Chapter 21
Jiang Cheng was visibly taken aback when he saw who it was. He coughed lightly and asked the girl beside him, "Is she the one who wants to join the club?"
The voice was slightly stiff.
Yu Miaomiao looked away, but the corners of her mouth seemed to have their own thoughts, unable to suppress the upward curve of her lips.
The girl replied, "Yes."
He nodded and quickly turned around, saying, "I have something to do, please come in and sit down."
As soon as the two entered the room, Jiang Cheng returned to the bathtub and turned on the shower. A mournful cat's meow echoed from inside, startling Li Zhi.
The girl quickly reassured her, "Don't be afraid, it's tied with a rope."
Li Zhi exclaimed, "What a fierce cat!"
The girl nodded in agreement, "Yes, it's really fierce and it bites people. We're all afraid to wash with it, and even the club president almost couldn't handle it."
Yu Miaomiao became interested; it was surprising that a cat could maintain its ferocity under Jiang Chengyi's control.
She stood up and looked at the pool. A skinny, fierce-looking tabby cat was struggling in Jiang Cheng's hand, baring its teeth and acting arrogantly.
Jiang Cheng frowned, using one hand to control his limbs and the other to spray foam, while occasionally using his free hand to fix the loose Elizabethan collar.
At this rate, I don't know when I'll be able to finish washing the cat.
She walked to the edge of the pool and reached out to touch the cat. The cat broke free of its circle, turned around, and opened its mouth, almost biting Yu Miaomiao's hand.
"careful!"
Jiang Cheng's tone was unusually urgent. He tried to control the cat's head, but it was too late. Yu Miaomiao had already touched the cat's head, and the cat had bitten her.
However, something miraculous happened. The moment the cat's bared canine teeth touched Yu Miaomiao, it withdrew them and began to gently lick her with its tongue. Its shrill cries softened, and it began to purr.
Yu Miaomiao casually ruffled the cat's head a few times, wiped the drool off her hands, and let go.
She said, "Go ahead and wash."
Jiang Chengyi looked at the cat, which was incredibly docile and completely different from before, and raised an eyebrow slightly. "It seems that your charm with cats is universal."
Yu Miaomiao snorted, "Your intimidation tactics against cats aren't universally effective."
Beside her, a girl who was witnessing such a miracle for the first time was so shocked that she forgot to close her mouth.
"She's so amazing! What kind of ability is that?"
Li Zhi explained with a smile, "This is Miao Miao's talent."
"No matter what kind of cat it is, no matter how fierce it is, it will become very well-behaved after seeing Miaomiao."
“There used to be a fierce but very cute orange cat downstairs in the dormitory. Whenever I wanted to pet it, I would drag Miaomiao over. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen it since the start of the semester.”
“You mean the chicken cake?” the girl said. “It was really fierce. During summer vacation, the club president caught it and took it to the hospital to be sterilized. It has been adopted now.”
With Yu Miaomiao's help, the cat was quickly cleaned up, and Jiang Cheng handed it over to the girl.
"Xiao He, you come from behind."
"Okay!"
The girl carefully took the cat, and after finding it to be very well-behaved, she petted it for a while, then started trimming its nails, cleaning its ears, and combing its fur.
Jiang Cheng took off his mask, sat down in the chair, and began the interview.
"Yu Miaomiao, let's begin."
The environment was simple, without even a table or paper, but his focused expression made the interview feel formal.
Tell us your reasons for wanting to join our club.
"I love animals and hope to use my own abilities to..."
Yu Miaomiao recited the script she had written long ago in a dry and lifeless manner. She had clearly practiced it many times before, but in front of Jiang Chengyi, she felt a little guilty for some reason.
"...Please let me join the association."
She finished speaking and awaited Jiang Chengyi's judgment, but she didn't hold out much hope, since her image in front of Jiang Chengyi didn't seem to reflect a strong passion for public welfare.
"I agree."
Yu Miaomiao's eyes widened slightly. "What?"
"Don't you know..."
She didn't finish her sentence in front of others, but she knew Jiang Chengyi understood what she meant.
"Yu Miaomiao, are you insecure about yourself?"
Jiang Cheng leaned forward slightly. Without the table to obstruct them, the two were very close, their eyes meeting. Yu Miaomiao noticed that his usually nonchalant eyes had become more focused.
He spoke slowly and deliberately, “But I know Yu Miaomiao very well from our previous interactions.”
"You are not only very good at calming animals down, but you have also made efforts in practice. You once risked your life to save three animals, which is something that many people cannot do."
"Knowledge and skills can be improved through subsequent practice and learning, but a sincere heart is truly rare."
Beside her, the girl looked at Yu Miaomiao with admiration, her eyes sparkling.
Yu Miaomiao was taken aback. Was she really as powerful as Jiang Chengyi said?
The ability to appease animals is an innate suppression of ordinary living beings by the bloodline of yokai, and she went to save Sanjo because she believed that as a yokai, she would not be in any danger.
Her purpose in doing all this... was not so simple.
But Jiang Chengyi had already stood up and extended his right hand to her, "Yu Miaomiao, welcome to the Stray Animal Association."
Yu Miaomiao had no choice but to hold Jiang Chengyi's hand to complete the ceremony.
Yu Miaomiao's first task was five minutes after joining the club.
Jiang Cheng received a call from a club member and learned that a new silver shaded dog had arrived in the back mountain. It was fat, strong, and very fierce. He dared not approach it and had to ask the club president for help.
He said, "Yu Miaomiao, I didn't expect your abilities to come in handy so quickly. Come with me."
Yu Miaomiao shrugged, "Okay, Jiang Chengyi."
The two grabbed a cat cage, a long net, and a rope and headed to their destination.
A thin, bespectacled boy was waiting on the back hill. When he saw the person coming, his eyes lit up, and he was almost crying with joy.
"President, you've finally arrived!"
Jiang Chengyi deftly took two steps back, avoiding the boy's lunge. Judging by her skill, she must have practiced this many times.
"This cat is so fierce, and its claws are so sharp."
The boy showed the scratches on his gloves, saying, "I almost had to get a rabies vaccine."
Jiang Cheng dismissed the boy and said to Yu Miaomiao, "Come with me."
Looking at the slender girl, the boy advised, "President, this cat is quite fat. This student is too thin to carry the net. Let me do it."
Jiang Chengyi didn't explain, saying, "You'll find out soon enough."
A moment later, Yu Miaomiao came out, dragging a large fat cat by the scruff of its neck. The fat cat turned its head away, trying to lick Yu Miaomiao, its tail held high and swaying back and forth.
The boy was dumbfounded, while Jiang Cheng remained calm, clearly having expected this.
Yu Miaomiao stuffed the fat cat into the cage and said, "There are a few newborn kittens inside."
The boy suddenly realized, "So it's a mother cat with kittens, no wonder it's so fierce."
He volunteered and caught the kittens as well.
There are seven in total, all just born, like little mice, all silver shaded.
Jiang Cheng made a phone call to the hospital, then said to the boy, "Go find Xiao He, and you two take the tabby cat and the ones we just caught to the hospital. I've already made arrangements."
The boy then picked up the two cages and left.
Yu Miaomiao watched the other person's departing figure thoughtfully, then suddenly asked, "Is it just the two of them doing this, or is everyone in the club like this?"
Aside from Jiang Chengyi, she had only met two other people since joining the club. These two people obeyed Jiang Chengyi's every word without question, not out of necessity but out of genuine respect and admiration.
Jiang Chengyi could always easily understand the meaning of Yu Miaomiao's question: "It's difficult for me to stop people in the club from engaging in personality cults without causing any impact."
This could be seen as a tacit admission. Yu Miaomiao frowned, a sign of doubt. "Didn't you expel everyone in the club who liked you and promise never to recruit the same kind of person again?"
Jiang Chengyi's expression went blank for a long while before he finally spoke, "Where did you hear that from?"
Yu Miaomiao did not betray Li Zhi; she said, "I saw it on the campus forum."
Jiang Chengyi rarely showed a hint of helplessness, "It's all just rumors. I'm not that dictatorial."
He explained the reasons for dismissing a large number of members.
Not long after Jiang Cheng joined the club, he displayed extraordinary ability to attract sponsorships and manage accounts, which attracted many new and old students who wanted to join and get a share of the pie. However, they did not do any real work and there were occasional cases of embezzlement. During that period, several people were persuaded to quit.
After the president stepped down and Jiang Chengyi took over, he simply stopped actively recruiting new members and relied on member recommendations to attract new talent.
The club doesn't have many members right now; they're mostly people who genuinely love animals and have simple personalities. They naturally admire Jiang Chengyi, who can both attract sponsorships and catch cats.
So this is the truth of the matter.
Yu Miaomiao fell silent. She wished she could go back a few minutes and cover her mouth after her impulsive outburst. Damn it, she wasn't usually a talkative person, so why did she say such things to Jiang Chengyi without thinking?!
She secretly made a decision: she couldn't let Li Zhi copy her homework anymore, lest she spend all her time browsing gossip forums.
She then asked the question that had been lingering in her mind for a long time: "You don't seem like the type of person who would manage an account or solicit sponsorships."
Despite his consistently cold demeanor, both in appearance and personality, he is unusually adept at using language and socializing. The hospital director once said that the collaboration between the association and Cat Joy Hospital was initiated by Jiang Chengyi, and now it is known that he is also skilled at securing sponsorships and managing online accounts.
This contrast left Yu Miaomiao completely puzzled.
Jiang Chengyi suddenly fell silent, bending down to clean the cardboard box that the silver gradient had brought. Yu Miaomiao thought she wouldn't get a reply, but unexpectedly, the other party suddenly spoke up.
"I have never had any pocket money."
"My mother believed that she had provided me with everything I needed, so there was no need to give me any more pocket money."
"In addition, she planned every hour of my day, when to get up, when to go to sleep, when to eat, when to do homework, when to practice calligraphy, when to go to tutoring classes... There was not a single minute of rest. She thought I didn't have time to spend money."
"You know, kids also interact and have relationships. After class, they go to bubble tea shops, play basketball, go to internet cafes, or you come to my house to play today and I come to your house tomorrow."
"But I was an outlier outside the rules. Not having money wasn't the main reason—my mother would wait at the classroom door every day after school, glaring at anyone who dared to approach me, because I was number one. In her eyes, anyone else in the school would only drag down my grades."
“Since elementary school, I have changed classes and schools many times because of reasons such as ‘poor teaching quality’, ‘low student quality’, and ‘lack of cooperation from the school’. Every time I changed schools, I would be quickly kicked out of all circles in the class, and no one dared to talk to me or get too close to me.”
"Except for Cheng Nuo."
Yu Miaomiao recalled the tall man who seemed a bit dim-witted.
Jiang Cheng stuffed the lint and cardboard he had found into a trash bag, his eyes becoming deep as he drifted into memories.
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