The snow had stopped, but the wind outside still howled like needles of ice.
Bai Chen was bundled up in the arms of the boy Jiang Yuanmu, his head poking out from the collar of the cotton jacket. The fine, fluffy fur on his head was blown by the wind against the boy’s chin, like a heating pad pressed to his neck. When he heard the boy call to him, he let out an “ah” and ducked back inside the jacket, leaving only a pair of glowing green round eyes visible.
Together, they braved the biting cold wind to reach the Everbright Street Office. The front gate was shut tight, with a thick layer of snow piled up at the entrance.
Bai Chen lifted his head and rubbed against the boy’s chin.
“Looks like we won’t be getting any money today,” Jiang Yuanmu said in a hoarse voice, holding back a cough. His words came out soft and drawn out. “It’s fine, A Nuan. I’ll go ice fishing.”
Bai Chen twisted around unhappily in his arms. A little cat shouldn’t understand complicated human speech, but he lowered his head anyway, his two indignant ears pointed straight at the boy’s face. Then he reached out a paw and smacked the boy’s neck hard.
After a year together, Jiang Yuanmu knew the little cat well enough to recognize when he was upset.
A Nuan didn’t like eating fish.
Last winter, when there was no meat at home, he’d dragged his frail body out to the frozen river to fish. He’d finally reeled in a trout, only for the little cat to bat it away with one paw. Back then, the little cat had been skinny and small, wobbling when he walked, yet he’d sent that trout sliding several meters across the ice. It was clear just how much he hated fish.
“No fish, then. I’ll catch some and trade it at the market for a chicken,” Jiang Yuanmu said, pressing the little cat’s head back into the jacket. “Just eat a little, okay?”
He could make do with anything himself—hot or cold, fresh or expired. But when it came to A Nuan’s food, he was particular and anxious, terrified that the little cat might eat something bad and get sick, or that he wouldn’t get enough nutrition while growing. Every day, he racked his brain over what to scrounge up for him to eat.
Pressed into the jacket, Bai Chen kept batting at the boy’s chest with his paws, hitting hard.
No ice fishing allowed.
After a few swats, he settled down. He stretched out his two fluffy front paws and half-hugged the boy’s neck—his legs were too short to wrap around fully—then rubbed his round head against the boy’s icy chin, shielding half his face from the wind.
The wind was fierce, stinging Jiang Yuanmu’s eyes until they watered.
It had probably been one night when he’d woken up warm for once. In that real warmth, he’d gazed at the scrawny cat in his arms and started hating his own sickly body—hating how his illness kept him from even working a job to earn money for meat.
If it were just poverty or just sickness, he might not hate it so much. But both together? That was too much.
“A Nuan, I feel like my body’s getting better. This winter break, I’ll go out and earn some money,” he said, burying his chin in the soft cat fur. “Maybe I can tutor kids.”
It was the only skill he had worth anything—he’d gotten into a decent university. Plenty of students there tutored on the side. Three months ago, right after starting school, he’d wanted to try it too. But every parent had bolted when they saw him cough up blood.
His health really was improving. Before, even when he tried to hold it in, he’d cough up blood in front of people. But ever since A Nuan came along, his sleep had improved, and his body was slowly being nourished. Now he could suppress a cough for a while, and even if he did cough, it wasn’t bloody anymore—just a bit he could swallow down without anyone noticing.
He might actually be able to land a tutoring gig.
Bai Chen let out a soft, arrogant “meow,” which sounded reasonably satisfied.
The somewhat pleased little cat stopped scratching. He lifted his head from the boy’s arms and looked up at him. His big round eyes were like green gems, or the deep green of a serene lake, gazing quietly and intently, as if the whole world was contained in the person before him, ready to draw him into its depths.
Every time Jiang Yuanmu was looked at like that, he felt like A Nuan loved him and needed him deeply. His fingertips trembled uncontrollably as warmth flooded his heart. He reached out gently to stroke the little cat’s head, then tucked it back against his neck.
Only after getting a cat did he learn that cat fur came in downy undercoat and silky guard hairs. He still couldn’t decide if A Nuan’s was downy or silky—it had the fluffiness of down, like a little cotton puff exploding in the sunlight, but also the sleekness of silk. When that fluffy warmth pressed against his neck, even the fat snowflakes starting to fall again felt soft.
“A Nuan, it’s snowing again. Let’s head home.”
In the snow, the boy and the little cat huddled together as their figures passed by the mouth of an alley.
“How about it? Hear anything?” From the shadows behind a dumpster deep in the alley, Du Feili asked his teammate—the female book transmigrator Niu Lingyu, who’d come here with him several times before.
Niu Lingyu had a hearing aid, a special item she’d gotten from some romance novel. It let her hear distant sounds, even eerie frequencies humans couldn’t normally pick up. That’s why, when forming his team, he’d first recruited her, even though she wasn’t highly ranked among book transmigrators.
In this horror novel world, such a hearing aid was invaluable.
“That boy went to ask for welfare money but didn’t get any. He was going to go ice fishing to trade for a chicken for the little cat, but it seems the cat didn’t want him to, so he’s backing off. Now he’s talking about tutoring,” Niu Lingyu summarized what she’d overheard, concise and to the point.
“So he’s really on welfare? He looks like he’s strapped for cash.”
“Sick like that and still planning to ice fish for the cat—he must really love that little guy.”
As he listened to their chatter, Du Feili frowned. He’d come to check on the boy plenty of times before and never seen him with a cat.
The novel world was alive, changing subtly with each visit. Someone taking in a cat for whatever reason wasn’t a big deal. But this was the most dangerous, most unpredictable apocalypse boss. Any tiny change around him could spell massive disaster.
“Don’t mess with that cat,” Du Feili warned. Then he added, “It’s too cold out. We can’t let him go ice fishing—his body couldn’t take it. If he gets sick or hurt, we’re the ones in danger.”
“We need to fix his money problem sensibly. Deliver some food to him today, and ideally get him that tutoring job within a couple days.” He scanned his teammates’ faces carefully, a plan forming in his mind.
“Go buy him food?” someone asked. “So we need cash first? Where do we find day labor?”
Du Feili glanced at the sky, then deeper into the gloomy courtyard, pulling his coat tighter. “Follow me.”
Captain Du led them inside like he knew the way by heart. The backdrop felt inexplicably desolate, almost heartbreaking.
The snow grew heavier, the wind whipping snowflakes into a frenzy as they battered the walls and bare branches.
No ice fishing today. Good.
That was Du Feili’s tense thought as he knocked on the boy’s door.
His whole team had gone to the Black Workshop for under-the-table work, but only Du Feili and Niu Lingyu came back unscathed. The others had each lost something to the machines radiating that eerie capitalist vibe—something packed into snack tins for the weirdos.
Du Feili had plenty of experience. Niu Lingyu didn’t remember, but unfortunately and fortunately, some instincts were carved into her bones. When a machine part extended toward her, a faint ache warned her where it would strike. Her survival instincts kicked in, and she dodged before it could shear off her fingers into a grisly “chicken feet” treat.
Anyone bleeding or injured couldn’t come—Du Feili feared the boy might smell the blood and get suspicious.
But he seemed to smell blood anyway. At first, Du Feili thought it was the lingering metallic tang from the Black Workshop still on his nose. Seconds later, his face paled in shock, and he shoved the gate open into the courtyard.
Everbright Street’s front was lined with towering skyscrapers piercing the dark sky like monuments. Just one street over, it turned into another world—a rundown slum. Narrow lanes were crammed with dilapidated little courtyards awaiting developers that never came. The boy lived in one of them.
The three-sided courtyard wasn’t large. A quick turn revealed the boy’s thin back in the kitchen.
He turned around. His eyes were empty and coldly profound, easily evoking his name: the twilight on a distant riverbank. In his hand was a knife slicing into his arm, blood dripping from the tip like sinking into an abyss of terror.
Amid the wind and snow, Du Feili broke out in a cold sweat.
He stared in shock and fear at the boy’s sliced arm, his mind drowned in blood. His heart felt furred over, squeezing the veins connected to it. He could barely breathe, fighting the urge to shake or shout.
Calm down. Calm!
If the boy noticed anything was off, they were done for.
Why would he self-harm?! No, he wasn’t the type.
From Du Feili’s many prior observations, this boy Jiang Yuanmu actually cherished his body. It was frail, and most days he stayed put nursing it, skipping school in bad weather.
But what was this? Why cut his own arm?
Du Feili glanced at the dish beneath the boy’s arm, positioned to catch meat or blood. Niu Lingyu’s overheard words and the team’s discussion sparked a ridiculous notion.
The snowstorm kept him from ice fishing, and the little cat didn’t want him to go anyway. So no food for the cat. Was he planning to cut his own flesh to feed it?
Absurd. So absurd it nearly shattered Du Feili’s worldview—of this world.
Just as he tried to dismiss the idea, a ripple stirred the frigid air, bringing it to life, softening it.
The kitchen connected to the main room through an open door. A few seconds late, Du Feili spotted it: the cat padding from the room into the kitchen.
Up close, the cat was irresistibly cute. His round eyes rivaled the purest green gems, his white fur snow-pure without a speck of dirt, laced with the faintest gold like sunlight. When he walked, his fluffy fur hung down, hiding his legs almost entirely.
He looked a bit drunk, dazed and wobbly, drifting softly without strength until he reached the boy and collapsed at his feet. His chest rose and fell with purring, his round green eyes shimmering with moisture as he gazed up.
Eerie.
He looked blissfully content, fainted from satisfaction.
Terrifying.
When the boy scooped him up and his head brushed the blood on the boy’s arm, he seemed enraptured and sated, something in his green eyes on the verge of spilling over. He let out a soft, limp “ah” to the boy.
Seeing the boy’s pale lips curve into a faint smile as he comforted the cat in his arms, Du Feili was utterly bewildered.
In his view, this world’s four apocalypse bosses were all irredeemable villains, the most terrifying kind. But witnessing the boy’s somewhat pure smile now, he decided the cat cradled in his arms was the real villain.
It hadn’t flinched or cried at the sight of the boy cutting flesh. Instead, it fainted in bliss, staring at him with eyes brimming with thick affection and dependence—like a devilish imp beguiling hearts, luring people into the abyss for its own sake.
