040: Visiting the Little Cat’s Home
Sang Zhao looked at Tang Yu with open expectation.
He was being completely serious. He really was sincerely inviting Tang Yu over to his place to hang out and see his cat.
Hahaha, he was the cat. Of course he was multi-talented and gifted. Backflips were nothing to him.
He hadn’t blurted it out on a whim. This was the result of careful consideration. That was right, he could think things through too.
He wasn’t some obedient little rule-follower. It wasn’t like the Yao Bureau said something and he would just strictly follow every regulation word for word.
From watching the lost-Samoyed incident downtown and the “wild capybara on the beach” incident, and seeing Tang Yu pet both Samoyed and capybara, and how the Yao Bureau didn’t show up with guns to execute him on the spot, he’d realized something.
That was, as long as humans didn’t connect an animal’s human form to the fact that it was a yaoguai, as long as “yaoguai” wasn’t laid out in front of them in so many words, humans wouldn’t think of them as yaoguai just from seeing their animal shape.
So nothing would happen.
Taking advantage of Tang Yu’s birthday, he really wanted to invite him over to his place to play and let this human with zero cat affinity see what the cutest little orange cat in the world really looked like.
When he said that, Tang Yu was completely at a loss for what to even complain about.
He wanted to ask what kind of “come over to my place” old-school trick that was and how it wasn’t outdated yet.
But then he thought again.
Sang Zhao wasn’t the type to use excuses like that to get someone over. If he said the cat could do backflips, then the cat could really do backflips.
After hesitating a moment, Tang Yu still ended up asking the thing he cared about the most. “You have a cat?”
He was confused. He’d known Sang Zhao for almost a month. They saw each other a lot, and he’d never heard anything about that.
Sang Zhao nodded and kept looking at him with hopeful eyes. “Come to my place, Gege. I’ll celebrate your birthday for you.”
Tang Yu’s gaze lit up at once.
He was so surprised he stammered twice and couldn’t even get a full sentence out.
This was the first time a little cat was celebrating a human’s birthday. He had no experience. But his owners had always celebrated his birthday before, so he knew birthdays needed presents and cake and blessings.
He wanted to do all that for Corn Bean too.
But instead of smiling happily like he’d imagined and either praising him or saying yes on the spot, Tang Yu hesitated.
After a moment, he spoke carefully.
“You didn’t take advantage of me… not at all.”
His gaze was light and steady as he looked at Sang Zhao and refused to look away, but what came out of his mouth was just: “If this is about paying me back, you don’t have to. I’m worried you won’t feel comfortable.”
He didn’t want Sang Zhao to feel awkward. He didn’t want Sang Zhao to really treat him like some big boss or leader.
“Not at all. I don’t get that kind of thing,” Sang Zhao said.
Paying someone back? That wasn’t it.
This was warm, toasty little-cat affection. It wasn’t something humans were supposed to pay back.
“I just want to invite you to my place to hang out,” he mumbled, sticky-sweet.
Just thinking about it made him happy. He bounced a little as he spoke. “No one’s ever come over to play at my place before.”
Tang Yu had been sitting on the sofa with his usual calm expression. But as he listened, he suddenly raised a hand and covered his face.
“??”
Impatient, Sang Zhao slapped his arm lightly and called him over and over. “Hey, hey, hey, Gege, Gege, Gege, are you frozen?”
From behind his fingers, Tang Yu forced out a muffled sound. “Why are you inviting me to your place?”
“Because it’s your birthday,” Sang Zhao answered, neat and direct.
He never heard the emphasis on the word “home.” He just thought that way, so he did it. For a little cat, his way of doing things was very straightforward and sincere. Extra implications didn’t need to be considered.
Tang Yu lowered his eyes a bit and sat there quietly. When he finally put his hand down, his face had gone a little red.
Right then, looking at the faint flush on Tang Yu’s neck and the quiet way his hair curled at the nape, Sang Zhao earnestly added, “Because you’re Gege. The others are just coworkers.”
He calmly stressed how important and special Tang Yu was. “So it’s not ‘you can come.’ It’s that only you get to come.”
Tang Yu dipped his head slightly, like his pants were playing some kind of cartoon that was suddenly very interesting, and stared at his own legs.
He felt a bit speechless and very moved. His eyes softened like ripples on water as he looked back at Sang Zhao.
“…You… You do know I’m not actually your older brother, right?”
Buried under that line was a specific kind of human emotional hint. Sadly, the little cat didn’t understand. He was too busy clinging and wheedling.
“Then I can’t call you Gege?” he yelped. “Gege?”
For some reason, Tang Yu immediately covered his face again.
Sang Zhao couldn’t figure him out. Were humans always this hard to read?
In any case, once he finished inviting him and Tang Yu agreed, he happily left the president’s office.
He carried the pastry gift box back to his desk and sat there thinking.
According to human unspoken rules, shouldn’t he share the pastries with his coworkers?
That would make him look, what was that phrase again… yeah, socially smooth.
Better for pretending to be human.
But when he sat there and touched the fancy packaging, his fingertips sliding over the gold patterns on the black box, he suddenly stopped wanting to share.
He wasn’t generous at all. He was stingy. He wanted to eat everything himself.
He was a connection hire. Little cats didn’t have to be reasonable. Connection hires didn’t have to be reasonable. How could a little cat who was a connection hire be expected to be reasonable?
The big boss had gone on a trip and brought food back just for him. If that wasn’t a connection hire, what was?
And it wouldn’t do to let everyone know.
Thinking that, he decisively put the box away.
It was fine if he didn’t share. That just meant he’d eat all of it himself.
No problem at all.
Tang Yu’s birthday was on Friday, so Sang Zhao invited him to come over after work that Friday.
In the days leading up to it, he stayed busy cleaning up his place.
Ever since he’d moved into the loft apartment, this was the first time he’d really had a home of his own. Before, he’d been running around his mom’s place, announcing that everything in the house, including the people, were under the little cat’s sovereignty.
Living alone felt different.
He put the clothes he’d gotten from the Yao Bureau onto hangers in a crooked, messy way. He learned how to use a vacuum cleaner to suck his own cat fur off the floor.
He bought a scratch-strap that wrapped around table legs so cats could rub against it and tied it to the dining table leg. Now, whenever he walked by, he could rub his head and back on it.
He stuck a suction-cup hanging scratch board onto the glass of the floor-to-ceiling window.
At night, he’d turn into a little cat and jump up onto the scratch board, looking out over the night view, counting the stars.
He’d scratch and pick at the board, tearing off bits of paper, then press his pawprints onto the glass.
Out on the balcony, he’d planted cat grass. It came in a paper bag, a small box. Just add water and little wheat sprouts would grow.
To cats, that wasn’t called wheat. Wheat for cats was called cat grass.
He’d snack on it politely, nibbling little bits, then put the paper box back and look forward to the next batch growing.
Unfortunately, most of his money right now had to go toward food. When he’d just moved in, he’d really wanted to buy a cat tree, but he still hadn’t gotten one.
He’d browsed Taobao and Pinduoduo and found out cat trees were expensive. The floor-to-ceiling ones cost over a thousand. A little cat would need to work ten days to earn that.
He really couldn’t bear to spend it when he still had to eat.
The shorter, cheaper ones, he didn’t like.
But, hehe, luckily he was living in a loft.
There were stairs inside and a second floor. That was enough to satisfy a little cat’s instinct to take the high ground.
He loved this home and wanted Tang Yu to be the first human to see it.
Human, look, the little cat is working hard at life too!
And in the place where he was working so hard, he’d wish Tang Yu a happy birthday.
In the blink of an eye, it was Friday after work.
Since he didn’t know how to drive, even though he was inviting a friend to his home like a grown-up, it still ended up being the shirt-and-tie leader friend who drove him home.
Whenever Tang Yu drove, Sang Zhao would plant himself in the front passenger seat. He was used to it. So now, even with no Xia Moye in the back seat, he still had to sit up front.
As they drove home, traffic in the evening rush rolled by. The sunset and neon mixed with all the cars, and Corn Bean sat beside him, driving. They were going home together.
All of it put him in an incredibly good mood.
That constant pressure that had been hanging over him ever since he started pretending to be human suddenly felt a lot lighter.
Thanks to Ye Ye and the capybara, he was now brave enough to walk right along the edge of the line.
He’d realized humans really weren’t that sharp about this stuff.
Tang Yu, as usual, went to turn on the music. As soon as he did, Sang Zhao said no.
He was itching to try something, and couldn’t give up his sneaky idea. “Do you mind if I sing?” he asked.
“…?”
Tang Yu was driving properly and still found time to glance over at him.
He had no idea why Sang Zhao wanted to sing. But he held back his laughter and indulged him. “I don’t mind. Go ahead.”
Under his breath, Sang Zhao hummed and mumbled.
He had a cat song he sang to entertain himself. He loved it. Every time he sang it, his mood got a lot better.
To Tang Yu’s ears, he sounded vaguely like he was singing, but really there was no tune at all.
“I’m a little cat, I wanna fly a plane. Flying a plane is hard, but it can’t beat a little cat…”
Tang Yu’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel before he even noticed. He held in his laughter, shoulders trembling lightly.
His head was full of one thought: this guy was so weird and so cute.
When he finished, Sang Zhao glanced at him and snorted in satisfaction.
Wow, that felt great. He’d flat-out said he was a little cat and Tang Yu still hadn’t screamed that he was a yaoguai.
The Yao Bureau hadn’t shown up with a rocket launcher to blow the fur off his butt either.
Honestly, why had he been so careful before? Pretending to be human really wasn’t that hard.
Driving steadily, Tang Yu pulled up in front of the apartment building. He parked at the curb, turned the engine off, got out, and opened the trunk.
He took out a small gift box with a handle.
The box was wooden, nicely packaged, with an orange ribbon tied around it. One look at the picture on the front and Sang Zhao recognized it as a lamp.
Looking closer at the text, he realized it was a little motion-sensing bedside lamp.
Lifting the handle slightly, Tang Yu said, “I can’t come empty-handed, so I brought you a present.”
“But it’s your birthday. Why am I getting a present?”
That really didn’t please Sang Zhao.
He felt underestimated. How could Tang Yu not ask him for a gift and instead bring him one?
“It’s not a birthday present. It’s a housewarming gift. You said you only moved in recently, remember?” Tang Yu was very good at smoothing the cat’s fur along the right way.
He coaxed and coaxed, and sure enough, Sang Zhao was coaxed.
He just kept his face pretending to be serious.
Carrying the box, Tang Yu locked the car. After hesitating a moment, he grabbed the sulking Sang Zhao by the wrist.
His voice was light, like flicking a snowflake off a plum blossom. “So, take me to your place?”
It felt like something fell out of Sang Zhao’s chest.
He didn’t know what it was, maybe it didn’t actually fall, but something half-fell and swung in his chest.
Oh no. His protective chest fur.
He raised a hand and touched where his heart was, but he only felt his shirt. Nothing had fallen out.
When he tilted his head, Tang Yu had already let go of his wrist and taken a couple of steps toward the nearest entrance.
He looked back, eyes full of question marks, wondering why Sang Zhao wasn’t moving.
Shaking his head twice, Sang Zhao tossed out the tangle of yarn in his brain.
Then he strode over, catching up with Tang Yu and leading him inside.
Honestly, there wasn’t much to do at his place. But since it was Tang Yu’s first visit, he was still really excited.
Upstairs, he pressed his finger to the lock. As soon as the door opened a crack, Tang Yu stuck his foot right into the gap.
His hand was still on the fingerprint sensor. He stared at Tang Yu in confusion. “…Huh?”
What was this supposed to be?
He’d invited him over as a guest and the first thing Tang Yu did was kick his house?
Tang Yu looked just as thrown and asked, “Don’t you have a cat?”
According to his logic, he said, “Don’t people with cats open doors like this? Otherwise the cat could just slip out through the crack.”
That shut Sang Zhao up.
Gege, the cat was outside. How was the cat supposed to slip out from inside?
Pursing his lips, he said, aggrieved, “My… cat isn’t that dumb. It doesn’t try to run away from home.”
Waving a hand, Tang Yu stayed firm in his cat-safety values. “Cats are all dumb. You have to keep a close eye on them or they’ll run.”
Sang Zhao glared at him.
“What?” Tang Yu asked, baffled.
With a yank, Sang Zhao opened the door wide.
The sudden movement made Tang Yu jump.
But sure enough, no cat rushed out.
Standing at the entryway, he didn’t step in yet. He just leaned forward and looked, letting out a puzzled, “Hm? Where’s the cat?”
Sang Zhao stepped into the hallway first and dug through the shoe cabinet for slippers. In his head, he was thinking, The cat is right here. The cat is finding you slippers.
He only had the starter set of supplies the Yao Bureau had gotten him when he moved in, including two pairs of those flimsy hotel slippers. One pair was still new.
He took the new pair out for Tang Yu.
After swapping his shoes, Tang Yu came inside and set the boxed present down on the shoe cabinet counter, looking slowly around.
It was a small loft apartment, really only big enough for one person. Two would be cramped. One was just right, comfortable and free.
This was Sang Zhao’s home.
Politely, Tang Yu took everything in. He looked at the furniture and setup, at the open-plan kitchen, the stairs, and the cabinets under them, trying to see little traces of how Sang Zhao lived.
After a full circle, he asked, perfectly proper, “So where’s the cat?”
…Cat this, cat that.
On purpose, Sang Zhao ignored that and just said, “Let’s order takeout, okay?”
He pulled Tang Yu over and slumped against him on the couch.
They ordered fried chicken with honey-cheese sauce and soy-sauce flavor, then he finally locked his phone.
Under Tang Yu’s expectant gaze, he cleared his throat and proudly brought up the cat that could do backflips.
“The cat is shy. It’s upstairs hiding under the bed and won’t come out. Wait here, I’ll go upstairs and get it to come down and play with you.”
With that, he headed up.
The bed and wardrobe were upstairs. It was basically his bedroom.
Since it was Tang Yu’s first visit, he wasn’t about to casually barge into someone’s bedroom.
Seeing that Sang Zhao had no intention of asking him up, he stayed downstairs and waited.
As Sang Zhao’s footsteps went up and started moving around on the second floor, Tang Yu heard him meow a couple of times, like he was calling a cat.
He even thought to himself that his imitation of a cat was really accurate.
Right after that, he heard Sang Zhao again, this time in a very formal, serious tone.
“Go on, go downstairs and play. I’ll look for something.”
Then he heard the sound of a little cat thumping along.
Looking up, he saw a small orange cat racing down the stairs, its paws pattering on each step, before circling around his legs in a single loop.
Tang Yu drew in a deep breath. He didn’t even dare breathe out too strongly. He was careful with every breath.
It really was a very pretty orange cat.
It was small, its entire coat fluffed out, like a dandelion. Or like a freshly fried chicken wing drum.
Its fur wasn’t just orange either, but streaked with red tabby markings, adding a bit of fierceness on top of the cuteness. It looked very impressive.
The cat seemed to know Tang Yu had been invited over by its owner to watch a talent show.
So it stopped in front of him, pushed off with its hind legs, and did a neat, standard backflip.
Wow. Abs strength off the charts.
Tang Yu froze. It took him a few seconds to remember to clap. He clapped wildly and said, “Amazing! That’s amazing!”
Back in full cat mode, Sang Zhao gave his fur a shake.
Hmph. Hooked you, didn’t I.
That was just a backflip. He could even do a whole string of them.
With a little huff, he pushed off with all four paws, tightened his core, jumped, and followed the grain of the floorboards with three or four backflips in a row, flipping all the way from in front of Tang Yu to the window.
By now, Tang Yu’s face had gone blank.
He was so startled he couldn’t stay seated.
His butt left the sofa, and he jumped to his feet, shouting, “Sang Zhao? Sang Zhao?!”
“This cat— this cat—” He couldn’t even finish a sentence.
Landing smoothly, Sang Zhao shook his head and started to panic.
Don’t yell. Do not yell. What are you yelling for. The cat’s right here. There’s no “Sang Zhao” upstairs for you.
The cat rushed back up.
A second later, Sang Zhao jogged downstairs, clutching a blanket and wearing a confused face. “What’s wrong? I brought a blanket. I was worried you’d get cold with the air on.”
Tang Yu’s expression was dazed. “Your cat, you… cat… I… Is it a spinning top?”
Tossing the blanket onto the couch, Sang Zhao said, “It’s just multi-talented, that’s all.”
Well, sure. Fair enough.
After a moment of shock, Tang Yu accepted it.
Once he did, his mind went back to the cat.
He’d come partly because he wanted to pet the cat, after all. But when the cat had been there, he’d been too busy freaking out to touch it.
Now that the cat was gone, he wanted to pet it.
“Call it out so I can pet it,” Tang Yu said. “Also, what’s its name? You never said.”
“It’s just ‘Cat.’ If I yell ‘Cat’ and the cat comes out, why would it be anything else?”
Half lying along the curve of the cushion, he sagged back into the sofa.
“I don’t think it’s coming back out. It’s probably hiding under the bed.”
And just to be an evil cat tattler, he added, “You scared it, so it needs to recover.”
Tang Yu half believed him and half didn’t. He was about to say something when his phone rang.
He picked up, said hello, answered with a couple of “mm”s, and finished with, “Okay, I’ll be right down.”
“Someone’s asking me to move my car.”
Hanging up, he turned to Sang Zhao. “I’ll run downstairs for a second.”
“Mm,” Sang Zhao answered on instinct.
Two seconds later, he snapped back to reality.
What? Move the car? Go downstairs?
No, no. This was a yaoguai apartment. Whoever asked him to move the car definitely wasn’t “human.”
He jumped up right away. “I’m coming with you.”
He had to protect Tang Yu.
If the person outside was some hot-tempered yaoguai and assumed Tang Yu was one too, and hit him with a staff right off the bat, or blurted something out with no filter, wouldn’t his whole “pretending to be human” act go straight into the soup?
No way. He was going, no matter what.
To Tang Yu, this was completely unnecessary. He didn’t want to make him run up and down either, so he kept trying. “It’s fine. Really. There’s no need.”
“I don’t feel safe letting you go alone,” Sang Zhao said, clinging and refusing to let him leave.
Out of options, Tang Yu gave up and snapped, “Honestly, I’m not a little kid. Do you plan on holding my hand and leading me down to move the car?”
Okay then. He’d said it himself.
If he’d said it, there was no way Sang Zhao wasn’t going to do exactly that.
He reached out and wrapped his fingers around Tang Yu’s fingertips, holding on tight and swinging their joined hands.
His eyes and brows were full of swagger. Even faced with Tang Yu’s stunned look, he didn’t panic at all. Instead, he raised an eyebrow and grinned.
“Then I’ll hold your hand. I’ll hold it.”
The hand Tang Yu had grabbed, along with the arm it was attached to, felt like they’d gone completely stiff.
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down a couple of times.
Helpless, he brought his other hand up and pressed it against the side of his neck, which had turned red.
“…Hey, you…”
Frowning, he tried not to smile, expression complicated as he looked at Sang Zhao.
With a little snort, Sang Zhao said, “Come on, let’s go. I’ve basically grown on you anyway.”
It was like Tang Yu got shocked. His eyelashes shook a couple of times.
“Don’t say stuff like that,” he muttered, head down.
“I’m being reasonable,” Sang Zhao said.
“You’ve even got a toy stuck on your head. Why can’t you have me too?” He squeezed Tang Yu’s hand tighter. “See? I’m attached. I’m secure. Are we going or not?”
Author’s Note:
The cat: realizes no one’s watching too closely, starts testing the limits and getting ready to puff up, lululu~
IsitRo: Ehe...... I was debating whether I should jump back into doing five chapters a day like before, but then I had to sit myself down and ask, “Girl, why are you running?” using that meme voice. I just got back from vacation, my sleep schedule is in shambles, and I went straight to work the next morning like an NPC that just got fixed because I “bugged” out. lololol
So yeah. I don’t know why I was trying to speedrun my own burnout arc.
Sorry, mah dudes~ 2 chapters a day feels way more doable w/o my soul leaving my body. :')
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