“Click.”
The soft sound of the door lock being firmly pressed echoed through the suddenly quiet office.
It was clear and distinct, like an invisible barrier falling to completely isolate the world inside from the world outside.
Su Yuqing leaned her back against the cold, solid wood door and slowly let out a long breath, as if to squeeze out all the churning shock and secret excitement in her chest.
She turned around and let her gaze sweep across the private office that belonged to her.
The closed blinds cut off any afternoon prying, and the neatly stacked documents covered up the stormy waves from just a moment ago.
Good, this was a temporary secret fortress.
“This is my private office,” she said, her voice intentionally lowered with a tightness that was almost a whisper.
Her eyes remained locked onto the figure standing in the center of the room — Bai Wanxue.
The girl still held that out-of-place black sun umbrella as if it were a shield to keep the world at a distance.
Her silver-gray hair flowed with a quiet luster under the indoor lights, and the pair of cat ears atop her head, which could not be ignored now, were the most direct announcement of her non-human status.
“I’ve already locked the door.”
Su Yuqing emphasized this, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the cold metal door lock.
“Plus, it’s lunch break right now, so most people have gone to the cafeteria or out to eat. For a short while, absolutely, positively no one will come to interrupt our… conversation.”
She used the word “conversation,” but the air was thick with something far more complex and dangerous than a mere talk.
Time was tight, and every second could bring an unexpected visitor.
Su Yuqing took a deep breath, forcing herself to focus despite the persistent shock of those cat ears.
She decided not to beat around the bush or test the waters any further.
She took two steps forward and stopped about 5 feet away from Bai Wanxue.
It was a position where she could clearly observe the other’s subtle expressions while still leaving a safe distance to react.
Then, she raised her head, her gaze sharp as a blade, piercing straight into those pale red eyes that looked like they contained crushed crystals.
Word by word, she threw out the absurd yet undeniable truth.
“Time is tight, so I won’t beat around the bush. Miss Wanxue, right?”
She paused to give the name weight.
“I know — no, I’m almost certain — of your true identity. You were turned from a cat. Or rather… at least in your past, at some crucial stage, you were once a cat.”
This sentence was like a stone thrown into a calm pool, but the expected violent reaction did not occur.
Bai Wanxue only tilted her head slightly, her umbrella tilting with her and revealing half of an exquisite yet expressionless face.
A ripple of something nearing vacancy flickered through those pale red eyes, as if what Su Yuqing said was not a shocking secret, but a fact she had long since accepted and did not understand why others found so surprising.
Her pink lips parted slightly to utter a few syllables.
Her voice was still ethereal, but it carried a sense of resignation.
“So you… already… figured it out…”
Before her voice could fade, a natural guttural sound escaped like a sigh.
“Meow…”
This cat meow, in this enclosed space, was like a bolt of lightning that struck Su Yuqing’s heart.
It also completely confirmed her boldest guess.
She felt a slight dizziness, unsure if it was fear or excitement.
“Please! This isn’t even a matter of whether I could figure it out or not!”
Su Yuqing almost growled.
Her voice trembled slightly from suppressed excitement and a complex “I knew it” emotion.
She subconsciously raised her hand to gesture.
“After all… after all, right now on my own sofa at home, there’s another cat who’s in a similar situation to yours but has a terrible temper, just lying there boldly!”
The moment the words left her mouth, she immediately realized the potential ambiguity and hurt they could cause, especially when facing a fellow being whose emotional responses seemed different from normal humans.
“Of course!” she added hurriedly, her speech rapid as if she were chasing something, trying to clarify.
“By saying that, I definitely don’t mean I hate you! I mean that the ancestor at my house — she’s just like you now, maintaining a human form and… some of her habits.”
She struggled to choose her words, her gaze involuntarily sweeping over the pair of cat ears that twitched backward slightly due to her rushed tone.
While Su Yuqing was making this nearly incoherent explanation, her tone was fast and urgent, carrying a panic of wanting to be understood while fearing she might accidentally touch upon a taboo.
Her entire attention was focused on how to clearly express this unbelievable reality.
She did not notice at all that when she mentioned “hate” and used “stinky cat” to describe the one at home, the expression on Bai Wanxue’s porcelain-like face changed.
Her eyes drooped slightly, and a thin layer of watery mist seemed to quickly form in her pale red eyes.
The corners of her mouth also twitched downward imperceptibly.
It was an expression of hurt, grievance, and rejection that looked like she was about to cry.
It flashed by so quickly one might think it was an optical illusion.
“So!”
Su Yuqing suddenly slapped her forehead, forcibly pulling the rambling topic back to the most urgent reality.
“Right now, the only most important and troublesome issue between us is — you! What exactly do you need to do to properly and completely hide those… well, very iconic but also very, very easy-to-expose cat ears on your head?!”
She stared intently at Bai Wanxue, hoping the other would give a clear answer, a spell, a switch, or any method that could solve this burning emergency.
However, what answered her was another soft, somewhat helpless sounding “Meow…”
Su Yuqing felt a sense of powerlessness.
She paced a few short steps in frustration, running her fingers through her hair.
“Think, think hard!” she said, as if talking to both Bai Wanxue and herself.
“If there really… really isn’t any method you can control on your own…”
A dangerous thought surfaced in her mind, carrying the desperation of someone who had nothing left to lose.
“Then at worst… I’ll call home myself and ask that stinky cat ancestor of mine! I’ll see how she manages to make those troublesome ears appear and disappear at will! She definitely knows the way!”
Although the thought of asking Zhi Ai for help made her scalp tingle, there did not seem to be a better choice at the moment.
However, this suggestion, which carried a sense of compromise and helplessness, was like a key that suddenly unlocked a certain understanding in Bai Wanxue.
The girl, who had been as quiet as a doll, suddenly raised her head.
Her pale red eyes looked straight at Su Yuqing, clearly reflecting her panic.
“Are you… still… chasing me away?” she asked.
Her voice was faint but carried a slight tremor, and her fingers tightened quietly around the umbrella handle.
“What?”
Su Yuqing was stunned, completely unable to follow this leap in logic.
“I never said I was chasing you away!”
‘Why would I want to chase her away? I’m trying to think of a way to help her hide her identity!’
“Then why do you… still want to call… that cat… at your house…?”
Bai Wanxue pressed.
Her logic was terrifyingly simple and direct, as if in her mind, Su Yuqing contacting the “cat at home” meant abandoning her, or something even worse.
“No, no, no, I didn’t mean that!”
Su Yuqing was practically losing her mind.
She realized there was a severe communication barrier between her and Bai Wanxue — not just in terms of speech rhythm, but a massive chasm in logic and emotional understanding.
She gestured wildly, pointing to her own head and then to Bai Wanxue’s ears, trying to explain in the most direct way possible.
“Calling that… calling the cat at home isn’t about chasing you away! I’m trying to find a way! To solve this!”
She raised her voice, emphasizing each word.
“The! Problem! Of! Your! Ears! Do you understand? Ears! You can’t let other people see them! Otherwise, you’ll be in big trouble! We’ll both be in big trouble!”
A suffocating silence followed.
Bai Wanxue watched her quietly as she explained frantically.
In those pale red eyes, various subtle emotions quickly shifted and settled.
Finally, she seemed to understand, or perhaps she simply chose to accept the explanation.
She gave a slight nod, so small it was almost invisible.
“Oh… I understand. Meow.”
Her voice returned to its previous calm, perhaps even becoming a bit hollower.
Then, before Su Yuqing could react, Bai Wanxue did something that made her freeze completely.
She slowly closed her eyes.
Her long, silver-gray eyelashes lowered, casting two small shadows on her pale cheeks.
Maintaining her pose with the umbrella, she tilted her face slightly toward Su Yuqing and parted her pink lips, uttering a world-shaking sentence.
“Let’s Kiss.”
“Wh… What?!”
Su Yuqing suspected there was a serious problem with both of her ears, or perhaps she was hallucinating from excessive stress.
Bai Wanxue’s eyes remained closed.
Her tone was as calm as a placid pool, as if she were stating a simple fact.
“As long as we Kiss… then… my ears will go back…”