Bo Yutong had been born without empathy.
He did not understand human tears, nor could he understand emotions like fear.
After all, natural selection favored the strong. Survival of the fittest.
Life and death were merely natural laws. There was nothing particularly joyful about living, and nothing especially bad about dying.
But when he saw Ruan Tao sprinting all the way over, her black-pearl-like eyes glistening with tears, the tip of her pink nose trembling, looking as if she had suffered some enormous grievance and was about to cry—
Bo Yutong actually felt a faint trace of heartache.
The feeling came quickly and left just as quickly. The most direct conclusion it produced in his mind was: exterminate all insects.
In a sudden impulse, he almost grabbed a knife and went out the door.
After calming down and thinking it through, he realized how unrealistic that idea was.
Not to mention that insects had incredibly strong adaptability, existed in astonishing numbers, and could infiltrate everywhere… Even if all insects were truly wiped out, would there be nothing else that could frighten the little creature?
A single insect had scared her into such a state. If he wanted to eliminate everything she feared, the real apocalypse might have to come first.
Bo Yutong lowered his gaze and stared at the little ball of fluff for several seconds.
Then he made a decision.
At this moment, Ruan Tao still did not know that her fear of insects would trigger an earth-shaking event.
Right now, her brain felt as if it had been filled with paste. Most of the intelligence that originally belonged to a human had been overtaken by hamster instincts.
At the moment, she felt uneasy.
Extremely, extremely uneasy.
The feeling of unease prompted her to climb onto the running wheel in the room again and run wildly.
After running for a while, she became sleepy again and fell asleep lying on the wheel.
She did not know how much time had passed when Ruan Tao heard a clatter-clatter sound in her dream.
—It seemed to come from some kind of plastic packaging bag.
The sound made Ruan Tao feel thoroughly comfortable. A sense of anticipation spread from her brain to every strand of hamster fur.
Ruan Tao happily opened her eyes and lifted her head, searching for that familiar shadow and the pleasant scent she liked so much.
…She did not find it.
Instead, she smelled a sweet fragrance that belonged to a young girl.
The fingers reaching in this time were warm-toned, fair, and pinkish. They gently placed a pile of hamster food into the dish in front of her.
Clearly, it was a little girl.
That hand moved slowly and sneakily, as if doing something secretive.
It reached in three times in total, piling the hamster food into a small mountain.
Ruan Tao picked out the dried fruits and nuts she recognized from the pile. As she stuffed them into her mouth, she also planned where in the room she should hide which items.
Suddenly, she felt that becoming a hamster suited her very well.
Because even before this, she had liked collecting all kinds of random little trinkets that looked completely useless…
Before this?
Ruan Tao froze for a moment. Holding an entire almond in her arms, she thought blankly.
Before this, what had she been doing?
The piercing sound of brakes rang out in her mind. Even before “dying,” she had still been obsessing over something.
Her mind was already a mess and unable to think clearly. Her memories were tangled together like a ball of thread without a loose end.
Suddenly, someone shouted loudly from afar:
“Dong Ling—!”
The girl who was feeding her trembled all over.
Ruan Tao narrowed her eyes. Her vision had recovered a little by now, and she could roughly make out the girl’s outline.
She was wearing a white short-sleeved top and a pleated skirt woven with pink and pale yellow.
Although it appeared blurry in Ruan Tao’s eyes, she could roughly guess that it should be a pretty plaid skirt.
This young lady was also wearing a JK-style uniform.
And what was her name again… Dong Ling?
…
Plop.
The half-eaten almond in Ruan Tao’s hand fell to the ground.
The young lady called “Dong Ling” seemed extremely nervous. Yet even in her nervousness, she did not forget to reach out and pluck a handful of hamster fur.
Before the sound of the room door opening, this young lady might have changed her expression.
Ruan Tao could not see clearly.
Immediately afterward, two people walked in through the doorway.
This time, Ruan Tao finally saw the man she had been so fascinated with—and remembered his identity.
She heard “Dong Ling” call him:
“Mr. Bo.”
Bo Yutong did not respond. He walked straight to Ruan Tao and said, “Why feed so much?”
Ruan Tao: “……”
She felt as if her body moved out of control, pouncing toward the small mountain of food. Her round body pressed against the dried fruits, as if afraid that this “Mr. Bo” would take even a single grain of hamster food away from her.
Bo Yutong was amused by her action and laughed out loud.
Now it was the two girls nearby who were shocked.
Ruan Tao lay on top of the dried fruits while memories gradually surfaced in her increasingly clear mind—the last thing she had done before her “tragic transmigration.”
She had been reading a novel. At the time, she had been frantically throwing virtual “bombs” in the comment section, trying to persuade the author to change their mind and revive a villain who had died young.
It was a post-apocalyptic romance novel.
After the apocalypse arrived, most of the land had turned into wasteland where crops could not be planted or produced. Countless mutated beasts wandered the wastelands.
Humans could only gather together like in apocalyptic movies, building walls and constructing small cities or villages.
In this story, those places were called “Residential Areas.”
When the male protagonist first appeared, he was the “Regional Chief” of a small Residential Area. Meanwhile, the female protagonist was a homeless wandering girl.
The wandering girl was clever and cute. She had tricked the male protagonist out of food and even stolen his small knife for self-defense. The male protagonist liked her and wanted to pursue her, but she treated it as if he were chasing her to kill her. She ran away, relying on her wit to slip into a larger neighboring Residential Area.
This time she directly changed her identity and came to work here as the Regional Chief’s “maid.”
A maid had a more official title: “Life Assistant.”
And the Regional Chief here—the man in front of her with the pleasant scent—was named Bo Yutong. He was the villain in this novel.
He had no emotions and remained indifferent to famine in the Residential Area and the casualties in battles.
He also never really did the things a Regional Chief should do. When he had nothing to do, he would go hunting magical beasts and searching for things he had never seen or heard of before—basically seeking amusement.
Later, when the male protagonist learned that the female protagonist was here, he calculated the timing and came during the “Beast Tide Day” to take her away.
The female protagonist was taken away by him.
And Bo Yutong died in the beast tide.
The most infuriating part was that he could originally have repelled the beast tide. But that day, he ate something he had never eaten before and had an allergic reaction. He suffered from breathing difficulties and physical weakness.
“His tall and upright figure, which seemed as though it would never fall, finally collapsed slowly and forever in that beast tide.”
…What a frustrating plot.
Ruan Tao was filled with indignation.
Bo Yutong, a villain who could barely be considered the “second male lead,” had encountered countless problems of various sizes in his Residential Area. Many of those problems had been solved by the female protagonist. The more indifferent he was to the lives of ordinary people, the more the female protagonist cared about them.
The female protagonist’s real name was Li Yudong, and the alias she used while working here as a maid was “Dong Ling.”
This character was full of compassion but definitely not a brainless saint. She had her flaws too—for example, telling small lies and often stealing other people’s food when she was younger.
Ruan Tao had read more than four hundred thousand words of her story. In this world, she felt a strange sense of familiarity toward her.
At this moment, Bo Yutong finished laughing and reached out with his finger to touch her.
Ruan Tao instinctively leaned closer, holding his fingertip and about to take a deep sniff—
Then she suddenly realized that she was a person.
Yes, she had only just begun to slowly realize this problem.
Originally, hamster instincts had occupied her brain. Only after her memories and thinking ability gradually returned did Ruan Tao become aware of it.
She was a person—a young girl at that. How could she hold a man’s finger and sniff it like she was addicted to something?
Ruan Tao released his finger and dejectedly flopped back onto the pile of dried fruits.
Bo Yutong: “……”
The mouse’s attitude toward him had changed too quickly, catching him slightly off guard.
Behind Bo Yutong stood another girl wearing a JK uniform.
This girl reacted very quickly and immediately looked at Li Yudong, blaming her. “Dong Ling, what did you feed Mr. Bo’s pet?”
Li Yudong also reacted instantly. It was obvious that the girl wanted to push the blame onto her no matter what.
Since she had done nothing wrong anyway, she simply answered honestly, “Hamster food.”
Bo Yutong ignored them. He focused on looking down at Ruan Tao.
“Mr. Bo,” Li Yudong suddenly said, “hamsters are nocturnal animals. Right now is their resting time, so their energy might not be very good.”
Bo Yutong nodded slightly.
He reached out and gently rubbed Ruan Tao’s face with his fingertip, saying softly, “Be good.”
His voice sounded so pleasant that it made one’s heart melt. Ruan Tao could not help narrowing her eyes and leaning her face against his finger, thinking to herself: I’m just a soft peach. Hearing this voice turns me into an even softer peach!
Bo Yutong seemed to chuckle softly. He turned his head, instructed Li Yudong to take good care of Ruan Tao, and then hurriedly left.
Based on the plot she had read before, Ruan Tao could roughly guess something.
By now, the male protagonist must have already learned that the female protagonist was inside Bo Yutong’s Residential Area.
Recently, he had been occasionally arranging small troubles for Bo Yutong, hoping to take the opportunity to plant spies here to confirm whether the female protagonist was really here and whether anything inappropriate had happened between her and Bo Yutong.
Impossible!
How could our Young Master Bo possibly develop feelings for a human?
While proudly and contentedly thinking this, Ruan Tao stuffed dried fruits beneath her “bedsheet.”
She did not even know what she was feeling proud about.
As if to match her thoughts, Li Yudong leaned against her enclosure and muttered to the little hamster, “I swear, today’s the first time I’ve ever seen Bo Yutong smile. Damn, he can actually smile?”
After saying that, she complained to herself again, “Oh my god, I sound like the butler in those ‘old-school’ CEO novels.”
Ruan Tao trembled with laughter while facing away from her.
“What’s wrong? Are you cold?” Li Yudong’s fingertip touched Ruan Tao’s nonexistent waist. “Should I go get you some wood shavings?”
Holding dried fruit, Ruan Tao looked up at her and nodded.
Li Yudong was shocked. “Bo Yutong said you understood human nature. Turns out he wasn’t making it up.”
Ruan Tao rubbed against her fingertip again.
In the apocalypse, beasts had mutated. There were even animals that could talk. A hamster that understood people was not that strange.
Li Yudong clearly thought the same. She was not overly surprised and did not forget her task. She stood up and went to find the wood shavings Bo Yutong had prepared for Ruan Tao.
Perhaps Li Yudong was right—hamsters really were nocturnal animals.
As soon as Li Yudong left, Ruan Tao began to feel drowsy again. Hugging the dried fruit, she squinted her eyes.
But as she kept squinting, she suddenly felt something was not quite right.
The dried fruit in her hand seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. Her waist was becoming thinner, and even her short little legs seemed to be slowly growing longer…