Under these circumstances, someone still managed to break through the defensive lines Fu Qi had set up and find this place, which was enough to show how dire the situation was. Over on Yan Mu’s side, she was probably already unable to hold on and was launching a desperate counterattack.
Here, one could only sense the lingering aftereffects of the smoke from brutal fighting, and so it was mistakenly taken for ordinary fireworks.
Every night they lay on the balcony, gazing up at the starry sky above their heads. Wang Luan was looking at the stars, while Yan Qiongyu was looking at the battlefield overhead.
“Miss Wang Luan, I’m going out tomorrow.”
Hearing Yan Qiongyu say this, Wang Luan’s first reaction was: “…I’ve only just learned how to play the second piece.”
Yan Qiongyu smiled slightly. “I’m just going to deal with a small problem. I’ll be back very soon.”
After two months of back-and-forth struggle, the Li Family Legion under Fu Qi finally broke through the defensive lines and seized control of the CON base. The Yanlan Star Bandit Group suffered heavy casualties and ultimately chose to abandon the base and flee.
Aside from their main stronghold, the Yanlan Star Bandit Group still had other places they could hide. There were countless abandoned planets in the fringe star zones, and for the time being, no trace of them could be found.
Yan Qiongyu returned to the CON base. Compared to when he had last escaped from here, it was now even more riddled with holes. Fu Qi was having people clear it out and rebuild.
In their cooperation, this base—which was about to fall completely under Yan Qiongyu’s control—was a very important link.
“Is Yan Mu dead?” Yan Qiongyu asked, standing before a collapsed building.
“No. It’s said she was taken away by the Yanlan Star Bandit Group.” Fu Qi stood there, his expression far more complicated than Yan Qiongyu’s.
This had once been a place he lived in. Yan Mu had also once been his godmother, yet now he stood completely on the opposite side from her.
Yan Qiongyu could tell at a glance what he was thinking. He didn’t care how Fu Qi felt—after all, having come this far, it was impossible for Fu Qi to turn back.
“My mother really wouldn’t die so easily.” Yan Qiongyu gazed at the ruins and sighed.
Even with the specially formulated inducing agent pushing her body to the brink of collapse, she had still endured. It was as if all that pain was instead prolonging her life.
A soldier in charge of the cleanup caught a black cat. “Sir, in the building you ordered us to search carefully, this was the only living thing we found—this black cat. How should we deal with it?”
This was Yan Mu’s cat. Its owner had already fled, leaving only it behind. Yet in the soldier’s arms, it didn’t move at all, a pair of green cat’s eyes calmly observing its surroundings.
Fu Qi looked at the black cat. “This is the godmother’s ‘eye.’ Get rid of it.”
Yan Qiongyu reached out and grabbed the cat. “No need. I’ll take it with me.”
With the black cat, Yan Qiongyu returned to the house in the Little Wu District.
Wang Luan wasn’t home. Yan Qiongyu pressed the black cat down onto the sofa, picked up a note from the coffee table—left by Wang Luan. On it, she had written that she’d gone out to buy things.
Yan Qiongyu put the note down, took out a monocular eyepiece, and set it on the bridge of his nose, the connected metal piece sticking against his temple.
His right eye blurred for a moment, then gradually became clear. The scene before him overlapped and shifted subtly. With this sensor lens on, what he saw was the scene captured by the black cat’s right eye.
This cat had been modified. Yan Mu liked keeping cats, and all the cats she kept were her “eyes.” Yan Qiongyu had known this for a long time, which was why he disliked this cat very much.
“Miss Wang Luan still hasn’t come back yet… how about we play a little game with her.”
Yan Qiongyu suddenly smiled.
ততততততততততত
Carrying a pile of daily necessities and fresh vegetables, Wang Luan returned home. As she passed by the sofa, she swept her gaze over it—and suddenly felt that something was off.
On the sofa, there was actually a cat?
The black cat was curled up in a pile of clothes. Looking more closely, the clothes looked very familiar—it seemed to be the outfit Yan Qiongyu had been wearing when he left that morning.
Why were his clothes taken off here?
Wang Luan’s puzzled gaze turned to a sheet of paper on the coffee table. On it was what she had written about going out to buy things, and below it, there was additional handwriting belonging to Yan Qiongyu.
“I did a new experiment and there was an accident. I might turn into a cat. I don’t feel very well right now. If I really do turn into a cat, Miss Wang Luan, please don’t be afraid…”
The latter half of the sentence was crooked and uneven. The final character, afraid, was only written halfway, as if the person writing, due to physical discomfort, had gradually lost strength. The last stroke dragged out a long scratch across the paper, and at the end there was even half a cat paw print.
Wang Luan: “…………!”
The things in her hands fell all over the floor.
She stared blankly at the note, then at the set of clothes on the sofa that looked as if they had been left behind because the person had suddenly disappeared, then at the black cat lying atop the clothes, its expression strangely intelligent.
“…………?” Wang Luan grabbed her own hair, unable to believe it. “No, impossible, this has to be fake, right? How could a person possibly turn into a cat?!”
No—no, that’s not right. Thinking carefully, she herself could transmigrate to another world, so why couldn’t Yan Qiongyu turn into a cat? He really did seem to be doing some kind of mysterious experiments.
With a stiff expression, Wang Luan cautiously squatted down beside the sofa and tentatively called out to the black cat, “Yan Qiongyu?”
The black cat looked at her, the whiskers by its mouth twitching.
“Yan Qiongyu, is that you?”
The black cat opened its mouth and meowed.
To Wang Luan, this was a response. She nearly cracked, clutching her head and collapsing in despair. “No way, is it really you?!”
In the second-floor master bedroom, Yan Qiongyu, having changed into a new set of clothes, lay on the bed with a lens propped up, his whole body trembling as he struggled to suppress laughter.
