Chapter 25 – Cat Therapy
Lu Heng got out of the car and entered the residential complex.
The sky had not fully darkened yet. The setting sun was giving its final warm glow, trying to become the city’s last source of light.
The environment and facilities of the complex were quite good. Downstairs, there was a fresh-food supermarket and several convenient shops.
It was a decent place to live.
Pedestrians came and went along the road, and almost everyone’s gaze paused on Lu Heng for a moment.
Most of the nearby buildings were office towers, so the people who lived here were either young professionals sharing apartments or corporate executives who bought places for themselves to live close to work.
Someone with Lu Heng’s temperament was indeed rare in this area.
He paid no attention to the stares, his mind occupied with another matter.
Over the past few days, he had vaguely felt that his body was becoming a little more controllable, though he wasn’t certain yet.
A few irregular transformations weren’t enough to prove anything, so he decided to continue observing.
Instead of returning to his newly purchased apartment, he went back to Lin Yan’s place, transformed into a kitten, and curled up on the sofa.
After a while, he fell asleep. When he woke up and found that Lin Yan still hadn’t returned, he moved to another sleeping spot.
With three steps and a leap, he jumped onto the cat bed Lin Yan had prepared on the bookshelf. Just as he was about to lie down comfortably, his eyes drifted toward the model car on the other side.
He had knocked it over last time and broken a few corners. Lin Yan had carefully repaired it.
It was a vintage-style car.
Did Lin Yan like this kind of car?
A memory suddenly surfaced — the competition Lin Yan had once won seemed to be related to cars.
Yes, that was it.
As he thought about it, Lu Heng’s eyelids drooped, slowly closing, and he fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes again, Lin Yan had just returned home.
Half-squinting to adjust to the light after the lamp was switched on, Lu Heng poked his head out of the cabinet and looked at him.
Lin Yan casually tossed his bag onto the sofa and began searching for the kitten.
Meiqiu sensed the call and immediately jumped down from the bookshelf. Before he could even reach Lin Yan’s feet, he was scooped up.
A top-tier lung-filling sniff.
Lin Yan greedily inhaled the kitten’s scent, trying to throw everything from the outside world out of his mind. He only wanted to fully enjoy this moment.
Work was already exhausting, and meaningless socializing with forced smiles made it even worse.
Still holding Meiqiu, he pecked a few more kisses onto him.
The fatigue of the outside world finally eased. He opened a drawer, saw the photo he had placed there earlier, and his mood darkened.
He slammed the drawer shut.
Then he continued his cat therapy.
Holding Meiqiu against his stomach, he repeatedly buried his face in the kitten. Suddenly, his nose bumped into something hard. The smell was thick and plasticky, like heavy leather.
His hand followed along the kitten’s back, and he touched a collar.
When he first came in and saw Meiqiu, the collar hadn’t been obvious. Meiqiu had long fur, and the collar was hidden beneath the fluff around his neck — you wouldn’t notice it unless you looked closely.
It felt strange. Hadn’t Meiqiu disliked this collar and stopped wearing it long ago?
So why had it reappeared around his neck?
At a quick glance, the collar did look very similar to the previous one. Lin Yan went to the shoe cabinet by the entrance to check whether the old collar was still there.
Lu Heng thought, Oh no… I forgot to take it off.
When the drawer was opened, the collar Lin Yan had placed there earlier was indeed inside.
He picked it up and compared the two. Aside from the difference in wear, they were almost completely identical. His gaze fell on a line of small engraved letters on the inside of the collar—
“Hermès, Limited Edition 3/10.”
A Hermès limited edition — only ten in the world.
Even though he didn’t really understand luxury brands, he could tell this was something special. The letters made sense, but he didn’t quite understand the numbers at the end, so he took out his phone and scanned it.
When the item information popped up on the screen, Lin Yan sucked in a sharp breath and reexamined both collars in disbelief.
Sure enough, the other one also had “7/10” engraved on the inside.
A globally limited edition with only ten pieces in existence… and two of them were here, on his cat.
He immediately picked up Meiqiu and stared seriously into the cat’s innocent eyes. “Meiqiu, weren’t you at home the whole time? Where did this collar come from?”
Meiqiu simply let out a soft meow, rubbing his head against Lin Yan’s hand, as if trying to ease his anxiety.
Hey, it’s nothing, nothing at all. Don’t be so nervous.
Lin Yan frowned. There were no cameras in the apartment, no other way to verify anything.
Suddenly, he remembered that his door lock had been opened before.
But he quickly dismissed the thought. Who would break into someone else’s home just to put a collar on a cat?
And such an expensive collar at that.
Even if it were fake, how would it have appeared here?
A collar like this clearly wasn’t an ordinary item. Lin Yan opened his laptop and searched for information about the limited-edition collar.
The results showed that it was part of Hermès’ luxury pet line released in recent years — an extremely limited model, sold only to VIP customers at the time, with each piece priced in the five-digit range.
This is ridiculous, Lin Yan thought. He wanted to think it through carefully, but he was too exhausted today — so tired he couldn’t concentrate.
He picked up Meiqiu and spoke gently, “Meiqiu baby, did you go out again?”
Meiqiu still just meowed.
“You can’t just pick things up randomly,” Lin Yan said, gently shaking Meiqiu’s little paw. “If you like this kind of thing, I’ll buy it for you in the future. I’ll work and earn money to buy it for you.”
The kitten in his arms was staring intently at the little paw being shaken.
Meiqiu didn’t actually need any of these things. He had simply forgotten to take the collar off today, and that was how all this happened.
But how was he supposed to explain this to Lin Yan? Should he just tell him the truth — that he was actually Lu Heng?
He thought about it, then shook his head.
If he told him, how would he face him afterward?
Being hugged and kissed by him every day — if he suddenly revealed that he was his boss, would Lin Yan be able to accept it?
The little one in his arms shook his head lightly.
“Why, you don’t want it?” Lin Yan leaned closer and spoke beside Meiqiu’s small ear.
“Meiqiu is a good, well-behaved baby, but you can’t run outside anymore, and you definitely can’t pick things up randomly.”
The keypad lock had never shown any record of the door being opened, so how had this little guy managed to get out?
And what if, like before, someone else had come in again?
These thoughts circled through Lin Yan’s mind. No matter what the consequences were, they were things he simply couldn’t bear.
For now, he needed to deal with the problem in front of him.
Something that didn’t belong to him had to be returned to its rightful owner.
The only solution he could think of was to remove the collar from Meiqiu’s neck, take photos of it, and post them online.
Once something this valuable was posted, it would definitely attract a lot of attention. Lin Yan would need to be very careful in judging responses — after all, if the item was real, reselling it could make a significant amount of money.
After posting, he shook the fur on Meiqiu’s body lightly and moved Meiqiu’s litter box and food bowl into his own bedroom.
His bedroom door had an old-fashioned latch. Once you went inside and pushed it shut, no one outside could get in.
But this only worked when he was home — what about when he wasn’t?
He thought for a moment. He would also have to find the front door key, and when he went out, he would lock Meiqiu inside his bedroom.
Author’s Note:
Have all my little readers gone back to school yet?
I’m currently suffering on the road myself [sobbing hysterically].