071: Cat God
The black panther did a full loop around the area, then came back and saw a one-meter-ninety-tall Sang Zhao standing there, leaning against the bench, hugging the hiking pack Tang Yu had been carrying earlier. He was pressed up against Tang Yu’s chest, his whole head practically buried in his boyfriend’s arms.
He walked over in amazement, circled them a few times, went silent for a moment, then still couldn’t hold back his urge to comment.
“What, you planning to take a couple of sucks?” he asked from the bottom of his heart. “Ew, you’re outside, you know. Humans care a lot about appearances. You can’t just do that in public.”
“I am not that greedy,” Sang Zhao said.
He’d been pretty down just now, sneaking off to cry in a corner in cat form, then changing back into a person and diving into Tang Yu’s arms again to look for comfort.
He hadn’t been thinking anything dirty at all. Who knew what was going on in the black panther’s head, all this talk about sucking or not sucking.
Tang Yu, on the other hand, wasn’t embarrassed at all. In the past, if someone had teased him like that, he would have died of shame.
Not this time. This time, he suddenly reached back and touched the little tuft of hair tied at the back of his head, his gaze shifting a little as he thought of something.
He was remembering the time when Sang Zhao had first asked to play with his little tufty ponytail, and how he’d completely forgotten he was a fully adult man with a tiny ponytail.
All he’d been able to think about was the little tuft on his chest that could be sucked on.
Now that the black panther brought it up, he remembered that whole panic, and felt like laughing at himself.
Sang Zhao wasn’t laughing at all. He leapt to his feet and chased after the black panther, itching to rake him with his claws until his buzz cut spun like a little top on his head.
Tang Yu sat on the bench and watched, not anxious at all.
If this had been before, he probably would’ve jumped up to stop them. After all, what did it look like, two grown men flailing their arms, you chase me, I chase you, sprinting back and forth, never actually landing a slap on each other, just running and running?
Now he understood.
This was just a chasing game between a little cat and a big cat. They weren’t seriously trying to smack each other, they were just playing.
He left the two of them to romp back and forth and propped his chin in his hand, looking up at the clouds on the horizon and the layered line of buildings in the distance.
The clouds rolled and drifted. The wind was cool and gentle. Tang Yu took a deep breath, bent one leg, changed sitting positions, and stayed right where he was.
He didn’t have to think about anything. He just listened to the bits of laughter and shouting the wind carried from where Sang Zhao was playing. Even without looking, his lips curved up along with those sounds.
When the cat was energetic, he was energetic. When the cat was lively, he was lively too. For so many years, he’d been living like he was inside a shell. Now he felt like a blade of grass that had finally pushed through the bricks over his head and broken into the open.
Before this, he’d only known how to keep his head down and grow taller. Now he was finally living like a real blade of grass.
With his own fresh little scent, not caring about any voices telling him to “bloom,” just quietly growing into the shape of grass.
Cats liked grass. It didn’t have to be catnip, it didn’t have to be wheatgrass. None of that really mattered.
His heartbeat was calm and steady. There was no panic or unease anymore, because the cat liked him.
They played on the mountaintop for a while, took photos, then headed for the pavilion as a group to eat grilled sausages.
When they’d had enough, they took the cable car down the mountain, then found a farmhouse restaurant at the foot of the hill.
The food at this kind of place was really fresh. The chickens in the dishes were their own free-range birds, raised in the backyard. The vegetables were from their own garden. You ordered at the table, and they went out back to pick whatever you asked for and stir-fried it up. Fresh, tender, and ridiculously tasty.
Even the big cats, who usually only cared about meat and didn’t care much for vegetables, ate a lot.
The steamed fish was wonderfully tender, with no complicated seasoning, just a bit of scallion, ginger, and soy sauce. The flavor of the meat was fresh and sweet on its own.
It was so good that the whole table fell silent for a while, no one saying much as the cats ate through five fish in a row.
They ate so much the chef actually came out from the kitchen to look them over.
By the time they finished, the sky was dark. Everyone waved paws and said their goodbyes. That was when Sang Zhao noticed the black panther wasn’t leaving.
He went over to ask and found out the panther hadn’t driven there.
“Why would I need a car?” the panther said when he heard the question. Even he sounded surprised, then his eyes lit up as he launched into his plan.
“I’m black. The night is my home ground. I run so fast. When it’s dark, I just hide in the shadows. Who’s going to see me?”
His eyebrows shot up, and he looked smug. “I’m just going to turn back into a leopard and run home. Saves money, saves gas. Today Black Panther is making a contribution to environmental protection!”
He was clearly delighted. He had no intention of giving up a chance to turn into a leopard and sprint from the outskirts back into the city.
Little cat glared at him silently.
Environmental protection, huh. He just wanted to play. No one knew the black panther’s mind better than he did.
Then again… wait.
His eyes froze for a moment, then he turned and stared at Tang Yu.
He stared for so long that Tang Yu started to feel self-conscious, touching his own face, smoothing his hair, but finding nothing wrong. He had no idea why he was being looked at like that.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Thinking it over, glancing around, Sang Zhao decided this was too good an opportunity to waste.
“You said before you wanted to ride a motorbike, right?” he asked.
Tang Yu’s eyes were blank. Yes, he’d mentioned motorbikes in passing a long time ago when they’d been chatting. But that was ages ago. And besides… why bring that up now?
Even if he suddenly wanted to ride one, where were they going to find a bike here?
Tang Yu was completely lost, but the black panther had already figured it out, and his excitement shot through the roof.
He had a serious addiction. In a past life, he might have been some celestial mount from a myth, because he absolutely loved carrying friends around.
“No problem!” he said immediately. “Don’t worry, I have a license. I have years of experience. I’ve got the posture down, I’m a total pro!”
Looking at that excited face, Tang Yu had a very bad feeling.
They found a deserted spot and ducked into a pitch-black corner. The black panther turned back into a sleek, glossy leopard and started pushing at Tang Yu with his enormous head.
Clutching his hiking pack, the “frail human” staggered back two steps.
He took a deep breath and finally felt a very real sense of what it meant to be dating a yaoguai.
On normal days, dating the little cat, the fluffy orange bundle was like a stuffed meat floss bun.
Even when he’d seen his animal form, he’d only ever thought “so cute.”
Now it was different. This was the black panther, a huge, long, solid leopard standing right in front of him.
Tang Yu craned his neck, looking around for Sang Zhao. At a moment like this, he couldn’t even call him “baby” anymore.
He wanted to shout, “Great King, save me.”
Still smiling, Sang Zhao said, “Didn’t you say you wanted to try riding a motorbike? This is the bike I told you about.”
“That’s what I used to ride. That’s why it doesn’t work if it’s just the two of us. With only us and no bike, what were we supposed to ride?”
Old memories flashed through Tang Yu’s mind. His throat closed up slightly as he stared at the gleaming black leopard.
“This is… so impolite,” he managed.
Who brought their human boyfriend to meet their friend group, joined in a group outing, and then rode home on their boyfriend’s friend?
What kind of logic was that? You couldn’t say it, you couldn’t do it.
He was the only human in the group. Humans cared about appearances.
He tried to object, but the black panther was already fully in “mount mode.” And Sang Zhao was thrilled at the idea of enjoying some thrills with his Yumidou.
While Tang Yu was still struggling, Sang Zhao reached out and pressed a finger to his nose, blocking off whatever argument was about to come out.
Acting mysterious like a stage magician, he grabbed Tang Yu’s hand and rushed, “Shh. I’m going to count to three. Three, two, one…”
“Get on!”
He’d definitely been watching too many shopping livestreams lately.
He snatched the hiking pack out of Tang Yu’s hands, tossed it into his own shihai, then turned back into a cat. He scrambled up along Tang Yu’s pant leg and climbed into his arms.
Instinctively, Tang Yu clutched the cat to his chest. The black panther circled around behind him and gave him a strong shove, and Tang Yu stumbled forward, ending up sprawled across the leopard’s back.
The panther didn’t say a word. As a mount, he was extremely professional.
At first, he walked slowly, like a casual stroll, to give the human time to get used to his rhythm.
Tang Yu clung to the little orange cat in his arms, bent low over the panther’s back, arms wrapped tightly around his neck.
After a short stretch of slow walking, Tang Yu’s body relaxed bit by bit.
The wind brushed gently past his cheeks. It didn’t feel that different from riding a horse. He slowly straightened up a little, decided this was pretty good, and started to smile, ready to say something to Sang Zhao.
That was when the black panther sped up.
He felt he’d already given the human plenty of time to adjust. If he went any slower, what would that make him? Not a leopard, that was for sure. He might as well rename himself Bicycle.
No, walking like this, he wasn’t even as fast as a bike. More like a toddler walker.
He grumbled to himself, then thought with satisfaction, I am not a toddler walker. I am a leopard. So I’m going to show him what speed really is.
What it meant for the wind to lash at your face, for it to sting like whips, for it to hurt to be battered by it.
He gradually picked up speed until he was running full out.
And then everything went to chaos.
Was this running? Technically yes. But he was a leopard. So what was the difference between this and low-altitude flight?
Tang Yu couldn’t stay upright. He had to hunch low to keep from having his head battered by the wind. It felt like he was airborne. It wasn’t that different from the time he’d tried one of those free-fall rides at an amusement park. The only difference was that the ride dropped you vertically. This was hurtling forward in a straight line.
What kind of “bike” was this? It wasn’t a bike, it wasn’t even mechanical. It was pure, raw, natural shock.
Once they were back in the city, the black panther couldn’t just dash around openly anymore. He found a familiar hiding spot, let Tang Yu and the cat down, and then ran off.
Reluctantly, the cat turned back into a human.
He’d had a great time. He honestly thought it was romantic.
“Other people can only huddle in their boyfriend’s arms and watch horror movies,” he said. “I’m different. I can huddle in my boyfriend’s arms and ride a bike.”
He was just about to be sweet about it when he turned around and realized Tang Yu was gone.
Looking around, he saw Tang Yu bent over, one hand braced on a tree trunk, the other over his heart.
“Too intense,” Tang Yu said in summary.
“That very cool black bike of yours has completely cured my longing. I never want to ride a motorbike ever again.”
Even though leopards had nothing to do with motorcycles, the association was too strong. He decided he was sticking to cars.
…Right. Cars.
Blinking, Tang Yu suddenly came back to himself. “What about the car? We drove there. The car’s still in the parking lot at the foot of the mountain.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Sang Zhao tilted his head back and changed the subject. “Wow, the moon is so big.”
—
After Tang Yu had met the cats in his boyfriend’s social circle, he stopped being so intent on joining every one of their outings.
Of course, it wasn’t like the cats were constantly playing. They all had their own lives.
They just liked to hang out and eat together when they were free. Most of the time, they were busy with their own stuff.
Time passed in a blink. The Mid-Autumn Festival holiday rolled around, and the little elementary-school Samoyed got his break from school.
This time, they didn’t go off to play with the big cats. They had a different invitation.
Sang Zhao brought Ye Ye to see Border Collie Teacher’s new home.
He hadn’t moved in yet. He was still living in the loft apartment upstairs. The new place was under renovation and not ready for a housewarming. He’d only called them over to check out the work in progress and enjoy the fun.
He’d bought the new place near a university.
The neighborhood wasn’t in the city center, so the prices weren’t as high. With his housing subsidy and public fund, the cost worked out pretty well.
The earlier stage of decorating had nearly made Border Collie Teacher’s brain explode.
He could not understand how everyone in the renovation crew was supposedly speaking the same language, Mandarin, and yet in every conversation between humans and dogs, he was the one being reasonable, and they were the ones spouting nonsense.
They were speaking human words. How had they ended up saying things even a dog couldn’t understand?
Despite the careful list of requirements he’d given them, almost none of them had been followed.
His walls were mysteriously crooked. His cabinet doors mysteriously looked like they belonged in a public restroom. His TV feature wall mysteriously ended up paved with a kind of “marble” he had absolutely not picked.
Fortunately, he’d listened to Sang Zhao’s advice and switched renovation teams in time, hiring the beavers who’d built their fortune repairing dams.
The beavers were really good at this kind of work. When they decided to fix something, they fixed it. When they decided to redo it, it got redone. His apartment had been a mess of crooked lines and chaos, and by the time they were finished, it was nice enough to invite friends to come admire.
When Sang Zhao and Ye Ye stepped into the big flat, both cat and dog said “wow” in unison.
“Waaah—”
It was a dog’s house, but the style was totally different from Samoyed-style “dog beds everywhere.”
This place was open and beautiful, with a distinct, artistic Chinese feel.
The walls and wallpaper were in colors that looked like traditional ink paintings. The furniture was mostly wood.
Between the balcony and the living room, Border Collie Teacher had set up a small tea room with a tea table and a guqin on the side.
The cultural atmosphere rushed at them like a wave, making the silly cat and silly dog dizzy.
They wandered around the apartment for a while, opened the windows to air the place out, and Ye Ye went to sit on the bay window in the bedroom to try it out.
The little dog had never sat on one before. He’d never seen a bay window at all.
While Ye Ye went exploring, Sang Zhao and the border collie stood on the balcony, talking in the breeze.
Border Collie Teacher had a total “career dog” brain. Chatting with the cat reminded him of the advice he’d given him before, and he started asking about the cat’s side business.
After all, the whole door-to-door cat-feeding, bathing, claw-trimming business had been inspired by Border Collie Teacher. Even his flyers had been made by him in his spare time.
Once he asked, the little cat told him everything.
When he found out that Sang Zhao had roped the Pallas Cat into working with him now, still making house calls to feed and bathe cats, and that they’d bought an ancient Jetta, only driving it for nearby appointments…
They’d decided long distances were too expensive in that car, so they took the subway instead. Short trips, they drove. One cat and one big cat, taking orders seriously, working hard, and after Tang Yu helped calculate their net profit, once you factored out transport costs and the random snacks they’d eaten along the way, they were heroically raking in ten or five yuan a job.
After listening, the border collie nodded, then suddenly asked, “Your boyfriend’s startup is doing pretty well, right?”
That came out of nowhere. The little cat blinked. “Yeah, he’s a big boss.”
He now properly understood that Corn Bean was a corporate boss.
Saying that, he saw Border Collie Teacher visibly relax. It was like he’d put something down.
If the little cat wasn’t going to starve, he could rest easy. Still, since the cat had asked again, he thought about it some more.
After a moment of thought, he said, “If you’re just doing offline work, Pallas Cat can handle that by himself. Think about it. With two of you going out, one car, having to plan your routes, the energy you spend compared to what you earn… and then when you buy ice cream, you have to buy two. If you didn’t go, that expense would be gone.”
That was essentially like hiring an employee, with the boss no longer on the front line.
Border Collie Teacher had a new idea for him. “You can do online work.”
“A lot of humans really want to know their pets’ condition and what they’re thinking every day. They’ll hire people to read them. The professional term is ‘pet communicator.’”
As a university professor, he was firmly materialist.
“In the legitimate side of the field, it’s mostly animal psychology and emotional interpretation,” he said. “Of course, there are also some frauds.”
But he was strict about how the cat made money, and this time his logic was solid.
“You’re different. You’re actually qualified. You used to be a cat. Who understands cats better than you?”
Once he got onto the topic of career planning, he started talking a lot faster.
“When a human does this work, they’re basically guessing. But with you, it’s different.” He pressed him. “You’ve been a cat. You still are a cat. One look and you know what they’re thinking, right?”
“When owners ask questions about their cats, you’ve lived through it. You can read what they’re thinking. If you don’t do this job, you’re wasting your talent.”
His words ran through the little cat’s ears, but Sang Zhao stretched lazily and just wanted to slack off.
This kind of mental work felt way more tiring than washing other cats.
Besides, he didn’t have the best temper either.
“I don’t have the patience to monitor cats’ mental state,” he muttered.
Border Collie Teacher gave him a sideways glance and casually added, “If you get established, I think the base rate is about three hundred yuan an hour.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then the cat said, “…But on the other hand, helping other cats is an honor.”
He nodded solemnly and patted his chest, expressing his willingness to take on the mission.
And that was how the cat started his career as a pet communicator.
Border Collie Teacher helped him plan it out.
At the beginning, he shouldn’t charge at all. If he took money right away, people’s expectations would be sky-high.
And as a total beginner, no one would trust him that much yet.
So Border Collie Teacher told him to start by doing free readings. Run giveaways and pick a few lucky people each time.
His brand: warm-hearted Cat Hero.
So that was what the cat did.
His very first case was a remote video reading.
The owner was a young woman who’d recently started living alone after joining the workforce. Her pet was a white cat she’d adopted. Things had been going great, but lately, the white cat had started acting off.
She’d seen his ad, typed “dd” in the comments, and figured hey, it was free, if she got picked, she’d try it.
And just like that, she got matched with Sang Zhao.
He took one look and went, wow, what an ugly white cat. He understood the situation instantly.
“Is she feeling down?” Dr. Sang asked, starting his consultation. “A bit blue recently?”
“Yes!” the owner said quickly. “I don’t know why, but she seems really sad.”
He chuckled. “Did you recently buy a larger mirror?”
The owner didn’t understand what that had to do with anything, but she answered honestly. “Yeah, I just bought a full-length mirror.”
“Then there you go.”
“Before this, she didn’t know what she really looked like. Or maybe she knew she wasn’t that good-looking, but she didn’t realize it was this bad. Now that there’s a mirror, she knows, so she’s upset about being ugly.”
He saw the owner’s soul shatter through the screen and hurried to patch things up.
“I’m not the one saying it,” he added quickly. “In cats’ eyes, solid white with no markings is just… really plain.”
The owner let out a howl and hugged her cat. “You silly girl, how could Mom think you’re ugly? You’re the most beautiful cat in the whole world!”
The little orange cat dropped his gaze, eyelashes lowering.
…If this white cat was the most beautiful cat in the world, then the whole cat world had just turned upside down, he thought privately.
Once she’d pulled herself back together, the owner asked, “How do I look in her eyes?”
“She’s just realized she isn’t pretty, and she knows she doesn’t have any advantage in looks. She wants to improve her hunting skills, so lately she’s been trying to please you. She wants you to teach her how to hunt.”
“From her perspective, you’re amazing at it. You’re like a goddess. Or, well, more like a big Cat God.”
“She has no idea how you keep bringing food home. She’s never seen you hunt, but you keep feeding her. She wants to quietly follow you and learn, but she found out you don’t teach her and keep running off alone.”
The white cat had no idea what “going to work” meant.
So the orange cat, who went from his day job to his side gig and then on to a third shift, gave her his suggestion.
“You can hide freeze-dried treats all over the house and take her around to hunt for them. Later, stop taking her and just let her find them on her own.”
“In less than two months, she’ll follow you like you’re her Cat God for life.”
“Teacher…” the owner whispered after this entire explanation, stunned.
“Honestly, you’re the Cat God here,” she said weakly.
If someone could communicate with pets like this, what kind of “pet communicator” was that? No, this was a Cat God.
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