The livestream comments were flying by at lightning speed, with reward effects jumping wildly across the screen.
Tang Miao crouched atop the shelf, staring down at him coldly.
From the barely concealed excitement in the yellow-haired man’s eyes, Tang Miao understood everything.
From start to finish, all he wanted was this.
Whether the cat cooperated or not, he would win either way.
If she cooperated, he got the traffic.
If she didn’t, the bigger the conflict, the more views he’d get.
The fish stall lady walked over and stood in front of Tang Miao.
“What are you yelling about over here?”
“Who are you? You just walk into our market and start filming? Who gave you permission?”
Her apron was covered in fish scales, and she was still holding the fish-cleaning knife stained with blood.
Seeing this, the yellow-haired man’s eyes darted around before he raised his voice even louder:
“Look at this, family! Evil forces! The market vendors are trying to kill me!”
Old Liu set down his whetstone, grabbed the cleaver from the cutting board, and stepped forward.
“What did you say? Say it again?”
The yellow-haired man backed away while continuing to talk to his phone:
“Family, you all saw that! These people are letting a stray cat attack people, and now they’re coming at me with knives!”
“Everyone, record this and report them to the cops!”
“Have them all locked up, and skin that dead cat alive!”
“Also, my hand won’t heal without at least thirty or fifty thousand—they have to pay up!”
Grandpa Zhang heard his shouting and hobbled over from the pastry section with his cane.
Auntie Wang followed behind him.
Old Sun, who sold tofu, wiped his hands and came over too.
And the fruit stall owner Tang Miao frequented, the vegetable stall…
A crowd had surrounded the yellow-haired man.
“I… I was just catching a stray cat, is this really necessary?” The yellow-haired man started to panic seeing so many people.
The lady slammed her knife onto the cutting board:
“Stray cat? That’s our kid!”
“Yeah! Ours!”
Tang Miao crouched on the shelf, looking at the lady’s broad back, warmth flooding through her chest.
She couldn’t help but let out a soft “meow” toward the crowd below, chiming in with full confidence.
Grandpa Zhang pushed through the crowd and tapped his cane twice on the ground:
“You dare touch a single hair on her, and I’ll beat you to death, believe me? I’m already past eighty! I…”
Old Liu quickly grabbed Grandpa Zhang, who was ready to throw hands.
“You want to call the cops? Go ahead! Call them! We’ve got surveillance cameras up there—let’s see who threw the first punch!”
“They’ll arrest you for picking fights and causing trouble!”
Surrounded by the crowd, the yellow-haired man had initially hoped the livestream would give him courage.
He glanced down at the screen, only to find the comments had completely veered off his script.
[Dude, you better run. If you don’t leave now, it’ll be too late!]
[That knife in the lady’s hand is no joke!]
[LMAO, an eighty-something grandpa, so scary!]
[Has anyone noticed how cute the little orange cat is?]
…
Seeing no one was buying his act, his bravado deflated.
He cut the livestream, packed up his selfie stick, and took two steps back.
“Fine, fine, I’ll leave, alright?”
He pushed through the crowd and fled in a panic.
The market returned to order.
The vendors cursed under their breath and went back to their stalls—selling vegetables, chopping meat, business as usual.
Tang Miao crouched on top of the shelf, watching the direction the yellow-haired man had disappeared, her ears twitching.
Something wasn’t right.
When that yellow-haired guy left, she saw it clearly.
His mouth was all flustered, but his feet never stumbled.
Before turning the corner at the exit, he glanced back.
At her.
More precisely, at where she was hiding.
She knew that look all too well.
Delivery customers who complained about everything, saying “no worries, no worries” on the phone, then filing a complaint the second they hung up.
Old men faking falls on the street—you help them up, and they secretly memorize your license plate.
And those people who deliberately wrote “rider had terrible attitude” in bad reviews, then demanded compensation from the platform.
The look in that yellow-haired man’s eyes when he left was exactly the same.
This wasn’t over.
Tang Miao jumped off the shelf and landed on the fish stall lady’s cutting board.
The lady was wiping the counter with a rag. Seeing her jump up, she flicked her forehead with a finger.
“There there, scared, weren’t you? It’s fine now, he’s gone.”
Tang Miao rubbed against the lady’s wrist, her mind racing.
The fact that she’d gone viral online—the vendors had mentioned it a few times.
Old Liu had even shown her the video on his phone.
One hundred twenty thousand views.
A little orange cat that catches mice, with a hundred twenty thousand views on the local city account—that meant she was a valuable cat.
She’d seen this kind of thing in her past life delivering food.
Internet-famous cats, internet-famous dogs—people would buy them for a few thousand, hype them up for a while, then sell them off.
The darker ones would just steal outright.
Stray cats had no chip, no registration. If one got stolen, no one could trace it.
Tang Miao jumped off the cutting board and slipped back into her gap behind the foam box.
She needed to figure something out.
Daytime wasn’t a problem.
The market was crowded, and the vendors all looked out for her. No one would dare snatch her in broad daylight.
The danger was at night.
After the market closed, only one old security guard remained on duty.
Sixty-two this year, hard of hearing, and not steady on his feet.
The security booth was at the market entrance.
The seafood section was at the very back, with half the market in between.
Tang Miao ran through all this information in her head, then began surveying the terrain.
She spent the entire afternoon walking the market from end to end, three times over.
Every entrance, every corridor, the height and spacing of every shelf, every dead corner where one could hide—she ran through all of it in her mind again.
This was an old habit from her past life delivering food.
Whenever she entered a new area, she’d scope it out first before taking orders. It doubled her efficiency.
…
That night, the market closed for business.
The only sounds left inside were the gurgling of the oxygen pumps in the fish tanks and the faint snoring of the old security guard in the duty room far away.
One in the morning.
Tang Miao’s right ear twitched.
Footsteps in the back alley.
Two people, walking very lightly.
A smell she’d never encountered in the market drifted in.
Synthetic fragrance, mixed with something even more pungent.
Cat treats laced with attractant!
She’d smelled this before in her past life when delivering pet supplies. The pet shop owner had told her it was specifically designed to lure stray cats—once they caught the scent, they couldn’t walk away.
To be honest, it did smell pretty good.
Tang Miao’s nose twitched, and a voice in her head whispered, “I really want a taste.”
She shook her head hard, suppressing the urge.
The side door to the back alley was pried open.
Two dark figures slipped in.
The short one in front carried a long pole with a circular net attached to the end—about half a meter in diameter, big enough to cover a kitten.
The tall one behind him carried a reinforced airline crate, with airline baggage tags stuck to its side.
It was the kind used specifically for cat trafficking—double-layer locks, ventilation holes too small for a cat’s paw to squeeze through.
The short one broke a cat treat in half and tossed it in the middle of the seafood aisle.
“Right here. Old Five said the cat’s holed up under the fish stall.”
“Hurry it up. We need to get it to the van before dawn.”
Tang Miao narrowed her eyes from the beam overhead.
Old Five? That had to be the blond-haired punk.
These people had a professional division of labor—scouting and stirring up trouble in the afternoon, then sending a crew with tools to collect the goods at night.
A full black-market operation, start to finish.
Tang Miao lowered her body, tail coiled tight.
The short one crept up to the fish stall, crouched down, and shone a flashlight into the gap.
“Nothing here. The den’s empty.”
“Keep looking. Cats are active at night—could be holed up in any corner.”
The tall one set the crate on the ground, pulled out another pack of cat treats, and tore open several along the seafood aisle, scattering them as he went.
The scent of the attractant spread quickly through the sealed market.
Tang Miao’s throat rolled involuntarily. Her four paws felt weak.
She bit down hard on the tip of her tongue, using the pain to suppress this body’s instinctive craving for a snack.
Using the shadows, she landed silently on top of a row of refrigerated display cases.
She opened her mouth and let out a:
“Meow—”