The final glow of the setting sun was blocked by heavy curtains, leaving only a blurred golden edge at the gaps, like a distant, warm boundary of memory.
Su Yuqing pushed the door open, and a scent—a mixture of her own life but somehow inexplicably empty—rushed to meet her.
She habitually bent over to change her shoes, but her gaze was involuntarily and firmly drawn to the colorful, house-shaped cat bed next to the shoe rack.
It was empty.
Once, a silvery-white figure would always be curled up inside.
Sometimes, when she entered, it would lazily lift its eyelids and glance at her with those eyes that always held a hint of disdain and scrutiny, then continue its nap with an air of indifference.
That Silver Tabby named Mantou, with its three years of hot-and-cold behavior, had long since become a silent and permanent background noise in this home.
But now, the background noise was gone.
“Sigh…”
A sigh that seemed squeezed from the deepest part of her chest sounded exceptionally clear in the silent foyer.
This sigh was mixed with exhaustion, loss, and a complex emotion akin to relief.
After all, from that rainy night when she witnessed Kasahana Chiai throw Mantou off the balcony without hesitation, she knew that this small, furry “replacement” was gone forever.
“Mantou…”
Su Yuqing whispered the name, her voice as faint as dust that dissipated instantly in the air.
‘I had always seen Mantou as Xiaozhi’s temporary replacement.’
This thought was like a thorn buried deep in her heart, making the current sense of loss even sharper and more shameful.
Su Yuqing shook her head, trying to dispel these uncomfortable thoughts, and walked into the living room.
After her gaze habitually swept over the sofa, her steps faltered, and a flicker of surprise flashed across her face.
Zhi Ai was curled up on the sofa.
Her long golden hair was like flowing honey, scattered across the dark cushions.
She was wearing an exquisite dress with a slight gothic style.
Her eyes were tightly shut, and her long, curled eyelashes cast soft shadows on her cheeks.
Her breathing was as steady as if she had fallen into the deepest of dreams.
In this moment, she was so quiet and beautiful that she did not look like the Avenger who could commit the most cruel acts with a sweet smile on her face.
A completely absurd illusion seized Su Yuqing.
It was as if time had flowed backward, returning to an ordinary afternoon when Zhi Ai had not yet torn off her disguise and was still the dazzling Idol, Kasahana Chiai.
But the illusion lasted only a moment.
The faint mark of the Collar that seemed to remain on her neck immediately pulled her back to the cold reality.
A dangerous thought, tinged with a hint of rebellion and self-destruction, quietly entwined around her heart like vines growing in the dark.
‘Since “Master” is asleep…’
‘Then… let’s do something I can’t let this girl see.’
Like a Little Mouse trying to steal food in the gaps of a Feline Lord’s patrol, Su Yuqing held her breath and crept toward the empty cat bed.
She knelt down, her gaze falling on the sponge pad inside the cat bed that had long since lost its warmth.
Su Yuqing pulled out her phone, her fingertips trembling slightly from an inexplicable nervousness.
She unlocked it, swiped, skillfully entered the password, and clicked on the album marked as “Private.”
This Private Album was the softest sanctuary in her heart, and also a fragile corner she didn’t dare show even a fraction of to Zhi Ai.
There was nothing else in the album; the sole protagonist was that deceased Silver Tabby—Mantou.
Hundreds of photos recorded every detail of it growing from a palm-sized puffball that needed nursing into an adult Cat with an elegant posture and an arrogant expression.
There were photos of it curled up in the sun yawning, staring at birds outside the window with wide pupils, and the moments she was so flattered she had to capture when it occasionally—extremely rarely—volunteered to jump onto her lap.
Her finger slid slowly, finally stopping on a single photo.
The focus of the photo was this very colorful cat bed.
From the exit of the cat bed, a Little Paw with pink pads poked out.
The paw wasn’t fully extended; it just rested casually on the edge with a laziness and impatience unique to cats, as if saying, “I’ll begrudgingly allow you to take one photo, but don’t disturb my rest.”
Looking at this photo, a powerful flood of emotion broke through the dam of calm Su Yuqing had been trying so hard to maintain.
A sense of melancholy about the swift passage of time and the impermanence of life surged within her.
The cat bed remained the same, and the person taking the photo remained the same, but the protagonist in the bed was now separated from her by life and death.
A sorrowful idiom involuntarily welled up in her heart, nearly escaping her lips.
‘Things remain, people change…’
“My, things really do remain while people change, meow~”
A sweet voice, yet one with the piercing coldness of an icicle, sounded right against her ear like a phantom.
That life-like “meow” was filled with mockery.
“Wait, no.”
The blood in Su Yuqing’s body seemed to freeze instantly!
The immense shock nearly made her stop breathing, and her phone almost slipped from her stiff fingers.
She snapped her head around, her pupils shrinking rapidly from fear.
Kasahana Chiai, who should have been fast asleep on the sofa, was now standing silently behind her, leaning over.
On that exquisite doll-like face hung a brilliant smile, like a cat catching a mouse.
Her breath even brushed lightly against Su Yuqing’s earlobe.
“Eeek…!!!”
A short, sharp gasp escaped Su Yuqing’s throat.
She jerked backward in fright, nearly falling onto the floor.
“Go… od… eve… ning… meow.”
Zhi Ai spoke each word slowly, her Liuli-colored eyes flickering with playful and dangerous light in the dimness, clearly savoring every trace of terror on Su Yuqing’s face.
“You… weren’t you just sleeping on the sofa? How… how could you—!?”
Su Yuqing’s voice shook uncontrollably, and her mind went blank.
After all, she had clearly confirmed that Zhi Ai was sleeping soundly!
Zhi Ai straightened up, her hands behind her back, tilting her head slightly as she spoke in a lighthearted tone of “How can you be so stupid?”:
“It seems your little brain really is fried. Even when we are sleeping, we still maintain a high state of alertness~”
She blinked, her long eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings.
“Any little movement from a ‘Little Mouse’ sneaking around can’t escape this cat’s ears.”
A cold chill ran up Su Yuqing’s spine to the top of her head.
It turned out that all her careful movements had been nothing more than a ridiculous, self-directed pantomime in the other girl’s eyes.
She felt a sense of humiliation and anger at being played like a toy in the palm of a hand.
“Hmph, you’re trying to scare me.”
Su Yuqing forced herself to stay calm, trying to use a complaint to hide her internal panic.
She struggled to stand up from the floor, wanting to escape this suffocating pressure.
“Hurry up and move,” Su Yuqing said crossly, trying to squeeze past Zhi Ai.
But Zhi Ai was like an immovable mountain, still blocking her path with a beaming smile.
“What are you planning to do at this hour, meow?”
Her tone was full of the joy of asking something she already knew the answer to.
“Who said I was going out? I’m going to turn on the light! The light! Light, do you understand!”
Su Yuqing was practically growling; the loss of control made her speak without thinking.
The darkness magnified the fear Zhi Ai brought, and she desperately needed the light to gain a sliver of false security.
“Alright~ go on then, go on.”
This time, Zhi Ai unexpectedly stepped aside.
Her tone was as relaxed as if she were dismissing a cranky child, but her eyes remained firmly locked on Su Yuqing.
Su Yuqing nearly stumbled as she rushed to the wall and pressed the switch with a “clack.”
The piercing white light poured down instantly, dispelling the gloom of the living room, but it could not dispel the haze in her heart.
She turned around, leaning her back against the cold wall, gasping for air as if she had just survived a life-or-death chase.
Zhi Ai, meanwhile, remained where she was, watching her at her leisure.
Then, under Su Yuqing’s wary gaze, she slowly and elegantly extended one of her hands.
“You… so, what are you doing sticking your stinking paw out again?”
Su Yuqing’s heart tightened again, and she subconsciously hid her right hand—the one holding her phone—behind her back.
It was this tiny movement that completely exposed her guilt.
The smile on Zhi Ai’s face deepened.
It was still sweet, but it carried a command that brooked no argument.
“Give it to me.”
Her red lips parted slightly, uttering two simple syllables.
“Give… give what?”
Su Yuqing was still making a final struggle, her voice as weak as a gnat.
“Your phone, of course. What else could it be, meow~?”
The end of Zhi Ai’s sentence curled upward with a cat-like laziness, yet it felt like a needle dipped in poison.
“Unless there’s something even more shameful inside that you’re afraid this cat will see?”