076: Kittens… or Corn? (Extra 3)
Tang Yu had never had much luck with small animals when he was a kid.
Little cats, little dogs, they never really liked him. He just wasn’t the kind of human that ranked as a small animal’s first choice.
So there had never been a puppy who came barreling over with its tail wagging to play with him. No kitten had ever taken the initiative to tiptoe over on soft paws and plop its butt down in his lap to lie there.
When he occasionally went to cat cafés or dog cafés in the past, all he could do was watch enviously and reach out for a few cautious pets.
When he walked down the street, no cat or dog had ever rushed over to play with him or tried to throw itself at him for a “peng ci.”
That had always made Tang Yu feel a little regretful.
But now things were different.
Ever since he got together with Sang Zhao, ever since he started living with his little cat boyfriend, it was like the Cat God had finally taken notice of him. His affinity with animals clearly improved.
When he went to a cat café before, he had to buy cat snacks before any cat would come over to eat them. And even then, they’d eat his snacks but refuse to be touched.
The second his hand reached out to pet them, the cat’s head would spring away from his fingers like it was on a spring. His hand moved once, the cat’s head dodged once.
But now it was different. Now, when he and Sang Zhao went back to that same cat café to visit the newly rescued kittens, he wasn’t even going there to pet cats. He didn’t buy any cat treats at all, just ordered his own drink.
And the cats would still hop up along his leg, climbing straight into his lap to sit there, pushing their fluffy heads into him.
If it had been the past, he would have been over the moon. But now… Little orange cat Sang Zhao was sitting right next to him.
Sang Zhao folded his arms, let out a soft laugh, his brows lifting a little with a dangerous glint.
Tang Yu cleared his throat, scooped the cat out of his lap, and lowered his head to drink his beverage.
He always did what he promised, otherwise where would the dignity of being the “older brother” go? He’d already promised there would only be one kitten he touched like that, and that was Sang Zhao. All the other kittens were off-limits. That was what he told himself.
But now that his animal affinity had improved, he also started to meet the kind of stray cats on the road that he’d never encountered before.
He saw this one on a weekend, on the way back from negotiating a deal. He was waiting at a red light when he noticed it.
The kitten had stuck its grimy little head out from a roadside hedge. One look, and you could tell it was very young. Its steps were all wobbly.
Tang Yu had always liked cats, and he had a soft heart. He couldn’t bear to see such a tiny thing huddled in the bushes with an empty belly.
He made a loop with the car and came back around, parked properly, grabbed some kibble and dried meat from the car, then went into a convenience store to buy a paper cup so he could pour some fresh, clean water for it.
He had a cat boyfriend now, so he carried cat food and dried meat on him all the time.
He’d tried persuading Sang Zhao. “You’re a human now, don’t keep eating kibble and dried pet treats. I don’t think pet food is all that hygienic.”
But Sang Zhao couldn’t quit. There was nothing he could do about it, so Tang Yu just carried some homemade dried meat and “kibble” he’d baked from fresh meat. If Sang Zhao really wanted some, he could eat what Tang Yu made instead of anything off the pet shelf.
Tang Yu got out of the car and went over to the hedge, standing by the planted strip calling “mimi, mimi” to look for the kitten.
The kitten was small and young, but its guard was pretty high.
Even though Tang Yu was holding food, it didn’t drop its guard and rush at him with an “awoo awoo” to eat. It kept retreating deeper into the planted strip, burrowing into the bushes.
Tang Yu saw the kitten still wouldn’t relax, still refused to come eat. He didn’t get impatient, just crouched by the green strip and waited quietly for the kitten to come out.
He thought about just leaving the food and going, but right by the planted strip was a main road. If the kitten ran into the middle of the lane, the cars passing by could easily hit it. Or it might run into some awful human, which was just as dangerous.
Tang Yu thought it over. He couldn’t just set food down and walk away. He had to think of something. He had to help the kitten.
Back when Sang Zhao first started calling him “Corn Bean,” it was because his instinct as a small animal told him Tang Yu was someone with a very kind nature.
Never mind how Tang Yu always claimed he only had patience for Sang Zhao, how he always thought of himself as overly sensitive and aloof, always saying his tenderness was an act and he wasn’t half as good or as gentle as Sang Zhao made him out to be.
No matter how he denied it, he really was a very patient, very good human.
He’d brought food to the kitten. When it wouldn’t eat and just kept hiding, he didn’t feel like the kitten was wasting his time, or that it was ungrateful and failing someone with a good heart.
Tang Yu only felt that this was right, this was good.
If a tiny kitten really went running up to every human who passed by to rub and cuddle, it probably wouldn’t have had the luck to survive this long. Kittens needed that wariness.
Tang Yu had once heard about humans who, when feeding strays, would give them food and then tap them on the head, reminding them they still had to be wary of people. Because only with caution could they live.
He was very relieved that this kitten hadn’t come up right away. He was very relieved it was “wasting” his time. That meant it might live a lot longer.
He crouched there for about half an hour while the kitten tested him over and over, and he never got impatient.
Finally, the kitten crept over, lowered its head and grabbed a bite of food, then bolted, hiding in a corner to eat slowly.
All in all, it took about an hour before the kitten finished the kibble and dried meat. It sat there quietly, drinking from the paper cup, and didn’t rush off as fast as before.
Only now that the kitten had stopped racing around did Tang Yu really see what it looked like.
Before, in that whole hour, all he could see was that the creature was a cat, nothing more. With how it had been darting in and out, all its colors blurred in a human’s eyes. He hadn’t actually seen what kind of cat it was.
Now that it was sitting and drinking, he finally saw. It had a white belly and white paws, with orange fur on its back and body.
At first glance, it looked like it was wearing an orange cape.
Tang Yu crouched at the roadside, watching the kitten drink, and started to hesitate.
Maybe he should bring it home for a few days, get it a basic checkup done, then find it a home.
Life at the roadside like this really wasn’t a long-term plan. Its little life felt like it was hanging by a thread.
He was hesitating. He only had one kitten, and that was Sang Zhao.
But looking at this little thing, its eyes full of wariness, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for it.
Back then, after he learned the truth, he’d heard from Sang Zhao that he’d also been like this after leaving his mom, wandering the streets alone.
Sang Zhao had been smarter. He’d known how to “peng ci” people. And he was a magical kitten, a Cat God, King of Cat Country. This orange-and-white kitten wasn’t.
It was tiny and skinny. Sang Zhao had been this small once too. When he’d been running around the street, he must have looked like this as well.
Thinking of that, Tang Yu’s heart softened.
He stared at the orange-and-white kitten for a while. When he saw it had drunk its fill and was about to run again, he moved fast, reaching out and grabbing the scruff of its neck in one smooth motion, lifting it up.
The orange-white fuzzball struggled wildly in his hand, claws and feet scrabbling everywhere, meowing at the top of its lungs, clearly convinced Tang Yu was the bad guy.
Tang Yu didn’t bother arguing. He simply turned the corner and went into a pet supply shop, bought a carrier, stuffed the kitten inside, set it on the floor of the passenger side, and drove home.
At home, Sang Zhao had turned into a cat and gone to sleep.
Tang Yu had bought so many cat beds that now Sang Zhao had to put them on a schedule, taking turns sleeping in them. Otherwise, if he only used a few, some beds would never get a chance to have a cat in them.
That would be too pitiful for the beds, and he couldn’t let that happen.
That day he’d specially chosen a corrugated cardboard nest he rarely used to sleep in.
He had no idea that while he was napping there, Tang Yu was bringing home a grimy orange-and-white kitten who screamed the whole way.
By the time Tang Yu came in the door, he was already feeling guilty before he’d even seen Sang Zhao. He crept in, saw that Sang Zhao was still asleep, then went back out to fetch the squalling kitten from the car.
He opened the carrier at the door, grabbed the orange-white by the scruff, and carried it inside.
Tang Yu stealthily put the kitten down beside the corrugated nest where Sang Zhao was sleeping.
The kitten had been crying this whole time, but the second its paws hit the floor, it shut up. It backed up a few steps, extremely wary, and started checking out its surroundings.
Tang Yu hadn’t thought much of it at first, but once the kitten was on the floor, especially now that it was standing right next to a sleeping Sang Zhao, he suddenly felt his heart seize up.
Without meaning to, he slapped a hand over his chest and stared at the scene in front of him, unable to look away.
The little orange-white was about the same size as Sang Zhao. But where Sang Zhao was fluffy and puffy, the orange-white was grimy, like a meat-floss bun that had rolled across the floor.
No, more like one of those cheap meat-floss cakes where they’d skimped on the toppings so badly that you could see the white sponge cake underneath.
In contrast, Sang Zhao was the fully loaded version, packed with meat floss, so full it was exploding. His orange fur puffed up and trembled lightly in the air with each breath as he slept.
He was sleeping soundly, and the orange-white was anxious for him.
Honestly, what kind of silly kitten was this? How could he sleep this relaxed in front of a human?
No sense of danger at all. He was so tiny that a human could lift him with one hand, and yet he was showing his belly and sleeping in front of a human like this. How was he supposed to survive? The orange-white was furious with him for being useless, furious at cats who overslept.
Seeing that Sang Zhao had absolutely no guard up around Tang Yu and was just busy rolling on his back asleep, the orange-white got more anxious by the second. It forgot about running away or hiding altogether.
Even though it was only a small orange-and-white kitten, it was still a cat who could survive in hedges, planted strips, and on big roads.
It was impressive, managing to fill its belly with trash.
It might be grimy, but it was alive. It had its own survival philosophy and wisdom.
In a situation like this, with a silly orange cat lying belly up and asleep, it couldn’t just be thinking about running off on its own.
The orange-white instinctively moved in front of Sang Zhao.
It puffed up its fur, trying as hard as it could to make its small body look bigger, attempting to intimidate Tang Yu and protect Sang Zhao.
It hissed at him, fierce and sharp.
“Hisss——”
The hiss was long and full, an absolutely textbook hiss.
Unfortunately, and to the kitten’s disappointment, Tang Yu wasn’t scared at all.
Tang Yu said, “Oh wow, so fierce and so cute.”
His voice was loud though, and he managed to hiss Sang Zhao awake.
Sang Zhao had been sleeping pleasantly. The second he heard a hiss, he jerked awake.
He opened his eyes in a daze and looked up, and there it was, a tiny kitten.
Even as a small cat himself, he could tell this was a really small one. So of course it was genuinely tiny, almost the same size as he was.
Now that he was awake, his brain still wasn’t. Seeing such a small cat up close, sniffing his nose, made him jerk back half a step.
The little orange-white did the splits.
His mind was a blur, and he didn’t even have time to look up and notice Tang Yu was there. His thoughts were already running wild.
What was going on? What kind of plot was this? How had he woken up to find another kitten beside him?
How could such a tiny kitten suddenly appear next to him?
Could it be… could it be that this was a kitten he’d given birth to?
His back arched up.
No, no way. That couldn’t happen. He was a male cat.
If male cats could give birth to kittens, then roosters would be able to lay eggs, and global egg production would double.
Then, when he bought eggs, he wouldn’t have to pay a whole yuan. He could get them for fifty cents.
No, that wasn’t the point. Why was his brain running off like this? Think about something serious.
“…Could it really be mine?” he muttered to himself.
Then he shut that down immediately. “No, no, no, I don’t even have that function. Then could it be…”
Could it be that Corn Bean had given birth? But Corn Bean growing corn and Corn Bean giving birth to kittens sounded equally ridiculous…
He’d much rather Corn Bean produce corn.
If Corn Bean produced corn, Sang Zhao thought, he’d definitely plant the little corns properly in soil.
He’d buy a pretty flowerpot and rich black earth, plant the corn in the pot, and take it out every day to bask in the sun.
Plants were always easier to raise than animals.
But if Corn Bean really did give birth to kittens, he’d have to think about how to raise them.
He couldn’t even straighten himself out. How could he take on a kitten’s education?
What, was he going to raise them into another Ye Ye, someone who was fake third-from-last in the class and actually dead last?
Sure, doing badly in school wasn’t the end of the world, but kittens could feel self-conscious too.
Better to grow corn. Corn didn’t need to study. Corn could just use its corn-brain to happily grow more corn every day…
All those messy thoughts flickered through his mind in the space of a second.
Then his gaze met the orange-white’s face.
Wow, what a filthy cat.
In that instant, his fantasy collapsed.
It definitely wasn’t a kitten he or Tang Yu had produced, he decided.
Then he looked up, glancing around, and saw Tang Yu not far away, holding his phone and filming the scene of two kittens sniffing and nudging.
Sang Zhao snorted, rolled his eyes, and turned into a human on the spot.
He bent down, grabbed the stunned orange-white, its little cat face full of disbelief, and lifted it, resting it in his palms for inspection.
The orange-white thought, …The cat turned into a person. Mom, my eyes have been opened!
Shocked speechless, the orange-white suddenly got very well behaved. It stopped struggling and meowing, sitting quietly in Sang Zhao’s hands.
Sang Zhao turned it this way and that, squeezing its paws and stretching its ears. As he examined the cat, he asked Tang Yu, “Where’d this one come from?”
Tang Yu told the truth. He’d found it on the roadside.
“I just couldn’t leave it there on its own. It’s much dumber than you. You at least know how to ‘peng ci.’ This one is just grimy.”
Tang Yu explained, “I thought I’d bring it home first, give it a bath, get it checked out, maybe some vaccines too. Once it’s in decent health, I’ll find someone to adopt it.”
He looked at the orange-white and sighed.
“It’s a kitten. It needs someone to take care of it. It’s not like you. It’s not a cat-person or a cat-hero who can earn money to support itself.”
Sang Zhao’s hands paused mid-squeeze.
Right. Real kittens didn’t have to work. Only a cat who pretended to be human worked three jobs.
He muttered, “I thought it was a kitten you or I produced…”
Now Tang Yu finally understood what that blank look on his face earlier had meant.
“How is that even possible?!” Tang Yu’s voice jumped an octave, his expression very serious.
But the way Sang Zhao looked back at him, brows pinched together, gave him away.
“Gege, what are you looking forward to?”
“We’ve been dating for a long time. You can’t fool me. I can tell what you’re thinking from a single expression. You’re saying ‘How is that possible,’ but your face is clearly saying you’re very excited.”
Sang Zhao shoved the orange-white into Tang Yu’s arms. “Here, you gave birth to it.”
They still took very good care of the kitten. It ate until it was stuffed every day.
Because it was obviously too young, it wasn’t suitable for a full bath. If even a little bit of water was left behind in its fur, it could catch a cold easily.
And a cold could be deadly for such a small cat.
So instead of bathing it, they just wiped it over and over with wet wipes, very patiently, to get its fur clean and fresh.
Now that the orange-white was clean and its belly full, it looked much cuter than it had when it was all fierceness and grime.
Finding it a home took quite a while too.
They posted adoption info online, but neither of them really felt comfortable with the people who turned up.
After all, they had no real-life contact with these internet strangers. They could only know so much.
Fortunately, in the end they did find someone suitable.
Their vice president, Xiao Hengmiao.
Vice President Xiao had recently moved out to live alone, away from his family. The cat at his family home wasn’t his; it was his mom’s.
Now that he was on his own, he wanted a cat of his own. When he heard Tang Yu was trying to find a home for a rescued kitten, he came asking for it, promising up and down that he’d be responsible and that they could come visit anytime.
Tang Yu said, “Alright, then come over and take a look first.”
So the vice president went to Tang Yu’s place. As soon as he walked in, he saw two cats zooming around on the floor, playing.
“Huh? Why do you have two identical cats?” he exclaimed.
This guy couldn’t tell them apart at all, which made Sang Zhao furious.
Instead of flopping onto his back to show his own belly, he pounced on the orange-white and pinned it, rolling the kitten over so its belly showed.
See that? This one has a white belly.
Totally different from him, Sang Zhao, whose head, back, and tail all the way to his paws were orange, a pure red tabby-orange cat.
Xiao Hengmiao took one look, then let out an “ohhhh.”
“I didn’t see it, sorry, hahaha.”
He was still laughing when Sang Zhao quietly tiptoed across and stepped right on his foot.
The vice president played with the orange-white for a while. Since the kitten was still little, it was full of energy, completely different in temperament from the steady, empress-like senior cat at his parents’ home.
He was completely charmed and happily took the kitten away.
When the orange-white was there, Sang Zhao found it annoying. After it left, he found himself thinking of it.
Maybe because what you think about in the day shows up in the night, even though Sang Zhao rarely dreamed, that night he had one.
He dreamed that Tang Yu had turned into a cat too.
Tang Yu was a black cat, nothing like puffy little Sang Zhao. He was sleek and glossy, a black cat whose movements were all clean lines.
He was a grown cat, no extra flesh on his body, every line elegant and smooth, like one of those mysterious black cats you only saw in Egyptian murals.
The little orange cat trotted behind the black cat, meowing and meowing. The black cat was an expert hunter. Anything he found, he split with the little orange cat.
Working together, they could catch more food. They slipped through the forest, hunting, living like real wildcats.
Danger and freedom descended on them together. They clung to each other to survive.
In one adventure after another, they managed to live, and on the days when they couldn’t find food, they huddled together for warmth.
When the dream ended, he woke up slowly, reached over and hugged Tang Yu, and burrowed into his arms, pillowing his head on Tang Yu’s chest.
In the past, he’d always thought being a cat was fun and being a human wasn’t, because people had to go to work, which was a pain.
But now, when he thought of it, being human meant he could choose his future, work part-time, earn money, and buy food.
Being human was pretty good too.
While he was thinking this, Tang Yu was slowly waking up as well.
All sticky from sleep, Sang Zhao mumbled, “I just had a dream.”
Tang Yu replied automatically, “Me too. I dreamed I gave birth to a tiny kitten for us.”
…Sang Zhao had been about to act spoiled. He was instantly speechless.
He was done with this. Why was Corn Bean always like this?
He couldn’t help complaining. “Do you dream about this every night? If it’s not giving birth to kittens, it’s the things you did before giving birth?”
There was nothing particularly warm and fuzzy about those dreams. It was all pure thirst.
Tang Yu cleared his throat, straightened up, and dropped the spice, speaking seriously.
“What about you? What did you dream?”
Sniffling, Sang Zhao rubbed his furry orange head against Tang Yu’s chest.
“I dreamed you were a cat too,” he whispered, “and we were trying to survive in the forest. Gege took care of me, and we relied on each other.”
The dream had been dangerous, but with Tang Yu there, it was happy too. Still dangerous though.
So in the end, he let out a small sigh, lifted his head, and kissed the corner of Tang Yu’s mouth.
“Thank you for being human,” he said sincerely.
That way we didn’t suffer together as kittens.
Tang Yu understood what he meant. And because he understood, he said in return, “And thank you for being a cat.”
That way we share the blessings of being a cat together.
In the dark, Sang Zhao looked up and clearly saw the soft, mist-like tenderness in Tang Yu’s expression.
Tang Yu, a human, couldn’t see his face clearly in the night. But he could see where Sang Zhao was and, full of love, meet him in a kiss.
Yes. They both felt lucky.
Lucky that you came into my life.
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