“Ugh… so hot…”
The Silver-haired Catgirl seemed to ignore his words, nuzzling against the man’s palm as if only this could soothe the burning heat coursing through her body.
Zhao Yicheng frowned slightly, watching the girl’s uncomfortable expression.
A flicker of pain and helplessness crossed his deep eyes before he finally reached out with his other hand to pat her fluffy head.
“Little Yin, how much did you drink?”
Xu Yinsheng’s state clearly showed she was drunk.
Back in college, he often took her to nightclubs, and every time, she would hold onto the hostess tightly, refusing to let go after getting drunk.
“No calling me Little Yin.”
The Silver-haired Catgirl grumbled twice, clearly disliking the head pats, pouting her lips.
“I hate being called Little Yin—it sounds so girly.”
“Not allowed? Then why can Zhao Yicheng call you that?”
Zhao Yicheng’s lips curled into a teasing smile as he played with her like a cat.
He was now about eighty percent sure that Xu Yinsheng was drunk.
Drunken Xu Yinsheng liked to brag and was the easiest to coax into spilling her heart.
For instance, before leaving the country once, he had gotten her drunk and asked countless buried questions until he finally got his answers, though he ended up disappointed.
“Why?”
The Silver-haired Catgirl’s expression showed she hadn’t expected the question to be returned.
She tilted her head, squinting her cat-like eyes at the Masked Tuxedo Man sitting nearby.
“Because he’s my good brother.”
Her voice was soft and childish, as if this question didn’t need asking, like one plus one equals two—the answer was an absolute truth.
“Good brother?”
Zhao Yicheng mulled over the phrase, his gaze landing on the drunken Silver-haired Catgirl on the bed.
His nose tingled faintly.
“After going through so much, you still consider him a good brother?”
“I don’t know.”
Xu Yinsheng shook her head groggily.
She looked toward the masked man by the bedside, his blurry silhouette overlapping with the nightmarish figure haunting her memories.
“Anyway, I hate him now, even if he was once my good brother.”
“You’ve been through so much together. Haven’t you felt his love for you?”
The Spirit Illness Man’s words, as always, lacked any guilt and even carried a hint of grievance.
They had gone through everything a couple should—the things couples do and the things they shouldn’t.
Yet Xu Yinsheng still couldn’t feel his love.
He loved her so much.
He locked her in a cage for her own good, tamed her to obey, marked her body as his own—all for her sake.
He did all this clearly for Xu Yinsheng, to make her feel his love.
So why did she not only reject it but resist so fiercely?
Xu Yinsheng twitched her delicate nose, a familiar scent surrounding her.
Her drunken cat-like eyes slowly opened, and the blurred figure before her gradually merged with the image from her memory.
“Love?”
“He’s a madman. What love could he possibly have?”
The Silver-haired Catgirl’s eyes brimmed with tears.
Her small nose twitched repeatedly, and she clutched the blanket tightly, pitiful like a child wronged in the worst way.
“He just wants to make me his puppet, like in those hentai novels—train me, tame me, make me lose myself and revolve entirely around him like a marionette.”
“He never intended to treat me like a person. He just wanted me to become his ‘Star Fury,’ a plaything no one dares to provoke.”
The Spirit Illness Man frowned.
He had never thought that way, never wanted Xu Yinsheng to become a marionette or a toy to be toyed with.
He loved Xu Yinsheng, though his way of loving was somewhat unusual.
He loved Xu Yinsheng as a person, not just a shell.
As for the so-called training and taming, Zhao Yicheng never admitted it was training or taming.
Could what the Spirit Illness Man called “training and taming” really be called that?
It was just love, purer and deeper than anything else—pure and deep without a trace of impurity.
“It’s not like that, Little Yin.”
The Spirit Illness Man gently took Xu Yinsheng’s hand, his voice soft.
“This isn’t about who becomes whose puppet. This is love. I just want you to obey me. And I do all this for your own good.”
“I used to like who you were, but now that you’re a woman, I know you too well. I can’t help but worry.”
Zhao Yicheng gently stroked Xu Yinsheng’s cheek, his gaze full of indulgence.
His voice was low and pleasant.
“See, aren’t you much more obedient now than before?”
Under his touch, the Silver-haired Catgirl’s eyes narrowed contentedly.
Her intoxicated, red-rimmed eyes looked lazy, and the fluffy little cat ears on her head twitched adorably, very obedient and endearing.
After a long moment, the clock on the wall struck exactly 10 PM.
Zhao Yicheng looked down at the drunken Xu Yinsheng on the bed—her fuzzy cat ears and her clumsy, adorable state made one want to play with her.
He took a deep breath and asked a question he had wanted to know for a long time but had been afraid to, or perhaps already knew the answer but still couldn’t be sure of.
“Xu Yinsheng, have you never felt even a little bit of love for me?”
The room fell silent in an instant.
Zhao Yicheng could clearly hear his own heartbeat—nervous, anxious, excited, thrilled—all these emotions tangled within him, making him restless.
Unfortunately, the only response was Xu Yinsheng’s faint snore.
Zhao Yicheng shook his head, slowly withdrawing his hand.
Just as he was about to leave, a tug pulled at his wrist.
A slender, fluffy cat tail silently curled around Zhao Yicheng’s wrist.
The Silver-haired Catgirl hummed unhappily and instinctively wrapped her arms around his, rubbing against him coquettishly.
“Don’t go~ Meow, it’s hot~”
Zhao Yicheng was about to untangle the tail but sensed something unusual.
He crouched down and touched her forehead, frowning.
“Why is it so hot?”
Xu Yinsheng’s temperature was usually perfectly normal, but now her whole feline form was burning up, and she was utterly dazed.
The next moment, Zhao Yicheng swept her up in a princess carry and strode out of the room.
After a few steps, he stopped and looked down at the Silver-haired Catgirl, now dazed and overheated in his arms, especially lingering on her cat ears and tail.
If they went out like this, what if someone saw them…?
Zhao Yicheng kicked open the bathroom door with a crisp motion, efficiently stripping off the Silver-haired Catgirl’s outfit and tossing it aside.
Then, he placed Xu Yinsheng in the bathtub, grabbed the showerhead, and turned on the water.
Steam curled and rose, enveloping Xu Yinsheng’s body.
She frowned slightly, seemingly unused to the warmth.
Zhao Yicheng had no other choice.
If Xu Yinsheng were even a shape-shifting human or at least took human form, he could have called the medical team.
But a catgirl—with such conspicuous cat ears and tail—required caution.
After all, no ordinary person truly understood the quirks of the Huayuan Federation, but they certainly were aware of them.