In the extreme northern lands of the Dayan Dynasty, there stood a freezing, harsh, and fiercely martial principality known as the Aorong Principality.
Within the borders of Aorong, whenever people mentioned the Prince of Aorong Tuoba Lin their very first impression was invariably, “That man is simply a living king of hell.”
This young imperial prince was normally a silent gourd whom no one dared to approach casually. Not only was his temper mercurial and intensely aggressive, but he was also a rigid, inflexible prince who would instantly bristle with fury the moment any plan was slightly disrupted.
Even the demonic beast known as the “man-eating demon,” the Huoju, which frequently harassed common people along the borders of Aorong, was no match for the Aorong Prince.
The people of Aorong held a mix of deep awe and terrified dread toward this prince; absolutely no one dared to approach him within half a step.
Well then, let us set up a hypothetical scenario!
Imagine you are walking down the spacious corridor of the prince’s manor, and you run head-on into this terrifying Aorong Prince. Even though the path beside you is wide enough to race a horse through, this prince insists on crowding over, using shoulders as massive as a mountain to savagely ram against your frail, scholarly shoulder as he brushes past.
At a time like this, what kind of reaction would be normal for a powerless, frail scholar?
“Holy shit! Are you fucking kidding me? A dignified prince is trying to pull a scam by staging a fake hit?!”
Yuchi Xiu, an advisor in the Prince’s Manor, was precisely that scholar who had almost been knocked sprawling on his back. However, watching his friend Yuwen Da turn pale with fright beside him, Yuchi Xiu silently swallowed his sigh back down into his stomach. This guy’s expression was practically identical to someone who had just been brutally beaten up on the public streets by the terrifying Aorong Prince himself.
Very well, perhaps this was the normal reaction of a regular human being.
With a gaze filled with sheer terror, Yuwen Da secretly glanced at the prince’s retreating back, which had already walked some distance away by now. Lowering his voice, he trembled and asked:
“Yuchi… did you offend the Prince? No, wait, did you grow a bear’s heart and a leopard’s gallbladder that you actually dared to offend the Prince? Do you even want to live anymore…”
Yuwen Da had already mentally stamped the conclusion that “Advisor Yuchi Xiu has offended the Prince.” Anxious as an ant on a hot pan, he began racking his brain frantically to figure out what kind of treasonous act Yuchi Xiu could possibly have committed.
However, as the direct party involved who had just been “hardcore shoulder-rammed” by the Aorong Prince, Yuchi Xiu had a very clear assessment of the situation in his own heart.
The Prince was definitely not angry with him. The collision just now was neither a deliberate provocation nor the murderous intent that Yuwen Da was imagining in his head.
The true intention behind the Prince’s shoulder-ramming was something only he, Yuchi Xiu, knew in this entire world.
“Yuchi… you’re my good brother… I’ll burn paper money for you during festivals and holidays. I’ll remember you forever…”
Heaven knows that in just the blink of an eye, Yuwen Da had already cycled through various ways Yuchi Xiu could die; at any rate, his eyes were welling up with tears right now.
Watching his friend’s sorrowful expression, which looked as though he had already secretly gone out to pick a prime plot of geomantic treasure land for his grave, Yuchi Xiu felt rather guilty… but even so, he could never utter the truth.
Leaving behind the line “I need to head to the Prince’s study,” Yuchi Xiu abandoned Yuwen Da, who finally couldn’t help but let his tears stream, and let out a deep sigh.
How on earth was he supposed to bring this up?
That prince who wore a coffin face all day, looked imposing and awe-inspiring, and scared people’s legs to jelly…
That collision just then wasn’t a shoulder-ram at all; it was clearly him acting like a spoiled brat.
…How should he put it? It was of the exact same nature as a stray cat passing by someone it liked, insisting on rubbing frantically against their legs to cozy up.
Yuchi Xiu understood it clearly in his own mind.
How completely insane this explanation of his sounded. Everyone would surely think he had water in his brain for forcefully applying a “cute-acting” interpretation to a decisive, ruthless, and somewhat terrifying prince. Of course, under the current circumstances, nobody even understood what “acting cute” meant, but the vibe was roughly that. After all, the Prince could twist off his skull with a single hand, yet he had dared to subject the Prince to such a severely out-of-character (OOC), magical-girl-transformation-level misinterpretation—he must be like an old longevity star eating arsenic, tired of living.
But this was definitely not some forced attempt at cuteness, let alone a blind misinterpretation.
Because that famous Aorong Prince Tuoba Lin…
Damn it all, his true form really was just a cat!!
Yuchi Xiu heaved a long sigh and pushed open the door to the Prince’s study.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
Greeting him was a long, fluffy, large tail beating against the bluestone floor with a steady rhythm.
With a sense of existential despair, Yuchi Xiu stared at that tail, as well as the black cat fur swirling all over the sky with every single flick, and spoke:
“Your Highness, this subordinate knows you are currently in an extremely foul mood, but can we communicate using our mouths instead of body language?”
The Prince didn’t even turn his head, but he clearly heard it, because the fluffy tips of his ears hidden within his neat black hair instantly flattened, transforming instantly into airplane ears.
“Your Highness, that is also a form of body language.”
No sooner had Yuchi Xiu finished speaking than:
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
The speed at which the tail was wildly slapping the floor visibly accelerated.
Staring at this massive, infinitely shedding ball of black fur, Yuchi Xiu quickly added a supplementary remark:
“And Your Highness, your fur is flying everywhere. This subordinate humbly begs you: while you’re in the study, could you please retract your tail?”
Hearing this resolute tone, the Prince, who had been staring fixedly out the window all this time, finally turned around slowly.
A head of thick, raven-black hair was tied up high. His deep, three-dimensional facial features were harmoniously arranged to an incredible degree, crowned by a strikingly handsome, breathtaking face. His expression was stern and dignified, as cold and severe as the thousand-year unmelting glaciers of the Aorong Principality. Coupled with a fierce gaze reminiscent of a predatory beast.
This domineering prince, who seemed born entirely for the title of “Aorong Prince,” finally deigned to open his precious mouth:
“Without my tail, how am I supposed to express my feelings?”
Turns out he hadn’t listened to a single word Yuchi Xiu had just said.
With no other choice, Yuchi Xiu had to rein in his temper, break down his previous words into tiny pieces, knead them together, and repeat them in a tone that even a wild cat by the roadside could understand:
“Human beings possess an exceptionally brilliant communication technique called ‘speech.’ This subordinate doesn’t even dare to expect Your Highness to make facial expressions; just use your mouth, use human language, to express your happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy, alright?”
Bearing that majestic, dignified, and deadpan iceberg face, the Aorong Prince listened to Yuchi Xiu’s speech before shooting back with a question:
“But relying solely on that… what did you call it again? Oh right, ‘body language’—couldn’t you understand it just fine? Why on earth must this king make things unnecessarily complicated and talk?”
Hearing this righteous and self-confident rhetorical question, Yuchi Xiu began to deeply reflect on his past words and actions.
Sure enough… the mistake lay in the fact that he was simply too observant, interpreting the Prince’s body language far too accurately and catering to him far too thoroughly, huh?
Since that was the case, he couldn’t afford to spoil this arrogant, picky bad habit of his any further.
Looking directly into those green pupils with vertically slit pupils, Yuchi Xiu said with firm determination:
“Your Highness, not all humans can understand a cat’s body language. That’s why you always keep getting… misunderstood as a bloodthirsty, ruthless prince, you know.”
That’s right.
This Aorong Prince Tuoba Lin, who looked as though he had stepped right out of a scroll of the God of War, was actually just a cat beastman.
They said he lacked expression, disliked talking, and went around all day wearing an iceberg face like everyone owed him eight million taels?
Because he was a cat.
Instead of human language and expressions, he simply preferred using physical movements. In truth, whatever emotions needed expressing or venting were fully expressed and vented by him.
They said he usually looked fine, but would suddenly flip out and bite people out of nowhere?
Because he was a cat.
To bipedal creatures, a cat master’s emotions always seemed erratic and jumpy.
They said he had severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and intensely hated having his daily routine and plans disrupted?
Because he was a cat.
Felines inherently set their own capricious rules according to their whims; the moment you failed to stroke them along the grain of their fur, they would bristle up and throw a tantrum.
They said he was a stubborn, territorial control-freak?
Absolute nonsense.
Cats are, by definition, animals with an extremely intense sense of territorial awareness.
In other words, this murderous-looking Aorong Prince was, at his core, simply… a cat, as ordinary as they come.
It was just that because he wore the domineering outer skin of the “Aorong Prince,” clueless people mistook all his pure, unadulterated feline behaviors for the “savage nature of the terrifying Aorong Prince.”
“Right now, people even get scared just seeing you stand by the window looking at the scenery. They think you’re spying on them, terrified that you’ll dig up some dirt and drag them off to have their heads chopped off, trembling in absolute terror.”
“Hmph…”
Yuchi Xiu casually picked up the sticky-hair roller placed close at hand (an ancient-style hair-removal artifact he had frantically researched and crafted overnight because he simply couldn’t stand the Prince’s shedding volume) and went to work as he spoke:
“Yes, yes, yes. Your subordinate knows you’re a cat, so of course you like looking out the window. Watching birds fly past, watching maidservants and footmen walking back and forth… But with that king-of-hell image of yours sitting there, if you watch the scenery with that serious, solemn, inviolable face of yours, people are bound to overthink things. So I’m saying, stop using cat-speak that only I can understand all the time. Try communicating in human speech that everyone can understand how much better would it be to clear up these misunderstandings…”
Just as Yuchi Xiu started rolling the sticky roller across the Western-style carpet covered in cat hair, he felt a fierce glare shoot toward him that looked as though it wanted to swallow him alive.
Even without looking, Yuchi Xiu knew that the Prince’s pupils, which usually remained vertical slits, must have dilated into round, saucers due to seeing a moving object in motion.
Tch “Even if you want to pounce, you aren’t allowed to cause trouble. Isn’t this subordinate cleaning up the shed fur you dropped all over the ground?”
Yuchi Xiu clicked his tongue in warning, and that death-stare locked firmly onto him finally lingered away with reluctance.
Ying Xiu shifted his attention away from the cat-prince who was obstructing his cleaning, looked down at the carpet, and sighed helplessly. He had only gone out to eat lunch, and the carpet had already turned pitch-black.
Looks like he’d have to switch to a different colored carpet… Why was this black fur so glaringly obvious anyway?
To prevent the Prince’s pitch-black fur from looking too jarring, Yuchi Xiu figured switching the carpet to a darker shade would probably be better. Just like how ever since he started following the Prince, Yuchi Xiu’s wardrobe colors had all been forcibly swapped to those gloomy, dark tones as well at least they hid the dirt well.
After rolling a few times, the sticky-hair roller was completely caked. Looking at the fabric tape smothered in cat hair that had lost its stickiness, Yuchi Xiu tore off a layer with a crisp rip, thinking to himself:
“Clearly, we agreed I was coming to the Prince’s Manor to be an advisor, so how on earth did I end up relegated to a full-time poop-scooping officer for a disobedient, ultra-stubborn, arrogant cat…”
However, although he came to this Prince’s Manor to be an advisor which could be said to have been accomplished through a mix of cajoling and trickery truth be told, he didn’t really have much right to complain.
After all, tracing it back to the root, every single problem had started from that completely outrageous misunderstanding of his.
Back then, right after he transmigrated into the ancient political intrigue web novel Chronicles of the Imperial Court as a cannon-fodder extra, he had always assumed that it was he who had somehow transformed a perfectly normal human prince… alive and breathing, straight into a cat.