◇ Chapter 74 The Past
The doctor's chest muscles felt very soft when stepped on, like a piece of melted butter. Imur pressed them with his paws and couldn't let go.
He was having a lot of fun, but he heard the doctor suddenly laugh, "Little pervert."
Imur: “!”
Nope.
At first he just stood next to the doctor and pushed with his hands, but then he felt that it was not working, so he just used his hind legs to push forward and lay down like a cat.
The kitten was only a tiny bit big, but surprisingly it was quite heavy. Bai Yu tapped its nose and said, "It's really heavy."
Imur stepped hard.
It's soft, like stepping on a piece of marshmallow.
Stepping on milk is an instinctive impulse engraved in the bones of cats. Imur had never done it before, but now he is having a lot of fun.
The doctor complained that it was too harsh, but he didn't chase it away. Instead, he turned off the light, let the kitten nestle on his chest, and nodded the kitten's furry head: "Good afternoon, kitten."
Imur stretched out his paw pads and patted Bai Yu.
Good afternoon, doctor.
Since he was injured, Imur was particularly afraid of cold. He couldn't warm the quilt by himself. Every time he slept in the second half of the night, the quilt was always chilly. The Grand Duke tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep, but he couldn't ask the servants for help because of his face. But the kitten didn't care about that. The doctor's quilt was unusually warm and very safe. Imur stuck to the doctor and fell asleep quickly.
He wagged his tail and thought, "This time the mutation period shouldn't be too difficult."
It has been more than a month since I turned back into a kitten. Counting the days, the transformation period is just these two days.
Sure enough, when I was halfway through my sleep, the familiar pain spread from my muscles to my entire body.
He was in a daze, his body twitching unnaturally, cold sweat seeping out of his skin, soaking the hair on his abdomen.
The period of mutation has begun.
Imur's health is not stable. His mother is a modified slave who was presented to the former Grand Duke by a neighboring country because of her beautiful appearance and gentle personality. Unfortunately, as an unnatural product of genetic modification, she is born with defects and is only suitable for appreciation, not for reproduction.
Later, she was favored by the Grand Duke and became pregnant with Ymur. The former Grand Duke was not looking forward to this child. He just wanted to watch the show and see what kind of monster could be born from the combination of a cat woman and a human, so he allowed Ymur to be born. Under such circumstances, his genetic defects were larger and more serious. He would have uncontrollable cat-like reactions every month and would be in great pain during the period.
The little Tuanzi beside him kept shaking, so Bai Yu woke up. He scratched the kitten's chin, stroked his back, wrapped him in a soft blanket, and hugged him, calling softly: "Tuanzi? What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?"
The kitten's entire body was trembling, and an inaudible murmur came from his throat. His eyelids were heavy and his body was stiff. He struggled to wake up but couldn't, as if he had fallen into a deep nightmare.
Imur remembered the dark dungeon in the Duke's mansion when he was a child.
Imur grew up there.
Slaves are not worthy of being on the table, and cat-people are the lowest kind of slaves. Imur said that he was the Grand Duke's child, but the Grand Duke himself did not care. He raised the kitten like a rare pet, no different from the swans in the garden or the parrots on the shelf. No one in the entire Duke's Mansion has ever treated him as a proper young master.
Why should a little toy born of a toy, a toy with genetic defects, be the Grand Duke's child?
The former Grand Duke was a romantic man with a wife and many mistresses. He had three legitimate sons, all of whom were qualified to inherit the title. Imur was the youngest, born in the lowest social class, and had a lowly and awkward status. Naturally, he became the target of bullying by everyone. These people forcibly took him down from the bed during the mutation period, carried him to the frozen lake, dumped rotten and smelly food on the ground, and forced him to lick it clean.
In winter, the lake water was cold and his lower abdomen was pressed against the ice. After a while, he began to twitch and shiver. The servants refused to eat the food served to him because it had a sour and fishy smell.
Imur felt humiliated and disgusted, but he had no choice but to eat.
If he doesn't eat, he will have no food for the next few days.
Later, the Duke hired a teacher for his eldest son. Imur listened under the window and gradually learned the tricks and tricks of human society. He lurked for several years, relying on his ability to turn into a kitten to bypass the guards to enter and exit the Duke's Mansion. He killed several brothers quietly and became the only heir to the Duke's Mansion.
The means used were despicable, including chronic poisoning, frame-up, and all means necessary.
The former Duke's hair turned white with worry as his sons died one after another. Unfortunately, no matter how suspicious he was, he would not suspect that a timid and cowardly kitten who was afraid even of his brothers' loud voices was the culprit.
At that time, he was old and had no chance to have children. Even though he was dissatisfied with the birth of Imur's slave, he had to acknowledge his identity and make him his heir. He pinched his nose to cover up his mother's identity, treated him as a legitimate heir, and hired a teacher to teach him etiquette.
It was also a shame for the old duke to let a slave's child become the heir. Fortunately, not many people knew about the existence of Imur, and the old duke deliberately covered it up. After a purge, no one in the duke's mansion knew about Imur's origin.
To the outside world, the old Duke announced that Imur was his illegitimate son who was left behind after he had an affair with a commoner girl.
The old duke made up a long story to rationalize Imur's identity. In the story, the old duke was handsome, gentle, and affectionate, and the commoner girl was elegant, beautiful, and well-educated. They went to Wushan together under the moonlight, and Imur was the child they had been waiting for, the legitimate heir to the duke's house. However, due to the chaos, the girl died an untimely death, which made them wander around for so many years.
The dark entrance to the prison cell at the bottom of the lake was flattened and covered with mud by the Duke. When the next year came and the grass grew and the birds began to sing, new green plants sprouted, with red tassels and yellow cicadas crisscrossing on the iron cover. That past, like Imur's origins, was completely buried.
Imur no longer remembered how he spent those muddled days in the dungeon. The human brain has a protection mechanism that automatically blocks overly painful memories. He had forgotten most of the time in the basement, but the memory was still dormant in the depths of his subconscious, hidden on weekdays. Only a hint of it revealed in nightmares was enough to cause him unbearable pain.
It’s cold. Very cold.
There was darkness as far as the eye could see, and there was the sound of water splashing overhead. The entire area was dark and damp, with moss covering every corner. Even the quilts were moldy and growing mycelium, and the air was filled with the smell of darkness and dampness.
There is no sunshine and no warmth.
In his sleep, Ymur covered his belly with his tail.
I’m also very hungry…
The food provided by the servants and the young masters was not enough. They fed Imur like they were feeding a real kitten, which was not enough to provide him with the energy for growth and development.
In fact, Imur is not a short-legged cat. The reason why he still has the body shape of a kitten when he grows up is because of malnutrition when he was young.
His cat form stopped developing early, so he was frozen in that appearance. Fortunately, his brothers died early, and his human height grew a bit, so he was only slightly shorter than the doctor, and did not become a real short-legged person.
The long-lost injuries in the nightmare came back to him. His bone joints ached severely and he curled up like a kitten. In a trance, Imur seemed to be sleeping in the basement by the lake. His lake blue eyes stared at the ceiling, where there was a small vent that was only wide enough for a kitten to pass through. A ray of sunlight was shining slowly down.
The sun shone on him.
It was very strange that the bowl-sized spot of light brought amazing heat, which made the abdomen feel warm. Then the sunlight expanded, and the warmth also expanded, until the whole kitten became warm, as if it had absorbed enough of the sun's warmth.
Imur's eyelids trembled and he opened his eyes.
He saw the doctor.
He lay on the doctor's stomach, his abdomen pressed tightly against the doctor's abdomen, and the heat continued to flow in. The doctor's warm hands were on his back, combing his fur one by one, and his usually calm eyes rarely showed a trace of worry, as if he was thinking about how to wake him up.
Seeing him wake up, Bai Yu was obviously relieved.
The doctor tapped the kitten's forehead and rubbed the fluffy hair on top of its head: "Finally woke up, you were shaking so badly, what did you dream about?"
The tone was tolerant and comforting, as if he would really listen carefully to a kitten telling about its nightmare.
Imur let out a soft meow.
I dreamed...
Bai Yu did not interrupt, but stroked the kitten's back at a fixed frequency, as if to comfort it, but also as if to say: "It's okay, you talk, I'm listening."
Ymur: “Meow meow meow meow meow…”
He spoke quickly and urgently, and incoherently, which was difficult to understand even when translated into human language, not to mention that the meowing was just meaningless noise to the doctor.
Imur knew that the doctor couldn't understand, but he couldn't help but want to speak.
The people in the Grand Duke's Palace had been purged long before Imur was confirmed as the heir. No one knew his origins, let alone his grievances. In everyone's eyes, he was the Duke's illegitimate son who was raised outside. He had studied and had a teacher. He was well-educated. Although he was just an illegitimate child, he was also raised in a pile of splendor, and he was treated with honors and wealth, and he had never suffered any hardship.
Even when Imur occasionally heard the servants in the mansion talking, they all said that the newly appointed Grand Duke was spoiled too much, which led to his arrogant and violent temper, and he could not tolerate any sand in his eyes.
Only Imur himself knew that he was not delicate at all. He could sleep on ice and endure pain. The reason he acted like that was just because he was afraid.
Because once your identity is discovered, there will be no return.
He was more arrogant and more difficult to serve than the serious young masters in the mansion. He wanted to bury his shameful past and let no one know how humble he used to be. After playing the role for so long, even he himself had forgotten it.
Now, in front of the doctor, using a meow that the doctor couldn't understand, he finally found a place to pour out his bitterness and grievances.
Fortunately, the doctor didn’t understand.
The doctor really didn't understand, but that didn't stop him from knowing that Platinum Tuanzi was very sad and in need of comfort, so he didn't interrupt the kitten and let him meow meaninglessly. He just wrapped the cat tighter with the soft quilt and comforted him gently with his fingers.
When Imur finally finished speaking, Bai Yu's hand was still stroking his back, his movements gentle and soft. Imur raised his head, and the doctor's calm eyes looked at him gently, without any impatience.
Once you express your grievances, you won’t feel so sad.
Imur's emotions gradually calmed down. He shook his big tail, circled himself, and then realized that he was embarrassed.
Even though he is so grown up, he really thinks of himself as a kitten. He stands on the doctor's legs and acts like a spoiled child, begging the doctor to coax him.
It's so embarrassing.
He raised his paws and buried his face in them.
The doctor didn't think he was ashamed. Bai Yu just couldn't imagine what had happened to Bai Jin Tuanzi that scared him even in his dreams. He held the tired kitten in front of him, rubbed the pink little pads, and asked, "Do you want to sleep for a while, or eat something? You can have beef paste or goat milk, and I also bought cat grass."
Bai Yu is a man of few words and is not good at speaking. For him, the only way to coax a sad kitten is to feed it.
Imur shook his head.
During the mutation period, his appetite also weakened. He couldn't eat much. He just stretched out his limbs, pressed his abdomen tightly against the doctor, and hugged the doctor tightly like a kitten.
——I don’t want to eat, I just want to hug you.
Strangely enough, Imur had never felt love and care. He had always tried his best to hide his kitten form, fearing being discovered and hurt. It was only after he fell into the water that time, and the wound on his abdomen caused the mutation period to be advanced, that his cat form was revealed to the doctor, and the doctor took him home. Only then did he realize that there was actually someone who would take care of a kitten like this.
It turns out that it is not about harming or making fun of others, but just pure care.
Since Imur became the Grand Duke, there were quite a few people who courted him. Some did it for promotion, some for wealth and glory. Only the doctor didn't care at all. He didn't care whether Imur was a duke or not, nor did he care about the identity of the platinum ball he picked up. He just wanted to be nice to him.
Good for a weak, useless kitten.
It was a very strange feeling, but Imur liked it.
So he spread out his paws and expressed his wish with all his strength:
--hug.
Bai Yu laughed.
He couldn't understand the meow, but he could understand the meaning of the action. He held Tuanzi in his arms and generously fulfilled his wish.
"Okay, hug."
The author has something to say:
That’s right, it’s an update that dropped suddenly!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
