Staring at the face so close to hers, Qilan planted all four paws on his face, refusing with every fiber of her being.
But how strong could a little kitten be? He pried her two front paws apart and pinned them to the countertop, leaving her fuzzy belly completely exposed, rising and falling with each breath. It looked incredibly soft just from a glance. Her glass-bead eyes were as clear as the ocean, so pure that they completely failed to convey any warning or fierceness. Perhaps because she was too young to furrow her brow, her eyes only held innocence and bewilderment.
A hint of dark brown swirled in the depths of Liang Jianshi’s eyes. He lowered his head slightly, Qilan’s hind legs pressed stubbornly against his chin, and his nostrils flared as if he was taking a breath. Then he looked seriously at Qilan and commented, “Lanlan, your feet stink.”
Qilan was furious.
“Was she supposed to control whether her feet stank? If he was so capable, why didn’t he get her a pair of slippers?!”
While she was fuming, Liang Jianshi suddenly buried his face even lower, until it was just a hair’s breadth away from the cat. Qilan’s tiny heart pounded wildly. Images flashed through her mind, those videos of cat owners shoving their faces in and inhaling their cats with lecherous delight. She thought in panic: “Is Liang Jianshi going to do that to her?”
Though the technique in those videos was technically correct, and she had done it herself to the cats at the cattery, her situation was different now. If Liang Jianshi actually did that to her, it would be criminal!
In Liang Jianshi’s shadow, the cat looked tiny. As the shadow grew larger and he lowered his head toward her, Qilan sank her sharp little teeth right into the tip of his nose.
Liang Jianshi hissed and pulled back, touching his nose with a frown. The first words out of his mouth were: “How is this possible? For such a small cat, how can your breath be this bad?”
As he spoke, he looked like he might throw up.
Qilan, horrified, raised a paw to cover her mouth and exhaled.
“Pfft! What is that smell? Did she go out and eat feces in the middle of the night? How could it be so bad? She was just a kitten drinking goat milk!”
That was true, but coming out of Liang Jianshi’s mouth, it was unacceptable.
She leaped onto Liang Jianshi’s arm, stared at him for two seconds, then extended her front paw, aimed, and “thump, thump”, landed two solid hits, stunning Liang Jianshi completely.
For that force, that sound, even a cat drummer couldn’t have done better.
Looking at the red marks on his chin, the offending cat showed no remorse. Instead, she grew bolder and switched to her other paw to continue.
“Mew!” “You big pervert! Pinning me down on the counter, forcing yourself on me, and then complaining about my bad breath!”
Liang Jianshi didn’t hold it against her. He caught her incoming paw, held it in his hand, walked out the door, rummaged through a box, and found two finger covers to put on.
The morning meeting proceeded in an orderly fashion in the suite’s living room. Various project managers were giving their reports. Everything was as usual, except that Chairman Liang, seated on the single sofa, while listening attentively, was also gently holding his newly adopted cat and slowly cleaning her teeth.
Occasionally, comments like “Your teeth are so yellow” and “The gaps in your teeth are huge” could be heard.
Qilan: “How mortifying!”
Liang Jianshi had a million things to do, but contrary to the portrayal in TV dramas, flying to Madrid one day and Seattle the next, he conducted all his work from within the suite. From morning onward, he hadn’t left his seat once.
This made Qilan wonder: could a man of his wealth really keep a massive corporation running smoothly without leaving his room?
She had an odd feeling, this suite was like a cage, trapping a cat, and trapping him too.
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
At noon, after drinking her goat milk, Qilan began to feel sleepy again.
She didn’t know if it was because she was a kitten, but she got hungry easily and tired easily, lacking energy and vitality.
In her sleep, she seemed to hear a gentle voice, murmuring indistinctly from afar. Soon, that distant calling faded, and she opened her eyes to see Tong Tong’s face in front of her.
“You’re finally awake.” Tong Tong grasped Qilan’s hand, overjoyed. “You fainted on the roadside. A kind person took you to the hospital. Luckily, it wasn’t serious. They gave you an IV and sent you back. How do you feel now?”
Qilan realized she was still in her dormitory. “Wasn’t I fired? Why am I still in the staff dorm? Didn’t those people come to cause trouble?”
There was a woman in housekeeping named Hu Lu who had always been hostile to Qilan, unable to stand that Qilan had been promoted to head waiter. She had run into Qilan in front of the employee wall earlier, and upon hearing that Qilan had gotten into trouble, had eagerly torn down her photo. Qilan’s swift firing with no room for appeal, it was hard to say whether Hu Lu had played a part in it.
If she found out Qilan was still in the dorm, she would definitely come to cause trouble.
Tong Tong’s lips twitched slightly as she turned aside. “They did come. But management considered your health and agreed to let you rest in the dorm for now. There’s no rush to move out. Worst case, I’ll give you my dorm room, and I’ll go home.”
Qilan grasped Tong Tong’s hand gratefully, managing only to say, “Sorry for the trouble.”
She didn’t want to owe such a big favor, but she had no house in Yicheng and couldn’t afford rent. Back when she came from her small town to Yicheng for university, she had brought only one bag, containing toiletries and a down jacket. To this day, it seemed she hadn’t added much to her possessions.
She was too pitiful to refuse Tong Tong’s kindness.
“I was planning to find a second job during my free time once I was settled here. I didn’t expect to be fired within five days.”
Tong Tong looked at her sympathetically. “Xiaolan, don’t hold any resentment. Please don’t. You have to believe me, fate won’t be so unfair to you.”
Qilan remained silent.
Resentment? Did she have the right to resent? Would resentment get her job back? She just felt hurt and unwilling.
As if reading the sarcasm at the corner of her mouth, Tong Tong hesitated, probing carefully, “Do you hate Liang Jianshi?”
Qilan was stunned for a moment, as if wondering why Tong Tong suddenly brought up Liang Jianshi.
“I don’t hate him. Just… in front of him, I feel mediocre and useless.”
When someone was as powerful and exceptional as Liang Jianshi, everything seemed to come naturally to them. Resenting him would only make her look more incompetent.
There was a hint of sorrow in Qilan’s eyes. Tong Tong looked at her, paused, and said earnestly, “Liang Jianshi just doesn’t know anything. Don’t misunderstand him. I’m sure he has no ill intentions toward you. Just because he’s the richest doesn’t mean he looks down on everyone, right? Obviously not.”
Hearing this, Qilan leaned against the bed, lost in thought.
She had stood before him, poised and proper, and he had ignored her completely. Yet when she had become a dirty stray cat, he had shown her such patience and care.
What kind of person was he?
Tong Tong strictly ordered Qilan to stay in the dorm and not go anywhere, but Qilan soon couldn’t sit still.
She pushed open the door and went to a deserted courtyard behind the hotel.
The courtyard, still damp after the rain, held a lingering chill. Qilan stepped over a withered rose bed and sat down on a wire-framed chair by the edge.
She didn’t know how long she had been daydreaming when a little boy in overalls sat down beside her.
“Sister, all the winter flowers are dead. What’s there to look at?”
He was a handsome little boy with rosy lips and white teeth, as delicate as a porcelain doll, almost like a girl.
Qilan wasn’t in the mood for small talk. “What are you doing here? Where are your parents?”
The little boy said, “I’m lost. Can you take me home?”
Qilan nodded. “Sure. Do you remember your room number?”
The little boy looked earnestly at Qilan and said, “The 53rd floor.”
Qilan’s expression faltered. “Ah… that’s the executive floor. Sorry, I’m not a hotel employee anymore, so I can’t unlock the elevator for the executive floors. But I can ask a friend to help.”
The little boy frowned. “Sister, why were you fired? Did you do something wrong?”
She wouldn’t vent to a child. “It’s because I wasn’t careful enough.”
The little boy stopped probing and said sensibly, “Okay then. You don’t need to find help for me. Just take me to the front desk, and I can get back myself.”
Though the little boy said this, Qilan, out of professional habit, wanted to ask a colleague to take him upstairs. Even if her colleagues ignored her, they wouldn’t be rude to a guest.
But just as she reached the front desk, the little boy stopped her, insisting she not call a colleague. “Sister, I’m going now. Oh, by the way, my name is Kongkong. We’ll meet again!”
After seeing Kongkong off, Qilan returned to her dorm. Tong Tong had already come back and handed her an apple.
“You know I can’t bring food out of the cafeteria, so I could only snag you an apple.”
During the two days she had lost her meal card, if not for Tong Tong’s apples, Qilan might have passed out even sooner.
She took a big bite of the apple and told Tong Tong about her little encounter, praising the child enthusiastically. “That kid was so adorable, like a little girl.”
Tong Tong seemed to catch something else. “You said you wanted to ask another friend for help? Did he ask you anything?”
Qilan didn’t know why she was asking. “No. Why?”
Tong Tong avoided her eyes and silently ate her fruit, her face expressionless.
In a flash, Qilan seemed to understand.
Tong Tong had already been incredibly loyal to help her this much. With everyone isolating her, it would be inconvenient for Tong Tong to be too close to her at work. She had been thoughtless, referring to Tong Tong as a friend in front of others.
The long silence made the atmosphere drop to freezing. Tong Tong quickly recovered and smiled. “Don’t misunderstand. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Qilan nodded meekly. “Mm.”
“By the way, I might be away from the hotel for a few days. A company has outsourced some work, and I need to go out of town. Just rest in the dorm and don’t go anywhere.”
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
On the first afternoon of Tong Tong’s business trip, Qilan was sleeping in the dorm. When she woke up in the evening, she found her surroundings were no longer the cramped, dim dorm room but a magnificent suite.
Clearly, she had turned into a cat again.
Qilan wobbled to her feet. Before she could fully gather her senses, she heard deafening barking.
She panicked and tried to run, but a hand reached out from above and grabbed her by the scruff. A child’s malicious laugh rang in her ears.
“Hahahaha, little cat, I brought a friend for you! Don’t run away, hee hee hee!”
The rough little boy, completely unconcerned with the trembling kitten, dangled her toward a ferocious black dog.
Qilan let out terrified cries until her voice went hoarse.
“Liang Jianshi, you dog of a man, where are you?! Come save me!”