CH 20

The bed was too soft. Yin Ren slowly turned over and changed his lying position. He ignored Liang Shan and clicked on the first chat history forwarded by Lin Bei.

It was easy to find Gao Mengyu. Her avatar was a hand-painted winged cat, and her WeChat name was also “Feather Cat”.

The group chat started normally. Everyone talked about their cats and dogs. After the dog owners finished talking about dog food brands, cat owners also began to exchange their experiences with raising cats. The atmosphere in the group was quite harmonious, and from time to time, someone would send photos of their pets.

Perhaps it was this peaceful atmosphere that moved Gao Mengyu. When the topic was cats, she couldn’t help but interject.

[Don’t Forget Your Original Intention: Haha, I prefer white cats.]

[Don’t Forget Your Original Intention: [picture]]

[Yunyun Loves To Eat Whoppers: So cute! My family is a big orange~ It’s too fat, so I won’t post a picture~]

[Feather Cat: So cute.]

[Feather Cat: How many eyes does your cat have?]

No one spoke in the group for a while.

A few minutes passed.

[Kyle: You’re very funny.]

[Kyle: By the way, what do you guys think of Royal Cat Food? Has anyone bought this brand?]

[Kyle: [picture]]

[AAA~Robbery: Expensive.]

Someone started a new topic, so the chat proceeded as normal again. People invariably ignored Gao Mengyu, and she didn’t speak out again.

Yin Ren: “Huh.”

He then clicked on the second chat history.

This time, it was different. It was still the same group with a similar topic, but they were talking about how to pet a cat.

[Yunyun Loves To Eat Whoppers: My family likes it when I scratch its chin, but I prefer the belly, hahaha.]

[KK*: Pinch its paws!]

[Super Xiaobin: It must be the tail.]

[AAA~Robbery: Don’t like being touched.]

[Feather Cat: I like to touch the place where many of its legs meet.]

[Feather Cat: What’s that part called?]

[Kyle: ….]

[AAA~Robbery: ? Is there a psycho in this group?]

[AAA~Robbery: What kind of B* did you raise. Send a picture.]

*Slang for pussy. This is originally in English for the word [bi] (逼). In this sense, it’s also a double entendre, as pussy can also refer to a cat.

[Yunyun Loves To Eat Whoppers: Don’t make noise~ Look at my little milk cat~]

[Yunyun Loves To Eat Whoppers: [picture]]

[AAA~Robbery: Don’t interrupt. If you’re sick, you need to be treated.]

[AAA~Robbery: @Feather Cat, send pictures or you’ll be kicked from the group.]

[Feather Cat: I’m going to take a picture right now. I just picked it up, and it’s a little shy.]

[Xixiu, Tian Tian?::*&1111 kg 7{![Picture?Film]]

[Feather Cat: It doesn’t really like cat food. I’m going to try raw meat.]

[AAA~Robbery: …]

[KK*: This joke isn’t funny.]

[Super Xiaobin: @Aizhen Clinic, Dr. Song, can we kick this person? You have to be sick to send this kind of thing.]

[Yunyun Loves To Eat Whoppers: @Feather Cat, everyone is chatting nicely. What are you doing? Is this funny to you?]

[Feather Cat: What’s wrong? The picture I sent is the same.]

[Feather Cat: My family just has a different skin color.]

[Feather Cat: It may be because I just picked it up and it’s a little weak. It doesn’t want to go out, so I can only raise it slowly.]

[Yunyun Loves To Eat Whoppers: [chat history of group chat]]

[Yunyun Loves To Eat Whoppers: You, take a good look at these normal cats. What do you mean the pictures we sent are like yours?]

[AAA~Robbery: I can’t transfer the picture posted by this woman. It’s weird. It’s all garbled code.]

[AAA~Robbery: Can you do it?]

[KK*: The forwarding here is also garbled. I can’t save screenshots of the photos or do screen recordings. The files are all broken.

[KK*: Toxic.]

No wonder the records forwarded by Lin Bei were all garbled.

Yin Ren then clicked on the third chat history. It was normal compared to the first two. The content was generally “AAA~Robbery”. This person posted a video of Mr. Rose in the group. They were talking about the “ex-girlfriend” and the wording was very unpleasant. Gao Mengyu didn’t hold back and jumped out to refute their words as an “acquaintance of the ex-girlfriend”.

AAA~Robbery’s mouth was poisonous, and he directly cursed her out and mocked her for her previous abnormal messages.

At this time, the group admin finally came forward and kicked out Gao Mengyu, who was “mentally troubled”.

According to Lin Bei’s supplementary explanation, the contributor was AAA~Robbery. He claimed that Feather Cat was an acquaintance of the woman, sent all her messages to Lin Bei’s assistant, and kept asking how much he could get paid for it.

The abnormal pictures in the records could only be displayed on AAA~Robbery’s phone. Lin Bei had made an appointment with that person, but this matter was too weird that Lin Bei herself didn’t want to go.

“Zhong Ge, shall we go together tomorrow? Do you want to tell Liang Ge first?”

“Uh, huh…?” Zhong Chengshuo rolled over and let out a drowsy grunt.

This guy actually ignored the messages and went to bed early!

Yin Ren felt that he wasn’t being lazy enough, so he tossed his phone to the side and decided to talk about the matter at dawn.

—-

The next day, Liang Shan looked at the empty hotel room and threw a middle finger into the group chat. Though he was still angry, he dutifully dictated a few hundred words of caution.

His tirade ended with “For the sake of your lives, don’t go near room 1413 of Fanghua Apartments anymore.”

Yin Ren didn’t have time to respond to him.

In order to avoid rush hour, Yin Ren and Zhong Chengshuo had left early and were already sitting in a self-service BBQ restaurant opposite of AAA~Robbery.

AAA~Robbery’s real name was Wang Qiang. He had no job, no money, and usually made ends meet by doing mundane daily work. He spent most of his time in internet cafes. Wang Qian was thin and dull. He had shrewd eyes that kept darting around. His hair was long and greasy, as if he hadn’t washed it in a long time.

According to Lin Bei, this person didn’t have a pet but worked part-time in a pet clinic.

“Tsk, that rich woman said buffet, so I thought it was one of those high-end buffets.”

Wang Qiang filled up his plate full of meat, and there was a pile of beer bottles at his feet.

“Let me start by saying that the contribution price and the interview are separately calculated. Don’t fool me. I know you guys play short videos and make lots of money… Hehe, you’re with that rich woman, right?”

When he said this, he stared casually at Yin Ren with a wretched look of “I get it”.

‘If this guy dies, he might become part of a Grievance Basket,’ Yin Ren thought with some malice.

Still, his lamb chops were more important.

The tender lamb was grilled on an iron plate. The aroma of scorched fat rushed straight to his nose. The lean meat was marinated in a garlic sauce, and juices flowed out as it sizzled on the fire, revealing a delightful, tender flavor. Yin Ren casually glanced at Wang Qiang. He didn’t respond and continued to concentrate on grilling the meat.

“What’s that look supposed to mean, huh? Laozi* is annoyed by sell-outs like you.” Wang Qiang stretched his neck, and his face tensed.

*It’s an arrogant way to refer to yourself. Translated would be like I, this great one.

His spit splattered indiscriminately, and a few drops splashed onto Yin Ren’s lamb chops.

Yin Ren’s smile froze, and his chopsticks clicked as he pinched them together. Lord Ghost King had to bid goodbye to his lamb chops with a sorrowful gaze as his mind ran through 108 ways on how to take care of Wang Qiang.

Forget it. Killing was against the law, so he had to think of a more roundabout way…

Zhong Chengshuo: “Apologize.”

Seeing Zhong Chengshuo suddenly speak up, Yin Ren turned his face quite unexpectedly.

“Why? Is he your concubine?” Wang Qiang grinned at Zhong Chengshuo.

Zhong Chengshuo remained calm. “Wang Qiang, born on March 16, 20xx. From Province D. In 20×4 and 20×6, was detained twice for sexually harassing women.”

Wang Qiang’s expression changed drastically. He pointed to Yin Ren’s long hair tremblingly. “You two are cops? Impossible. Cops don’t look like him.”

“That’s a wig,” Zhong Chengshuo stated solemnly.

Yin Ren: “?”

Zhong Chengshuo pushed up his glasses. “We’re not police officers, but we work closely with them. This time, we’re conducting inquiries and providing remuneration in accordance with regulations. The entire process is recorded, so please be cautious with your words and actions.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, comrades. I wasn’t thinking when I opened my mouth. I’ll be sure to keep this in mind.”

The color of Wang Qiang’s face disappeared in an instant. He shrank back into his chair and even moved his chopsticks more uniformly.

Yin Ren discovered a shocking thing—as long as he didn’t get closer to the other party, Zhong Chengshuo was very good at communication in a sense.

“Comrades, look, this is the photo sent by that crazy… person.” Wang Qiang felt like he was sitting on pins and needles as he took a bite of his meat while holding his phone to show them.

Wang Qiang’s phone screen was dirty and had cobweb cracks on it, making it difficult to see things. Even so, it couldn’t; hide the weird feeling of that picture.

[Feather Cat: I’m going to take a picture right now. I just picked it up, and it’s a little shy.]

[Feather Cat: [image]]

[Feather Cat: It doesn’t really like cat food. I’m going to try raw meat.]

The picture was a selfie of Gao Mengyu. She covered her face with a smiley sticker. In the photo, Gao Mengyu was leaning against the door of the bedroom that was facing the living room. There was sunlight in the picture, showing that it was obvious that it was the day when it was taken.

However, there was no light in the living room.

On the other side of the bedroom door, it was as dark as a tomb. That darkness was neat and regular, without the usual fuzzy edges, and looked extremely unnatural.

Gao Mengyu used one hand to take the selfie while the other was stretched out in the direction of the living room, as if stroking something from the other side of the door. Her hand was engulfed in that darkness, and the border line at her wrist was neat, like it was dipped in thick black ink.

Coupled with the cute smiley face she covered herself with, this picture made people feel uncomfortable all over.

“Isn’t this scary?” Wang Qiang muttered. “I don’t know what that woman is thinking, posting a picture like this. It’s not that I won’t send it to you, but I can’t get this broken picture out. There must be some kind of virus on it.”

“We need to take this phone away, and we will compensate you for 150% of the market price of the new phone.”

“This picture is very important. You have to at least add…” Wang Qiang paused halfway as if he remembered something, and his tone changed. “Look at me. You’re doing this for business, so can’t you just double it?”

Zhong Chengshuo gave him a deep look.

“…Okay as much as you stated!”

After receiving the payment, Wang Qiang quickly pulled out his SIM card from his phone and gave them a toothachey smile. “Comrades, I still have something to do, so I’ll go first.”

When Wang Qian’s figure disappeared, Zhong Chengshuo pinched two napkins and used them to hold up Wang Qiang’s phone and carefully put it in the evidence bag without touching it.

Yin Ren had already finished four plates of garlic lamb chops and was happily roasting diced beef.

Zhong Chengshuo: “Your guess is right. Gao Mengyu did raise something. According to the timeline, she should have raised this ‘abnormal creature’ a month ago.”

“Mm-hmm.” Yin Ren chewed happily as he nodded.

“All the kinds of raw meat are a preference for that thing, and so far, it seems to like brains the most. Looking at what she said in the chat room, she seems to think she was saving a cat.”

“Indeed… Zhong Ge, do you want ice cream? I’ll go get some.” These were all guessed by Yin Ren. While he listened with his ears, his eyes drifted elsewhere—the sky was the limit when it came to the evil things he had seen, but this was the first time he saw an ice cream cone.

Zhong Chengshuo turned a deaf ear as he pulled out his phone and skillfully traced the timeline.

Gao Mengyu discovered an unknown evil thing a month ago, treated it as an injured cat, and bought it all kinds of meat.

But the pressure from Mr. Rose was too great, and this incident didn’t successfully distract her.

Four weeks ago, Gao Mengyu and Wang Qiang quarreled in the pet group. Nearly three weeks ago, Xie Chao died. Two weeks ago, Gao Mengyu told a “horror story” in a entrance exam small group chat. Nearly a week ago, Gao Mengyu disappeared, and Lin Bei was harassed by the ghost of “Mr. Rose”.

Zhong Chengshuo didn’t touch the roasted meat. He was frowning at the timeline. Yin Ren had already stuffed two pounds of meat into his stomach and was going to the dessert area to make an oversized ice cream cone. When he sat down, humming a little song, the potatoes in front of Zhong Chengshuo had gone mushy.

Yin Ren’s hand holding the cone trembled a bit.

“The potatoes are burnt.”

“I got it.”

The two spoke almost simultaneously.

Yin Ren: “…You go first.”

Ice cream didn’t wait for anyone, and he couldn’t be bothered to vacate his mouth for the time being.

“There was a place I couldn’t figure out before. Gao Mengyu said, ‘I don’t dare to go out. It’s so cold outside and it smells like roses everywhere’, but Lin Bei was the one that was continuously harassed by anomalies and couldn’t rest properly… It wasn’t that the anomaly didn’t want to do anything to Gao Mengyu, but that it couldn’t enter her home.”

“The ‘cat’ rescued by Gao Mengyu was living in her apartment. Whether intentionally or not, it protected her.”

Zhong Chengshuo took a bite of the roasted potato and chewed on it mechanically. Yin Ren couldn’t bear to watch anymore, so he replaced the potatoes with freshly roasted sweet corn.

Zhong Chengshuo chucked up the corn and continued to speak. “That ‘cat’ can keep anomalies out, but the watcher in her ‘horror story’ was a living person. If it really intends to protect Gao Mengyu, what will it do?”

The values of other creatures were different from those of humans. Just like real cats would offer dead mice or cockroaches to people like they were sharing prey, humans may not want or need it.

Considering the angle of that “cat” trying to protect Gao Mengyu was to hide her…

“Gao Mengyu might still be alive.”

The author has something to say:

Unexpectedly, the chat history can really be seen!

Cute cat (?) Warmth (?) Short story√