Chapter 66: A Short Account of Saving a Cat
Xie Huailing was completely exasperated at not getting her cat, Mr. Cat. She pointed out the core issue: if she wanted to keep Mr. Cat, but he was bought by Di Feijing, wouldn't that mean Di Feijing had stolen her cat? This was indeed a serious mistake on Xie Huailing's part; she needed to admit that her previous plans were nonsense and address the problem again.
Upon hearing her sharp, piercing cry, Bai Feifei didn't hesitate; in fact, she immediately mocked her: "Now it's not your cat anymore, it's someone else's cat."
Xie Huailing refused to accept the reality. On the return journey in the carriage, she hugged her arms, briefly questioning her life, and said, "How could this happen? I was here first. The cat, the inn, I was here first in the beginning. Why did it turn out like this? It was supposed to be such a joyful thing to raise a cat..."
She began to recite a passage that sounded like a mantra, which was enough to make anyone's stomach churn. As she spoke, she covered her ears, refusing to listen to what Bai Feifei was saying.
After returning to her room, she collapsed onto the bed and sighed deeply. In most cases, offending Xie Huailing was just that—offending. As long as it wasn't something that seriously harmed her like what happened after her transmigration, and it didn't escalate to the level of the Golden Wind and Fine Rain Pavilion, she would simply pretend nothing had happened and walk away. This time, as usual, she tried to convince herself to let it go. There were many other lovely cats in the world.
But, but, there's only one crazy cat! The anger belatedly surged within Xie Huailing in the middle of the night, and she couldn't sleep, waking up unexpectedly early the next day. At that moment, Xie Huailing knew she had to do something; even if she didn't get the cat back, she had to cause some trouble.
Under these circumstances, Xie Huailing came up with the quickest way to solve the problem: ask Su Mengzhen for help.
For Su Mengzhen, this was nothing short of a prank. He never imagined he'd see Xie Huailing in his study at midday; normally she should still be asleep. Su Mengzhen immediately sensed something was amiss—Xie Huailing harbored ill intentions. But if he could do anything about Xie Huailing, then Xie Huailing's name would be meaningless.
"Lord, my cat has been stolen! There are cat traffickers!" Xie Huailing squatted down in front of his chair as soon as she came in. While Su Mengzhen wasn't sitting behind the desk, she put one hand on his armrest. "You have to help me get justice. The people from Six and a Half Hall are even trying to steal cats from Golden Wind and Fine Rain Pavilion. This is outrageous!"
Her words were so full of flaws that Su Mengzhen didn't know where to begin his response. He pressed his temples, piecing together the logic from Xie Huailing's utterly illogical words, and asked, "The cat you wanted to keep was stolen?"
Xie Huailing nodded vigorously, looking as if she wanted to throw the hairpin off her head, just like a woman pounding clothes. She said, "That's exactly how it is, sir. When Feifei and I went to ask yesterday, the waiter said that the cat had already been bought by Di Feijing."
Upon realizing that even the word "steal" was off-limits, Su Mengzhen pondered for a moment, a strange sense of "I knew it" washing over her. She then said, "You were a step too slow, this..."
Before he could finish speaking, Xie Huailing's resentful gaze was already on him, as if he were plotting with Di Feijing to steal her cat. Whether what she said was true or false was irrelevant; what mattered was that she had come to Su Mengzhen to discuss this matter, not to hear Su Mengzhen's reasoning.
What was that saying again? Su Mengzhen had never had any interaction with a girl in her twenty-odd years of life, but now she had made up for it all with Xie Huailing alone. He quickly cut himself off and asked instead, "You really like that cat?"
Xie Huailing nodded again and said, "It was born and should have been raised by me. Damn cat dealer, damn Di Feijing."
But what could he do? Could he go to the Six and a Half Hall and snatch the cat back for her? This was Su Mengzhen's first time dealing with something like this. He tried to replace the cat in his mind with something else to come up with a solution. When he saw Xie Huailing squatting there relentlessly, her face still expressionless, he inexplicably felt a sense of frustration, as if he had suffered a great loss. Those two red moles were really too coincidental, growing right where tears would flow.
Xie Huailing rarely showed such strong emotions, which made Su Mengzhen's headache even more: she seemed determined to resolve this matter.
Normally, Su Mengzhen would grant her requests unless they were excessive, but asking him to ask Di Feijing for a cat seemed too outrageous. After weighing the options, Su Mengzhen didn't want to speculate on how the matter would unfold and thus remained silent.
Xie Huailing remained crouched, but seeing his deliberation, she raised her empty gray eyes and looked straight into Su Mengzhen's melancholy eyes.
She pleaded so earnestly, harboring the wicked intention of blaming him for everything, her tone like snowflakes falling on glazed tiles in early winter, not yet settling before sliding off: "Master, that's clearly my own kitten! I'd be willing to sleep until tomorrow and make a fortune just to get it back! It's just that Di Feijing interfered! This isn't buying a cat, it's outright kidnapping! It's a slap in the face to my Golden Wind and Fine Rain Pavilion, a slap in your face, Master!"
As she spoke, Xie Huailing moved forward half an inch. Su Mengzhen, sitting in the wide chair, immediately straightened up when she saw her movement.
Actually, the distance was still quite far compared to usual, and Xie Huailing wouldn't have chosen this moment to tease him. But Su Mengzhen was really not used to her like this, even more so than when she suddenly leaned in. His hand lightly pressed on Xie Huailing's thin shoulder, the force just enough to keep her from moving, and then he frowned, his voice low, and his gaze averted: "Behave yourself. Sit properly and talk."
Then, by sheer coincidence, just as he was applying pressure to push her away slightly, the study door creaked open from the outside.
Ruthless, who had arranged to arrive at this time, sat calmly in his wheelchair, his handsome face as composed as ever. Behind him was Cold-Blooded, who was pushing the wheelchair. Cold-blooded's eyes, as blue as an icy pool, narrowed sharply the moment they caught sight of the scene inside.
There stood Miss Xie, renowned throughout Bianjing for her unparalleled wisdom and shrewdness, known as "The Master of Destiny." She was half-kneeling, half-squatting beside Master Su, her dark blue cloak drooping to the ground like a scattered cloud. Master Su's hand rested on her shoulder, a gesture somewhere between rejection and support. The light and shadow were ambiguous, the air thick with tension—a scene that any intruder could easily imagine a romantic drama utterly unrelated to business.
Cold-blooded's actions were astonishingly fast. Sensitive to such matters, he didn't even have time to clearly see the situation inside the room before his hand on the wheelchair armrest swiftly exerted force, pulling his senior brother back. Then, he slammed the wooden door shut with lightning speed.
The movements were swift and clean, leaving only a lingering echo in the deathly silent study.
Su Mengzhen: "..."
His hand, which had been resting on Xie Huailing's shoulder, froze, and the veins on his temple seemed to throb slightly. An indescribable headache, a mixture of absurdity, embarrassment, and a premonition of immense trouble, gripped him like a chilling aura churning within him. He took a deep breath, then sighed, as if trying to suppress his turbulent emotions deep within his lungs, and placed his other hand on his temple, slowly pressing down.
Xie Huailing seemed completely unaffected by the earlier incident, or rather, she didn't care at all. She even took advantage of the moment when Su Mengzhen's pressure on her temple loosened to seamlessly continue the question that had been interrupted earlier, urging him, "So, Master, will you help me get the cat?"
Su Mengzhen closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, exhaustion and helplessness made it impossible for him to refuse: "I understand, I'll help you get it."
He withdrew his hand from her shoulder, and also lowered the hand that had been on her forehead, sitting upright again, trying to regain the dignified aura that belonged to the master of the Golden Wind and Fine Rain Pavilion: "But there's no guarantee you'll come back. Now, you, get out."
Once Xie Huailing received confirmation, her attitude changed swiftly, like the receding tide. She stood up briskly, all her gloom and sadness feigned, and humming an off-key tune, she strolled out.
.
Outside the door, Wuqing's handsome face remained calm, as if she hadn't seen anything. It was just a gentle breeze brushing across the hillside; nothing had happened, and naturally, there was no trace. Behind him, Lengxue was holding his unsheathed sword, staring intently at the opposite pillar, trying to bore a hole through the wooden post. Even Xie Huailing's appearance couldn't make him blink.
"Ruthless Chief Constable." Xie Huailing closed the study door, pulled his cloak tighter, and his tone returned to its usual languidness. "You've come to discuss something with your cousin, haven't you?"
Wuqing nodded slightly, his voice calm and even: "Indeed. There are some developments that need to be discussed with Lord Su in person."
He paused again, his usually insightful eyes lingering for a moment on Xie Huailing's face before quickly scanning the closed study door, then falling into a subtle silence. This silence proved he hadn't truly seen nothing, nor had he thought nothing. After a moment, Wuqing spoke again, cautiously asking, "I wonder if Master Su... is this a convenient time?"
Xie Huailing didn't even flinch. She was no longer embarrassed by such things and calmly replied, "It's convenient. What's inconvenient about it for him?"
Considering the risk of Su Mengzhen becoming angry, Xie Huailing still felt it was a symbolic attempt to salvage his image in his friend's eyes, so he said, "Just now I was only discussing some things with my cousin. Please don't tell anyone. My relationship with my cousin has always been completely innocent."
Her explanation was understated, but unfortunately, it was like trying to wash ink off paper—it only made things worse. Whether Wuqing believed her or not, or how she was internally reconstructing her understanding of her friend, was none of her concern; in short, she had explained herself.
Wuqing simply nodded again, his cold and aloof face revealing nothing of his thoughts.
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