TC Extra 2

CONTENT WARNING: slight mentions of beastiality, near halfway through the chapter.

The moment Qi Xing opened his eyes, he realized something was wrong. His perspective was wrong; the things he could normally see simply by raising his eyes had disappeared above his field of vision. Still groggy, he assumed he had not fully woken up and reached toward the bedside table for his phone, only to freeze when his paw stretched out.

It really was a paw; his hand had turned into a cat’s paw.

Black cat fur wrapped surrounded the soft pink pad, thrust abruptly before his eyes.

Qi Xing: “…”

—He must have opened his eyes the wrong way.

Several minutes later, because he was unaccustomed to walking on all fours, he fell flat on his back from the bed to the floor, and it took him a while to recover.

With difficulty, Qi Xing moved to the front of the full-length mirror, where he and the black cat in the mirror stared at each other.

Its entire body was pitch-black, with pale green eyes, exactly like the stray cat he had seen climbing the tree in the courtyard a few days earlier.

Qi Xing’s vision went dark. After glaring at the cat in the mirror for a full five minutes, he finally had no choice but to accept the truth: the cat was him, and he was the cat. He really had turned into a cat.

Qi Xing yelled, but what came out was the mewing of a kitten.

He immediately shut his mouth, wishing he could simply die on the spot.

By the time Ye Xingzhou returned, the little wildcat had already wrecked the house.

Tables, chairs, and cabinets had been knocked askew, broken porcelain and glass lay scattered everywhere, and the expensive leather sofa was covered in scratches left by cat claws, leaving it completely ruined.

Ye Xingzhou frowned and swept his gaze across the room before noticing the cat hiding beneath the dining table. The little stray was irritably swishing his tail and circling around in a fit of rage.

Hearing footsteps, Qi Xing crawled out from beneath the table and strained to raise his head, but he still could not clearly see Ye Xingzhou’s face. Becoming even more frantic, he pounced forward and clawed at Ye Xingzhou’s trouser leg.

Ye Xingzhou pinched the little stray by the scruff and lifted him. Qi Xing panicked, his four limbs flailing continuously, and when his eyes met Ye Xingzhou’s, he looked at him with teary eyes.

Ye Xingzhou was stunned, which was extremely rare for him.

Five minutes later, Qi Xing, who had been placed back on the floor, bit down on Ye Xingzhou’s trouser leg and dragged him toward the computer in the study, then laboriously pressed the power button with his paw.

Ye Xingzhou’s brows were tightly drawn as he watched his movements. The little wildcat attempted to jump onto the desk, but perhaps because he was not accustomed to this body, he could not even jump onto the chair, much less the desk, and anxiously meowed non-stop.

Ye Xingzhou seemed to understand what he wanted from his agitated behaviour, so he bent down and lifted him onto the desk.

Qi Xing threw himself toward the computer screen and tried to move the mouse, but his cat paw could not grip it properly at all. The cursor darted wildly across the screen, and in his frustration, he nearly smashed the mouse.

Ye Xingzhou’s palm once again settled on the back of his neck and slowly stroked it as though soothing him. The little wildcat shuddered, crouched down, and curled up without moving.

Ye Xingzhou quickly opened a blank document, enlarged the page, and increased the font size.

Qi Xing placed his paw on the keyboard and painstakingly pressed the keys one at a time, typing out a line of text:

I am Qi Xing, help!

Meow—

Ye Xingzhou’s expression became somewhat grim, and his tightly furrowed brows did not relax.

He had no choice but to believe it. Qi Xing’s phone was still on the bedside table, his pyjamas lay scattered across the bed, and even the wedding ring he never took off was still there, yet he himself was nowhere to be seen.

If this stray cat was not Qi Xing, then it could only be some supernatural thing that had become a spirit.

Compared with the agitated and helpless Qi Xing, Ye Xingzhou remained relatively calm and asked him, “How did you become like this?”

Qi Xing continued typing: “I don’t know, I just woke up like this.”

He had merely taken an afternoon nap at home without even having a dream. Outside, the weather had been clear and pleasant, and no strange phenomenon had descended from the heavens, so how had he somehow turned into a cat?

Ye Xingzhou picked up the little wildcat. “Let’s go. I’ll take you to ask someone about it.”

People of their status and standing more or less knew a few genuinely capable and unusual individuals. Ye Xingzhou took Qi Xing around to consult them, listened to every sort of theory and explanation, and tried every possible method, but after all the trouble, nothing worked in the slightest. Every night before closing his eyes, Qi Xing wished that he would wake up human again, yet each morning when he opened them, he was still a cat.

Heaven had played a cruel joke on him and apparently had no intention of ending it.

But even as a cat, life goes on. He could not truly smash his head into a wall and hope to be reincarnated as a human in his next life.

Ye Xingzhou bought him a cat bed, a cat tree, a litter box, cat toys, and a whole pile of other things, truly appearing determined to raise him as a cat. Qi Xing resisted inwardly, but although his mind was human, his body was feline, and the instincts belonging to a cat would unconsciously reveal themselves, so in the end he reluctantly accepted everything.

He even started eating cat food. After being hospitalized for vomiting and diarrhea from a human meal, he had to face reality and realized that cat food was actually rather fragrant, and after eating it for a while, he became accustomed to it.

Sometimes Qi Xing felt that Ye Xingzhou had accepted his transformation into a cat remarkably well. Aside from a little surprise on the first day, while Qi Xing was still depressed and shutting himself away, this man was already calmly taking him outside and enthusiastically selecting every item a kitten might need.

Even after they had tried everything without success, when Qi Xing was at his most discouraged and disappointed, Ye Xingzhou never displayed much emotional fluctuation. Instead, he enjoyed teasing him even more than before, stroking his fur, kneading his ears, and petting his head, expressing his love for the cat without any reservation.

…So he really had been a substitute for a cat all along, Qi Xing thought. Now that he had become a cat, it suited Ye Xingzhou’s wishes perfectly. That’s why the bastard remained so calm!

But he could only sulk in silence. After all, he could not even speak now, and constantly typing on a keyboard made his paws hurt and exhausted him, so he was unwilling to do it.

Fortunately, most of the time, he did not need to move. Ye Xingzhou could understand what he wanted from a single look and satisfy his needs.

Of course, he also had to satisfy Ye Xingzhou’s beastly needs, specifically in that area.

Although he was now a cat, he can use his furry body or tail to help Ye Xingzhou. At this moment, even Qi Xing, who is usually thick-skinned, couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. His ears drooped and his tail shrank even tighter, and the whole cat was trembling.

He himself was unaware of his own state at that moment, but Ye Xingzhou, seeing this, was often stimulated to become even more excited, truly transforming into a beast and making the kitten meow.

As time passed, Qi Xing seemed to become increasingly accustomed to living as a cat, and even his temperament gradually began to regress.

When he was happy, he would knead his paws against Ye Xingzhou and act spoiled. If Ye Xingzhou stroked his head or scratched beneath his chin at such a moment, he would become even more excited, throw himself into Ye Xingzhou’s arms, lie flat, and expose his belly for him to rub.

When he was angry, he would lash out, deliberately hide, bite Ye Xingzhou, and even carry out childish acts of revenge, such as knocking over Ye Xingzhou’s coffee cup, scratching up his clothes, or making trouble while he was working, all just to make Ye Xingzhou look at him a little more.

Qi Xing always felt that one day he might lose his human nature and completely become a cat. He was afraid and terrified, but he didn’t want to tell Ye Xingzhou, so he could only bottle it all up and be angry with himself.

Sometimes they would sit together in silence. Ye Xingzhou would be absorbed in his work while he lay nearby, lost in thought, and he could not help wondering: if he never turned back into a human, would Ye Xingzhou grieve for him?

His brain seemed to be working slower and slower, like a cat’s. He couldn’t see through nor guess what Ye Xingzhou was thinking.

Several years passed like this. Even his parents gradually accepted reality, telling Ye Xingzhou to take good care of him. They came to visit from time to time and never again mentioned the past.

Even Qi Xing himself was beginning to forget what it had felt like to be human. Sometimes, in a daze, he almost believed that he had been born a cat.

On his birthday that year, he enjoyed a hearty meal of his favourite flavour of cat food and even received twice the usual amount of fried dried fish. The little cat was in unusually high spirits, his upright tail swaying back and forth without stopping.

As he contentedly licked his lips and looked up, he was stunned. Ye Xingzhou was leaning back on the sofa with his eyes closed, his brows furrowed. There was still half a glass of red wine in the glass beside him, but he looked drunk and completely exhausted.

The only time Qi Xing had ever seen him drunk before was at their wedding; this was the second time.

His increasingly sluggish mind slowly pieced together the thought that over the past two years, Ye Xingzhou seemed to have been working even harder than before, sleeping even less, yet smoking much more heavily, and he hadn’t seen a smile on that bastard’s face for a very long time.

In a sudden surge of panic, Qi Xing jumped onto the sofa, climbed over beside Ye Xingzhou’s head, and heard him murmur in his sleep: “Qi Xing…”

Ye Xingzhou was calling him, but at that moment he understood with perfect clarity that Ye Xingzhou wasn’t calling to him, but towards the one in his dream who could smile and tell him he loved him.

After lowering his head and sitting in a daze for a while, he backed away two steps, silently climbed down from the sofa, and hid himself in the darkness.

Only today did he truly realize that Ye Xingzhou really had been heartbroken all this time. For so many years, he had never revealed the slightest hint of it in front of him, simply because he did not want Qi Xing to feel even worse.

He could no longer become human again, and even if he remained only in the form of a cat, he probably would not be able to stay with Ye Xingzhou for very long. A cat’s lifespan was simply too short, only a little over ten years.

The little cat buried his head in his paws and whimpered as he cried.

…

When Qi Xing opened his eyes with a frown, Ye Xingzhou, who had been reading beside him, lowered his gaze toward him. “Awake?”　

He stared blankly for a long moment before suddenly coming back to himself and sitting bolt upright.

No, no, no, he didn’t turn into a cat at all; it was just a dream he had while he was half asleep!

Ye Xingzhou noticed his strange expression and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

Qi Xing covered his face with both hands, so embarrassed his toes practically dug into the floor. Why on earth did he have such a bizarre dream!?

It had to be because of that cat he had seen the other night—it must have become a spirit and given him a nightmare!

After listening to his explanation, Ye Xingzhou fell silent for a moment, and the look in his eyes became somewhat peculiar. “You… turned into a cat?”

“What’s with that expression? Don’t tell me you actually want to try it?”

Ye Xingzhou looked away. “No need.”

Qi Xing wanted to curse, but somehow lacked the confidence to do so. Feeling thoroughly dejected, he flopped back onto the bed in frustration.

“Ye Xingzhou—”

Ye Xingzhou covered his head with one hand and gently smoothed down his sleep-mussed hair, the motion no different from petting a cat: “Don’t overthink it, dreams are always the opposite of reality.”

Qi Xing answered without thinking. “So that means you’ll turn into a cat?”

There was unmistakable anticipation in his voice, so Ye Xingzhou withdrew his hand, his tone growing serious. “I won’t.”

Fine, if he wouldn’t, then he wouldn’t.

Qi Xing rolled over and wrapped his arms around Ye Xingzhou’s waist, still feeling rather depressed.

“Ye Xingzhou, let’s make sure neither of us ever turns into a cat, that would be way too miserable.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t.”

Hearing these words, Qi Xing felt a sense of relief. It was just a dream; it really couldn’t happen. His mind now at ease, he nestled against Ye Xingzhou and drifted back to sleep.

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