After Turning Into a Kitten, I Was Adopted by My Father-Figure Childhood Friend - Chapter 25

“Miumiumiu!”

A group of cats and dogs gathered at the entrance of the convenience store, crowding around the outdoor dining area with their heads down as they busily munched on grilled sausages. One bite into the bursting, juicy meat, and the snack was oily, fragrant, and utterly delicious.

Xiao Bai ate heartily, sandwiching the little calico between himself and the tortoiseshell, Nuomi. As they ate, they nuzzled him affectionately, their upturned tails brushing coquettishly against the kitten’s back.

“Xiao Mi, Xiao Mi! Are you really not going to eat? This is incredibly tasty, meow!”

A half-eaten sausage covered in cat saliva was pushed toward him. Song the Cat sat tall and proud, his tail tucked primly against his side, crouching like a fluffy triangular rice ball.

“Thank you, Mimi,” the rice ball declined softly. His pointed ears flicked back and forth like turning pages. Seeing someone walk past the store entrance, he immediately tapped the wooden bench beneath him as a warning.

The black and white Border Collie, Lele, instantly looked up with sharp intelligence. Like a shepherd, he herded back a Beagle that had wandered too far while sniffing around. His whip-like black tail swept the area, corralling the Paw Patrol members back into their designated spot in the outdoor dining zone.

The group of animals showed a great sense of boundaries by occupying only a small corner near the door. Passersby who had been hesitating about whether to enter the store were stunned. “Are they making room for me?” they wondered.

The convenience store clerk laughed and replied, “These are the smartest dogs around here. Right, Lele?”

At the sound of her voice, Lele let out two barks in response and bounced happily on the ground. He stood on his hind legs, wagging his tail vigorously with a cute grin on his face. He then tugged at the clerk’s hem and tilted his head back. The clerk immediately understood and said loudly, “And Youyou is the smartest kitten we have!”

Not to be outdone, Xiao Bai stopped eating his sausage and rubbed his fluffy head against the kitten. “Xiao Mi is the most beautiful kitten!”

“Baby, baby! You are a super smart kitten!” Nuomi echoed in a sweet, velvety voice. Her groomed, fluffy fur made her look like a sweet ball of multicolored glutinous rice.

Wrapped in the affection of the two feline balls, Song the Cat’s ears pricked up honestly, and his eyes sparkled. He felt they certainly had good taste.

“Ahem, I am just average,” he noted modestly, though he tilted his chin up and gestured downward with a paw. His high tail curved into a perfect semicircle, and his whiskers twitched upward in an uncontrollable grin. He told himself to stay humble.

Song the Cat’s tail was practically touching the sky. Da Fu finished its sausage and leaped onto the back of the bench with an arrogant gait. It leaned its head down, its eyes sharp.

“Little cat,” it growled hoarsely in a deep, mysterious voice. “Get me another one.”

Song the Cat agreed generously. The two cats, tails held high, trotted onto the checkout counter. He leaned against the scanner, and the high-tech chip in his gold tag instantly registered a three-yuan payment.

The Tabby’s eyes flashed with curiosity as it batted a paw at the square scanner. It adjusted its collar and rubbed its wet nose against the machine, but the beep sound never came. Only when that beep sounded would the clerk put a sausage in a paper bag for the cat.

“You have human-like skills that cats do not know,” Da Fu stated firmly.

As a Tabby boss who had roamed the streets, Da Fu understood the importance of connections. A cat who could summon a pack of large dogs for help was a capable cat. This cat even had human skills and could obtain delicious food from people. However, a cat still needed to be able to fight.

Da Fu’s gaze was piercing as it scrutinized the kitten. “Do you want to be the Boss?” it asked.

Song the Cat, who had been tugging at the bag of sausages, looked up. A faint light seemed to burst from his eyes. This was the key plot point where one becomes the leader through charisma. He decided he was indeed a very charismatic cat.

Song the Cat nodded to himself, suppressing his joy as he asked loudly, “Are you nominating me to be the Boss?”

Instantly, several cats turned their heads, stacking one on top of the other like a tower of curious felines to witness this meeting that would determine the family hierarchy.

The Tabby looked at the little calico, who looked like he could not carry a load or throw a punch, and commented bluntly, “Dream on. I am going to teach you how to fight so you can challenge the Boss yourself.”

To be the Boss, it was all about fists and strength. After all, Da Fu had only taken the third-place spot after losing a legitimate fight to the Maine Coon.

Song the Cat was deeply disappointed. He pushed the bag of sausages toward Da Fu, losing interest. “No, I already have plenty of strength and means,” he replied.

He thought about how he could smack Lu Xiaochuan’s head, but his paws were heavy, so he must not break him. Song the Cat narrowed his eyes, extended his claws dangerously, and nodded with certainty, praising himself for being such a considerate kitten.

The surrounding cats gasped. Their eyes widened in shock, and they stood with pointed ears, whispering cautiously among themselves.

“Youmi says he is a great fighter.”

“Can Xiao Mi really fight?”

“He is just a silly little kitten who cannot fight.”

The goofy Samoyed barked twice, wagging its tail excitedly. “Mimi!”

The clever Border Collie patted the Samoyed’s snout with a paw and let out a low growl. “If you speak ill of Mimi, there will be no sausages.”

“Sausages! Sausages!” A distracted Husky immediately jumped between the two dogs, its eyes glowing as it barked loudly.

An over-excited Beagle chimed in, “Werwerwer!”

Song the Cat clenched his paws into tiny fists. He stamped his foot in annoyance and meowed loudly, “I heard everything! How hateful! No sausages for you!”

“Everyone, today’s territory raid was a great success,” the Maine Coon Boss intervened. He glanced at the kitten and stood on the table to announce, his voice steady as an unyielding winter wind. “If any cat wishes to compete for the position of Boss, I am ready to fight at any time.”

Song the Cat wore a grumpy expression and thought it would be impossible to beat him. Suddenly, his ears flicked. A voice drifted from the distance. “Lele! Yetang! Blueberry!”

The dogs, who had been happily eating sausages together, exchanged looks and scattered like falling stars.

Blueberry meowed in alarm. “Oh no! I left my human inside! I need to go home too!”

“Me too.”

“Youyou.” At that moment, a figure appeared at the intersection. Standing against the light, his tall, straight silhouette was a blur in the distance.

Lu Jingchuan called the cat’s name in a low voice. His indifferent tone made the cat’s fur stand on end for some reason. The Cat Gang instantly dispersed. Da Fu the Tabby snatched up a sausage and leaped to the door to meet the limping Da Fa, and the two cats ran off with their tails entwined.

The Maine Coon was about to run, but hesitated for a second before turning back to snatch a sausage and sprinting away.

Song the Cat also wanted to run, but he was scooped up by the store clerk. She reminded him with a smile, “Youyou, you have not paid for that last sausage yet!”

“Meow!” He was held by his armpits, dangling like a long cat stick. He wagged the tip of his tail timidly as he watched the man approach. He immediately put on a look of innocent, sweet obedience.

As the man drew closer, the sharp, cold lines of his face reflected his temperament, easily revealing an air of aloofness. He was dressed in a pristine, formal suit with a dark gray overcoat draped over his arm, clearly having just come from a meeting. Even his neck was strictly covered, making people want to tear away that composure to see his icy expression break, yet no one dared to try.

The clerk watched nervously as the man reached them.

“I apologize. I will pay for whatever Youyou owes.”

The man’s voice was cold, and his calm eyes were frozen with a trace of frost. The clerk hurried to hand the cat back to him.

Lu Jingchuan spent three yuan to redeem the guilty kitten from the store staff. The kitten had clearly been playing somewhere; his beautiful fur was a mess and had been crudely groomed. Some loose tufts were stuck in his coat, which the man began to smooth out systematically with his fingers. He acted as though he had a compulsive need for order, moving methodically until the kitten was restored to his beautiful self.

During this process, he did not say a word, and Song Xingyu was too guilty to make a sound. The walk from the store back home was terrifyingly quiet. Song the Cat could not help but hug the man’s arm and let out a small, pleading meow to act spoiled.

“Youyou,” Lu Jingchuan paused. His deep eyes fixed on the kitten. “I am not angry about the money. I gave you that payment method so you could spend it. It is fine to treat your friends to food. But why did you go and fight?”

“Meow?” Song the Cat’s eyes widened. He recoiled in disbelief, his gaze full of confusion. He wondered how Lu Jingchuan knew.

Lu Jingchuan muttered to himself, “Did those cats threaten you?”

He sat down at the computer with the kitten in his arms. The screen lit up, showing a photo of a scenic tourist spot as the screensaver. In the photo, a young man stood in the scenery, his figure as elegant as a crane. His skin was pale as snow, and his handsome eyes were full of suppressed laughter, sparkling like a sea of stars. It was Song Xingyu.

Lu Jingchuan’s gaze swept over the person on the desk. He opened a software program where a tracking map completely recorded every step Song the Cat had taken. Additionally, there were several other colored tracks with markers featuring headshots of various cats and dogs.

“I recommended a tracking app to the neighborhood group,” Lu Jingchuan stated calmly. “This kind of software is easy to make. The AI calculates what you are doing through overlapping tracks. It alerted me that you were fighting.”

He opened the neighborhood pet group. The software had sent fight alerts to the owners of the Cat Gang and the Paw Patrol. The humans were boredly discussing whose pet was the Boss. A user with a Maine Coon avatar said, “I cast my vote for our Alpha.”

Song the Cat, who could read, could not help but let out a laugh. He suddenly caught Lu Jingchuan’s eye and instantly flattened his ears into airplane ears, timidly resting his chin on his paws with a look of pure obedience.

Lu Jingchuan tapped the desk, his expression unreadable. “Youyou, I do not interfere with your making friends, but do not fight. If you fight, I will take away your snacks.”

“Meow!” Song the Cat, who had been acting timid, could no longer hold back. At the thought of losing his dried fish and octopus snacks, he immediately looked up to protest. The Cat Hero’s gaze was like fire as he stamped his paws in anger. “Do not take my snacks! You control freak! You are annoying!”

The soft kitten cries were young and lively. Lu Jingchuan caught the kitten’s raised paw and gave it a shake, talking nonsense with a straight face. “No objections then. It is settled.”

Song the Cat thought it was hateful.

Lu Jingchuan made a pinky-paw promise with the kitten and calmly closed the software. He then opened a browser and began intensely browsing social media accounts. He scrolled from social platforms to short video apps, from video apps to music software, and finally ended up on a social feed. He quickly bypassed the pages that had not been updated for a long time, stopping only at Song Xingyu’s empty feed. He scrolled through old posts and saved the latest photo from a roommate’s feed. After examining the high-resolution image, he closed all the windows. The photo vanished, only for the same face to appear on the clean desktop the next instant.

These actions were incredibly swift. Under the man’s calm demeanor, Song Xingyu barely realized the guy was stalking his social media accounts. He flattened his ears unhappily and deliberately looked down to play with his paws. When he realized the man had remained motionless for a long time, he looked up in curiosity, his pointed ears pricking up.

Lu Jingchuan opened the newly saved photo and minimized it back to the desktop. The exact same expression, angle, and clothing appeared in two different scenery photos. These photos were photoshopped.

Lu Jingchuan calmly pulled up all the photos from this period. From the thumbnails in the folder, he accurately sorted them into three groups. The person in the photos had the same expression, angle, and clothing; the three different variations came from three different social media accounts.

Song Xingyu did not understand what he was doing at first. Then Lu Jingchuan dialed a number. After a brief three-second dial tone, Lu Jingchuan spoke abruptly.

“Mo Jiang, where is Song Xingyu?”

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