065: The Little Cat’s Business Empire Launches!
Watching Tang Yu looking all accomplished and learned, Sang Zhao thought, Mm, that’s right, I’m a sapiosexual.
When he was being forced by Tang Yu to become accomplished and learned, though, he thought, Ugh, this is awful, I’m just a face-con, that’s all!
Corn Bean had that wise, insightful air about him, the kind that made a little kitten who called him “little cat” feel full of admiration.
But the little kitten didn’t actually want to be as wise as Corn Bean.
The little kitten only wanted money and chicken legs.
He was complaining just then, but before he even finished talking, he suddenly heard Tang Yu’s faint, teasing voice behind him.
It scared the kitten half to death.
“…Thank you so much,” Tang Yu said.
Sang Zhao immediately hung up the call and pretended he hadn’t been complaining at all.
He spun around fast, looked at Tang Yu’s complicated expression, and gave him a big bright grin.
Ah, did Corn Bean hear anything? Corn Bean must’ve misheard. The little cat hadn’t said a word!
After saying thanks, Tang Yu just stood there in silence, like he’d been deeply wounded.
What, had he never met a cat who hated studying this much?
Or had he just never met a boyfriend who didn’t want to learn?
A 26-year-old CEO supervising his 20-year-old boyfriend on grade-school material… this really was a one-of-a-kind dating experience, wasn’t it, Corn Bean?
Sang Zhao set his phone down.
He trotted over and wrapped himself around Tang Yu’s arm, giving it a little shake.
“You were eavesdropping on me,” he complained. “Do you really want me to become a Spanish seafood little cat?”
Tang Yu rubbed his hair, regretting that he still couldn’t rub out any cat ears. His voice, though, was very proper.
“I want you to become a little cat who loves to study.”
Sang Zhao secretly curled his lips and deliberately poked Tang Yu in the side.
Tang Yu dodged and surrendered at the same time.
“Seriously, is that so bad?” he said. “If you think Spanish sounds gentle and musical, like singing, then you should grab onto that interest and learn more foreign languages. That’d be great, wouldn’t it?”
“To me, Spain and watermelon are the same thing. I don’t like it at all,” Sang Zhao muttered.
“Only Corn Bean is good.”
He might be a kitten, but standing here, he was a very big person, yet he was still just focused on coquetting.
“Everything else is bad.”
Tang Yu sighed. Truth was, this was exactly the kind of thing he loved.
His first instinct was to say, Forget studying, we’re done here.
He’d worked so hard to build a company; couldn’t he afford to support one kitten?
Forget math, forget pinyin, forget all of it.
From now on they could just watch cartoons, buy some cheese, and be happy.
But he was such a worrier that he still looked obviously troubled.
“…You’re just leaning on the fact that you’re a little cat,” he said regretfully.
The moment he took a step back, Sang Zhao instantly forgot how he’d just been forced to study.
He lit up, all happy, and clung to him with sticky-soft coaxing.
“No,” he said. “I’m leaning on the fact that you like me.”
Tang Yu hummed in acknowledgment and leaned in to kiss him.
They were out in public, so it wasn’t appropriate to kiss him on the mouth. He kissed the little cat’s eyelid instead.
Sang Zhao slapped his hands over his eyes and took a step back.
“Ah, I can’t see anymore!”
“How could you not be able to see?” Panic rose in Tang Yu’s chest as he leaned in to check.
He knew perfectly well that Sang Zhao was probably up to some mischief, but seeing him cover his eyes still poked at his instincts.
Half of his mind was thinking, He’s messing with me, but his hands were already reaching up urgently before his brain could catch up.
Sure enough, Sang Zhao was being bad.
He spouted nonsense.
“Because Corn Bean’s kiss was too heavy,” he said. “Too heavy, way too heavy, so heavy that I can’t open my eyes. Of course I can’t see now.”
“I can’t see, so I can’t study today.”
Tang Yu let out a cold little laugh.
He had actually been planning to back off and stop forcing the kitten to learn, but the kitten’s mind was too full of tricks.
Bad little cat with bad little ideas needed to be punished.
“It’s fine,” he said, sitting down at his seat in no hurry at all. “I’ll just quiz you by memory. You don’t need your eyes for that, do you? You’ve still got your mouth. Just answer me.”
“This mouth is for eating,” Sang Zhao said, still covering his eyes and sneaking peeks at him. “It’s also for kissing you.”
“Doing those two things is already a lot of work. My mouth’s too tired to do anything else…”
Ignoring him completely, Tang Yu started quizzing him.
This was the first time Sang Zhao had encountered something like “cold-call memorization checks.”
He’d never been to school, so he had no idea how terrifying classroom spot tests were.
By the time he finished a round and left the CEO’s office, he had completely given up the idea of being a sapiosexual.
He was furious.
He should have gone for an idiot, and the two of them could be idiots together, curled up in the same bed instead of letting the smarter one torment the slightly dumber little cat.
He just couldn’t learn it, he really couldn’t.
Back at his desk, he propped his chin up and tried to zone out and slack off, but the moment he remembered Teacher Tang’s deadly smile whenever he couldn’t answer, he shivered.
Then he secretly opened a video course.
Tang Yu went back to his work.
Truth be told, he was still a bit worried.
It was really true that everything in this world remained balanced.
Now he understood that trouble didn’t disappear; it just changed forms.
Before, his troubles were internal friction, work pressure, the tug-of-war between his dreams and the time he had left…
All those grown-up sighs born out of a lack of love and sense of safety that showed up in the middle of the night.
Now his troubles were different.
His mind was clear. The internal friction was gone.
A wave of fuzzy, cat-soft love had come crashing into his life… and with it, a whole new set of fuzzy, cat-soft worries.
He no longer wore himself out over himself. Instead, he wore himself out over the little cat’s future path.
He’s human now. Why is it not a “future in life”?
Because that was exactly what it was.
He couldn’t help thinking, The little cat is already this bad at things; how did the authorities not scoop him up and teach him properly? How could they just release him into the workforce like this?
He was lucky he’d met him.
What if he’d met someone bad instead?
Functions and classical essays were secondary.
What mattered most was logic and how to handle people, or else he’d keep ending up like last time, spending money on sticky corn cake and still getting taken for a ride.
While Tang Yu worried about his studies, Sang Zhao finished watching his course.
Once it was over, he promptly stopped thinking about what it had taught.
He was busy making money to spend.
Living in human society was really not easy.
There was so much he wanted to eat, the things he wanted to buy were expensive, and that meant he had to work hard.
Fortunately, he had his side job now.
Between his salary and his part-time income, it was enough for a little cat to live on.
He could even save a bit.
With that extra money, he kept himself very well-fed.
Whenever a new “premium” freeze-dried cat treat came out, he would buy it to taste test.
Then he’d write reviews: this one tasted good, nice texture; that one was bad, no fish flavor.
He bought himself the cat tree he’d always wanted, too.
He could jump all the way to the top and look out the floor-to-ceiling windows.
When the sky darkened at night, the neon lights on the distant towers would flick on all at once.
The little cat, sleepy on the top level of his cat tree, would see a beautiful night view.
Cats loved high places, and he loved his new toy, his tower.
But just because he liked climbing up high didn’t mean he was willing to accept Black Panther’s invitation to go mountain climbing.
That’s right.
Black Panther and the others had planned a weekend hiking trip, and that was something Sang Zhao truly had zero interest in.
In the blazing heat, sticky with sweat, crawling up a mountain.
How was that “going out to play”?
That was torture.
The moment he saw that plan in their cat group chat, he sent over twenty exclamation marks.
The little cat didn’t understand.
The little cat had questions.
He was a housecat, not a wildcat.
He was a pet orange tabby.
Going out to play was one thing, but why did he have to climb a mountain now?
He had absolutely no desire to go.
He wasn’t going.
But after thinking about it a bit, something felt off.
Huh.
This wasn’t like Black Panther and the others at all.
When big cats went out, it was always camping, renting a villa, private reservoir days… all very enjoyable activities.
Since when were they just hiking?
No food, no drink, didn’t even sound all that fun. It didn’t feel like their style at all.
Noticing that, he kept it in mind.
Later, when he went to class at the demon management bureau, he asked Black Panther what was going on.
“Ah, it’s the money,” Black Panther said bluntly. “Being a person is great and all, but everything costs money. It’s annoying.”
At first, he thought Black Panther was the one who was broke.
He only found out during the break, when Pallas’s Cat came to find him, that it wasn’t Black Panther.
Pallas’s Cat was the one who was financially tight.
The big cats were accommodating him, so they weren’t choosing expensive outings.
But not going out at all wasn’t an option either.
Big cats weren’t like little cats; a small territory was enough for him to be happy.
If you didn’t take the big cats out to play, they would start itching all over.
They had to go somewhere, so they picked something cheap.
Pallas’s Cat hadn’t come to ask for money though.
He was here to give gifts.
“Little cat, hello. I have some presents I want to give you,” Pallas’s Cat said cheerfully.
Sang Zhao followed him over to a corner so they wouldn’t disturb anyone.
Then Pallas’s Cat started kukuku-ing things out of his consciousness sea.
Good grief, it was like smoke puffing out.
In the blink of an eye, a mess of things was piled high in his arms.
He looked down and saw… so many hotel supplies.
Hotel slippers, lighters, laundry bags, coffee packets, tea bags, little bottles of shampoo, shower gel, conditioner, body lotion, toothbrushes, toothpaste, tissues, face wipes, disposable towels, hand soap, travel-sized hand wash, pocket hand sanitizer gel, soap bars, mini perfume and fragrance bottles…
His arms were loaded, and his heart got heavier too.
He was genuinely afraid Pallas’s Cat had gone down some criminal path.
“This is… this can’t be called stealing anymore, right?” he whispered. “This is basically robbery, isn’t it? And stealing at all doesn’t seem very right…”
Pallas’s Cat didn’t care.
When he’d first started taking things, his thinking had been very simple.
It was about fairness.
Not correct, but fair.
Whenever he bought something for his boss, his reimbursements would be underpaid.
In his big-cat brain, the more he thought about chasing his boss for those values, the worse it seemed.
If he spelled things out clearly, his boss would lose face, and he still had to rely on him for his salary.
So instead of awkward direct confrontation, he took things to make up the difference.
If he was short ten yuan on reimbursement, he’d take two pairs of slippers.
If he was short twenty, he’d take a box of tea bags.
The math might not be great for most of the little yaoguai, but Pallas’s Cat definitely kept count.
Nobody was allowed to shortchange him.
But now that wasn’t enough.
He was close to stripping the hotel bare and still couldn’t make up everything he was owed.
Seeing that Sang Zhao really couldn’t hold everything, Pallas’s Cat helped him rearrange the pile in his arms.
“Boss used to only owe me reimbursements. Now he’s delaying my salary, too,” he said. “Once this month is done, I’m leaving.”
“Those husband-and-wife small businesses, there’s no proper system and they’re stingy everywhere. I’d rather be like Caracal and pick up odd jobs than stay.”
Just mentioning it made him want to cry.
He’d done more work than ever, taking on multiple roles, and still got shorted.
He was no pushover big cat who’d let people walk all over him.
If he said he was leaving, he was leaving, and before he did, he was going to collect his due and steal back the difference.
Justice. Fairness. Not correct, probably illegal, but not immoral.
Pallas’s Cat felt perfectly justified.
“Doesn’t the bureau assign you guys jobs?” Sang Zhao asked, curious.
“They did, but the leader didn’t like me, so I quit and came to the hotel,” he said, scratching his head. He didn’t really understand why either. “Maybe I just don’t have ‘leader fate.’”
Looking at him, Sang Zhao thought about the three or four months they’d known each other and about his personality and skills.
He wasn’t like Black Panther, full of restless energy and insane social courage, ferrying people around even under Director Li’s death glare.
He wasn’t like Caracal either, brains working fast enough to resell supermarket sale items and scrape up discounts from everywhere.
Pallas’s Cat was honest, introverted, and heavy.
He’d managed to pile up a mountain of hotel supplies, but he didn’t sell them, he just gave them away.
Even with money running tight, he hadn’t thought of a better way to fix it.
Looking at his calm, compliant face, an idea suddenly popped into Sang Zhao’s mind.
He put all those supplies away into his own consciousness sea and stared at Pallas’s Cat.
“Then do you… want to work with me?”
Pallas’s Cat tipped his head up to look at him.
He’d only thrown it out as a casual thought, but the more he said it, the more it made sense to him.
Right. Why not bring more cats into this part-time thing?
Then it wouldn’t just be a one-kitten operation.
He could build a team.
He had plenty of orders already.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t get work, it was that the work couldn’t always get him.
He liked to goof off and play, and only took jobs that were close by or on the way.
Everything else he just let go.
But sometimes he did think about it.
All those jobs he was passing up were money.
Judging by the numbers, it was a lot of money.
Letting all that go to waste felt like a pity.
Maybe… he thought, looking at Pallas’s Cat, maybe he really had found a way to break through.
“Seriously, want to come do cat-sitting with me?” he asked.
“Even if I’m part-time, you can be full-time.”
“Jiangyuan is a big city. There are tons of cat owners. There’s so much business.”
He put his phone in Pallas’s Cat’s hands to show him his profile, his advertisement poster, the orders he’d taken, and his reviews.
“If you come, we can even start taking dog-walking jobs.”
That would mean even more clients and more work.
More work meant endless money.
Pallas’s Cat was getting more excited by the second.
“Really? Really?” he asked. “You really get paid just for feeding cats? Have the cats in human houses regressed so far they can’t even feed themselves?”
“…Hey!”
What was that supposed to mean?
He made it sound like pet cats were stupid.
When their owners weren’t home, of course they needed someone to come feed them.
What else were they supposed to do, push off with their back feet and stir-fry some potatoes, then make a can-of-cat-food-and-carrot stew?
“It’s not just feeding. We do baths, nail trims, brushing… anything we can do, we do it,” Sang Zhao said, head up.
“Some cats have awful tempers. Their owners can’t handle them, even with three or four people. But we’re different.”
“We’re yaoguai. The cats are scared of us. So they’re super well-behaved with us.”
“That’s why we get good business and a ton of repeat clients.”
He patted Pallas’s Cat’s arm.
“You’re a cat too, and a big cat at that. You’re perfect for this. I won’t short your pay, and I won’t pocket your reimbursements.”
“How about it? Want to work with me?”
“Who knows, maybe we’ll build something big.”
He’d just said it casually, but Pallas’s Cat took it very seriously.
He’d wandered and drifted for so long and finally met a true leader.
He said yes in a heartbeat.
“Okay! I’ll work for you!” he said enthusiastically. “When do we start?”
Sang Zhao had no idea.
But he couldn’t say that.
He was Pallas’s Cat’s pillar now.
If he messed up, he’d still have his salary, but Pallas’s Cat really wouldn’t have anything to eat.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll take you with me. You watch how I work first, then you’ll be able to do it. It’s easy.”
Pallas’s Cat nodded, then went home.
Sang Zhao opened the platform and accepted some new orders.
That night, Pallas’s Cat sent him a message saying he had nowhere to stay but had managed to get his paws on a car.
From now on, they wouldn’t have to run around on the subway to get to jobs.
Munching on the box of egg tarts he’d gotten with a Crazy Thursday deal, Sang Zhao thought, Wait, what? What is going on?
He rushed downstairs to the apartment lobby and saw Pallas’s Cat in an old, beat-up car.
Pallas’s Cat stuck his head out of the driver’s side window and gave him a very cat-like grin.
“The hotel used to come with room and board, but now that I’ve quit, I’ve got nowhere to live,” he said. “But I’ve applied to move back into the yaoguai apartment. I should be able to get a unit in a few days.”
The subtext, of course, was that he had nowhere to stay for the next few days.
He hadn’t gone to stay at any of the other big cats’ places. Instead, he’d come here, presumably to ask if he could stay with him.
“I don’t take much space in my original form. A cushion about this big is enough,” he said pitifully, making a circle with his hands. Then he pressed the horn. “And hey, look, I got us a car. From now on I can take you to work and to all the cat-sitting jobs.”
That part really was tempting.
He didn’t have a license yet.
He’d only been playing human for a short time and hadn’t gotten around to taking the test.
Pallas’s Cat was different.
He’d been in human form for a long time and, as a cat, actually had a driver’s license.
He just couldn’t afford a car.
Caracal, on the other hand, had a brain like a fox, and all his reselling schemes required a vehicle, so he had an ancient Jetta that had probably changed owners eight times.
When he heard that Pallas’s Cat needed a car, he handed it over.
The thing was really battered anyway…
Caracal could afford a newer one now, so he donated his old wreck to Pallas’s Cat and the kitten.
“Come on, little cat, hop in. I’ll take you for a ride,” Pallas’s Cat said.
Nervously, Sang Zhao got in the passenger seat.
The cars he’d ridden in before were always either Director Li’s government vehicle, low-key but full of status; Xiao An-jie’s business car, graceful and sleek; or Tang Yu’s luxury car, with a price tag and looks to match.
This was his first time in something so beat-up.
The moment he sat down and the car started rolling, the seat under his butt began going thud-thud-thud non-stop along with the car.
The air-conditioning was dead, so he tried rolling down the window, only to find there weren’t any buttons.
It was a hand crank.
He cranked and cranked until the window finally opened a crack, and the air that came in was full of the exhaust puffing from the tailpipe.
After one loop around, he had solidified his determination to buy a good car someday.
He was a good cat, so he comforted Pallas’s Cat.
“It’s okay. Having a car is already great. Thank you,” he said. “Once we make some money, we’ll swap this for a new one. All this hardship is only temporary… ptui, there’s exhaust in my mouth.”
He took Pallas’s Cat back up to his apartment and found him a cat bed to sleep in.
Then they started discussing their grand business plan.
This wasn’t just cat-sitting and dog-walking.
This was their career.
He finally started to understand why Tang Yu had wanted to start a company.
It was that feeling of creating something from scratch.
It was addicting.
Right now they had nothing, but if they worked hard, it felt like one day they could have everything.
Their empire would be built one strand of cat fur and one cat mouth at a time.
He was ready to stay up all night talking about it with Pallas’s Cat.
But his business and his love life collided head-on.
Tang Yu came over with a pot of beef and tomato soup he’d simmered.
As soon as the door opened and he saw who it was, Sang Zhao quickly slid his hands behind his back and signaled to Pallas’s Cat.
Hide, hide, hide!
Pallas’s Cat was surprisingly agile.
He switched to his original form in a flash and dove behind the curtains.
Tang Yu stepped in, put on a pair of slippers with the couple’s hotel logo, used a pump of hand sanitizer with the couple’s hotel logo, then poured himself a glass of something cold using a cup printed with the couple’s hotel logo, poured from a bottle marked with the couple’s hotel promotional slogan…
His expression grew stranger and stranger.
Scratching his face, Sang Zhao took a deep breath, held his forehead, and tried to organize his words.
“Um, this is very hard to explain…” he said. “But I definitely didn’t go to a love hotel to cheat on you. Please believe me, gege.”
“Mm.”
Tang Yu grunted.
“That hadn’t occurred to me.”
“My friend works at a hotel,” Sang Zhao said. “He steals a lot of stuff.”
Tang Yu frowned, worry flaring up again.
“What kind of friend is that?” he asked. “How is he stealing things?”
“It’s a long story. D-do you want some coffee? Tea? Shower gel? Shampoo, conditioner, body lotion? Toothbrush, toothpaste, perfume?”
“…He didn’t exactly steal a little.”
Tang Yu’s face got complicated.
He was just about to ask for more details and, at the same time, try to figure out what kind of friend this was.
What was this behavior?
Was he stealing from the hotel? Moving the hotel?
And corrupting his little cat?
He lifted his head, about to have a serious talk, when his eyes met Pallas’s Cat peeking out from behind the curtain.
…Did I pass out from anger and start hallucinating?
Otherwise why is there a Pallas’s Cat in this room?
Following Tang Yu’s gaze, Sang Zhao turned and gasped.
He hastily blurted, “Ahahah, that’s… that’s my new silver shaded cat!”
Tang Yu thought, I’m not blind. I do know the difference between a Pallas’s Cat and a silver shaded, you know.
This silver shaded looked very pallas, actually.
Author’s Note:
Little cat: Come work for Boss Kitten. I’ll pay you a salary!
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