Tang Miao stepped through the crunching snow, following Tata as they wove through two old streets, her paws sinking deep with each step.
Harbin’s old city was nothing like the small county town she had lived in.
The streets were wider, the buildings taller, and their silhouettes carried a foreign quality she had seen countless times on her phone screen but had never truly touched.
The plaster floral ornaments on the window eaves were half-buried in frozen snow, revealing the other half of mottled yellow paint. Frozen-stiff laundry hung from the wrought-iron balconies.
Tata stopped by the side wall of an old Russian-style building.
There was a crack at the base of the wall—one that no human would ever notice unless they got down on the ground and looked closely.
“We’re going in.”
Tata dove headfirst into the crack.
Tang Miao hesitated for a moment, then squeezed in after her.
The crack led underground.
At first it was broken bricks and frozen earth, but after descending about two meters, her paws met paved stone slabs.
The temperature was rising.
With every step down, the bone-piercing chill of the ice receded a layer.
By the time her paw pads touched dry brick flooring, the temperature felt above freezing again.
Tang Miao’s pupils dilated in the darkness.
Her feline night vision let her see the space with perfect clarity.
An arched brick ceiling, spanning about three meters wide and less than two meters tall.
The walls were made of old brick, with traces of lime plaster still clinging to the mortar joints.
On the right wall, a few Russian letters were painted in red, most of them flaked away, the remaining strokes crooked and faded.
A few steps further in, a faded red star sat in the corner, its spray-painted edges blurred into a dark crimson smudge.
“There really is an underground city here!”
Tang Miao tested a meow—soft and gentle, the sound bouncing off the arched brick ceiling in layered echoes.
Tata crouched on a protruding brick, her tail curled around her paws.
“This was a bomb shelter the Japanese built during the Manchukuo era, specifically for air raids.”
“Then the Soviets came and used it for a while. Later, it was handed over to civil defense and got heating pipes run through it.”
Tang Miao lowered her head, her pink paw pads pressing against the floor tiles.
Some bricks had been polished smooth by years of use, while others still kept their rough texture.
When her claws pressed down, she could feel a faint warmth rising from the cracks—heat from the heating pipes below.
The passage stretched forward, splitting into branches.
Tata led the way ahead, and Tang Miao could faintly hear the dull sound of rushing water.
“The left connects to the drainage system under Central Street; the right leads to the foundations of Daowai.”
Tang Miao followed her to the right, and more marks began to appear on the walls.
Carved symbols on the brick surfaces—simple arrows and numbers. Some knife marks were deep, etched with the words “1938.”
The arch of the ceiling changed every so often. Some sections had wide curves with neatly arranged bricks; others had tighter curves with rough joints; and one stretch was poured directly from concrete.
Tata chattered away as she led the way.
“This section was built by the Russian merchants first. Look at the pattern—one stretcher, one header. Now that’s craftsmanship.”
“Now look at this part—reinforced later by the Japanese. The bricks are clearly different, right?”
“This concrete section was added by our own people after the founding of the nation. A bit rough, but I’ll say this: solid!”
Tang Miao’s head swung left and right, her eyes barely able to take it all in.
In her past life, she had lain in her rented room scrolling through short videos, watching countless clips about Central Street.
Aerial shots, time-lapses, check-in vlogs…
But every single shot captured only what was above ground:
The exotic European architecture, the Ma Die’er ice pops that stuck to your teeth when you bit into them, the warm and boisterous bathhouse aunties…
No one ever mentioned that beneath all that bustle, in the tangled darkness underfoot, half a century of gunpowder smoke lay sealed away.
At a turn in the passage, a dark brown stain marked the base of the wall.
The stain was so old it had long since dried and soaked into the brick surface.
Tang Miao stopped, leaned in, and sniffed.
There was no smell, but the way the color spread—seeping from the wall bricks down into the foundation—
Someone had died here. Blood had been spilled.
The black soil of the Northeast had never lacked for iron spines.
Those laborers who built the air-raid shelters back then, barely clothed, digging earth and hauling bricks in the bitter cold of dozens of degrees below zero.
Some collapsed and were simply buried in the foundations.
They carried the darkest nights on their flesh and blood, leaving their lives in the sunless depths, all to buy the bustling Central Street above—to buy a future where people a hundred years later could lick their ice pops and enjoy the snow without a care.
It was a strange kind of connection.
In her past life, she had lived stifled, scrambling for scraps of silver.
Now she lived in the shell of a stray cat who didn’t even know where her next meal would come from.
But right here, right now, standing before this rough, weathered brick, she drew a strength from somewhere deep in her blood.
Even if she was just a bottom-rung office drone, even if she had been reborn as a weak little orange cat, she lived in a peaceful era. She had the confidence to live better.
A warm current of air rushed from ahead, snapping her out of her thoughts.
Rounding the final corner, Tang Miao saw a thick heating pipe.
The iron pipe was about twenty centimeters in diameter, emerging from a hole in the wall and running along the ground to the edge of sight.
The pipe’s surface was covered in rust, and when a paw pressed against it, it was warm.
Around the pipe, more than a dozen cats.
There were black-and-white ones, calico ones, pure white ones, and gray tabbies.
Big ones, small ones, fat ones, skinny ones—scattered like stars on both sides of the heating pipe.
Some lay on their sides pressed against the pipe sleeping, some curled up in tight balls huddled together, some sat nearby grooming their fur.
The whole space was quiet, with only the cats’ purring and the sound of hot water flowing through the heating pipe.
Tang Miao stood frozen in place, her eyes wide.
This was Harbin’s winter refuge for stray cats.
The heating pipe branched off from the city’s central heating system, running through this underground warren, maintaining a temperature above ten degrees year-round.
Outside it was minus twenty degrees; here, it was like paradise.
“These lazy bastards,” Tata jumped onto the top of the heating pipe, his tone both disdainful and proud, “come every winter to mooch off the heat. If it weren’t for yours truly watching over them, they’d have been cornered at the entrance and wiped out by stray dogs long ago.”
An elderly white cat lifted her head from beside the pipe.
Her fur was no longer so white—yellowed, tinged with gray, with a notch missing from one ear tip—but her two eyes were bright as ever.
“Tata’s here.” The white cat’s voice was hoarse.
Tata’s tail arched high: “Auntie Bai! I brought you a new friend—a little orange from down south!”
Auntie Bai’s gaze shifted to Tang Miao, looking her up and down.
“How old?”
“Uh… not really sure,” Tang Miao sat up straight obediently, “maybe four months?”
She really couldn’t tell the age of this body.
“Too skinny.” Auntie Bai rendered her verdict. “Harbin’s winter doesn’t nurture people, let alone cats. With a frame like yours, you wouldn’t last three days outside. Stay down here—spend the winter with us, then go on your way.”
Tang Miao felt a warmth in her heart. She crouched beside the heating pipe, and the muscles beneath her fur finally relaxed completely.
The heat from the radiator seeped through the iron pipe, making her drowsy.
She lowered her head and undid the little knitted pouch around her neck.
The dried fish inside had been softened slightly by her body heat, still carrying that reassuring fishy smell left over from the market lady’s hands.
Tang Miao pawed out a few pieces, pushed them toward Auntie Bai, then picked up a few more in her mouth to share with the cats that had gathered around.
Auntie Bai lowered her head to sniff the dried fish, then chewed a piece.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had something like this.”
There was a note of emotion in Auntie Bai’s hoarse voice. “Something with the taste of human kindness.”
Tang Miao’s nose twitched.
The dried fish from the market—the lady had removed the bones one by one with her hands and dried them on her own windowsill.
When she’d packed them up, she’d even squeezed them to check the firmness, and when they weren’t dry enough, she’d left them out for another half day.
For stray cats, something like this wasn’t just food to fill the belly—it was a heavy weight of care and connection.
Auntie Bai broke off pieces of the dried fish to share with the smaller kittens nearby, keeping only a small piece for herself.
After finishing, she stood up and shook out her fur.
“We Northeastern cats have a rule: we don’t eat people’s food for nothing. Come on, little orange, follow me.”