My dad, my grandpa, my socks, my shoes, my uncles both near and far! [1]a comedic string of nonsense relatives shouted in sheer panic, a meme-y exclamation with no real meaning beyond “oh no oh no oh no” jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2994856_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2994856_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
This was Little Chong Yin!
The kitten’s entire body jolted violently. He flung the object he’d been clutching away as though it had suddenly turned white-hot, then scrambled and tumbled his way out of Chong Yin’s waistband as fast as his paws could carry him.
The moment he emerged, he found himself staring straight into Chong Yin’s eyes, brimming with murderous intent.
The kitten drooped his head low, covering it with his stubby little paws, looking every bit the picture of a thoroughly cowed little coward.
“Have you already forgotten what I told you this morning? Have you once again forgotten your place, showing such disrespect to your lord and master?” Chong Yin snapped coldly at the kitten.
The kitten, who had still been harboring some guilt over the whole ordeal, was struck by Chong Yin’s grating words, and in an instant, fury flared up inside him, burning away every trace of remorse.
He hated it more than anything when Chong Yin brought up the matter of status between them, hated the way Chong Yin used it to draw a line, ranking one of them above the other.
Yes, it was true, he and Chong Yin were no longer on equal footing these days. He probably shouldn’t be sharing a bed with him at all, even though this bed had originally been his own. If anyone should be kicked out of it, it should be Chong Yin. But what right did Bai Xiaonian have now to drive the Demon Lord out of anywhere?
Puffing his cheeks out in thought, Bai Xiaonian decided to climb off the bed and find somewhere else to sleep.
The bell still hung around the kitten’s neck, jingling with every movement.
Just as the kitten prepared to leap down from the bed, a large hand shot out and snatched him back out of midair.
Startled, Bai Xiaonian instinctively swiped a paw, and landed it squarely across Chong Yin’s handsome face, leaving a clean scratch mark behind.
Chong Yin’s face darkened to the color of a pot’s bottom. He reached up, touched his own cheek, then reached for the kitten’s whiskers instead, though he stopped himself after a moment, saying coldly, “Where do you think you’re going?”
The kitten puffed out his cheeks, his round little face swelling up further, and let loose a stream of meows while gesturing wildly with one paw.
Chong Yin more or less grasped the meaning, his eyes turning icy. “You want to sleep outside?”
The kitten nodded repeatedly.
Chong Yin sneered. “Are you certain?”
The kitten nodded again, planting his paws on his hips and puffing out his little belly with haughty arrogance.
The corner of Chong Yin’s mouth curled with a cold edge. “Very well. If you leave, don’t bother coming back. If you freeze to death out there, that’s none of my concern.”
Bai Xiaonian froze for a moment, then nodded firmly.
It had been Chong Yin himself who’d said their stations were no longer equal, how could an unremarkable little cat like him possibly share a bed with the mighty Demon Lord? Who knew when His Excellency might grow displeased with him and toss him right back into the Beast Garden to feed that black panther?
Bai Xiaonian silently grumbled with bitter sarcasm.
Watching the kitten’s stubborn insistence on leaving him, Chong Yin felt his fury flare up instantly. He rose abruptly, carried the kitten outside, and flung him out, snapping furiously, “Don’t come crawling back to me begging.”
The night air outside was bitterly cold. The kitten shivered violently, still dazed and disoriented.
Just like that, he’d been thrown outside by Chong Yin.
The kitten curled into himself against the chill for a long while before finally rising.
The kitten was simply too small, and the night wind far too strong, a single gust was nearly enough to blow him clean off his feet. He staggered unsteadily down the path.
Now that he’d let his stubborn pride get the better of him, he had nowhere left to sleep. Then again, thinking it over, all he’d wanted was to not share a bed with Chong Yin, he’d never said he wanted to leave the bedchamber entirely. When it came down to it, this was all Chong Yin’s fault for being so heartless.
Bai Xiaonian cursed Chong Yin thoroughly once more.
He tried to think of somewhere else to sleep. In this whole palace, only Liu Huan had ever treated him kindly, but Bai Xiaonian was still a man at heart, there was no way he could bring himself to sneak into a young lady’s private chambers. After much deliberation, the kitten’s paws carried him toward the Beast Garden instead.
Relying on his small size, the kitten slipped into the Beast Garden without any trouble and snuck into the cage holding the white tiger.
The tigress, sleeping soundly, sensed something intruding and snapped her eyes open at once, but upon recognizing the very kitten she thought of day and night, her wary gaze melted instantly into pure tenderness.
The tigress rose, pounced forward eagerly, gathered the kitten into her embrace, rolled around with him a few times, then extended her tongue, lovingly licking his fur over and over.
The kitten’s head was soon plastered in tiger saliva, his fur matted into a thoroughly ridiculous shape. But by now he was far too exhausted to care. The tigress’s embrace was warm, and after a yawn, the kitten quickly drifted off to sleep.
Meanwhile, back at the palace, Chong Yin found he couldn’t sleep at all.
His mind kept circling back to the image of the kitten, shivering in the cold night air after he’d thrown him out, the memory refused to fade.
Chong Yin tossed and turned, sleep nowhere in sight, his irritation only mounting, leaving him more wide awake than ever.
After a long while, he suddenly sat bolt upright, rubbed his temples, and called out, “Chen Feng.”
At his words, a masked man dressed in black combat attire materialized out of thin air in the room, dropping to one knee. “Your Excellency, what are your orders?”
“Find that cat of mine and bring it back.”
Chen Feng blinked in surprise, then nodded and departed to carry out the order.
Chong Yin rose from bed and walked to the window, throwing it open. A cold gust of wind swept into the room, and his heart sank even further.
His gaze swept across every corner visible from the window, but there was no sign of the kitten anywhere, a flicker of worry and disappointment crossing his eyes.
Chen Feng, after conducting a thorough search, finally discovered that the kitten had made his way into the Beast Garden, currently curled up in the white tiger’s embrace, sleeping soundly.
When Chen Feng entered to retrieve the kitten, the tigress flew into a rage, launching a furious assault on him. Overwhelmed by the tigress’s relentless attacks, Chen Feng could only pass the kitten he’d managed to snatch off to a subordinate, instructing him to deliver it to the Demon Lord, while he himself remained behind to fend off the tigress’s continued onslaught.
In fact, the white tigress’s spiritual cultivation wasn’t particularly high, merely early Golden Core stage. Chen Feng, a demon cultivator at the Nascent Soul stage, should have been able to handle her with ease.
Yet somehow, the tigress had unleashed an astonishingly powerful surge of strength, attacking Chen Feng with reckless, all-out ferocity. Even with his cultivation a full realm above hers, Chen Feng found himself struggling to hold her off, such a display of strength exceeding one’s own cultivation realm was a rare and remarkable thing indeed.
…
Meanwhile, the kitten remained fast asleep through it all, likely because he’d simply been too exhausted that day, he never even stirred, despite the change in location.
By the time Chong Yin received the kitten, this was exactly the sight that greeted him: a cat sleeping like a slumbering pig, dead to the world.
Recalling how worried he’d been just moments ago, only to find the cat sleeping this soundly and comfortably, Chong Yin felt his temper flare right back up.
“You truly are a heartless little creature.”
Chong Yin waved off the hidden guard attending the room and carried the kitten back onto the couch.
The kitten had just been to the Beast Garden and was filthy all over once more, but seeing him sleeping so peacefully, Chong Yin suppressed the urge to drag him off for another bath.
He’d let this one slide, Chong Yin decided, just this once.
The next day, when the kitten woke up in a daze, still sprawled on top of Chong Yin, the man himself had yet to stir.
Bai Xiaonian looked down at the man beneath him, then glanced around the room, momentarily disoriented.
He remembered going out last night to sleep beside the white tiger, so why had he woken up sleeping with Chong Yin again? Had last night simply been a dream?
But the dream had felt far too real. The memory of the cold wind biting into his fur, leaving him shivering, was still vivid in his mind.
Bai Xiaonian yawned and crawled off the bed. The bell around his neck jingled with the movement, and the sound instantly caught the kitten’s attention, his paws itching with the urge to reach up and play with it.
The jingling woke Chong Yin. He opened his eyes, and sure enough, found a certain restless kitten happily entertaining himself with his little bell atop his chest.
Chong Yin let out a slow breath, rubbed his temple, and reached out to still the fidgeting kitten. “Stop moving.”
Fresh from sleep, the man’s voice carried a lazy, husky quality, unexpectedly deep and alluring.
The kitten’s ears tingled at the sound, and for a moment he forgot the bell entirely, going still and obedient beneath Chong Yin’s palm.
Chong Yin sat up and let out a slow breath.
He’d just had a dream, about Bai Xiaonian again. In the dream, the two of them had been stealing forbidden fruit together. [2]indulging in a secret, taboo affair, from the biblical Eden story jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2994856_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2994856_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
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