“Ayu, hurry, leave, don’t ever come back!”
Su Yu woke up with a start from his dream, his back soaked in sweat.
His mother’s words before he left kept echoing in his dream.
Su Yu wiped his face.
It felt like a heavy stone was pressing on his heart.
From the moment his mother suddenly came to his school and forcefully arranged for him to be sent on a bus to Haicheng, it was as if everything in the past had suddenly taken a turn, no longer familiar to him.
Su Yu had been in this small town for a week.
Before he left, his mother took his phone and only gave him a bank card.
Su Yu checked it; there was a significant amount of money in the card, enough for an ordinary person to live comfortably for a lifetime.
But the more this was the case, the stronger his unease grew.
Why did his mother suddenly send him away?
What did “never go back” mean?
And his mother’s expression at the time…
He shook his head, forcing himself not to overthink.
Maybe things weren’t as serious as he imagined.
He’d wait three more days.
If there was still no news after three days, he would quietly go back and check.
With a plan in mind, Su Yu finally felt a bit more at ease.
He glanced at the dark sky outside, hugged his quilt, and fell back asleep.
Three days later, still no news came, unexpected yet within expectation.
Su Yu took a deep breath and bought the earliest flight ticket straight to the capital.
It was late at night when he arrived in the capital.
Su Yu called his mother, but the call never connected.
Su Yu clutched his phone, his heart pounding uncontrollably.
Taking a deep breath and suppressing his unease, Su Yu hailed a taxi and headed straight for the Su family mansion.
In the taxi, Su Yu kept dialing his mother’s number again and again.
The automated voice on his phone mechanically repeated, “The number you dialed cannot be connected for the time being.”
Su Yu clutched his phone tightly, his teeth gritted.
At this point, he couldn’t even comfort himself that his mother was just asleep and hadn’t heard the phone.
From leaving that morning until now, all the calls and messages he sent had gone unanswered.
This had never happened before. He didn’t even dare to contact his father; a gut feeling told him that his mother’s abnormality was definitely related to his father.
Something must have happened to his mother!
“Driver, please go faster!”
“Young man, I can’t go any faster, you’ll get yourself ki—”
The driver’s unfinished words were drowned out by a huge crashing sound.
The next day, news of the Su family’s heir being involved in a car accident made headlines in major newspapers.
The Su family had been plagued by misfortune recently.
First, Mrs. Su was seriously ill and hospitalized, and now their only son had been in a car accident.
When Su Qingwen appeared in the newspaper, he looked haggard, with a lot of gray hair.
He seemed to have aged ten years, even reporters who were accustomed to seeing life and death couldn’t help but feel sympathy.
The car accident scene had been cordoned off by the police.
It was reported that the truck driver was drunk and driving against traffic, colliding head-on with the taxi carrying Young Master Su.
The taxi driver couldn’t react in time, and more than half of the car was stuck under the truck’s chassis.
The driver in the front died on the spot, and his body was unrecognizable when rescued.
Compared to that, Su Yu, who was in the back, was much luckier.
He was still alive when the police rescued him, and thankfully, he was saved.
However, his brain was severely injured, and after he was out of danger, there was no sign of him waking up.
When Su Yu woke up, he felt pain all over his body.
His stomach was also burning and aching.
He let out a painful groan, but instead, a soft “meow” sound came out.
His already muddled mind became even more confused.
Su Yu tentatively called out again, “Meow—!”
He instinctively looked down, but what met his eyes was not his familiar body, but only two thin, furry paws and a dirty, furry belly.
Su Yu felt a bit dizzy.
He looked around; he was neither in the taxi that crashed nor in a hospital.
The last thing he remembered was that large truck crashing straight into them.
Why did he wake up in this dilapidated factory building?
His already dizzy mind became even dizzier.
Su Yu optimistically thought it might be a hallucination caused by a concussion after the car accident.
So he simply let himself fall into a daze and slept again, refusing to think about the furry paws and furry belly he had seen.
When Su Yu woke up again, he felt a bit better.
The burning sensation in his stomach had also disappeared.
He habitually extended a furry paw to lick it, and the moment he realized what he was doing, he was almost scared out of his wits.
“Meow-ao!”
A sharp cat’s cry echoed in the dilapidated factory building.
Su Yu, with his fur bristling, looked at his paws in disbelief.
It took him a long time to recover from his dazed state.
He had narrowly escaped death, only to turn into a cat?
So the world he had lived in for over twenty years was a fantasy novel?
Excuse me???
Recognizing the truth of his situation, Su Yu slumped to the ground, dejected.
He thought of his mother, now out of reach, and the realization that even if he stood before her, she wouldn’t recognize him.
Su Yu felt utterly heartbroken.
Why was he so unlucky?
How could a perfectly normal person turn into a cat?
He mumbled about the “no turning into spirits after the founding of the PRC” rule, and swore he’d never trust science again.
Su Yu grumbled and complained for a while, before finally regaining some “cat” confidence.
He tried to comfort his fragile little heart, “It’s not so bad being a cat. Imagine if I’d turned into a mouse or a cockroach; then I really wouldn’t be able to live.”
Just as his stomach, which had briefly quieted, began to burn again, Su Yu arched his back and let out a pained meow.
Awkwardly, he tried to move his four paws to get up and find some food, but the world’s malice wasn’t over yet. Su Yu discovered he couldn’t move a single step!
As a bipedal creature, it was clear he hadn’t unlocked the quadrupedal skill.
And so, the miserable Su Yu had to start learning how to walk on four legs.
Finally, relying on his newfound feline instincts, he found a familiar rhythm.
Su Yu felt even hungrier, and his heart ached; it was simply tragic.
Cautiously taking small cat steps, Su Yu ventured out of the factory for the first time.
All around him were unfamiliar sights.
Nothing was familiar, and he had no idea where he had transmigrated to, or how far it was from the capital.
Thinking of the seemingly endless journey home, Su Yu let out a feeble meow, and his two ears drooped in despair.
However, the rumbling of his stomach quickly pulled Su Yu back to reality.
No time for sorrow!
The surroundings were barren, not even a single person in sight.
Where was he supposed to find food?
***
Finally realizing this, Su Yu felt his whole cat self deflate.
“Heaven wants me dead! Meow!”
Su Yu walked along the road for a long time before he found signs of human habitation.
A few scattered farm villas stood on either side of the paved road.
At one entrance, an elderly person was picking beans from a winnowing basket.
Su Yu excitedly wagged his tail and vigorously moved his four legs, running towards the nearest house.
The house Su Yu targeted happened to be having dinner.
Smelling the long-lost aroma of cooked food, Su Yu swallowed.
The entire cat was plastered to the doorway, eyes fixed on the food on the table.
He let out a cautious meow.
The homeowners were deep in conversation and didn’t notice the little cat at the door.
Su Yu was a bit anxious and couldn’t help but take a few more steps forward, letting out a soft, “Meow~”
“Oh, look at this kitten,” said the old woman who had just come from the kitchen with a bowl of rice, spotting Su Yu meowing at the dinner table.
She squatted down and stroked his furry body. “Poor thing, so thin.”
She tiptoed back to the kitchen to find a chipped bowl, mixed leftover rice with meat broth, and brought it out.
She squatted by the door and called to Su Yu, “Kitten, come eat.”
Su Yu looked at the bowl of oddly colored, soupy mixed rice.
In truth, he was repulsed, but under his stomach’s protest, he had to surrender.
Taking small steps, Su Yu walked over and rubbed his head against the old woman’s rough hand to show his gratitude.
Then, he tentatively licked the bowl once.
The first bite led to the second and third, and soon Su Yu overcame his psychological barrier and began to gobble it down.
***
A bowl of soupy rice was quickly emptied.
After Su Yu finished eating, the old woman poured about half a bowl of water into the bowl.
Su Yu, whose tongue was still stinging from the saltiness, quickly drank the half-bowl of water.
Feeling full and satisfied, Su Yu purred happily and couldn’t resist rubbing against the old woman’s calves.
The old woman chuckled, stroked Su Yu’s furry head, and took the bowl back to the kitchen.
Coming back to his senses from the joy of a full stomach, Su Yu felt a little embarrassed.
How did he accidentally let his feline instincts take over?!
He buried his head in his two cat paws like an ostrich, despairing for a moment, but quickly bounced back.
Now that the survival issue was resolved, it was time to think about how to get back to the capital.
Su Yu squatted by the door, his tail unconsciously swishing back and forth, his cat ears perked up high, listening intently to the people chatting inside the house.
He had only intended to try and gather some information, at least to figure out where he was.
But he didn’t expect that Lady Luck would finally favor him.
What did he hear?!
Mr. Qin from Tengfei Group was coming!
Who was Mr. Qin from Tengfei Group?
Qin Shou! Tengfei Group’s headquarters was in the capital.
Su Yu felt incredibly lucky, like his luck had soared to 100.
He rolled around on the ground in delight, the depression that had settled in his heart for the past two days finally swept away.
But how could he get Qin Shou to take him back to the capital?
Su Yu scratched his ear with a furry paw, unable to come up with a reason why Qin Shou would take a cat back to the capital.
Su Yu paced to the water basin and examined his reflection in the water.
Tsk, tsk!
He was so thin, his bones were sticking out.
He had none of the chubby, adorable physique that made those internet-famous cats so irresistible.
***
His yellow fur was dull and a bit dirty from malnutrition.
His only advantage was perhaps a pair of round, emerald cat eyes that looked a little moist when staring at someone, making him particularly endearing.
Su Yu licked his furry paws.
He thought, “I’ll try acting cute first. If I’m lucky enough to be adopted and taken back to the capital, that would be perfect. If not, I’ll find a way to sneak into the trunk and stow away!”
With his plan set, Su Yu immediately felt refreshed.
He washed his face with the water from the basin and happily ran back to the doorway to lie down, just waiting for Qin Shou to arrive for his inspection.