Chapter 34
That evening, Shao Sui told Mimi he had bought him a phone, arriving tomorrow.
However, the next day, Mimi waited from sunrise to sunset, practically bouncing off the walls, but his phone didn’t arrive.
Mimi declared emphatically, “You’re a liar.”
Shao Sui misheard, thinking he said “You’re a pervert,” and almost had a heart attack.
“There’s a delay in shipping, it’s out of my control. Maybe it’ll arrive tomorrow.”
The phone did indeed arrive on the third day. Shao Sui received a call from the delivery person right after class and, grabbing his textbooks and materials, hurried out of the classroom, going to a secluded corner on the stairs to contact Mimi, “The phone is on its way up, open the door for the delivery person, and don’t talk too much.”
Mimi’s face, pressed against the camera, was distorted into a cone shape, his eyes large and round like marbles.
The cat was a bit nervous, “Do I have to say anything to him?”
Shao Sui said, “Just say thank you.”
Soon, the delivery person rang the doorbell.
Barely a second after the ring, the door grudgingly opened a crack, an arm extending out, its slender fingers grasping at the air.
The delivery person handed over the phone box: “Here, be careful not to drop it…”
The hand quickly retracted and the door slammed shut, followed by a muffled “thank you.”
“…”
The delivery person turned to leave, then, sensing something was off, turned back and rang the doorbell again, calling out, “Hello, you haven’t signed for it yet!”
Mimi, illiterate, panicked and rushed to the camera, calling out, “Shao Sui, he said I have to sign!”
Fortunately, Shao Sui was watching the surveillance feed and replied immediately, “Don’t worry, there’s a pen in the small basket on the cabinet at the entrance, just scribble something, even a circle will do.”
Mimi was still scared. What if his cat spirit identity was exposed? Wouldn’t he be taken away? No human reached eighteen without knowing how to read or write. He would definitely study hard tomorrow.
The delivery person waited for a long time, about to call again, when the door finally opened. The person inside extended an arm again, “Sign for it.”
A clear, youthful voice, slightly muffled by the door, probably young and introverted.
“Do you need a pen?”
“No!”
The hand quickly retracted, reminding him of a kitten’s paw.
A minute later, the delivery person received the signed delivery slip. Looking down, he saw two wobbly circles drawn on it. A minute to write… to draw this?
He shook his head, speechless, and turned to leave.
Mimi, no longer nervous, went to the camera, “I got the phone, can I open it now?”
“Did you close the door properly?”
“Yes.”
Actually, after switching to the smart lock, Shao Sui received notifications whenever the door was opened or closed, making the question redundant.
His voice unconsciously softened, “Put the phone away and wait for me to open it. Setting up a new phone is troublesome.”
“Then please come back quickly, okay?”
“Okay.” Shao Sui replied, mimicking Mimi’s usual tone, then asked, “Did you finish your lessons today?”
“Yes, and I also did my homework.”
“Did you drink your water?”
He forgot about that.
But for a kitten about to get a phone, drinking water was insignificant.
Mimi rushed to the water dispenser, filled a glass, and went to the camera, saying obediently, “Teacher Shao, please check.”
He tilted his head back, opened his mouth wide, and poured the water down his throat.
Shao Sui didn’t dare to speak, afraid of choking him, waiting until the glass was empty before saying, “Another glass at 2 PM.”
Mimi said resolutely, “I will not fail you!”
Shao Sui responded with a seemingly indifferent “mm-hmm”: “Wait for me to come home.”
After ending the conversation, Mimi, as usual, waited in front of the camera for a while. He hadn’t finished his elementary school curriculum and still didn’t understand how surveillance cameras worked. He only saw his own reflection, not Shao Sui.
Mimi scratched the camera lens with his index finger, trying to dig Shao Sui out.
Then, realizing how silly he was, he kissed the camera with a straight face.
Please send the Great Meow King’s love to Shao Sui.
Before he could pull away, he suddenly heard Shao Sui’s voice, “The camera is exposed to the elements all day, covered in germs, and you kissed it?”
Mimi jumped back in fright, “Don’t suddenly talk to me!”
Shao Sui chuckled, “What do you mean ‘suddenly talk’?”
Mimi thought for a moment, “You should say ‘I’m going to talk now’ first.”
Wouldn’t that also be sudden?
So cute and brainless.
Shao Sui turned off the surveillance camera and leaned against the railing, opening his photo album.
Before, the photos were mostly work-related. After getting the cat, they were all cat pictures and videos. He couldn’t help himself, taking dozens every day. Mimi rolling around on the floor acting cute, Mimi biting his pants and pulling him towards the canned food, Mimi encountering new things, curiously pawing at them, then running away in a flurry of fur…
And Mimi with a small ball in his mouth, his round head and pointy ears.
Shao Sui, after living for twenty-seven years, finally realized he was also a sentimental fool, actually falling for a useless creature like a cat.
Looking at the pictures of Mimi the cat, his mind, however, was filled with human Mimi.
Before, when Shao Sui wanted to take pictures of Mimi, he just did it. After all, the cat couldn’t protest, at most covering its face with its paws. But after the cat turned human, taking pictures casually felt strange, as if he had some hidden fetish.
“Teacher Shao.”
Shao Sui looked up and saw his student, Wu Xiao, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
He asked professionally, “Is there something I can help you with?”
Wu Xiao said, “My mother said I have to transfer schools next semester.”
Shao Sui’s expression remained neutral, “Study hard at your new school.”
“But I don’t want to transfer!” Wu Xiao suddenly yelled. “I don’t want to at all! Why are you all forcing me!”
Shao Sui couldn’t comment on this. As one of the parties involved, anything he said would be sensitive.
At Wu Xiao’s age, he had no control over his own life. If his parents wanted him to transfer schools or move, there was nothing he could do.
After a moment of silence, Wu Xiao, his eyes reddening, apologized, “Sorry, Teacher, I got too emotional.”
Shao Sui felt it wasn’t just about the student’s crush on him anymore, but the chain reaction caused by its exposure.
“Try talking to your mother, or talk to Teacher Cheng.”
“It’s useless, they never really cared about me.”
Wu Xiao backed down the stairs and ran off without looking back.
Shao Sui, afraid something might happen, quickly followed, sighing in relief only after seeing Wu Xiao enter the classroom. He returned to the office and told Cheng Ke about it.
Cheng Ke was also exasperated, “To put it bluntly, I hope his mother transfers him tomorrow, then it has nothing to do with us anymore. Don’t tell a kid ‘next semester,’ what are we supposed to do for the next few months? Live in constant fear.”
Shao Sui sighed, “Keep your voice down.”
Although that’s what they thought, they couldn’t say it openly.
Cheng Ke sighed as well, “Whether he likes you or not isn’t important anymore, what matters is that his parents are terrified of him going ‘astray,’ determined to ‘correct’ him. I was actually planning to apply to that private school his mother chose, the salary and benefits are good, but I heard the pressure is immense for both teachers and students, everyone boards there, it’s like military school, no freedom at all.”
Shao Sui frowned, “Isn’t that driving the child to despair?”
“Don’t jinx it, I’ll talk to Wu Xiao again.” Cheng Ke picked up the cat pictures on her desk and sighed, “A woman needs to look at cute kittens to find the strength to carry on.”
Not just women, Shao Sui felt the same way.
Only when he returned home and saw Mimi could he truly relax.
At school, there were endless student and parent issues, endless meetings, endless reports…
And the head teacher’s daily reminders, “Eat more, dress worse, don’t wash your hair every day, grow a beard. Even after Wu Xiao’s issue is resolved, there are still over a hundred other students, and in a year, a new batch of students will arrive…”
Shao Sui exhaled softly at his doorstep, unlocked the door with his face, and almost had a heart attack when he saw the scene inside—
The floor was covered in bright red blood, splattered everywhere, from the kitchen entrance to the living room, even a few plum-blossom-shaped stains on the sofa.
Shao Sui, without even changing his shoes, rushed in, “Mimi!?”
He stepped on the blood and slipped, falling to the floor with a thud.
Could blood be slippery?
The color was a bit off, and so was the smell.
Shao Sui rubbed it between his fingers. It wasn’t blood.
He breathed a sigh of relief, getting up and calling out, “Mimi? Did you spill the ketchup?”
“Come out, I’m not angry.”
No response.
Shao Sui wondered if Mimi had run outside, but judging by the ketchup trail, the cat should be in the study.
He lifted the covers on the single bed, but it was empty.
Shao Sui coaxed gently, “Come out, I’m really not angry. Let me… check if you’re injured.”
After a while, he heard a noise from the corner of the study.
Shao Sui searched everywhere but couldn’t find the cat, finally focusing on his desk drawer. He opened it, but it was also empty, until he shone his phone’s flashlight into the gap between the drawer and the cabinet and found a flat-headed calico.
Its ears had completely disappeared.
Shao Sui beckoned, “Come on out, good boy.”
Mimi tentatively extended one paw, and sensing Shao Sui wasn’t going to hurt him, slowly crept out, rubbed against Shao Sui’s leg, and flopped onto the floor, trying to get away with acting cute, “Meow…”
Shao Sui picked up Mimi and checked him over, no injuries, just a few missing patches of fur. There were some dried ketchup stains on his paws, which looked alarming at first glance.
He sat on the single bed, held the cat in his arms, and swatted its backside a few times.
“Meow!!!”
Mimi instantly transformed into a human, pushing Shao Sui down and accusing, “You saw yesterday, and you still hit me!”
Shao Sui held Mimi’s waist and asked gently, “Saw what?”
Mimi tried to intimidate him, “You can’t hit a cat’s butt, it might paralyze them!”
“How can my strength compare to his?” Shao Sui didn’t want to argue with the cat. “Fine, you can’t hit a cat, but you’re human now, aren’t you?”
Being human was just as well, he was afraid of overdoing it and making Mimi enjoy being spanked.
Mimi sensed something was off and turned to run, but Shao Sui caught him and pulled him onto his lap. The newly transformed cat was completely naked, his smooth back curving down to his rounded buttocks.
There was no ruler here, so Shao Sui simply spanked him a few times with his hand. Soon, both their skin reddened.
Mimi turned around, aggrieved, “You’re a bad person!”
“I’m a bad person?” Shao Sui pinched Mimi’s chin, muttering to himself, “I am indeed.”
Mimi tried to sit up, “S-something in your pocket is poking me.”
Shao Sui said coldly, “Don’t change the subject.”
“There really is something…”
Mimi mumbled, reaching into Shao Sui’s pocket, when Shao Sui grabbed his wrist and asked softly, “I’m so bad, do you want a new owner?”
Mimi refused without hesitation, “No! I just said you’re bad, I didn’t say I don’t want you!”
Shao Sui’s anger instantly dissipated, “What if I can’t afford you anymore? Do you still want me?”
“Yes.” Mimi, unsure what was happening, sat down in Shao Sui’s lap. “I can go busking with you, like A Street Cat Named Bob!”
“Who’s Bob?”
“A ginger cat.”
Shao Sui thought it was Mimi’s friend, “How do you know so many cats? Did you kiss him too?”
After asking, Shao Sui felt ridiculous, continuing before Mimi could answer, “Okay, we won’t have to resort to busking. If I quit teaching, how about opening a cat cafe?”
Mimi, like a loyal dog, didn’t mind a poor family, “Okay, I’ll be the star attraction, I’ll earn you lots of money!”
Shao Sui couldn’t help but laugh, “What nonsense have you been watching? Even if I open a cat cafe, you’re not allowed to… entertain customers.”
“What’s ‘entertain customers’?”
“Something you’ll understand after you turn thirty.” Shao Sui returned to the main topic, “Why did you spill the ketchup? I thought it was your blood, you almost scared me to death!”
Shao Sui’s words were so dramatic that Mimi felt inexplicably guilty, completely forgetting he had just been spanked, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were so easily scared.”
Shao Sui: “…So why did you spill it?”
Mimi, having watched too much TV, started acting pitiful, “Because I was so excited after getting the phone, I transformed back into a cat and ran around, and then I accidentally…”
Shao Sui said, exasperated, “Accidentally knocked over the ketchup bottle on top of the refrigerator? That’s quite the excitement.”
Mimi nuzzled Shao Sui’s face and rubbed against his lips, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”
Shao Sui’s Adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t speak.
Mimi looked down, puzzled, “What is that? It’s poking me even more.”
Shao Sui wrapped the naked cat in the blanket like a cocoon and tossed him onto the bed: “You’re not allowed out, stay there and reflect on your actions, I’m going to clean up.”
Mimi poked his head out of the blanket, his face full of confusion.
He’s hiding something good!
