I Really Want to Pet My Wife's Cat Ears - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A Cat

Spring arrived quickly in Yunxi City. Not long after the Lantern Festival, girls on the street gradually started wearing skirts.

Shuo Yu was sensitive to the cold and was still dutifully bundled up in a long down jacket and a thick knitted scarf, showing no signs of having just returned from a business trip in the South.

She called her best friend, Shen Zhiyue, after getting off the plane, asking her to come pick her up. She figured Shen Zhiyue would arrive in about ten minutes.

Not wanting to continue freezing outside, Shuo Yu turned into a dessert shop on the street. Her phoenix eyes scanned the price list one by one, and she smiled at the clerk: “One hot Mango Pomelo Sago, extra mango, one-third sugar, please.”

Shuo Yu was one-eighth Russian, giving her an inherently cool demeanor. Her eyelashes were thick and lush, and when she wasn’t smiling, she carried two parts of an unapproachable severity.

But the moment she spoke, her cool elegance would be undermined. Her voice was soft and lazy—the kind of gentle and warm mature woman voice.

Since she walked in, the dessert shop clerk had felt that this older sister looked familiar.

But they couldn’t quite remember where they had seen her.

Seeing her order, the clerk quickly snapped back to attention: “Okay, please pay here. This is your number tag. You can take a seat and wait for a moment, guest.”

This time, Shuo Yu was on a business trip for over two months, flying to five cities. She didn’t even have time to rest for the New Year, diligently working on photoshoots in the studio.

When her birthday passed two days ago, she cried and complained to her agent, finally managing to secure a month-long vacation.

Somewhat nostalgic for the street view of Yunxi City, Shuo Yu deliberately chose a seat by the window and, after some thought, messaged Shen Zhiyue, giving her the exact location of the dessert shop.

Immediately after sending the message, an unfamiliar system notification popped up—

“Cat Island Diary installation complete. Would you like to open it?”

“This game took too long to download. I’ve uninstalled all the others that I downloaded with it.” After muttering a few words, Shuo Yu clicked the open button.

She loved playing games, but her work was too busy. She couldn’t play big-studio games that required daily logins for routines, so she could only play small, indie mobile games to satisfy her craving.

On the plane, Shuo Yu was bored and browsed the game center, downloading several mobile games that looked interesting.

She had to admit that mobile games nowadays were either description scams with content severely inconsistent with the summary, too simple in gameplay and boring after a few minutes, or incredibly ugly in art style and unable to please her as a look-conscious person.

Shuo Yu swiftly uninstalled them one after another.

She thought her search for a new game would be a total failure, but unexpectedly, one survived!

The icon for Cat Island Diary was a fluffy Calico cat, with particularly adorable watery eyes. If it were made into a small plush toy, she would buy it without hesitation.

Shuo Yu remembered the description said it was a cat-raising game. Players could enjoy “cloud-raising” cats on an island belonging to cats, unlock cats and become friends with them, collect materials to make clothes for the cats, and fight monsters for fragments to unlock special interaction cards.

The cats on the game’s promotional page varied in color and breed. The art style and expressions were very lively, and they looked incredibly cute and fluffy.

As a tragic cat-lover who was allergic to cat fur, she was immediately tempted, but she didn’t expect the internet speed to be so slow that it only finished downloading now.

“Cat Island Diary requests network permission, location permission, storage space access permission, and requests to use the camera, microphone, calls, messages, and other permissions while playing.”

As soon as the game opened, it requested authorization like any other application.

Shuo Yu was very familiar with this process and chose to agree to everything with her eyes closed.

If she didn’t agree, she couldn’t play. As a collector of small, low-quality games, she was very familiar with this process!

After granting permission, she officially entered the game.

The screen suddenly changed, showing a simple world map drawn with crayons.

The camera quickly zoomed in, and the map gradually shrunk, eventually locating a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. The island was shaped like a cat’s head, with symmetric ears on both sides.

Currently, only the tip of the cat’s left ear was lit up, while the other parts were still surrounded by black and gray clouds, which would presumably be unlocked later.

Clicking on the West Ear Coast, the screen changed to a golden sandy beach.

The area of Cat Island was much vaster than she had imagined; just this small ear tip required sliding the phone screen back and forth several times to view entirely.

Shuo Yu felt that this place had never been trod upon by humans. It was completely different from the beaches she had visited for photoshoots; there was no annoying plastic waste or any artificial traces.

She followed the tutorial to briefly learn simple operations like chopping wood, planting, drawing water, and fishing.

Before she could fully enjoy herself, her stamina bar was depleted.

At the same time, Shuo Yu’s level rose to 2.

She received “Cat Coins X180, Diamonds X2, Wood X10, Fresh Water X6, Farmland Planted with Catnip X4, Small Trash Fish X2, Newbie Gift Pack X1”.

Materials and coins went directly into the materials page as numbers and did not occupy inventory space.

Shuo Yu, still wanting more, opened the Newbie Gift Pack, which contained three items.

“Ordinary Cat Cans (Pending Placement): The most ordinary cans. Palatability is very poor. Only cats starving to death will touch them.”

“Oily Fried Chicken Leg (Pending Placement): A fried chicken leg roasted to perfection in color, aroma, and taste. High in oil and salt, it does not seem suitable for cats.”

“Unknown Blueprint (Pending Unlock): A blueprint where the pattern can be vaguely seen. Don’t know if it’s for cat supplies, clothing, buildings, or special items? Interpretation requires 30 minutes.”

There were twelve cans in the Cat Can set, which could only be placed in locations where cat paw prints had appeared to attract cats.

Shuo Yu dragged it out of the backpack, and the several sets of cat paw prints on the beach began to flash, indicating where she could place them.

She placed cat cans at all four spots, looking at the cute paw prints and imagining little cats coming to eat her food, feeling delighted.

The fried chicken leg was wrapped in a piece of green lettuce, but there was no specific placement requirement; it seemed it could be placed anywhere.

Shuo Yu mused, “Then I’ll put it with the cat cans.”

This was a game world, and perhaps there were special cats with healthy stomachs that could eat anything!

The Newbie Gift Pack couldn’t possibly contain useless items!

With the food placed, the only interactive item left was the blueprint.

Shuo Yu clicked the accelerate interpretation button. The system showed that accelerating the blueprint required 10 diamonds, and ruthlessly stated that the balance was insufficient, prompting the top-up page.

“There’s no way I’m spending money! If I’m going to spend money, I need to at least see a cat first!” Shuo Yu silently threatened the game system and closed the top-up page.

Because of this, she missed the item descriptions at the bottom of the page for a series of fantastical items such as the “Activate Cat Island Touch,” “Activate Cat Island Sight,” “Activate Cat Island Taste,” “Activate Cat Island Scent,” “Activate Cat Island Hearing,” “Cat Affinity,” and “Cat Allergy Medication.”

Hearing a WeChat notification, Shuo Yu switched out of the game and saw that Shen Zhiyue said she would arrive shortly.

She picked up the Mango Pomelo Sago, which she hadn’t drunk much of due to the game capturing her attention, and immediately pulled her suitcase toward the door.

During her break, the dessert shop staff were preparing to scroll through Weibo when they suddenly remembered that the sister who ordered the Mango Pomelo Sago today looked like the skincare model on the full-screen advertisement two days ago!

“Xiaoyu, you’re finally back! Have you been eating well lately? You look so much thinner!”

Shen Zhiyue was Shuo Yu’s best friend since childhood. She now worked at an advertising agency and sometimes created content as a YouTuber, posting makeup tutorials and outfit videos online.

Her hair was dyed muted cyan, with two silver-white highlights near her ears. She dressed more strikingly than most girls on the street, a genuine “hot girl.”

Although she was half a head shorter than Shuo Yu’s 1.78-meter height, the pink leopard-print fluffy jacket, the sharp neck collar, and the studded leather boots on her feet all added a few parts of personality and unapproachability, making her seem less accessible than Shuo Yu.

“You’re so nosy. I’m freezing, let’s go home quickly.” It had been a long time since they last saw each other, and Shuo Yu had originally intended to hug Shen Zhiyue.

But she was afraid the studs on Shen Zhiyue’s clothes would puncture her down jacket, so she had to retract her arms and pat the car’s trunk for her to open it.

Shen Zhiyue helped Shuo Yu put away her luggage, then took out an unopened cat-print face mask and smiled ingratiatingly: “Xiaoyu, put this on.”

“Did you get a cat?” Seeing the mask, Shuo Yu’s mouth twitched unnaturally. Asking her to wear a mask for no reason meant this person’s car must have recently carried a cat!

Traitor!

She was severely allergic to cat fur; the slightest contact would cause her to sneeze non-stop and break out in red hives.

They had clearly agreed not to get cats, but this person had betrayed the organization after only a few months apart!

Shen Zhiyue quickly waved her hands: “No, no. I just helped a younger sister I met two days ago drive her cat for a vaccination.”

They lived in facing apartments; the entire floor was theirs, one apartment on each side.

If Shen Zhiyue got a cat, Shuo Yu wouldn’t be able to come over and visit. So, for the sake of their friendship, Shen Zhiyue would not easily get a cat!

Especially since Shuo Yu spent nearly ten thousand yuan online to buy a rare vintage item for her birthday, and Shuo Yu’s only birthday request was that she not get a cat!

They quickly arrived at the complex. Shuo Yu hadn’t been home for months, so she didn’t plan on inviting Shen Zhiyue in.

They agreed to eat dinner together later and went back to their respective homes.

Shuo Yu stuffed the clothes from her suitcase into the closet, activated the sweeping robot program, and walked straight into the bathroom to take a bath.

Only when she lay in the tub, gazing at the curling steam, could she accurately feel that she was truly home.

After finishing these tasks, she had two hours before meeting Shen Zhiyue.

Shuo Yu thought for a moment and opened Cat Island Diary.

As soon as she logged in, the blueprint interpretation page popped up. The blueprint from the Newbie Gift Pack was for a covered, fully enclosed cat house.

She had almost enough common materials to craft the cat house.

However, a special material called “Shuyu Leaf” only had a chance of dropping when chopping down trees.

Having been offline for so long, her stamina had recovered by two-thirds. Shuo Yu moved her fingers, switched the perspective to the forest, and diligently started chopping trees.

“Mianmian, that strange noise is ringing again. I’m scared…”

On the other side of Cat Island, the pure white kitten was meowing. The meows were accurately converted into human language in Ji Mianmian’s ears.

The girl with a pair of cat ears on her head curved her eyes and rubbed the little white cat. “All fear comes from the unknown! Xiaobai, don’t be afraid. Let’s go and see!”

As the most unique cat on Cat Island, the only one with a human form, Ji Mianmian had always been the bravest.

She put Xiaobai and Xiaohua, the two kittens, into her small woven grass backpack, crouched low, and carefully walked toward the West Ear Coast.

But halfway there, the somewhat abrupt rumbling noise disappeared.

Bad things could happen if she wandered outside after dark.

Just as Ji Mianmian was considering whether to leave the West Ear Coast and return to hiding in the sand pit beneath the reef.

The greedy Xiaohua stretched out a paw pad and patted the right side of her neck, meowing excitedly: “Mianmian, there’s something delicious over there!”

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