DILLYH Chapter 27

TL: Hua

Chapter 27: Danger

The way Xu Laizi spoke now always gave people a strange feeling. Although it was a perfectly normal sentence, Yu Haozhou felt he heard a bit of sarcasm.

Yu Haozhou also noticed her strong hostility towards Zhou Zhizheng. Logically speaking, the two of them had virtually zero interaction in college, let alone any conflict.

If it were just a simple romantic rival situation, it shouldn’t be like this. Before this, she was his friend…

Had jealousy taken over her brain to the point where she wasn’t even willing to be friends anymore?

With a stranger in the house, the kittens retreated to their cat room. Seeing that Yu Haozhou wasn’t very eager to respond, Xu Laizi changed the subject herself: “Where are the kittens? Can I pet one?”

“Of course.”

Since she was still willing to keep up the pretense, Yu Haozhou wouldn’t expose her. He valued their friendship from those years and didn’t want to make things too ugly.

Yu Haozhou led her to the cat room: “They are quite timid. You can use a toy to lure them out. And, yes, you can stroke them gently. If you pat them too hard, they might bite.”

The two of them crouched in front of the cat bed.

Xu Laizi had a pink feather-and-bell teaser wand in her hand, dangling it over the kittens’ heads, shaking it back and forth. The bell jingled. Two brave kittens reached out their paws to interact.

Xu Laizi listened quietly to him, then smiled inexplicably, sounding a little resigned and a little unwilling: “I never thought these words would come out of your mouth.”

Yu Haozhou pursed his lips: “People change.”

Xu Laizi said flatly, “Has the person changed, or has the heart changed?”

Yu Haozhou felt a little uncomfortable. He frowned but still answered the question seriously: “It doesn’t matter. Just enjoy the process.”

The sound of the bell stopped. Xu Laizi turned her head to look at him, with a rather aggressive intensity: “So, you are very satisfied with this process? You really enjoy being with him?”

This was going too far, equivalent to tearing through that fragile window paper. Yu Haozhou suddenly stood up, staring down at her. He truly couldn’t understand what she was thinking.

They stood in wordless silence for a minute.

Yu Haozhou sighed in resignation: “I’ll go make you some orange juice. You might not be in a good state today. After you drink it, I’ll take you home.”

Xu Laizi coldly scoffed, her gaze returning to the kittens. She shook the teaser wand and said nothing.

Yu Haozhou was annoyed. He grabbed his hair and went to the kitchen. While slicing oranges and tossing them into the juicer, he sent a voice message to Zhou Zhizheng: “Zhou Zhizheng, did you offend Xu Laizi? Why does she hate you so much?”

Zhou Zhizheng must not have been in a meeting, as he replied instantly.

“Who? Don’t know her.”

“…”

Another voice message followed: “Is it that girl who provoked me when you were drinking last time?”

Yu Haozhou rubbed his forehead. What kind of reply was that? He vaguely ‘Mhm’d’: “She’s at the house today, and she keeps saying really weird things. I’m a little annoyed. She wasn’t like this before.”

Zhou Zhizheng immediately called him, his tone very anxious: “Zhouzhou, listen to me. Go watch her right now. She might do something to the kittens.”

“What?!”

Yu Haozhou’s heart leaped into his throat. The knife slammed onto the cutting board. While muttering, “No, that can’t be,” Yu Haozhou honestly bolted towards the kitten room, where he saw Xu Laizi with her back to him, rustling something in her hands.

Fearing that Zhou Zhizheng was being overly suspicious, Yu Haozhou hung up the phone, rushed over, and pretended he needed to ask her something, panting, “Laizi, I forgot to ask, do you mind if I add some grapefruit juice to it?”

His eyes frantically counted the kittens in the cat bed—six, they were all there, safe. He let out a huge sigh of relief. He felt like cursing out loud. How could I be so paranoid as to believe Zhou Zhizheng’s nonsense and trust such an insane suggestion?

Xu Laizi smiled: “Sure, that’s fine. I’m not in a hurry; you don’t need to run so fast.”

“Mhm,” Yu Haozhou felt awkward, silently cursing Zhou Zhizheng again. “It’ll be ready quickly.”

As he turned to leave, his gaze suddenly caught something in her hand—a wrapper, like one for chocolate. He remembered that he had researched it specifically before: chocolate is equivalent to arsenic for animals.

Yu Haozhou’s heart leaped again: “Is that… chocolate in your hand?”

“It is,” Xu Laizi said. “The kittens kept crying earlier, and I wondered if they were hungry. I rummaged through my bag and only found this chocolate, so I fed it to them.”

Yu Haozhou’s last shred of hope finally died.

He pulled out his phone to call the pet hospital and checked the kittens’ status. Already frazzled, Xu Laizi’s innocent look as she asked what was wrong made him feel incredibly furious: “Chocolate can kill kittens! Why didn’t you ask me before you fed it to them!”

The hospital must have been busy; they didn’t answer.

Yu Haozhou dialed again, quickly got up to grab the cat carrier, and anxiously wondered if driving them himself would be faster.

Ah, he was going crazy.

Yu Haozhou was so anxious he slapped himself. He didn’t know how to tell Zhou Zhizheng this news. The loss of Juzi had already left him with a lasting trauma, and now that his “sons”—Monday and the others—were like this, would Zhou Zhizheng dare to raise cats again? Would he ever recover?

He genuinely wished he could go back half an hour and refuse Xu Laizi entry.

Yet, the perpetrator poured fuel on the fire right when he felt most helpless, saying, “I know. I did it on purpose.”

Yu Haozhou’s mind seized up: “Why?”

“Because I hate him. Seeing how happy he is, and then thinking about my own misery, I just want him to taste the pain too.”

Xu Laizi confessed that Wu Yichen was hired by her, and Xu Yi was also found by her. The original plan was to use them to cause trouble, create a rift between him and Zhou Zhizheng, and then break them up.

She hadn’t expected Xu Yi to defect so quickly. The plan ended before it could even be executed.

So, she had to take action herself. Since she couldn’t break them up, she wanted to cause trouble, and the kittens became the most innocent victims.

One by one, Yu Haozhou couldn’t believe these words were coming from Xu Laizi. She used to be so cheerful and kind. Why was she now committing an act that harmed innocent lives because of jealousy?

“Xu Laizi, I truly regret ever knowing you.”

Xu Laizi initially forced a smile, but soon the laughter turned into tears: “I hate you, I despise you! Why do you only like him? Yu Haozhou, it’s a fight to the death between him and me. You’re the one who can’t bear to leave him, so don’t blame me for not warning you!”

After shouting this inexplicable tirade, Xu Laizi rushed out. Yu Haozhou felt helpless. He genuinely didn’t understand how things had suddenly taken such a turn. His mind was in a complete mess.

He went to the nest and scooped up the kittens.

The kittens looked okay, but remembering the toxicity of chocolate to them, Yu Haozhou couldn’t hold back his tears. He carefully cupped them in his palms, kissing their furry little heads: “Hold on, little ones. You’ll be saved once we get to the hospital. Please, hold on…”

Otherwise, someone else wouldn’t be able to hold on.

He had just reached the parking lot and started the car when, as if by telepathy, Zhou Zhizheng’s call came through. The phone lay silently on the center console. Yu Haozhou actually felt timid; he didn’t dare answer.

He was afraid of hearing Zhou Zhizheng’s heartbroken, devastated, and disappointed voice.

The ringing stopped, and without a second’s delay, Zhou Zhizheng called again. Yu Haozhou steeled himself, deciding to tell him only after the hospital gave the results.

However, the moment the call connected, his first words were, “Has something happened to the kittens?”

Yu Haozhou bit his lower lip, unable to utter a sound.

Zhou Zhizheng then asked, with calm restraint, “What did she do?”

Yu Haozhou truly couldn’t bring himself to say it.

The scenery outside the window was rushing backward at a terrifying speed. Yu Haozhou just wanted to step on the gas and reach the hospital quickly, hoping to hear the doctor say they arrived in time and the kittens were out of danger.

But chocolate was like ‘arsenic.’

Even if they had only eaten a little, the side effects on an animal’s body would be severe. Moreover, Xu Laizi fed them a whole piece. No matter how optimistic he wanted to be, the kittens would never return to how they were before.

“Zhou Zhizheng,” Yu Haozhou called him by name with such gentleness for the first time, “No matter what happens, I’m here with you. Promise me, don’t do anything foolish, okay?”

Zhou Zhizheng ground his molars, saying word by word, “So, what exactly did she do?”

“She fed the kittens chocolate.”

“F*ck.”

A loud crash came from the other end.

…

At the hospital, Yu Haozhou cradled a nest of trembling kittens, asking repeatedly, “They didn’t eat chocolate? Are you really sure they didn’t eat it? Could there be a chance of a wrong diagnosis? Dr. Chen, could you check again, please? My heart really can’t take this.”

Dr. Chen had already examined all six kittens, and they had been checked by other doctors too—at least seven or eight times in total. The results were uniformly negative: no trace of chocolate consumption.

Dr. Chen said, “Perhaps that person was intentionally trying to scare you and didn’t actually feed them any.

“However, to pull such a deadly joke, there’s no guarantee they won’t actually do it one day. You’d better keep a close eye on this person.”

Yu Haozhou collapsed, exhausted, onto the hospital corridor floor.

God knew that when he got out of the car to grab the carrier, his hands and legs were trembling. At that moment, no matter how much he shook them, the kittens closed their eyes and didn’t react. If he hadn’t seen their breathing still rising and falling, he might not have been able to make it through the hospital door.

After two hours of rushing around, they were fine now.

Yu Haozhou, however, felt utterly drained and weak. He closed his eyes in the hospital to recover his strength, then suddenly remembered he needed to call Zhou Zhizheng to let him know they were safe. Zhou Zhizheng must be panicking to death.

Just as he took out his phone, there was a commotion at the hospital entrance. He glanced over and saw Zhou Zhizheng striding in. His brows were furrowed enough to trap two mosquitoes, and his eyes were red.

Yu Haozhou felt a wave of relief, thinking, Thank goodness the kittens are okay, or I wouldn’t have the face to see Zhou Zhizheng. These were the kittens he had painstakingly kept alive by setting alarms and staying up late. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he had raised them like his own children.

“Zhou Zhizheng, over here!” Yu Haozhou waved, afraid he wouldn’t see him.

The distraught Zhou Zhizheng seemed to only just regain a fraction of his senses. He sat down next to Yu Haozhou and stroked the quiet heads of the kittens in his lap: “What happened?”

“She didn’t feed them. She was probably trying to scare me.”

Seeing Zhou Zhizheng still looking spaced out, Yu Haozhou felt a pang of sympathy. He tightly grasped his hand: “Don’t worry, don’t worry, the kittens are all fine. They’re okay. Don’t be sad.”

Zhou Zhizheng’s eyes grew redder.

He stroked one kitten’s head, then another, unable to speak for a moment.

Watching his hidden anxiety, Yu Haozhou’s heart twinged painfully. Juzi’s death must have left a huge trauma on him, forcing the usually steady Zhou Zhizheng to be unable to recover for so long.

Yu Haozhou secretly glanced at the people around them.

No one was paying them attention. He then quietly leaned in and kissed his lips, gently stroking his face: “Zhou Zhizheng, don’t be sad. I’m still here.”

Zhou Zhizheng’s lips trembled. He raised his eyes to look at him.

In his lover’s eyes, there were stars, capable of containing any of his emotions and accepting any of his vulnerabilities—no ridicule, no resentment, just endless compassion.

Zhou Zhizheng abruptly pulled him into his arms, his voice shaking: “Zhouzhou…”