Chapter 63, wasn't it supposed to be a confession?
Seeing that the rain was getting heavier, Su Cheng didn't hesitate much, opened the car door and got into the back seat with Lin Yang.
The exterior of the car is a low-key and composed black, but the interior is a completely different world.
The bright Hermès orange interior, paired with pale yellow ambient lighting, is exceptionally vibrant. The seats, made of top-grade calfskin, are soft to the touch, and even the air is filled with a subtle sandalwood scent. Every detail exudes understated elegance.
Su Cheng gently placed the basket containing the little white kitten on her lap and gave the driver the hospital address.
Her slender, pale fingers gripped the edge of the basket tightly, and she leaned forward slightly, as if afraid that the water droplets in the basket would splash onto the expensive leather chair next to her.
Cool water droplets slid down her hair and trickled down the back of her neck.
She couldn't help but shiver, and her shoulders involuntarily shrank back.
Lin Yang noticed the movement beside her and her gaze lingered on the exposed arm.
Although it's only early autumn and the weather is still relatively mild, as the saying goes, "one autumn rain brings one chill." She put her coat in the basket for the little white cat and was now only wearing a thin tank top. She had just gotten wet in the rain, and if she continued like this, she would inevitably catch a cold and get sick.
He unzipped his windbreaker. "You can wear my jacket."
"No need, no need," Su Cheng quickly shook her head.
"Why are you being so polite with me?" Lin Yang lowered her voice as if she had remembered something. "Aren't you going to confess your feelings tomorrow? How will you perform well if you catch a cold?"
Su Cheng's cheeks flushed red instantly, and she looked around anxiously, trying to find something to shut Lin Yang up.
In her panic, she glanced at Cheng Muye in the passenger seat, then desperately tried to signal Lin Yang to stop talking.
Lin Yang shrugged, not mentioning the confession again, and silently took off her coat.
"Really, there's no need." Su Cheng shrank her arms, which were covered in goosebumps. Although the chill was seeping into her bones through her pores, she still stubbornly shook her head. "We'll be going indoors soon."
When interacting with men, she always pays close attention to maintaining an appropriate distance.
The lingering warmth and scent of her body on the coat gave her a subtle sense of being invaded, as if the warmth of the two of them were silently intertwined. This intimacy that crossed the line made her feel slightly uncomfortable.
Jiang Muzhou was the only exception.
Seven years ago, when Jiang Muzhou handed her the school uniform jacket, she didn't even think about refusing.
That moment of peace of mind overshadowed all worries, like a bond that naturally formed in my heart, where I neither had to weigh the debts of gratitude nor felt it was a burden.
The pet hospital is not far from the rescue station; it only takes a few minutes to drive there.
Lin Yang carried the little white kitten into the hospital first, and Su Cheng politely thanked Cheng Muye before getting out of the car.
As soon as Xiaobai stepped out of the car and into the puddle, Cheng Muye's voice came from behind her, "Miss Su, please wait a moment."
He opened the car door and unfurled the black long-handled umbrella bearing the Bentley logo.
Su Cheng's gaze paused slightly as she watched the umbrella move towards the trunk of the car, and then, a moment later, return to her as Cheng Muye walked.
Cheng Muye handed over a dark gray coral fleece blanket along with an umbrella, saying, "It's easy to catch a cold in the rain. You need to take good care of yourself so you can take good care of the kitten."
Seeing that Su Cheng did not reach out immediately, he pushed the blanket forward a little more and added, "It's new, and no one usually uses it."
"Thank you." Su Cheng took the thin gray blanket, gently unfolded it, and draped it over her shoulders.
A feeling of warmth instantly enveloped my entire body.
She looked up at Cheng Muye, "This... how can I return it to you another day? Can I bring it to your company's front desk after I've washed it?"
“No need to make a special trip.” Cheng Muye’s lips curled up slightly. Rain dripped from the edge of his umbrella onto the ground between the two of them, splashing up tiny water droplets. “Why don’t you bring it to me next time you sign the cooperation agreement?”
The autumn rain knocked down a carpet of golden osmanthus blossoms, their delicate fragrance filling the moist air.
In Su Cheng's mind, Jiang Muzhou's face, hidden behind the steaming dumplings, appeared. His silver-rimmed glasses were fogged up, but his dark eyes were still bright.
It turns out that some memories don't become blurred just because you've been apart for a long time; instead, they become clearer and clearer.
Thinking that he would be back tomorrow, Su Cheng smiled noncommittally, "That depends on whether Mr. Cheng's sincerity is enough to move him."
She pushed open the glass door of the pet hospital and walked towards the innermost examination room.
Dr. Cao, who was in charge of the treatment, was unbuttoning the little white cat's knitted coat and gently taking it out of the basket, placing it on a stainless steel treatment table covered with a disposable pee pad.
She held the kitten's radius between her thumb and forefinger, slowly sliding her fingertips along the bone to carefully examine the movement of each joint.
"The situation is not optimistic." Dr. Cao shook his head repeatedly, his brows furrowed. "The kitten's two front legs are almost broken at right angles, with large areas of subcutaneous bruising. Although the hind legs are not obviously dislocated, they are swollen and deformed. The preliminary judgment is that all four limbs should be closed fractures."
“A cat this small wouldn’t be injured like this even if it fell from a height. If it were a car accident, it would usually cause comminuted or spiral fractures, more like…” She paused for a moment, her brow furrowing even more, “…it was broken by someone using external force.”
Su Cheng's breathing suddenly stopped, a chill ran up her spine, and a tingling sensation ran down her neck.
The most unbelievable speculation has ultimately become a bloody reality.
How cruel must one be to commit such a heinous act against such an unsuspecting little life?
Her trembling fingertips gently touched the kitten's head.
The little one strained to tilt his head back, rubbing against her fingers with all his might, letting out a soft purring sound from his throat.
His bald ears trembled slightly, and his azure, jewel-like eyes stared straight at her, his clear pupils reflecting her furrowed brows.
My fingernails dug deep into the soft flesh of my palm, but this pain was nothing compared to the churning soreness in my chest.
Despite having suffered cruel harm from humans, it still instinctively craved human comfort. This unreserved trust, like a sharp needle, pierced straight into her heart, spreading a fine, dense, and agonizing pain.
"What a scumbag! How pathetic must one's life be to harm a kitten?" Lin Yang stared at the weak white kitten on the examination table, her molars grinding together. "The law doesn't cover animal cruelty now, do we have to wait until someone commits murder and arson before we can punish them?"
Su Cheng blinked her reddened eyes and let out a long sigh.
At that time, her social media account only had a few followers, but whenever she saw news about animal abuse, she still persisted in speaking out for those innocent lives.
A pregnant blue cat with its limbs cut off, a West Highland White Terrier that was maliciously poisoned, a black and white cat warrior that stubbornly resisted even after being abused for three days...
But those words written with tears are like pebbles thrown into the deep sea, disappearing without a trace without even making a ripple.
She still remembers the harsh comments in the comments section when she shared videos of feeding cats on video platforms during college: "Keep feeding them, it'll be funny when they all freeze to death in winter after having a big litter," and "If you're so kind, why don't you take them home and pretend to be a saint? Does anyone want to add you on WeChat?"
At the time, she patiently explained that these were stray cats that had been spayed and released, but she was met with even more vicious attacks: "Getting impatient, getting impatient, the cat lover is breathing on you," "Oh, here comes the childless cat-loving woman, she doesn't want to have children herself, so she wants to deprive the cats of their reproductive rights."
One person's voice is too weak.
One person's strength is too insignificant.
In a society with such a large population, promoting legislation against animal cruelty is a long and arduous task.
"I'll take the little guy to get an X-ray first to confirm the surgical plan." Dr. Cao picked up the little white kitten, turned around and walked towards the radiology room. "Please wait a moment in the waiting area."
Su Cheng pulled the thin blanket over her shoulders and followed Lin Yang through the corridor to the inpatient department.
The little blue cat with the broken tail that was brought in yesterday is lying quietly in its cage, wearing an Elizabethan collar around its neck to prevent it from licking itself.
Upon seeing someone approach, it immediately raised its front paws, stood up, and looked around curiously.
"Be good and take care of your injury." Lin Yang leaned closer to the cage, her voice gentle. "You'll be discharged in a few days."
"Is it also broken?" Su Cheng peeked through the crack in the cage door. Its once bushy tail was half bald, wrapped in a sky-blue medical dressing. "Could it also be..."
She didn't dare finish her sentence, but Lin Yang already understood. "The doctor said it might have been broken by being stepped on, but whether it was intentional or not is hard to say."
The more Su Cheng thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed.
If it was really done by a perverted cat abuser, why would they specifically abandon the cat at the entrance of the rescue center? It can't be that this scum still has a shred of conscience left.
She immediately sent a message in the volunteer group, asking if anyone had noticed anything unusual recently.
Soon, a volunteer replied, saying that they found a small orange cat with a broken bone at the entrance of the rescue station the day before yesterday. It had been sent to another hospital, and the doctor suspected that the injury was caused by human intervention.
In addition, there was a cream-colored British Shorthair cat suffering from feline infectious peritonitis, which was abandoned at the door along with its carrier.
The cat carrier contained half a bag of leftover puffed food and a crumpled note: "I came from out of town to work, and I'm really broke. My cat is sick, please don't leave it to die."
"People like this don't deserve to keep pets at all!" Lin Yang clenched her fists so hard her knuckles turned white. "They keep them like toys when they're healthy and cute, but when they get sick they just dump them out, and they're all carefree! They even deliberately throw them out at the entrance of animal shelters, leaving a note to morally blackmail people. Isn't this just being generous with other people's money and forcing others to clean up their messes?"
“I have a feeling this isn’t as simple as it seems.” Su Cheng frowned. “Apart from the cat with the carrier and FIP, which might be because its owner was desperate, the other three cats with broken bones look like they did it on purpose.”
"But what's in it for him?" Su Cheng bit her lower lip, unable to understand.
Just as I was pondering this, Dr. Cao walked over quickly with the X-ray. "There are five broken bones, but fortunately they are all closed fractures, so the risk of infection is relatively low. However, we still need to fix the bones as soon as possible, and we will schedule surgery first thing tomorrow morning."
After briefly confirming the details of the surgery, the two walked towards the rescue station with heavy hearts.
The rain continued to fall, and heavy, leaden clouds pressed down.
Lin Yang was too embarrassed to share an umbrella with Su Cheng, so she silently pulled up the hood of her windbreaker and walked ahead with her head down.
The rain pattered against their raincoats, sounding like their chaotic thoughts at that moment.
Whether or not to rescue abandoned cats has always been a highly controversial topic in stray cat rescue work.
No one can bring themselves to stand by and watch their cats die, but the reality is that fracture surgery and treatment for feline infectious peritonitis are both expensive. The medical expenses for just these four cats could wipe out more than half a year's budget for the rescue station.
What's more troublesome is that unconditional acceptance may encourage abandonment. Irresponsible owners will think that someone else will take them in, while stray animals that truly need help may not receive assistance, which is unfair.
As they approached the rescue station, Lin Yang, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped and stood still in the rain like a wooden stake.
"What's wrong?" Su Cheng stepped forward in confusion, but was so shocked by the scene before her that she gasped.
The thin gray blanket slipped from her arms and fell into the puddle with a "plop," splashing mud and water that instantly soaked her trouser legs.
A chill seeped into her skin through the fabric, but she was completely oblivious, as if frozen in place, staring intently at the horrifying scene before her.
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