightly bounded onto a higher branch. That one was thinner, more slender, barely able to bear the weight of a young cat, so the whole bough swayed up and down beneath him. And Rendong simply lay there at his ease, watching these humans scratch their heads, utterly unable to catch him.
Now and then, that tail would dangle down.
Like a lure, swaying gently left and right, the tip curling up, oh so agile.
After several failed attempts, the attendants still hadn’t caught the black cat. The Sixth Prince’s expression grew uglier and uglier. He thought they were all useless lumps who couldn’t even catch one measly beast.
“Do I have to teach you everything?” he snapped. “Get sticks and drive it down!”
The Sixth Prince had never been a patient man, and this long wait had already worn his temper thin. At his urging, several attendants went off to fetch wooden poles.
Seeing this, Rendong leapt even higher, climbing to the very top.
Gleaming golden cat eyes fixed on another tree some distance away, and the cat grew visibly eager to try.
【Please exercise caution, Host. A cat’s physical capabilities make a jump of that distance very difficult.】
“Rendong was pretty amazing before.” This cat didn’t act recklessly. He had evidence. “Attacking the old Emperor. Attacking people. All doable.”
This was a reference to his two previous cat ambushes.
The pre-transmigration Rendong could never have managed such feats. He was getting stronger.
【The Host’s body has been remodeled by the System and currently possesses physical capabilities superior to those of an ordinary cat, allowing feats no common cat could achieve. However, no matter how impressive a cat may be, a jump of over a dozen meters is impossible.】
Fine, fine. This was a cat who listened to advice.
As eager as he was to try, Rendong gave up on the idea.
Instead, he dropped down like a little cannonball, slamming hard onto the Sixth Prince’s head, then his shoulder, before slipping away as fast as water off a slick surface.
The ambushed Sixth Prince shrieked and howled, his face twisting, mouth spewing shouts of beating and killing.
And Rendong? He ran fast.
Like a gust of wind, leaving the man’s words far behind.
A cat could only sprint at full speed for a short burst, but what really shook off pursuers wasn’t speed. It was the ability to make razor-sharp turns and dive into every little nook.
Heh heh. Rendong was the best at that.
Never underestimate the experience of a cat who had survived over a decade on the streets!
Escaping was Rendong’s greatest talent.
Once he had finally thrown off the attendants, Rendong huddled behind a tiled-roof building and stuck out his tongue, a tiny little bundle tucked into the shadows.
So hot. So very hot.
His padding paws stamped out little wet paw prints one after another.
The cat hadn’t run that fast in ages. What a thrill!
Excitement gleamed in those golden cat eyes.
A cat whose wild nature remained untamed sometimes rather enjoyed these sudden, unexpected adventures.
The only problem was that he had run too far. Rendong didn’t recognize the way back.
It was all those people’s fault for chasing him so long!
There were far too many humans here. Palace attendants, soldiers, marching columns coming and going, all leaving a jumbled mess of scents. Rendong sniffed east, sniffed west.
Meow. The way home was nowhere to be found.
Once the stunned cat collected himself, he blankly asked the System.
“System, Rendong is lost.”
The downside of boosted physical abilities was that the range a cat could roam had grown much wider. In his flight, the cat had already run far, far away. He’d never been familiar with this area to begin with, and finding his way back would be difficult.
【Scanning for Host…】
While the System ticked away, Rendong swished his tail and climbed a nearby tree, crouching at the top of a branch to survey the view for a while. Then he marveled aloud.
So many houses packed densely together!
The cat decided to climb onto those roofs and run along the eaves. Combined with the System, he would surely find his way back.
Rendong feared neither cold nor hardship. He would definitely find his human again.
The System quickly generated a location for the cat and began guiding him.
Compared to his earlier flurry of emergency drifts, the trip home was positively leisurely. Every so often, as he ran in a straight line, something novel would lure the cat away, including but not limited to birds flitting past, falling snow, even the clip-clop of footsteps. All of it sent him pouncing left and right.
After a few of these pounces, Rendong remembered his Cat Teaser Wand and urged the System to bring it out right away.
Teaser wand in his mouth, exchanged from the System Mall, Rendong tore down the road in high excitement.
A little black whirlwind streaked past, so fast that no one could see what the cat carried, only hear the crisp ding-dong of chimes.
Once he reached what he deemed a safe zone, the cat stuck his rear end in the air and began flinging the teaser wand in his mouth back and forth, trying to plant it somewhere perfectly convenient.
A poor cat could only play with his own teaser wand by himself~
And thus was born a deranged little cat whipping a wand in his jaws so hard that his whole head swung along with it.
The ethereal chime of a bell in this cold winter day was like some eerie, unsettling echo, enough to send chills down anyone’s spine. The area already carried an air of grim menace, and that strange, ghostly sound terrified the passing attendants who heard it until they braced themselves and, supporting one another, came over to look.
There was nothing.
Only a cat that had played itself utterly mad.
One attendant clutched his chest and gasped, “It’s just a cat. You gave me such a fright. I thought it was some vengeful spirit…”
Another chimed in, “This place is crawling with evil omens. Who knows where people have died here. Let’s hurry away!”
Then a third said, “That cat… doesn’t it look like it’s listening to us?”
At once, all of them turned to stare at the cat. There it was, the loopy creature with a strange rodent in its jaws, sprawled on the ground with its two front paws crossed at leisure, a pair of golden cat eyes fixed on them, as if truly listening to every word.
This made their already weak-kneed legs go softer still. The cat was black, after all. In other dynasties, black cats had perhaps been auspicious omens, but in the present dynasty, most people considered them unlucky. Coming upon a black cat staring at them, in the middle of such dreadful associations, all they wanted was to run.
“Wait.” Just as someone was about to bolt, the first attendant suddenly cried out. “A black cat with golden eyes. Isn’t that… isn’t that the very one they’re searching for by His Majesty’s side!”
So worked up was the attendant that his voice nearly cracked.
The other two looked the cat over carefully and said hesitantly, “He looks so grubby. Can he really be the one His Majesty wants?”
Rendong had darted about wildly the whole way, and then played himself into a frenzy. He was, by now, a thoroughly disheveled cat.
He gave himself a lick, entirely without shame.
Still, were they looking for him?
Rendong trotted right up to the attendants with the teaser wand in his mouth, then lowered his head, pinned the wand under his paw, and gave the humans a mew.
The attendants’ eyes went wide. This cat really could understand?
Could it truly be the one from the Emperor’s palace?
They had all heard of the new Emperor’s devotion to the little pet at his side, and they hurriedly shoved aside whatever they’d been carrying, then placed the black cat ceremoniously onto a tray.
The cat had a good temper, at least. He didn’t bite them, though just as they were about to leave, he mewed again.
They looked down. The slender wand he’d dropped lay on the ground. Once an attendant picked it up, the cat flopped bonelessly onto his side on the tray and began grooming himself as if nothing had happened.
Dazed, they carried the cat all the way back, passing plenty of other groups of attendants performing obvious searches. But they were clever ones, terrified that someone would steal their claim to this feat, so they skulked and hid the entire way.
Only when they were stopped by the Emperor’s own men did they tremble and lift the cat on the tray.
Held aloft overhead, Rendong yawned lazily.
Revealing a tiny little maw of blood-red.
Wait. The smell of blood?
Rendong snapped his little mouth shut, flipped with agile grace, and sprang to his feet atop the tray with a slap.
Before the attendants could react, the cat who had been docile the entire journey darted forward, scrambled up onto a shoulder, and kicked off in a flurry down to the ground, then bolted away fast.
Like a little whirlwind, the cat plunged straight into a building.
With the Emperor present in person, the Capital Garrison had naturally vacated its largest hall for His Majesty’s use. But kneeling inside that vast hall were many people. There were the Qing-generation attendants Rendong knew, unfamiliar Imperial Guards, the very attendants who had just chased him, and even the arrogant, domineering Sixth Prince. Every last one of them was kneeling.
Rendong couldn’t tell where the smell of blood came from. It was too thick.
And his human…
Was just pulling a blade from a corpse.
The Sixth Prince trembled all over, staring at the body that had just slumped to the floor before him. His deathly pale face made it look as though he might die right along with it.
The bloodstained blade pressed down heavily on the Sixth Prince’s shoulder. On Tantai Tian’s handsome, pallid face sat a manic, rigid smile, while his cold voice descended like a nightmare.
“Where is This Emperor’s cat?”
He was smiling.
But the smile carried no warmth.
There was something eerily damp about it.
Like a twisted monster wearing the shape of a man.
At the sight of Tantai Tian’s smile, the Sixth Prince, Tantai Jun, clutched his head uncontrollably, curling in on himself as though gripped by utter terror.
He remembered… that smile…
From long, long ago.
The terror buried deep in his memory burst forth, wrenching a scream of agony from Tantai Jun.
