Chapter 51 Santorini (5) The Lord...God? ...

Chichi carried the heavy bag of coins to the pharmacy, while the little cat ghost nervously followed behind her.

They specifically chose to go early in the morning when there were few people, but they still attracted a lot of curious glances along the way.

He kept his eyes straight ahead, ignoring the teasing from others, and followed the navigation of 1221.

The pharmacy had just opened, and the young clerk was tidying up the shelves, her back to the door, patiently waiting for the other person to turn around.

After the other party finally finished arranging a row of medicines, he jumped onto the counter in one go, and a bag of coins landed on the counter with a dull thud, the coins inside clattering clearly.

The human was startled and stared in astonishment at the kitten on the counter, patting his chest.

"What are you doing here, little one?"

Chichi tilted its head back and touched the other person's forearm with its paw, signaling the other person to open the bag.

Inside the bag was an empty eye drop bottle and a pile of coins. The shop assistant picked up the empty bottle and looked at it suspiciously, then searched the bag again, but found no note or instructions from a human.

Looking at the kitten's expectant expression, she tentatively asked, "Are you going to buy these eye drops for your owner?"

Chichi immediately meowed and nodded firmly.

"Amazing! You can understand me?" The shop assistant's eyes widened, his mouth slightly agape, as he peeked out from behind the counter, assuming the kitten's owner was outside giving instructions.

Looking around and not seeing anyone else, the kitten realized that it was the only one who had come to buy medicine.

Chichi nudged the pile of coins with his head, indicating to the other person to count if there was enough money.

The shop assistant couldn't resist sticking his head out and patting the other person's fluffy head. He picked up the empty eye drop bottle, carefully examined the label, and then began counting the pile of coins.

"One euro, fifty cents, two euros..."

The shop assistant murmured to herself, feeling deeply moved. She thought to herself that even if the pile of coins wasn't enough to buy the eye drops, she would still pay the difference out of her own pocket.

After the count was completed, the coins were worth fifty cents more than the total value.

That's enough.

The shop assistant smiled, took out a new bottle of eye drops from the medicine cabinet behind him, carefully placed it in a small paper bag, sealed it, and put it in front of the kitten.

"Here you are, now go home."

He gratefully nuzzled the other person's hand, carefully picked up the paper bag, jumped off the counter, and ran towards Anafi Street.

She and the little cat ghost arrived at the quiet courtyard at the end of the alley. The dark blue gate was still tightly closed. Chichi, carrying a paper bag in his mouth, jumped onto the wall, threw the bag down first, and then climbed down from the wall.

Chichi scratched at the front door with its paws, making a slight screeching sound, and then barked twice at the people inside.

Footsteps came from inside the door, and the front door was pulled open a crack, revealing Zoe's tired face.

Her eyes were red and swollen, her gaze weary and blank. She paused, startled, when she saw the kitten at the door: "It's you..."

She crouched down, her voice a little hoarse, her gaze falling on the paper bag next to her with the pharmacy's name printed on it. Hesitantly, she reached out and picked it up.

It contained a brand new bottle of eye drops.

Zoe looked at Chichi in disbelief, her fingers trembling slightly: "How did you know I needed this? Are you Pearl? I think I saw Pearl yesterday—"

She glanced at the little cat ghost surrounding her and shook her head in response.

Seeing the kitten shake her head, Zoe was shocked that it could understand her, but her eyes dimmed and her shoulders slumped slightly: "Yes, how could you be Pearl? Pearl has already left me."

She clutched the eye drops in her hand and remained silent for a while, standing there in front of the door, looking somewhat lonely.

A thought suddenly struck him.

This wasn't the first time she'd felt such overwhelming loneliness; there was another person besides her.

The little cat ghost floated to the other's shoulder level and rubbed against them as it had in life. After a few minutes, the human regained some clarity from her dazed state. She took a deep breath, opened the eye drop package, and dripped the cool liquid into her dry, swollen eyes.

"Thank you."

Zoe said softly, squatting down to touch Chichi's face: "No matter who you are, thank you."

He gently pressed his hand against her dry, slightly cool palm, making a soothing snoring sound, and looked at her with a renewed sense of strength in his eyes.

The little cat ghost was very happy and circled around them.

Once the humans entered the house, Chichi jumped onto the wall and said to the little cat ghost, "Are you alright? I might have to go somewhere else for the next couple of days and won't be able to come see you on Anafi Street."

She made a promise with the black cat to go to the black sand beach.

"I'm fine." The little cat ghost looked at its misty body. "I should be able to stay with my master for a few more days. You go and do your thing. I believe she will pull herself together."

After hesitating to get close to the other person, he jumped off the wall.

As she walked out of Anafi Street, the noise outside enveloped the kitten again, and she realized that she still didn't know where to look for the black cat.

Last time I just casually mentioned our plan to go out together, and I don't know if the other person took it to heart.

The other party's whereabouts are a mystery, appearing and disappearing unpredictably, and always taking the initiative to show up. Feeling a bit uneasy, I hesitated for a while but still decided to try to find them.

She wandered aimlessly around the neighborhood, visiting several places she frequented, and even went to the cliffside trail where they had searched for the coin together before. She encountered a few of her kind, but none of them were her.

"Have you seen a black cat?" Chichi asked, striking up a conversation with a tortoiseshell cat that was grooming itself. "Its eyes are golden."

"I've seen many black cats, but very few have golden eyes."

The other animal flicked its tail and continued to lick its fur meticulously.

She hesitated to say goodbye, then jumped to a higher place to search. She went to the rooftops of varying heights and wandered among the clothes drying in the sun, carefully looking for the other person's scent.

After searching for a long time without success, he eventually gave up.

She told 1221, "Let's go to the black sand beach ourselves. Maybe he'll just pop up there."

1221: "I'll take you there. Nobody knows these places systematically. I'll lead the way, and I'll make sure you eat well and have a great time!"

"Um."

He hesitated to reply, feeling a little disappointed, knowing the other person probably didn't remember their casual agreement.

I found an open-air restaurant and had a seafood snack. As I was walking along a certain street, my feet seemed to have a mind of their own and spontaneously turned to the right.

1221 flew quite a distance before realizing that the kitten hadn't followed and was instead heading towards a familiar courtyard.

"You've gone the wrong way. To get to the black sand beach, you should walk straight ahead."

"I know." Chichi started jogging. "It's never too late to leave. I'll go see him again."

"——"

1221 had no choice but to follow reluctantly.

She saw the swaying olive leaves from outside the wall, and Chichi's originally gloomy mood suddenly improved. She quietly jumped onto the wall, ready to scare the other party.

Unexpectedly, the person who had been facing away from her turned their head slightly, with a very small movement, precisely towards where she was.

After his repeated attempts to "ambush" failed, he stopped hiding his footsteps and had no choice but to obediently jump into the yard: "How come you always manage to find me when I don't make a sound?"

"You always say that."

He tilted his head in confusion, "What are you talking about? What do you mean I always say that?"

She only said that once, so how could the other person hear her every time she muttered it to herself?

The other person extended their hand, letting it hang down slightly, a silent invitation.

Chichi immediately dismissed the question mark in her mind, meowed happily, jumped onto the other person's lap, and scratched her claws a couple of times on the blanket.

She looked up at the other person's well-defined jawline and couldn't help but nudge his finger with her head, as if urging him on, or perhaps being coquettish.

After a few seconds of stalemate, the hands finally landed slowly on her head and gently rubbed her thick hair a few times.

Chichi rolled around on the other person's lap with a carefree and unrestrained air. The small space was clearly such that she would fall off if she turned around, but she wasn't afraid at all, because she knew that the other person would definitely catch her.

"I'm leaving."

Reluctantly, she got up from her warm lap and jumped to the ground: "I made plans with my friends to go to the black sand beach."

The other party was silent for a moment, a pause longer than usual, as they slowly sensed a certain aura flowing and reorganizing, transforming into another familiar aura.

A scene that the cat could not comprehend unfolded.

The outline of the person in the wheelchair began to blur, blending into the surrounding light. The figure began to sway and shrink until the wheelchair was empty in the blink of an eye.

Instead, there was a black cat on the ground.

When she finally came to her senses, the cat she had been looking for was standing right in front of her. The person who couldn't walk had turned into a cat that could move around freely!

Those dark eyes turned a brilliant gold, gazing at her silently.

That look, that familiar feeling—for a moment, my mind went completely blank: "You..."

She stretched out a trembling paw, pointed at the wheelchair, then at the black cat: "How can you be a cat? No, are you a cat or a person?"

"Would you rather I be a cat or a human?"

"I--"

Chichi didn't even blink as she watched the other person jump off the wheelchair and land on the shimmering ground, maintaining a distant distance.

“There are rules to follow. Only when I transform into a cat can I move freely. Let’s go,” he said, his tone as calm as if discussing the weather, “to the black sand beach.”

The other person turned around, jumped onto the wall, and his black figure was like an ink line.

He remained frozen in place, his mind buzzing. The black cat was him, and he was the black cat? They were the same person, no, the same cat.

Strange emotions, a mixture of shock, realization, and familiarity, swept over the kitten's innocent and naive mind before it came here.

"1221, 1221, are you there?"

"He's a human being, isn't he?"

1221 sighed: "Yes, he was a person, but it was a long time ago."

"What do you mean?" Chi Chi was completely confused. "It's just that now that he's entered the quick transmigration world, he's become an NPC in that world?"

But 1221 had clearly told her that the other party was not a simple NPC.

“He is not an NPC; he is the one who creates and maintains the operation of these worlds, the absolute will of the entire dimensional system, and can also be called—the Supreme God.”

He repeated the unfamiliar word to himself over and over again, his honey-colored eyes filled with even more doubt.

The other party is a god, not a cat, nor a human.

"Lord... God? Is that the kind of deity that humans pray to in temples and churches?"

The person who always sits in the shadows, who tacitly allows her to jump onto his lap, and who awkwardly strokes the kitten's head; and the black cat that comes and goes without a trace, moves freely, and is both aloof and gentle.

Both images are far removed from the seemingly distant concept of the main god and cannot be connected.

But it can also explain those previously inexplicable anomalies.

“It’s different,” 1221 answered the kitten’s question. “He is not a human’s faith. He only exists in the world within this dimensional system. He does not exist outside of this world, so humans will not know of his existence.”

"No wonder you're afraid of him." Chichi seemed to understand something. "If he's the creator, is he what humans call a boss?"

1221: "..."

“I can’t argue with that, but I’m not afraid of him!” the light sphere weakly retorted. “I just don’t want you to get too close to him, because that would violate the rules set for the system.”

"And what are the rules? Why are the rules set up for you like this?" Chi Chi asked again.

Seeing that the kitten couldn't process too much information at once and wanted to ask something else, 1221 interrupted it.

"If you have any other questions, just ask him directly. He's already turned into a cat in front of you, so it's only right that he helps you answer your questions."

After saying that, the ball of light disappeared, leaving the mess to others.

He took a deep breath, took a step forward, and trotted after the black cat, standing shoulder to shoulder with it: "Who are you?"

"1221 has already told you."

"It's making you tell me yourself." He stopped walking, and the other person followed suit, a hint of helplessness in their golden eyes.

As she gazed into those eyes, the turmoil in her heart gradually subsided: "What's your name?"

"I don't have a name right now."

"And before that?" the kitten persisted, "when you were still a human."

Something unreadable welled up in the other person's eyes, but it quickly subsided and was replaced by calm: "My name is Chi Yan."

Chi Yan...

Their names contain words with the same pronunciation.

This name is so familiar, it's as if I've heard it countless times before.

She silently repeated the two words several times, and in that instant, countless chaotic and disordered images seemed to flash through her mind; she could only grasp some fragments.

Cool, slender fingers brushed against the top of her head; the metallic gleam of the wheelchair shimmered in the sunlight; the lights never went out during late-night work...

“I’ve known you before,” Chi Chi said firmly.

Not in this world, but outside of the world that 1221 spoke of.

"You know me."

The other person's answer confirmed Chichi's thoughts and made her even more certain that the memories she had forgotten must be about that world and about the other person.

"Then why don't I remember anything..." Chi Chi asked, puzzled.

The shadows of the two cats were elongated by the light, intertwined, and slowly entered each other's eyes, realizing that their reunion in this world was not a coincidence.

“It’s okay,” the kitten suddenly said. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

She already knows who the other person is, and she'll remember eventually.

,