Zhao Jin had many questions in his heart, but for the time being, he suppressed them for more than ten days.
Finally, on the night before the winter camp holiday was about to begin, he decided to take action.
Over the past few days, Lu Ran contacted the doctor from the neighboring city who had helped with the previous appraisal and mailed out his own hair follicle samples along with Lu Qingjia’s blood sample.
A few days later, he received an appraisal report. He then updated 《20271112 Investigation Notes》 once again, eliminating Suspect No. 3, namely his deskmate, Lu Qingjia.
At present, only the final suspect remained in the Investigation Notes: Ming Bei.
Lu Ran quietly increased his online interactions with Ming Bei. From their casual chats, he learned the specific details behind the previous exam question incident.
Lu Ran fretted in silence. It had been a misunderstanding before, but feelings could develop through constant contact. Moreover, there was Aunt Ming Nan acting as a bridge. It was perfectly natural for affection to grow over time… but what if Ming Bei was not the one either?
Lu Ran did not know whether he should hope that Ming Bei was his biological father, or that he was not.
Probably not… Lu Ran turned off the light and lay down on the bed, pulling the soft down comforter over himself. If a roommate turned out to be his biological father, that would feel far too strange. Besides, Lu Ran did not have a bad impression of Ming Bei and did not want him to be that irresponsible father of his.
He would take it one step at a time. Lu Ran decided not to think about this issue anymore tonight and to think about something else instead.
Tomorrow he would be going home for the holiday. He wondered how Da Ju was doing… Would it miss him even a little?
At this point in time, Da Ju did not seem to like getting close to him very much. Perhaps it was because the very first time they met, he had pulled on its leg to look at the bell and offended it.
But after Da Ju returned home, why did it seem to ignore even his mom? It would only cling to Grandma.
Before the time travel, Da Ju had liked his mom and him the most. It had actually kept a certain distance when interacting with Grandma.
In front of Grandma, Da Ju had been very well-behaved, and Grandma had not been as close to Da Ju as she was now.
Could this be a butterfly effect brought about by his arrival? Or did Da Ju not believe him and his mom, thinking that everything they had said that day was a lie?
Forget it. As long as Da Ju was happy, that was enough.
Time reveals a person’s heart. Da Ju was probably testing him. Once he went home, he would just get along with it properly.
In the silent darkness, Lu Ran once again felt that familiar sensation of being watched.
Ignoring the feeling out of habit, Lu Ran began to think about the changes his body had undergone recently.
Aside from his five senses becoming more acute, he also seemed to like basking in the sun more and more.
As if he were accumulating some kind of power… He wondered whether this, too, might just be an illusion.
Letting his thoughts drift from one idea to another, Lu Ran’s eyelids gradually grew heavy… yet a light like the sun suddenly appeared before his eyes.
A golden, familiar glow.
Lu Ran’s eyes flew open, and he saw an orange kitten bathed entirely in golden light lightly leap down from the chandelier.
This was not a dream, was it? Lu Ran sat up in bed and looked toward the glowing orange kitten.
“You’re not dreaming,” the orange kitten said. Squatting on Lu Ran’s desk, it met his gaze and spoke in human language.
Its body was still emitting light, only now the glow had softened and was no longer dazzling.
“Y-you are…” Lu Ran was completely stunned.
An orange cat, golden light. Those were Da Ju’s defining traits.
But there was already one at home, wasn’t there?
Was it the same one?
Could this be another form of Da Ju?
“Are you Da Ju?” After confirming that what stood before him was not an illusion, Lu Ran blurted out.
The orange kitten shook its head once. “My name is Zhao Jin.”
“I’ve been observing you for quite some time,” Zhao Jin said solemnly. “You are a little different from other people.”
A cat suddenly appearing in front of you in the middle of the night, speaking human language, and saying that it had noticed you were different from other people ought to have been a terrifying thing.
Yet there was not the slightest bit of fear in Lu Ran’s heart.
This cat’s serious expression was very much like Da Ju’s. Lu Ran could not help thinking that.
Although Lu Ran himself did not know how he could read seriousness from a cat’s face, he simply could.
A vague guess in his heart was on the verge of breaking through the surface.
Lu Ran understood what the orange kitten meant and said, “It was you all along, these past few days?”
So the sensations he had previously thought were just illusions were not illusions after all.
Zhao Jin nodded its head.
“Then do you know Da Ju?” Lu Ran tried asking.
“If what you mean is the cat in your home, then yes, I know it,” Zhao Jin said slowly, wearing a completely expressionless cat face. “When you tried to catch it before, I helped it escape twice. Later, it followed your family and left.”
The guess in Lu Ran’s heart finally settled, and he thought to himself that this made sense.
The one at home was not Da Ju. The one in front of him was.
Before, he had been mistaken…
Just like those muddleheaded families often seen in the news.
The family cat went missing. After great difficulty, they finally found it again, only to discover that its temperament had changed drastically. The muddleheaded family simply assumed the cat had suffered while it was outside and treated it even better. Who would have thought that half a month later, the real house cat would return.
The muddleheaded family was left at a loss, facing two cats that looked exactly the same.
“I wasn’t trying to catch it. I just wanted to confirm whether it was Da Ju…” Lu Ran explained in a low voice.
“Then can you tell me Da Ju’s story?” Seeing Lu Ran’s expression grow more and more distressed, Zhao Jin said, “I’m very curious.”
Lu Ran looked into the orange kitten’s amber eyes and said earnestly, “You are Da Ju.”
Zhao Jin shook its head with complete seriousness and said, “My name is Zhao Jin.”
“No.” Lu Ran insisted. “I was the one who got it wrong before. I saw golden light on Da… on that cat, so I thought it was you.
“This might sound very abrupt… but you really will become my family’s cat in the future!”
Zhao Jin twitched its ears and said in a skeptical tone, “Then tell me about Da Ju.”
Zhao Jin was certain that that foolish cat was not the so-called ‘Da Ju’, and it also did not believe that it itself would be Da Ju.
The power to reverse time was something Zhao Jin did not possess at present, nor did it believe that it would be able to possess such power in just a little over twenty years.
According to Zhao Jin’s reasoning, Da Ju should be one of its own kind.
A stronger, older kind of the same species.
Since the moment of his birth, Zhao Jin had been searching for his own kind, yet he had never found any results.
He had been born of heaven and earth, taking the form of a cat from the very beginning, yet he could not integrate into cat society. Later, he discovered that he could transform into a human, but he did not feel that he could blend into human society either.
Zhao Jin stayed on campus in the form of an orange tabby cat, learning human knowledge. From time to time, he would also go out to take a look around, searching for traces of his own kind. He had been to deep mountain forests, sheer cliffs, and ancient tombs, yet he had never once found so much as a shadow of any of his kind.
Now that he had discovered a clue pointing to his own kind, how could he possibly restrain himself from revealing himself?
Zhao Jin wanted to learn from Lu Ran the complete story of “Da Ju” and time travel, to obtain clues about this “senior.”
But he could not truly impersonate a “senior.”
Still, if Lu Ran misunderstood it on his own, that should be fine, right?
If one day the real “Da Ju” came knocking, then everything would simply be what Lu Ran had assumed.
As for Zhao Jin himself, had he ever taken the initiative to say such a thing?
He was not a cat who had returned from the future, nor did he know the truth. He had been misled by someone else. He was innocent.
Lu Ran had not the slightest bit of suspicion toward the orange kitten in front of him.
He nodded and, in careful detail, recounted his everyday life with Da Ju, everything from watching him walk for fear that he might fall, to keeping him company on rainy days, to taking the blame for him on its own initiative…
Zhao Jin perked up its ears and listened patiently for a full two hours, thinking to itself that this was basically raising a child.
So this senior even loved childcare?
At last, Lu Ran said, “Actually, before I turned eighteen, I always thought Da Ju was just an ordinary cat… until I made a wish to it…” He stopped mid-sentence, as if unsure whether he should continue.
Zhao Jin said, “Is it related to your biological father?”
It could not be about looking for his dad, could it?
From Lu Ran’s earlier account, his father had never appeared. Combined with the investigation report Zhao Jin had glimpsed, Lu Ran probably still did not know his father’s identity.
Tsk. There were really far too many irresponsible individuals among human men.
Thinking of how that girl he had previously watched for amusement, albeit one-sidedly, would end up being let down, Zhao Jin felt inexplicably stifled.
Lu Ran nodded and said to the orange kitten, “Since you’ve been observing me these past few days, you should have seen my investigation report. The wish I made was to go back to the past and stop my biological father and my mom from being together.”
Zhao Jin froze for a moment, unable to resist twitching its paw, thinking that this was no ordinary wish.
If things went badly, he might just erase himself out of existence.
“I can’t be certain that I’m Da Ju, and my name is Zhao Jin,” Zhao Jin said. Having obtained the information he wanted, he was generous enough to be honest for once. “At present, I don’t have the ability to send people through time.”
“Then it must be something that develops later,” Lu Ran said with conviction. He looked at the kitten in front of him and could not help smiling, stretching out his hand to gesture. “You’ll grow to be… this big in the future.”
Zhao Jin thought to himself that cultivation and physical size had nothing to do with each other. This kid was far too easy to fool, and even took the initiative to find excuses for the swindler.
“Then are you planning to first find your biological father and then take action to stop him from being with your mom?”
Lu Ran nodded. “I’ve already ruled out two suspects. There’s only one left, but I don’t know whether it’s him.” Then, full of anticipation, he added, “Da… Zhao Jin, do you have a way to find my biological father?”
Zhao Jin shook his head and answered honestly, “All of my spells come from the inheritance of heaven and earth. There’s nothing in them that involves searching for relatives.”
Lu Ran felt a bit disappointed, but it was not unexpected. In the next moment, he became animated again. “Then Da… Zhao Jin, since you’ve noticed that my body is different from other people, do you know what’s going on with me? Since coming back, my speed and stamina have been getting stronger, my five senses have become more acute, and recently I’ve inexplicably started liking to bask in the sun.”
Zhao Jin could not be certain, but he had already had some suspicions about this before. At this point, he said calmly, “It might be the effect of a spell. It should be harmless.”
That senior could even reverse time. How difficult could it be to modify an ordinary human?
Lu Ran’s aura was unmistakably that of a completely ordinary person. On that point, there could be no mistake.
Lu Ran nodded and said trustingly, “You wouldn’t hurt me. Da Ju… I’ll call you Zhao Jin, then. Zhao Jin, does your name have any particular origin?”
“I chose it myself,” Zhao Jin said. A trace of proud light reflected in his amber eyes. “In an ancient book, there’s a line that goes, ‘reflecting halls full of gold and jade, shining with brocade of five-colored light.’ It was used to describe the lustrous, beautiful fur of golden-thread cats. I picked two characters from it.”
“Great name!” Lu Ran’s eyes lit up, thinking that Da Ju’s coat color really did live up to that line.
The one he had mistaken before was pretty too, but it could not compare to Da Ju. He had even thought that Da Ju at this point in time was undernourished. It turned out he had simply mistaken the cat.
Zhao Jin twitched his fluffy orange ears, thinking that of course it was. It was far more cultured than some ‘Da Ju.’ Yet he heard Lu Ran say sheepishly, “So that was your original name. Da Ju was a name I came up with. I was young back then. I saw you were orange, and I didn’t know any better, so I just called you that… Later, my mom and my grandma followed my lead and started calling you that too.”
Zhao Jin thought to himself, no wonder. He had wondered how such a powerful senior could have such a rustic-sounding name.
They really indulged the child far too much.
Although he thought this, Zhao Jin did not show the slightest bit of it on the surface. He only nodded and said, “Da Ju also sounds nice.”
Lu Ran smiled awkwardly. “Then can I still call you Da Ju?”
Zhao Jin: “…How about not? Don’t you also have a Da Ju at home? You can’t exactly throw it away, can you?”
Lu Ran’s expression twisted in conflict. “That’s true, I guess? Grandma seems to like it a lot. Zhao Jin, would you be angry?” He carefully observed the expression on the orange kitten’s face in front of him.
Since his birth, Zhao Jin had never once enjoyed the experience of being “read for his expressions.” Today alone, he had experienced it N times with Lu Ran, which felt rather novel.
Zhao Jin was not the type to compete with a foolish cat over human affection in the first place. He also felt that he had deceived someone, and that Lu Ran was easy to deceive. It would not be right to bully him any further, so he shook his head and said, “No. You were also trying to find me.”
Lu Ran’s eyes lit up, and he asked with anticipation, “…Then Zhao Jin, can I invite you to come home with me?”
Zhao Jin was stunned for a moment. After thinking it over, he felt that staying by Lu Ran’s side might allow him to encounter his own kind more quickly.
He nodded his head.
Lu Ran broke into a brilliant smile and extended his right hand toward the orange kitten.
Zhao Jin placed his fluffy paw into Lu Ran’s palm, a trace of guilt rising in his heart.
But it wasn’t intentional either. Zhao Jin twitched his ears and thought to himself.
Author’s note: What bad intentions could a little kitten possibly have?
Zhao Jin: I pretend to be myself / I roast myself
So the senior is actually me, and the scumbag is also me
Also: “reflecting halls full of gold and jade, shining with brocade of five-colored light.” This line was made up by the author. It probably does not exist in ancient books. When choosing the name, the author felt that the male lead’s fur color should be very beautiful, gleaming alongside brocade, even more dazzling than halls full of gold and jade.