catvi

Chapter 122 - Putting on a Play

Added 2024-05-09 19:31:19 +0000 UTC

[Table of Contents]

<Yung: In the end, regardless of which world you go to, it seems cat girls really are supe—>

Yung gulped. It wasn’t a thread, but a declaration.

<Yung: Why?>

<Yung: Ex-fiance.>

<Yung: That’s bad.>

<Yung: Do you think she’s going to break off the engagement soon and make it official?>

There was no reply for a minute. Yung crunched the fried small fish on a stick and gulped it down with lemon water. His fingers furiously typed midair, but he decided to delete the message again.

Thank god he hadn’t implemented a ‘typing’ notification. Or a ‘read’ notification.

Finally, the silence grew too awkward and Yung disclosed his thoughts.

<Yung: I want to take advantage of the Enclave. There is stuff I can do now. Can you help me?>

<Yung: Miss maid, how about you?>

Nom. Nom. The brown braised pak choi Wang Gangliu served was quite good. Not as good as Miss Maid’s cooking, but it had a homely feel to it rather than divine. Yung liked it.

Yung chocked on pak choi. He washed it down with lemon water after coughing a fit and thought for a second before shrugging. He slurped the soup noodles. He was famished.

“Wang Gangbao, did you change the recipe?” Yung asked. The last time he had this noodle, it was sweeter.

“A-Added crushed beetle husks. It adds a tang,” the lad said. The restaurant was packed with people. Most of them were seeking cover from the rumbling heavens.

Sanctified Enclaves weren’t common knowledge.

But it had been a while since the last of the thunder hit, and it was too boring to do nothing but tremble in fear. So they started ordering.

It was good business for the Wang family restaurant.

<Yung: You guys made it pretty obvious that Nyanya had something to do with this Enclave. Is it okay to say it publicly?>

<Yung: That’s more than enough. It feels bad almost being assassinated; you know? So now I’m going to tie up bad guys and make them streak through town in bandages.>

Yung finished the soup noodles by slurping the broth. He was making his Asian heritage proud, even though he was only half in his previous life, and the wrong Asian at that. But good noodles were good noodles, deserving of loud slurps. It was rich, oily, and filling like no other, and Yung patted his belly after satiety.

What better way was there to break the trauma of almost getting assassinated?

Carbs and fat. A heavenly combo that triumphed over therapy.

Fucking arseholes! Yung was mad. He burped. He burped madly!

He was scared. Terrified. But also annoyed and angry.

There were signs that something like this would happen, of course. Everyone had warned him. Nanya, somewhat haughtily, as though getting ganged up on for having her favour was a good thing. Now that he thought about it, it pissed him off. It had been a while since he had spanked her butt. His palms were craving that Essence qi laden soft flesh.

What was worse was that even the locked-up Youjin Chao had once warned him.

No matter what world, even if some may consider cat girls better, having an affair with an engaged fox princess would always have its consequences. It was something protagonists did. Stealing vixens for young masters.

And the word trouble was made for protagonists.

Yung had transmigrated! He was a protagonist even if there were others out there.

Yung nodded, somewhat self assuredly and somewhat shyly. It was a bit cringe, but it was true.

And his fling with Nanya, even if it wasn’t an affair, even if she was a psycho and even if she might break up with him in a few days’ time because he forced her to apologise, her favour for him was a public affair.

And lo-and-behold.

Kittens.

Angry screeching cats with an ancient feud with foxes. If this was a typical eastern fantasy story, and Yung was the typical protagonist, he would somehow end up taking the catgirl as part of his harem and the sheer manliness he possessed would make the fox and cat tribes forget their blood war.

Yung wasn’t that guy.

Although he liked cats more than foxes (specifically the Norwegian Forest Cat the best), in this world, he wouldn’t mind stepping on more tails.

Because enough was enough!

Can’t a guy get a break… jeez… First, he had literally died on Earth to some eldritch horror. Then he died and revived fighting Youjin Fuqiang. Now a random two-tailed kitten almost skewered his brains out.

Yes, they laid a trap. Yes, the heavenly tribulation punished the naughty cat good.

But Yung would rather be left alone than almost killed time and again.

The world won’t leave him alone, though.

So Yung decided he was done being passive.

Even if he locked himself up in a room doing nothing but cultivate, he would probably be caught in the middle of some convoluted plot because of Nanya and his protagonist aura (he was still unsure about this point).

To that end, Nanya wanted him to grow a pair. Be strong. Be a man, so to speak.

The madlanders had their puppy dog eyes. And Yung was weak to that. Coming from a world of modern ethics, the savage disregard of human rights here pissed him off.

And there was the whole thing with the void cultists and his grandfather.

Troubles and mysteries, obligations and wishes. Issues, so to speak. None of which Yung wanted to ignore.

But one thing was for sure. Until now, Yung had spent too much time being swept away by other people's actions regarding those issues.

And that passivity is the root cause of unrest. So, if Yung couldn’t find peace being a passive observer, he would rather force peace by setting the stage. Be one of the players.

He’d done it once when he forced the Youjin Clan and Free Sparrow Gang to pledge resources to aid those in need. It had gone pretty well back then.

So Yung was going to do it again!

“Tell me what happened. Don’t miss a single detail,” Yung said. He could feel the blazing fire inside of him fuelled by anger and fear calm down to a steady, simmering resolve. His voice, though tense, held a commanding edge as he set the chopsticks down and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

The coolie had been healed.

Yung could see the qi swirling in his dantian. He hugged his little sister like a malnourished, protective bear, but the girl looked at Yung with innocent curiosity.

“Will the baddies come back?” she asked.

Yung shook his head.

The girl broke down crying.

“Waaaaaaaaaa!”

She wailed. For a small child like her, witnessing such naked violence done to her beloved brother must have been terrifying.

Ding Shi took her hand and led her away to the back rooms. “Let’s go. Leave the baddies to the older brothers.”

The little girl nodded, then followed the waitress while whimpering.

The coolie watched them go. He had murder in his eyes as they crossed Yung’s own.

He talked, as if venting his grievance. And the more Yung heard, the less his about what he would do became.

From what Miss Maid and Su Haochen said, Nyanya and the Su fox clan had something to do with the Sanctified Enclave. Case in point, the Enclave didn’t want the cat to kill him.

It was on his side, even if the rest of the world wasn’t. And Yung was on the side of the coolie, even if the rest of the world thought of them as trash.

As insects.

Replaceable grunts who were to be killed when they made their betters lose face.

So Yung was not going to hesitate anymore.

Silver flashed. Darkness swam around him. It was an illusion that broke in less than a split second, but the trauma was there.

As if Yung was still falling in that tunnel of darkness. He could still see it. Feel it. The blade of the whip less than an inch away from his face.

Coming to kill him.

Yup, Yung thought, that was scary as hell!

***

“And then what happened?” Yung asked, and the azure wind swirled, carrying his voice across the streets, reaching into the ears of all ren in the area.

The young jailer who was kneeling in front of him gulped. His forehead was red, so were his eyes and nose. He also had curly hair, but the boy took far less care of them than Yung. They were tangled like worms, but oddly suited to the boy’s overall look with baggy, dirty clothes.

“H-He took the spirit stones. Said he always does it. Said it won’t matter! No one told me about the heavens being angry! Why would the heavens even care about us puny mortals?” The boy whimpered, kowtowing to both the sky above him and Yung before him with tears and snot running down his face.

Thud!

His forehead hit the ground again. With the force of the kowtow backed by his newly awakened qi, he might have died if not for the azure wind cushioning the impact.

<Yung: He isn’t very bright, is he?>

<Yung: Good point!>

“And you? Did you join him in this malpractice?” Yung asked. He used official sounding words to appear sombre. It granted him an illusion of gravity, and more people had the courage to peek out of the facility.

“N-No! Heavens be my witness. I was a bailiff at the government office before this, and have never taken a coin from anyone. Today’s my third day here, and all the warden had me do was clean the cells!” The young jailer said.

His voice too was carried by the wind into the penitentiary and the surrounding lodges.

The penitentiary was on the far east of the Dim Gold City, near the borders of the Upper Town East and White Town. It was surrounded by a stone wall, fortified with formations, and beyond the wall there were a few carefully placed row-houses.

Not many people lived here, and the Youjin would not let random people loiter.

It was a prison, after all. Full of thieves and bandits, and maybe political enemies too.

So the only folks living in the row houses were the workers of the facility and their families. Their days were usually spent gossiping about the newest bastard to be locked up or whatever else happened among the prisoners.

The heavens shooting down lightning was a rare event. And Ziyou Yung was the talk of the town. And unlike the previous ruler of the place, the Youjin Clan’s Elder and Warden of the penitentiary, he wasn’t a bully.

Curiosity outshone fear, and workers and their family listened to Yung and the Young Jailer with interest.

The young jailer was a new grunt at the penitentiary himself, not having worked long enough to be corrupted yet, nor to integrate into the local society of workers. He was taken in as a disciple of the warden, and already a few of the cleaning aunties were planning to set him up for marriage with their nieces and sisters.

Depending on how the conversation would go, they might hurry the process along or drop the matter.

“So in these three days, did you see the warden displaying such corruption a lot?” Yung asked with a snort.

The young jailer nodded furiously. “Every day, there’s a few ten or so thugs brought here for causing trouble. Usually, if they’re from the lower town gangs and the Free Sparrow gang, the warden gets a few Ironcast Spirit Stones to lower their sentence. Though I think he doesn’t like the Free Sparrow Gang or madlanders that much. The only reason he lets them go is because the patriarch’s been friendly with them.”

“Is that true?” Yung asked another facility worker. He was disappointed though. It made sense. The Free Sparrow Gang were a ‘gang’, a criminal organisation. They’re trying to legitimise now, but Yung didn’t doubt they had got their hands dirty many times.

The tall old man spat on the ground, “Aye. And if the culprit’s a girlie, he’d have his way with them. Unpleasant bastard.”

Yung sighed. “The heavens are simple. If they see a sin, they punish. Is that not what is happening today?” Yung said, and everyone heard his voice clearly. “The heavens saw the sins happening in Dim Gold City and could no longer take it. So they simply punished evil. Like this damn warden who dared to misuse his power!”

A facility worker raised his hand. It was a short fellow leaning on the side of the wall. He wore Youjin Clan colours, so Yung assured me was higher in status. From Link Sight, Yung could see the guy’s cultivation, too.

“Go ahead.” Yung said.

“There’s a bunch of rapists and murderers locked up in the cells ‘ere too, right? Why didn’t the heavens do punishment to’em? One of them even ate a baby, I heard,” the worker asked.

“T-That’s because the heavens are punishing the cultivators. After all, isn’t the talent to cultivate a gift from the heavens? If a cultivator misuses that gift, of course, the heavens would be angry,” Yung replied. The question had caught him off guard.

“Means the heavens only care for them cultivators at the end of the day, right? I knew it. Mortals ain’t even worth looking at, yeah?” the facility worker said with a sad sigh.