After Becoming Pregnant With The Empress Cat's Cub - Chapter 5

Ju Lin didn’t notice Si Qing’s gaze. Her eyes had been fixed on Lan Ye ever since she reappeared.

Looking at those bright black eyes, Ju Lin inexplicably thought back to that night, the sensation of her fingers brushing against them… moist, warm, and the feeling of trembling eyelashes sweeping across her palm, itchy.

Ju Lin subconsciously curled her fingers into a loose fist. She watched the human approach step by step, only relaxing her hand when Lan Ye stood before her.

By the time Lan Ye reached Ju Lin, she had caught her breath. She curled the corners of her mouth into a friendly smile. Ju Lin noticed that when this human smiled, a shallow dimple appeared on the left side of her mouth.

“I forgot something,” Lan Ye explained her reason for turning back with a smile. “Could you give me your contact information?”

After all, she was the other mother of the kittens in her belly… Lan Ye figured if anything happened later and she needed her, it would be a hassle not to have a way to reach her.

Si Qing looked at Lan Ye with suspicion. She was surprised that the woman had run back so frantically just to ask this. Didn’t Her Highness just give her a business card? If she just tapped it with her phone, the contact info would pop up. What is this woman playing at?

Ju Lin looked at the smiling Lan Ye, also failing to understand the motive behind this move. It was clearly an excuse, yet the girl spoke with such sincerity.

Ju Lin toyed with the bracelet on her wrist. After a two second silence, she spoke: “What kind of contact information?”

“A phone number, I guess.”

As Lan Ye spoke, she unlocked her watch. She wasn’t sure if other contact methods she knew would work in this world, but she had used the phone to call the police, so she knew that existed. Come to think of it, she didn’t know why the year was “Cat Era 2025” exactly the same as AD 2025 and the police emergency number was still 110.

Ju Lin watched Lan Ye’s movements and frowned slightly. She hadn’t noticed before, but now she realized this human was using… a children’s smartwatch…

Si Qing also spotted the “Big Genius” children’s watch on her wrist. It reminded her of the Mi family…

That was the Mi family’s industry. Previously, the Queen Mother had intended for a member of that family to become Ju Lin’s wife, claiming that after the marriage, all those businesses would fall under Ju Lin’s name. It was indeed a profitable business. Si Qing had mentioned before that almost every underage human, beastman, and kitten in the country had one.

But she never expected an adult human to be wearing one…

Lan Ye unlocked the watch and waited for the number, but the woman in front of her remained silent. “Um? Is it okay to give it to me?”

Ju Lin withdrew her gaze from the watch and looked back at Lan Ye. Under the gaze of those bright eyes, she recited a string of digits.

Lan Ye quickly typed them in and clicked save. She was being clever, she didn’t call the number back. This way, only she had the other person’s number, but the other person didn’t have hers. The initiative remained in her hands. If there was no need to contact her later, she wouldn’t have to worry about this woman finding her.

Ju Lin watched as the girl locked the device immediately after saving the number, with no intention of giving her a missed call. Her brow furrowed slightly.

“All done.” Lan Ye raised her hand to wave goodbye again, but before she could speak, the woman spoke first.

“How… old are you?”

Ju Lin stared at her, her amber eyes flickering with emotion. The human’s medical report said she was 21. But humans are considered adults at 18, and once they reach adulthood, they can apply for a proper mobile phone. She had never seen an adult human use a child’s watch… was she lying about her age?

Lan Ye didn’t know why she was suddenly being asked this, but it wasn’t too strange. She used to get asked this often when working at the pet shop because her face looked remarkably young.

“I’m 21. How about you?”

Lan Ye realized she hadn’t asked the other’s age either. The woman before her looked to be about twenty-eight or twenty-nine; her temperament was very mature, even if her behavior was a bit “juvenile” proposing marriage to a stranger. Lan Ye figured her actual age might be younger than she looked, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six.

“18.”

Ju Lin narrowed her eyes, judging whether Lan Ye was lying, and reported her own age.

“How much?!”

Lan Ye’s eyes widened, wondering if she was hallucinating again. Ju Lin raised an eyebrow, not understanding why the girl was so agitated.

Lan Ye held out both hands, spreading all ten fingers, then folded back two thumbs: “18? You mean this 18? Eighteen, nineteen… that 18?”

Because of her shock, Lan Ye’s voice cracked slightly.

Ju Lin watched Lan Ye’s stiff fingers and gave a soft “Mm.” She then watched as those hands slapped onto the black fisherman’s hat with a thwack.

Lan Ye clutched her head, looking terrified. Oh no, how can she be so young! This is bad, this is a crime!

“Are you… an adult?”

Ju Lin’s eyes darkened as she watched the human’s sudden panic. Beside them, Si Qing was equally stunned. What is this human talking about? Beastmen reach adulthood at 15. Her Highness is 18; how could she even ask that?

Furthermore, while Beastmen used the same one year per year calculation as humans, their biological maturity was different. A 18-year-old Beastman’s physical development was equivalent to a 28-year-old human. A one-year-old Beastman could move around maturely, while a one-year-old human was just learning to walk.

Lan Ye knew none of this. Upon hearing Ju Lin confirm she was an adult, Lan Ye let out a heavy sigh of relief. She now seriously suspected that she might have been the one to make the first move that night…

Her heart was full of repentance. Alcohol truly ruins things!

“Um, I’m sorry, little kid. Go home early, and be careful when crossing the street.”

After saying that, Lan Ye turned and bolted. She was worried that if she stayed any longer, the other person would ask her to “take responsibility.”

Ju Lin: “…” Si Qing: “…”

The two of them watched Lan Ye run out of the reception room like a gust of wind, quickly vanishing from sight.

“Little kid?” Si Qing turned back to Ju Lin, her eyes full of confusion. “Was she… calling you that, Your Highness?”

Ju Lin’s eyes shimmered. She hadn’t heard that term used for her since she was three years old. This human… was very strange…

“She just ran off like that?” Si Qing walked to the door to peek. The person was truly gone. She had bet on the girl coming back, but she hadn’t expected her to leave again so quickly. “So, she really just came back to get Your Highness’s contact information?”

Thinking of this, Si Qing slapped her thigh: “Your Highness, why did you give her your private number?!”

That was a contact method known only to confidants after Ju Lin left the palace. How could she give it to a human of unknown origin!

Ju Lin didn’t answer. She stared down the empty corridor, still reeling from the shock of being called “little kid.”

On the other side, Lan Ye had no idea what an impact her casual words had made. Shaken, she ran all the way to the bus stop outside the hospital.

Too scary. I actually slept with an eighteen-year-old ‘little kid’! In Lan Ye’s view, eighteen-year-olds who started school late were still in high school. What a sin. She was now incredibly grateful that she was the one who was pregnant. Otherwise, she really would have had to agree to marry her to “take responsibility.”

The bus arrived. Lan Ye exhaled and climbed aboard. As soon as she got on, she noticed many kittens on the bus again. Looking at cats now, Lan Ye’s feelings were complicated. Realizing they could be “born” by people made her feel like they weren’t just simple cats anymore.

Lan Ye walked toward the back. A woman picked up a cat from a seat next to her to make room. Similar to the bus ride there, as soon as Lan Ye sat down, the kitten came over to nuzzle her stomach.

Lan Ye remembered the old lady on the bus earlier who had asked if she was pregnant. Thinking back, something was off, how did she know? Her belly wasn’t showing at all. Lan Ye had a gut feeling there were things she didn’t know yet.

The woman next to her began scolding her kitten for being impolite to a stranger. Lan Ye said it was fine while stroking the kitten that kept rubbing against her. She opened her mouth as if making small talk: “Did you give birth to this kitten?”

The question was odd. The woman looked at Lan Ye, who was dressed somewhat strangely with a hint of wariness.

Lan Ye immediately pulled out the ultrasound report: “I’m not a bad person. I’m just… well, I’m pregnant with a kitten, and I wanted to ask… uh, about things in this area…”

Lan Ye admired her own adaptability, she had accepted the absurdity of being pregnant with a cat so easily.

Seeing the report, the woman’s wariness vanished. She gave Lan Ye a knowing smile, just an expectant mother looking for advice. However, she regretfully couldn’t offer much experience.

“Congratulations! The kitten is very cute. I’m the mother, but my wife gave birth to it. By the way, where is your Beastman?”

She could have given Lan Ye’s Beastman partner some tips on how to take care of a pregnant woman.

Lan Ye made up an excuse: “She’s busy.”

The woman was surprised. What could be more important than a wife’s prenatal checkup? “You came to the hospital alone?”

Lan Ye nodded.

The woman fell silent, a guess forming in her mind. Perhaps this human’s Beastman partner was system assigned. Otherwise, any Beastman with feelings or a sense of responsibility wouldn’t let their wife come to a checkup alone. Worried about embarrassing Lan Ye, she didn’t pursue the topic, switching to something else.

“Kittens need spiritual energy soothing at this stage. Tell your Beastman that no matter how busy she is, she must find time to do this.”

Lan Ye was confused: “Spiritual energy?”

The woman nodded. Just then, the bus reached a stop. The woman picked up her cat and said goodbye.

Lan Ye watched her get off, thinking about her words. She had a feeling this cat wouldn’t be easy to give birth to… Spiritual energy soothing? What does that even mean?

The bus moved on. Lan Ye was completely baffled and a bit frustrated, why didn’t this “transmigration” come with a beginner’s guide!

Since she knew this wasn’t her original world and she had nowhere else to go, she eventually returned to her “Aunt’s” house. As soon as she stepped inside, she was hugged by a strange woman.

“Xiao Ye! That’s great, you really woke up!”

Yao Li held her, looking her up and down, and even took off Lan Ye’s hat to check the wound on her head. “Good, good, the wound is healing well.”

As Yao Li spoke, she tried to help Lan Ye take off her backpack, but Lan Ye sidestepped to avoid her.

“Who are you?”

Yao Li’s movements froze. Then, remembering what her wife had said, her eyes reddened: “It’s me, Aunt Li. Xiao Ye, don’t you recognize me anymore?”

Lan Ye felt awkward. She didn’t know the person in front of her at all.

Lan Shan sighed, “I told you yesterday, she doesn’t even recognize me anymore.”

Yao Li looked distressed. “It’s okay, it’s okay. After such a serious car accident, it’s enough that she woke up. We can take our time remembering things.”

She pulled Lan Ye to sit on the sofa. “As soon as I heard you were awake yesterday, I immediately applied for leave from the military, but there was something at the base that I couldn’t leave.”

Someone from high up had arrived. As the leader of the regional unit’s cooking squad, she was requested to handle the stove personally, they wouldn’t let her go for anything.

However, while she was cooking last night, she heard some incredible news: the Princess had disappeared, and it was highly likely she had come to their district. The superiors were conducting a secret investigation.

Once Lan Ye sat on the sofa, she matched the face of the person in front of her with the wedding photo hanging on the wall. Though there were changes, it was clearly the same person. This was “Aunt” Lan Shan’s partner, Yao Li.

Yao Li was very apologetic. She couldn’t get leave yesterday and was delayed again today, missing the chance to accompany Lan Ye for her checkup.

Lan Ye quickly interrupted her apology. “I’m fine. Look at me, I’m completely recovered. I can totally go to the hospital by myself.”

Besides, she was the one who should be apologizing.

Lan Ye had thought about it on the way back. Since she had nowhere else to go for now, she could only stay in this home using the identity of their niece, “Lan Ye.” Once she found her own place, she would move out.

Speaking of the hospital, Lan Shan quickly asked, “Xiao Ye, how was the checkup? Is everything okay?”

Lan Ye wasn’t sure if it counted as “okay.” “Overall it was fine, but there was one… tiny little situation.”

A minute later, an exclamation rang out in the living room.

“Xiao Ye, you’re going to be a mother?” Lan Shan looked at the ultrasound report in disbelief, her hand instinctively gripping the arm of the Beastman beside her.

Yao Li’s eyes welled with tears, looking even more emotional than Lan Shan. “I always feel like you’re still so young. I didn’t expect there would already be kittens.”

When Lan Ye went missing three years ago, she was just 18 and hadn’t even reached adulthood yet. In their hearts, she was still a child.

“Who is the Beastman?”

Yao Li and Lan Shan asked in unison with perfect chemistry.

Lan Ye had already prepared an answer for this on her way back, she didn’t plan on involving the other person. “We’ve already broken up. I plan on raising this child myself.”

The implication was: don’t ask who the other mother is.

Yao Li and Lan Shan both let out a long “Ah,” the wrinkles at the corners of their eyes deepening. The way they looked at Lan Ye became complicated.

Lan Ye was confused. “What’s wrong?”

Yao Li confirmed, “Xiao Ye, you mean you plan to give birth to this kitten but don’t plan to be with that Beastman?”

Lan Ye nodded. That was exactly it.

Lan Shan’s brow furrowed tightly. “Xiao Ye, then are you planning to let the system randomly match you with a Beastman for marriage?”

This time it was Lan Ye’s turn to say “Ah.”

Match? Why would I need a random match to get married?

Seeing Lan Ye’s dazed expression, Lan Shan guessed she had probably forgotten all these basic facts.

Three minutes later, after being educated on the basics of reproduction, Lan Ye was completely dumbfounded.

In a single day, she had experienced two three minute sessions that completely overturned her worldview.

First, she accepted that a human could give birth to a cat.

Second, she found it hard to accept that giving birth to a cat required marriage.

In her original world, having children wasn’t even strictly tied to marriage anymore! This freaking Beastman world was more outrageous than the human one!

To give birth to a kitten, you had to have a marriage certificate, and a Beastman had to be present… What was even more magical was that if you didn’t have one, the government had a system where, after registering your info, it could automatically match you with a Beastman.

And it was a paid service!

Not only did you have to pay the system a matching fee, but because kittens required “spiritual energy soothing,” you also had to pay the matched Beastman whatever compensation they requested.

It was a huge amount of money!

Lan Ye was stunned. These kittens really weren’t something you could just give birth to on a whim. You had to get married before the kitten was two months along; otherwise, the system would force a match. If you asked what happened if you couldn’t pay, the government would just issue you a loan.

It would be charged to the kitten’s name.

Poor kittens, born with a massive debt!

You might ask how a kitten could pay off a debt.

Kittens without spiritual energy would remain ordinary cats for their entire lives, such cats could only pay with their bodies by becoming experimental subjects in government labs.

Kittens with spiritual energy, once they transformed into human form, would become government service Beastmen and be assigned to various dangerous jobs.

This world was too ridiculous…

After hearing this, Lan Ye felt quite unwell.

Having finished explaining the common knowledge, Lan Shan saw Lan Ye clutching her head with a look of utter despair.

She asked tentatively, “Xiao Ye, that Beastman… is she very terrible?”

She was willing to pay the matching fee for Lan Ye, but in her opinion, if things could work out, it was better to be with the kitten’s biological mother. This was because some kittens would reject the spiritual energy of any Beastman other than their biological parent.

Back when Lan Shan was pregnant, there were a few days when Yao Li couldn’t leave the military, so she asked a friend to help with spiritual soothing. However, Xiao Xiao (their child) kept fussing in her belly and wouldn’t stop until Yao Li returned.

Lan Ye now knew that Xiao Xiao was indeed Lan Shan’s biological child. Also, Yao Li was a B-rank Beastman, and the Xiao Xiao they had produced had only A-rank spiritual energy. Xiao Xiao was now ten years old but still couldn’t transform into human form. Raising a kitten that was so slow to transform was also a huge expense…

Lan Ye felt the world turning dark before her eyes.

Seeing Lan Ye’s heavy expression, Yao Li worriedly asked, “Did that Beastman do something unforgivable?”

Though she was just a cooking squad leader, she was still a soldier with a strong sense of justice. She looked as if she would immediately go and demand satisfaction if Lan Ye had been bullied.

Lan Ye felt touched. “No, she’s actually quite good. It’s just… there’s no real feeling between us…”

Neither Yao Li nor Lan Shan believed this. In their view, even if there were no feelings now, for the sake of the child, feelings could be cultivated over time.

Lan Shan wanted to say more, but Yao Li stopped her.

“Let the kid rest. It’s dinner time anyway, let’s cook first. Xiao Ye must be hungry.” She pulled Lan Shan toward the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen, Yao Li lowered her voice and said to Lan Shan, “Don’t ask anymore. That Beastman is definitely no good. Think about it, when Xiao Ye had the accident, if that Beastman had even a shred of care to call the police or look for her, would Xiao Ye have been lying in the hospital alone for so long? And you saw the checkup report, she’s one month pregnant. That means she conceived at the beginning of the month. They were together the day before the accident… this Beastman is likely a scumbag…”

Lan Shan felt that this made a lot of sense, but she had another worry: “A random match from the system might not be a good person either…”

Yao Li already had an idea. “There’s still a month. I’ll introduce some Beastmen to her. It just so happens a new recruit joined my squad last month and asked me to introduce her to someone. How about I invite her over for dinner tonight so Xiao Ye can check her out?”

Lan Shan looked delighted. “That’s a great idea!”

That evening, Lan Ye found there was an extra person at dinner.

She had spent the whole afternoon browsing the internet to frantically catch up on knowledge about this world. Her head felt heavy from absorbing too much random information.

When Yao Li enthusiastically pushed someone in front of her, saying she was introducing a friend, Lan Ye only gave a polite smile. She really wasn’t in the mood to make friends right now.

The other person seemed a bit nervous upon seeing her. She hesitated for two steps before walking up to her and reaching out a hand as if to shake.

“H-h-h-hello.”

A stutterer, Lan Ye thought. Just as she was about to take the hand, it transformed in the blink of an eye into a massive… paw?

Lan Ye’s eyes widened. Looking at this paw, which looked exactly like a kitten’s paw scaled up to the size of a human palm, she would have screamed if she hadn’t already seen ears growing on heads at the hospital.

Yao Li looked frustrated. When Beastmen are nervous and can’t control their spiritual energy, their animal traits appear. This recruit of hers only had A-rank spiritual energy and got nervous very easily. Several times in the middle of cooking, hearing that a superior had arrived, her hands would turn into paws, making her unable to even hold a spatula.

Yao Li had cleaned up after her many times.

She released some spiritual energy to help the recruit stabilize, and finally, the paw turned back into a hand.

The recruit’s face was flushed red, and she kept her head down, not daring to look at Lan Ye. “H-h-h-hello, my name is Hajimi.”

Lan Ye nearly choked on her own spit. What was that?

“What did you say your name was?”

“Hajimi.”

“Hahahaha!” After hearing it clearly, Lan Ye couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Hahaha, Hajimi.”

Hearing the laughter, Hajimi summoned her courage to look up. Seeing the girl laughing with crescent eyes, she felt she was much prettier than the photo the squad leader had shown her. Looking at the other’s buzz cut, usually a hairstyle that ruins one’s looks, she thought this human’s fuzzy head looked quite cute.

“W-w-what are you laughing at?” Hajimi asked with a red face.

Lan Ye wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye while waving her hand. “Nothing, I’m just very happy to meet you.”

Hajimi felt her face getting even hotter.

Yao Li and Lan Shan exchanged a glance, feeling there was potential between these two. They enthusiastically arranged for Hajimi to sit next to Lan Ye, spending the entire meal praising Lan Ye to Hajimi and Hajimi to Lan Ye.

Lan Ye felt like her stomach hurt from holding back laughter throughout the whole dinner.

She finally made it to the end of the meal. While seeing the guest off, she couldn’t help herself and hummed a couple of lines from the “Hajimi Song.”

Hajimi looked at the human singing to her under the eaves, her heart thumping wildly.

Yao Li walked her to the car, leaning on the window to say in a voice only the two could hear, “Think carefully about what I said.”

Lan Ye didn’t know, but Hajimi knew: tonight was a blind date.

Hajimi nodded. She actually had a very good impression of Lan Ye. All night, Lan Ye had been smiling at her, smiling so beautifully that it made her own mood wonderful. But thinking about the kitten in Lan Ye’s belly, she hesitated again. She really did need to think about this.

Lan Ye had no idea that because of some inside jokes no one else knew, her constant smiling at the Beastman had moved the other’s heart.

Because they didn’t want Lan Ye to be disappointed, Yao Li and Lan Shan planned to confirm Hajimi’s thoughts first before telling Lan Ye. So, from beginning to end, Lan Ye just thought Yao Li was hosting a dinner for a colleague.

After dinner, she went back to her room. Once Yao Li confirmed her checkup was okay, she gave her a tablet computer, and Lan Ye continued her crash course.

Late at night, after rubbing her aching eyes and lying down, Lan Ye summarized a conclusion from her chaotic thoughts:

If she were to give birth to this kitten, it really would be better to do it with the kitten’s original biological mother. Beastmen who went for system matching were generally those who had been rejected by the normal mating market…

Lan Ye sat up, opened the drawer of the nightstand, and took out the business card she had received at the hospital today.

[Lin S]

Looking at these two words, Lan Ye felt she might have misunderstood the woman today. It turned out that having a kitten basically meant a forced marriage. No wonder she had suggested it…

Lan Ye looked at it quietly for a while. When she closed her eyes, those amber eyes appeared in her mind, noble, with a hint of charming temperament.

Lan Ye opened her eyes, grabbed the watch beside her, and after decisively unlocking it, sent a message to the number she had just saved today.

[Are you there?]

After sending it, Lan Ye waited for a long time but received no reply. Is she asleep? Lan Ye checked the time: 10:00 PM. Does she sleep this early?

Wait… Lan Ye looked at her message and remembered: she hadn’t given the other person her number. A random message like that would leave the recipient clueless as to who it was.

How should she introduce herself?

Lan Ye thought about it and edited: [Good evening, I’m the one from the hospital this morning.]

After typing it, Lan Ye felt that wouldn’t work either. There were so many people at the hospital, how would she know which one?

She thought about it, deleted it, and decided to be direct.

Lan Ye typed out word by word:

[Are you asleep? I’m Lan Ye, the other mother of your child. I need to talk to you. Reply when you see this.]

Click. Send.