Chapter 52 Santorini (6) Kamari Beach. ...

The black sand beach, a mixture of volcanic ash and white gravel, shimmered with a faint light. I jogged a few steps and was the first to leave my paw prints on the fine sand.

"Nature is truly amazing." Chichi saw the dark sand and happily rolled around on it.

Unlike any other beach she had ever seen or walked on, where the sand was fine and soft with a frosty texture, the sand here was very smooth, with a feel like polished obsidian.

She called to the black cat following behind her: "Why don't you roll around in there too? It's very warm."

The other person's black figure blended almost into the black sand beach as they slowly walked over, but instead of lying down on the ground like a kitten.

“Forgot you’re human.” Chi Chi winked at the other person. “You probably aren’t quite used to living like a cat yet.”

After all, apart from human infants, if an older human were to roll around on the ground like a kitten, it's easy to imagine that they would attract stares from passersby.

She could only enjoy this bliss by herself, and she lingered with regret.

She squinted, enjoying the lingering warmth from the black pebbles beneath her, when suddenly, a cool, sea-scented nose gently touched her ear.

A sticker that separates at the slightest touch.

She opened her eyes wide in surprise and saw the other person's clear, golden pupils.

The kitten instinctively made a purring sound like an engine. The other person walked to her side, imitated the kitten's earlier actions, and lay down on the warm black sand, rolling around.

Fine white grime clung to the black satin, like stars dotting the night sky.

Chichi's eyes were bright. At this moment, she finally understood humans. Seeing the cat rolling around in front of her, showing its soft belly, even the most hard-hearted person would be charmed.

Clumsily trying to be a cat, so cute!

Seeing the other person sit up, the kitten happily pounced on them, bumping its head against theirs.

The other person was thrown to the ground and leaned back slightly, but did not dodge, letting the warm kitten's head press against their face.

After the pent-up enthusiasm had subsided, a few early-arriving stars could be seen in the deep blue sky, gazing at the pebbles clinging to their fur.

They took a leisurely walk on the beach, found the best spot to watch the sunset, and lay down next to each other again.

The kitten looked down at its two pairs of paws lying side by side on the beach, one dark and one light, like the black and white sand beneath it.

Ahead, waves crashed and receded in layers, and in the distance, the setting sun slowly sank. The sun and stars appeared before her eyes at the same time, and fragmented images flashed like snowflakes in the kitten's mind.

Let's watch the sunset together...

This scene seems to have appeared before.

The other person was beside her, not a person, but a cat, but she was inexplicably certain that it was the other person.

She didn't tell the other person or the system about these fragmented memories. They stayed on Kamari Beach for two days, enjoying the scenery to their heart's content, before heading back to Fira.

She planned to visit the little ghost on Anafi Street first.

Noticing that the other person had stopped, she hesitated and looked back, asking, "Are you going back?"

The other person nodded: "Go ahead."

Arriving late at the deepest part of Anafi Street, they heard noises coming from the courtyard. Zoe was wearing gloves and uprooting the withered plants in the yard.

"We are cleaning the yard."

The little cat ghost floated to Chichi's side, its only blue eye sparkling.

I lingered on the courtyard wall watching Zoe work. She cleared all the unwanted plants from the flowerpots, tidied the soil, and replanted new flowers and grass, displaying a spirit that seemed to have been pulled out of despair.

“It seems her condition has stabilized a lot,” 1221 said. “The first step for humanity to live a good life is to become orderly.”

After the potted plants were planted, the soil and dust scattered on the ground in the yard were also cleaned up.

After finishing all that, Zoe didn't rest. She then neatly stacked up the discarded paintings and easels piled up under the eaves, throwing away what needed to be thrown away and selling what needed to be sold. The formerly abandoned yard was transformed into a brand new place after all that tidying up.

The entire space became bright and spacious.

In the afternoon, Zoe brought out her easel and paints from the house. Having not painted for a long time, she soaked her brushes in water and stared at the blank canvas for a while.

"She used to paint in the yard like this."

The little cat ghost watched as the other person stirred the oil paints, mixing the desired colors on the palette.

The first stroke is blue, the color of the Santorini sky.

The little cat ghost stayed quietly at Zoe's feet, and then slowly jumped down from the wall to watch the human paint up close.

Once the blank canvas was completely painted with the base color, Zoe dipped her brush in white paint and, with one stroke, two strokes... the human skillfully used blocks of color to outline the shape.

Hesitantly and curiously approaching, he noticed a long-lost vitality gradually emerging on the canvas, even capturing the fuzzy texture with a brushstroke.

She drew Pearl, the little white cat from the photo.

The paintbrush delicately depicts a wisp of fur sticking up at the tip of the kitten's ear, making it both cute and playful.

Zoe paints white that shimmers with a pearly luster in the sunlight, and sea blue reflected in the kitten's single eye. The paint flows with the brush, no longer a random outburst, but becomes gentle.

The little cat ghost floated around the easel once, and finally stopped next to itself in the painting.

"It looks so lifelike," Chi Chi couldn't help but exclaim.

“She used to draw a lot,” the little cat ghost said, “but she stopped drawing after I left.”

Perhaps sensing some special presence, the person who would feel grief even at the sight of a painting of a cat finally realized that some lives, though gone, will exist forever in another form.

While the canvas was drying, Zoe noticed Chichi's presence. The human hesitated for a moment, then went inside and took out a can of cat food.

“This canned food is delicious,” the little cat ghost said to Chichi. “I used to love beef the most.”

"I also love eating beef."

After a while, the human saw Zoe take out a plate, scoop out the canned food and put it on the plate, placing it in front of her. She patted Zoe's head and said, "Thank you for keeping me company. Eat up."

"You're welcome."

Chichi meowed at the other party, then glanced at the little cat ghost beside her: "Actually, we're here to keep you company."

Seeing the honey-eyed kitten turn its gaze to the side, the human was also taken aback and looked over. Although the kitten was looking in an empty direction, Zoe inexplicably felt her gaze drawn to it.

After the kitten finished eating the canned food in the plate and started licking its fur, Zoe, who had been watching the kitten the whole time, suddenly spoke up.

"You know what pearls are, don't you?"

It paused licking its paws for a moment and nodded at the other.

Zoe's breath hitched slightly as she slowly crouched down to be at eye level with the kitten: "I knew it..."

She said softly, "I can feel that she's still beside me."

The little cat ghost's blue pupils widened in surprise, and it placed its front paws on the other's knee. A breeze blew by, causing Zoe's hair to flutter and her eyelashes to tremble slightly.

I miss her so much.

Zoe still couldn't see anything. She squatted there, muttering to the unfamiliar kitten, "When she was still here, we slept and woke up together. Whenever I was home, she would follow me everywhere I went."

"Such a monotonous life, saying the exact same things to her every day, and she listened attentively to me just like the day before, never getting tired of it..."

Zoe's vision began to blur.

“She has always been very well-behaved. She has suffered a lot because of her one eye and her fur color. When I first met her, the big cats bullied her, but she never swung her claws. I was afraid that after she left me, she would still be bullied by other cats.”

The human looked up and blinked, and the little cat ghost nestled on her lap reached out a paw and caught a tear.

"I wish we could go back to the time when we first met."

"If only... I could do it all over again."

The little cat ghost began to get anxious, frantically trying to catch more tears: "Don't cry."

When the other person's shoulders finally stopped trembling and they returned to the house, the little cat ghost came out and found Chichi, its tail and ears drooping.

"How can I make her forget me? I don't want to see her sad."

"Why should she forget you?" Chi Chi thought about her missing memories and said to the little cat ghost, "Forgetting you can indeed make her forget the pain, but just like that, the happiness of those years will also be gone."

The little cat ghost stood frozen in place, its transparent form swaying slightly.

It looked down at its fading paws: "But I don't want to see her cry for me anymore, forget me. She can still paint, go on field trips, travel, and do many interesting things."

"Did you see those paintings?"

He pointed to the abandoned structures in the yard.

The little cat ghost followed her gaze and said, "I saw it."

"If you're afraid of the paint fading and the painting becoming dull, you'll never put brush to paper. Then the canvas will always be blank, with no story to tell."

She sat down beside him slowly and explained the truth she had come to understand: "The colors she paints are your colors. If she forgets you and the life she has with you, her world will no longer be the beautiful painting it once was."

"It is also painful to have your memories erased."

Gazing longingly at the streetlights in the distance, he thought, "I had forgotten about it, and now I want to find it again."

The little cat ghost also looked over, though it didn't know where she was looking, it seemed to understand something.

"I see."

It turned its head and looked at the light that was on in the yard. Zoe was still inside the house applying oil to the painting she had done that afternoon, doing each stroke very carefully.

"I want to talk to her, I'm about to disappear." The little cat ghost looked around the room, then glanced at its own ethereal body. "But she can't see me, and she can't hear me."

How to make humans see a little cat ghost is a tricky problem.

Chichi found it extremely difficult and could only turn to the system for help: "1221, is there any way to let them meet, even if it's for a short time, and preferably they can talk to each other?"

"this--"

After thinking for a moment, 1221 finally gave an answer: "Then we can only send you a message in a dream."

"A dream presentation?" Chi Chi asked suspiciously. "Does it mean making humans dream directly?"

“Kittens can send messages to humans in their dreams,” 1221 said. “They can enter the other person’s dream and communicate in their subconscious, but it requires a lot of energy and strong mental power to enter the dream. It is a little weak now, so I don’t know if it can succeed.”

"I want to try it."

“But your body…” He hesitated, looking at the other person’s faint figure.

"It's alright," the little cat said firmly. "This might be my last chance."