Chapter 258: Old Man

Inside the pet hospital, the little cat was taken in for an examination. Ye Qingchang and Xiao Yi’an waited outside.

To be honest, Ye Qingchang felt that this scene was oddly familiar.

It was like a TV drama where the delivery room was outside the operating room, and the people outside were anxiously waiting for the result, while the people inside didn’t know if they’d live or die.

Pretty soon a doctor would pop out and ask them if they wanted to keep the doctor or the nurse.

Ye Qingchang quickly shook her head, throwing that especially eerie image out of her mind.

Then she turned around and found Xiao Yi’an staring at her.

The jacket that had been wrapped around the little orange cat had been taken back by him for now, but he didn’t choose to put it on.

Maybe because the kitten would need it again when it came out, or maybe because the visible parts of it were now covered in cat hair.

“What are you looking at me for…?” Ye Qingchang scratched her cheek.

She admitted she’d come out in a hurry, hadn’t even had time to wash her face or brush her teeth, but it couldn’t be that eye-catching, could it?

She reached out and rubbed the corners of her eyes.

Good. No eye boogers.

Then she cupped her hand in front of her mouth and breathed out.

Good. No bad breath either.

“Behind you,” Xiao Yi’an said, as if he couldn’t stand watching her anymore.

“Behind me?” Ye Qingchang was stunned.

Then her expression instantly turned to horror: “Is it a mountain village corpse or a ghost baby?”

“Have you been watching too many horror movies?” Xiao Yi’an sighed. “Never mind. Don’t move.”

Then Xiao Yi’an reached out and flipped the hood of Ye Qingchang’s sweatshirt back over her head.

“Oh, thanks.”

Ye Qingchang realized she might have been a bit brainless today, otherwise she wouldn’t have needed Xiao Yi’an to correct her.

Or maybe it was just because everything happened so suddenly.

“By the way, you’ve raised a cat before?” Ye Qingchang decided not to let the atmosphere go cold. “I thought you had a dog?”

Otherwise, if she started replaying the whole game from this morning until now, she’d realize that every disadvantage was her own doing.

“Yeah, I did have a dog.”

A hint of nostalgia appeared in Xiao Yi’an’s eyes. “It was a plain little mutt, white and yellow, with a black nose.”

Just like the little orange cat that had just been taken in for examination.

Oh, the little orange cat’s nose was pink.

“Then how come you seem to know so much about raising cats?”

Ye Qingchang really wanted to have a cat, but forgive her—her knowledge of cats came entirely from her parents not letting her touch them when she was little, and from the ‘hachimi’ and ‘mao die’ memes online.

“Because you kept telling me you wanted to raise a cat, so I researched all this stuff in advance, waiting for the day you actually started so you could ask me.” Xiao Yi’an said it quite honestly.

Ye Qingchang’s smile froze instantly on her face.

But to be fair, now that it had come up, it was actually useful.

“What about your dog back then? Are you still raising it?” Ye Qingchang decided to change the subject.

“The school doesn’t allow pets,” Xiao Yi’an said.

Ye Qingchang was taken aback, then immediately understood.

“Don’t worry, you told me and I won’t say anything,” she blinked. “Just like this pet hospital—everyone’s really just paying lip service.”

“I… ah,” Xiao Yi’an continued, “I meant my dog died. I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”

A dead silence.

Ye Qingchang realized she might have said the wrong thing.

To be honest, she was usually the spokesperson for the art of conversation, but this time she was a bit off her game.

“When God closes a door, He opens a window,” Ye Qingchang said. “A loss may turn out to be a gain. Who knows? Maybe there’s some luck you haven’t even noticed happening to you?”

“No.”

Xiao Yi’an let out a long breath. “My dog died the day after my parents died. At that time, I almost wanted to follow my dog and my parents.”

Ye Qingchang realized she’d messed up again.

It wasn’t really her fault, though—she only knew that Xiao Yi’an’s parents had died in an accident, but she didn’t know his dog had died too.

“Did you ever get another pet after that? Like another dog?”

The smile on Ye Qingchang’s face was now as bright as she could muster.

“No, I didn’t. No time to raise one.”

“Oh, because you pulled yourself together and got your life back on track?” Ye Qingchang clasped her hands together. “That’s pretty good news, isn’t it?”

“No, I didn’t have time to raise a dog because…” Xiao Yi’an paused, then finished the sentence, “I was busy being someone else’s dog.”

Actually, he could have dropped the ‘someone else’ and just named Ye Qingchang directly, maybe even used her ID number.

Ye Qingchang finally couldn’t hold it together anymore. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

The atmosphere that followed seemed even more agonizing.

Fortunately, the door finally opened. The vet came out holding the kitten and handed it to Ye Qingchang.

“The little guy just has a mild cold. It’s still pretty small, so it’s best not to let it sleep on an uncovered spot in autumn or winter, or it’ll catch a chill and get sick easily.”

“Okay, okay.” Ye Qingchang nodded quickly.

Her expression was sincere, as if she were confessing to all her past transgressions.

“Also, this is cold medicine. Give it one pill at a time. It’s best to wrap it in a cat tube, otherwise it’ll taste bitter and the cat might not eat it directly.” The doctor handed her another box of medicine.

“Okay, okay.” Ye Qingchang nodded again like a devout believer, accepting everything and reflecting on all her sins.

“That’ll be two hundred dollars.”

“Okay, okay…” Ye Qingchang seemed to sense something off. “Huh?”

The doctor smiled and held up two fingers. “Two hundred.”

“Okay.” Ye Qingchang gritted her teeth and paid.

The doctor was pretty nice—he even gave them a towel to wrap the kitten in.

Carrying the cat, Ye Qingchang walked out of the pet hospital with Xiao Yi’an, who was holding the jacket.

“Do you have any cat tubes?”

“I do have some.” Ye Qingchang remembered that Zhu Niao had given her a few and told her not to eat them herself.

“Alright, log into your account. I’ll run the campus route.” Xiao Yi’an took out his spare phone.

Ye Qingchang logged in, then stopped Xiao Yi’an. “Give me your jacket first. I’ll wash it and give it back.”

Otherwise, she felt like she’d been too much trouble for Xiao Yi’an today, and she couldn’t let it slide.

“Oh, sure.”

—

“Look, what do I find? They all sneaked out to play without me, and I caught them again.”

“Why does it always feel like I run into this kind of thing?” Xu Nian took the phone Yang Shuli was using to take pictures. “You don’t need to take that photo.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not time yet.”

“You really talk like an old man.”