A cat’s body could run faster than Tang Miao had expected.
Four legs alternating, pushing off the ground.
The only problem was stamina.
She was too small, too hungry—every step burned through her last reserves of energy.
She had to take a detour.
A habit from her past life delivering food: she always kept a living map in her head. Which alley was a shortcut, which intersection had a long red light, which building’s elevator took so long it was faster to take the stairs—all of it was etched into her memory.
After three years, she knew this small town better than any taxi driver.
She could draw the layout of Wang Ji’s Bun Shop with her eyes closed:
The front door faced the street; the back door opened east toward an alley that connected to the construction site—that was Black Cat’s territory.
But on the south side, there was a small sheet-metal door for ventilation, left open all year round. Behind it was a half-meter-wide ventilation shaft.
The shaft shared a wall with the beef noodle shop next door. At the base of the wall was a drain opening, and two bars of the iron grate over it were broken.
She remembered because once, during a delivery, her scooter key had fallen in there.
A person couldn’t fit through. A cat could.
Tang Miao ran to the street corner, turned, and followed the beef noodle shop’s shuttered rolling door around to the back alley.
The noodle shop wasn’t open. The back alley was empty. A thin layer of ice coated the ground, and her paw pads nearly slipped on it.
The drain opening was at the lowest point of the wall base.
She found it.
The iron grate indeed had two broken bars, forming a gap just big enough for a kitten to squeeze through.
Tang Miao poked her head in. The ventilation shaft was pitch black, but a cat’s night vision let her see everything clearly.
A narrow space half a meter wide, rough concrete walls on both sides, standing water and dead leaves on the ground. At the far end was the sheet-metal door on the south side of Wang Ji’s.
There was a two-finger-wide gap under the door.
Steam from the steaming buns drifted through that gap, condensing into fine droplets of moisture in the shaft.
The smell of flour and meat filling was even stronger in this enclosed space.
Tang Miao couldn’t wait. She squeezed through the drain opening.
The broken edge of the iron grate scraped her back, tearing out a few tufts of fur. It hurt so much she let out a “meow.”
The ventilation shaft was a bit warmer than outside—residual heat from the kitchen seeped through the walls.
Tang Miao padded through the standing water, her paws getting wet, the chill creeping up her ankles.
The shaft was three meters long. It took her nearly a minute to cross.
She reached the gap under the sheet-metal door.
She flattened her body, pressing her head to the ground to peer inside.
The kitchen floor was white tile, greasy, reflecting the lights above.
From her angle, she could see the table legs of the prep counter, the underside of the stainless steel worktable, and a middle-aged man shuffling around in flour-dusted rubber boots.
The metal tray with the split buns sat right at the edge of the prep counter closest to the south wall.
The counter’s table leg was less than two meters from the sheet-metal door.
Tang Miao swallowed.
She tucked her head and squeezed through the door gap.
The gap under the sheet-metal door was narrow. She had to suck in her breath to flatten her body and wriggle through.
A cat’s flexibility was on full display at that moment.
Her bones soft as if they didn’t exist, her whole body turned into a puddle of orange liquid, flowing through the gap.
The kitchen’s heat hit her in the face.
Tang Miao pressed against the wall base, motionless, observing for ten seconds.
The middle-aged man—the bun shop owner—had his back to her, busy at work.
White steam from the giant steamer was about to swallow him whole.
He hummed an off-key tune as he loaded the last tray of buns inside.
His rubber boots made sticky, squelching sounds on the greasy tiles.
He had no idea that in the shadows by the door gap, a pair of gleaming eyes was staring straight at the prep counter.
The counter was about eighty centimeters high.
For a kitten, that was a challenge.
Fortunately, there was a plastic stool nearby.
About forty centimeters tall, with an empty steamer basket on top. The basket’s edge was less than thirty centimeters from the counter’s edge.
Jump to the stool, step on the steamer, get on the counter.
Route planned.
Tang Miao waited for the owner to turn toward the stove to check the heat, then she bolted.
A cat’s explosive power is innate, but hunger made her hind legs tremble and go weak.
She gritted her teeth and pushed off with all her might, her tiny body launching into the air.
Her front claws barely hooked onto the edge of the plastic stool, nearly slipping off.
The stool wobbled.
Relying on instinct, she scrambled and rolled her way onto the empty steamer basket. The bamboo slats let out a faint creak under her paws.
It sent a cold sweat down her back.
The owner didn’t hear.
The hiss of steam from the steamer drowned out everything.
The final jump—from the edge of the steamer basket to the counter.
Tang Miao leaped up, all four paws landing on the flour-dusted surface. She slipped, then dug her claws into the countertop to steady herself.
The metal tray was right in front of her.
Three buns with split skins, filling bulging slightly through the cracks.
Pork and scallion filling!
The wrappers still held lingering warmth.
She grabbed the nearest one in her mouth.
The bun was too big for her mouth. She could only bite down on the edge of the torn wrapper, half-dragging, half-pulling.
The bun rolled out of the metal tray and thumped to the edge of the counter.
Tang Miao’s heart pounded like a drum.
She jumped off the counter with the bun in her mouth.
A straight drop—no stool this time. Her knees slammed hard when all four legs hit the ground, and the bun nearly flew out of her mouth.
She bit down tighter.
Dragging the bun, she dashed along the wall base toward the sheet-metal door.
Squeezing through the door gap was the most awkward part. She had to let go, push the bun through first, then wriggle out herself.
In the ventilation shaft, she picked up the bun again and ran desperately toward the drain outlet.
Once out of the drain, she crouched behind a discarded foam box in the alley behind the noodle shop and set the bun on the ground.
Time to eat!
She lowered her head and took a bite.
A cat’s tongue is different from a human’s.
The taste buds are distributed differently, and the flavors they perceive are different too.
But hunger as a base ingredient turned all food into top-tier delicacies.
The dough crumbled in her mouth—soft, carrying the sweet-sour tang of fermentation—wrapping the rich grease of pork and scallion. Salty, savory meat juice squeezed out from the crack in the filling and scalded the roof of her mouth.
Tang Miao’s entire head was buzzing.
In her past life, she had eaten Wang’s buns countless times.
After finishing her late-night delivery runs in the early hours, she’d buy two from the back kitchen and swallow them down on the street corner against the cold wind.
Back then, she’d been thinking, “Will today’s earnings cover the rent?” and had never thought the buns were all that good.
But now she felt this was the best thing she’d eaten in both of her lifetimes combined.
One bun took her nearly ten minutes to devour.
She swallowed every bit of skin and filling, even licking up the meat juice that had dripped to the ground.
The scalding food settled into her stomach, finally driving away the chill.
Her stomach finally stopped hurting.
Tang Miao leaned against the foam box, finally able to take stock of her situation.
She had been reborn.
Into an orange cat.
In this small northern city where she’d delivered food in her past life.
No system pop-ups, no awakened powers, no golden cheat—nothing at all.
She was just an ordinary, pitifully skinny stray kitten.
But she remembered every street in this city, every alley, which direction every shop’s back door faced.
And she still had her memories from her past life as a human.
Tang Miao licked the residual grease from her lips, her mind already planning the next step.
One bun could sustain her for most of a day, but she needed a stable food source and a sleeping spot where she wouldn’t freeze to death.
The cardboard box at the construction site wouldn’t do—the temperature would drop further tonight.
She needed to find a “base.”
Her past-life experience told her: the wet market.
Every city’s wet market was a paradise for stray cats.
There were fish stall scraps, bone trimmings from the butcher, rotten vegetable leaves tossed away by the produce vendors, and most importantly, there were places to squeeze under the stalls.
She knew exactly where this city’s wet market was.
North Road of University Town—on foot, at a human’s pace, about fifteen minutes. At a cat’s pace…
She wasn’t sure.
But she knew the direction.
Tang Miao stood up and shook out her fur.
She’d barely taken her first step when a voice came from behind.
“Hey, what’s a little kitten doing here?”
Tang Miao’s whole body stiffened, and she whipped her head around.
The owner of Wang’s Bun Shop stood at the mouth of the alley behind the noodle shop, holding a bag of trash.
He spotted Tang Miao crouching beside the foam box, and surprise crossed his face.
“On a cold day like this, where’d a little orange cat come from?”
The owner casually set the trash by the wall, pulled a small piece of still-warm bun skin from his apron pocket, and placed it on the ground, nudging it toward her.
He squeezed out a simple, honest smile, careful not to move too suddenly and scare off this scrawny little furball.
“Here, have some.”
Tang Miao didn’t move.
She stared at his hand.
It was rough, with flour embedded in the creases of his fingers, nails cut short, and an old burn scar on the back.
Tang Miao hesitated for two seconds, then slowly crept over, lowered her head, and ate the piece of bun skin.
The owner smiled. “Well, aren’t you well-behaved.”
Then he stood up and pulled out his phone.
Tang Miao looked up and saw him dialing.
“Hello, urban management? There’s a stray cat behind our street,”
“Yeah, a really small one. Probably won’t survive… Do you guys handle this kind of thing?”
Tang Miao’s fur bristled all at once.
She turned and ran.