Hitting into Gu Yucheng was still hitting into an old acquaintance.
So familiar that it could not get any more familiar than that.
It was just that this “acquaintance” looked a bit off.
Lifted up inexplicably, Xia Lening observed him.
“Are you mad? You’re so moody, Gu Yucheng!”
Gu Yucheng wiped down the little baby car and returned it to the stall owner.
“I haven’t finished playing yet! Gu Yucheng! It hasn’t even been 20 minutes!”
Who would listen to you, Gu Yucheng thought. About to crash into your “fated encounter” at a corner and you still want to play?
The person Xia Lening had nearly hit was a classmate from Gu Yucheng’s physics department—a girl named Yan Qing.
Gu Yucheng had once heard rumors in his first year of university that Xia Lening had been pursuing her.
Gu Yucheng did not believe it, after all, Xia Lening had always only liked Lin Yangchun.
But after seeing Yan Qing, he wavered.
She and Lin Yangchun had the same type of appearance and temperament: big eyes, straight bangs, quiet and gentle, with dimples when she smiled.
Completely the type that would match Xia Lening’s ideal.
If Xia Lening knew what Gu Yucheng was thinking, he would definitely shout injustice—his so-called “ideal type” had originally been the opposite of Xia Xiaoyao.
As a poor soul suppressed by Xia Xiaoyao for more than ten years, when he was asked his ideal type during a truth-or-dare game, he had blurted out without thinking: gentle! Quiet! Best if she had dimples when she smiled!
He forgot it immediately afterward, never noticing the silent person sitting in the booth.
“I’m not playing anymore! I’m hungry!”
Xia Lening grabbed Gu Yucheng’s hand with his best-functioning front paw.
“I want hotpot.”
Gu Yucheng was very cold-hearted and wanted to leave quickly.
“Go back and eat your chicken puree.”
“Eh, isn’t this the little cat that recently rescued its companions?” Yan Qing had noticed them and asked softly.
“……”
Gu Yucheng said, “No, it’s just the same species.”
“Oh, I see. No wonder it looks so similar.”
Xia Lening: ?
“Gu Yucheng, liars grow long noses.”
“Class monitor, listen to me—you didn’t recognize the wrong cat, but you trusted the wrong person—mmph!”
His mouth was covered.
“He has a cold recently and talks too much,” Gu Yucheng explained.
Yan Qing nodded in understanding and smiled shyly. “I didn’t expect Gu classmate’s cat to be so lively.”
After a few polite exchanges, Gu Yucheng found an excuse and left.
It was obvious that Gu Yucheng did not want to talk to her.
Xia Lening could tell.
He had once suspected Gu Yucheng of being misanthropic. Because no matter who Gu Yucheng talked to, he was always polite on the surface, but beneath that perfect smile was mechanical indifference and carefully constructed exit strategies.
Most people never noticed.
Of course, there was also another possibility—Gu Yucheng simply disliked him, and therefore disliked everyone around him: Lin Yangchun, Li Zheng, Wei Yun, Yan Qing…
But thinking further… no, better not think further.
Another piece of evidence that Gu Yucheng was “not normal” was added.
Xia Lening commanded the “fake human” to change his shoulder strap again.
The bear’s arm was too short.
When he saw the yellow dog strap being taken out, Xia Lening paused, then nodded.
Back at the Pet Hospital, he discovered his food had been eaten.
“We thought you weren’t going to eat it anymore,” the cats said, standing in a line with food crumbs at the corners of their mouths.
They were stray cats—whenever they saw leftover food, they would clean it up.
“My fish soup is gone. My chicken puree is gone,” Xia Lening said, then grabbed Gu Yucheng’s clothes. “I want hotpot.”
Gu Yucheng checked the time and patted his head.
“We’ll go home and cook it fresh. We just need to be back before 8 for your injection.”
Xia Lening screamed.
“I still need injections?! That needle is bigger than my whole cat body!”
Gu Yucheng: “……”
A liar’s nose would grow longer.
Back home, in order to prevent the immobile little cat from getting bored, Gu Yucheng took out a tablet and opened “Cat Catching Mouse.” The tablet was propped against the sofa so Xia Lening did not need to jump around and could instead switch to watching his esports replay.
Xia Lening silently approved Gu Yucheng’s negligence.
Yet while the game he longed for was playing in front of him, he kept losing focus, his gaze drifting toward the kitchen.
Staring at that figure, he wondered what their relationship actually was.
Master and servant.
But he needed to reconsider who Gu Yucheng was.
In truth, at the beginning, they had just been ordinary bickering acquaintances.
Their relationship truly turned bad because of a small dog.
About a year after they met, they had picked up a dying yellow puppy on the roadside.
It was likely a stray, with half its tail missing.
They brought it back to the villa area.
Because Xia Lening’s mother, He Qin, was allergic to animal fur, the puppy was placed at Gu Yucheng’s house.
“Let’s call it Potato. It looks like one.”
“That’s such a boring name. I think it should be called Overlord! That way it will recover faster.”
“Ugly.”
“Yours is uglier! Who names a dog Potato?! It’s not food!”
“I’ve never seen a dog named Overlord either.”
“That’s exactly why it’s special!”
That had been the peak of their relationship. Even occasional arguments did not stop Xia Lening from going to Gu Yucheng’s house every day to play with the puppy.
He had always been carefree. Over time, he felt that Gu Yucheng was actually not bad—just bad at naming things.
But it did not matter. They each called the dog different names.
Until one day, he brought specially made boiled chicken legs to Gu Yucheng’s house, only to find the yard empty. The wooden doghouse they had built together was gone.
Gu Yucheng was squatting in a corner, holding a shovel, burying something.
Holding the chicken leg, Xia Lening walked over.
“Where is Overlord?”
Gu Yucheng did not answer.
“Did you go mute? Potato’s brother, I’m asking you where Overlord is.”
Gu Yucheng stopped, turned his head, and looked at him. His eyes were calm, without any ripples.
“In the pot.”
Xia Lening stammered, “Guo… Li? Is that a country? Did you take it on a trip? And you didn’t go?”
Gu Yucheng stared at him.
Then, word by word, he said:
“In the pot. It was stewed.”
At that moment, it felt as if all the blood in Xia Lening’s body had reversed.
Only then did he clearly see what Gu Yucheng had been burying—it was the puppy’s collar.
The collar still had both of its names engraved on it, neither giving way.
He stared blankly at the empty yard, suddenly bursting into tears. Tears covered his face as he stomped his feet and shouted, “Liar!”
But Gu Yucheng remained cold, as if it had nothing to do with him.
That day, Xia Lening stormed into the villa, crying, and cursed the entire Gu family before being dragged home by Xia Xiaoyao.
After that, he and Gu Yucheng became irreconcilable enemies.
What was even more hateful was that Gu Yucheng never explained anything. After that day, his attitude toward him became even worse—either ignoring him or mocking him, as if he had become a different person.
It made Xia Lening grind his teeth in anger.
For a time, he even entertained conspiracy theories, suspecting that naming the dog “food-related” had been a prelude to eating it.
Young Xia Lening did not think deeply and simply concluded that Gu Yucheng was an accomplice.
Now, however, he needed to reconsider.
Combined with what he heard from Chen Wenlu when he first became a cat, it was easy to imagine that Gu Yucheng’s situation in the Gu family had been extremely difficult.
“Live forever like me—fake, all the time.”
Just listening to that sounded like anything but a healthy family relationship.
And combining that with how Gu Yucheng treated him as a cat, and his attitude toward the animal abuser, he clearly was not someone who disregarded animal life.
He had to admit—he might have misunderstood Gu Yucheng for many years.
But…
“Alright,” Gu Yucheng said, turning around with a plate in hand. Seeing Xia Lening staring at him intently, he paused. “Are you looking at me?”
Xia Lening, angry yet slightly bitter, said, “Gu Yucheng, do you not have a mouth?!”
If you were misunderstood, then just explain! Why act so cold!
Gu Yucheng: ?
Xia Lening thought to himself that if he turned back into a human, he might reluctantly talk things through with Gu Yucheng.
And if Gu Yucheng behaved well, he might even grant him his wish—becoming friends with him.