Chapter 119: The Cat’s Hesitation and Initiative
[In any case, you did very well this time. You made it out of the Midnight alive and even brought back a key item.]
Xu Zhi gave a helpless smile at that. “You call that doing well?”
The narrator fell silent, but not out of guilt or uncertainty:
[Perhaps you found this Midnight journey especially difficult, but I must tell you — compared to others, you paid the lightest price and gained the best reward.]
“Oh? Sounds like other people have had it worse in the Midnight?”
[Not just some people — anyone who enters the Midnight will face immense danger. And yet you only suffered physical injuries and mild mental contamination. That’s already a very fortunate outcome.]
Xu Zhi thumped her aching head, wishing she could just take it off. “This is only mild contamination?”
[Of course. Aren’t you still mentally lucid?]
[If it had reached moderate contamination, do you think you’d even remember who you are, or not be suffering physical mutations?]
That sparked her curiosity. “And what about severe contamination?”
[Some creatures within the Midnight are what’s left of severely contaminated transcendentals. They no longer remember who they are, have lost all sanity, and can never leave the Midnight.]
Damn. That’s brutal.
In that light, she really did get off easy.
Xu Zhi leaned against the wall and remained seated for a while longer. It wasn’t that she wanted to look so pathetic, but although Fish Shenwei’s blood had mostly healed her external wounds, the pain in her head hadn’t eased one bit.
She could tell that if she tried to stand up, she might collapse the next second — the dizziness was overwhelming. Even pushing against the ground with her hands, she couldn’t tell how much force she was using, or whether the floor was hard or soft. Standing on her own feet was out of the question.
“So this is what it feels like to be mentally contaminated?”
It was absolutely miserable.
She sent Xiao Yi to fetch her long-unused wheelchair from another room. Honestly, she never imagined she’d need it again now that her body was mostly recovered.
“Good thing I didn’t throw it out.”
With effort, she had her bonded kin lift her into the chair. During the movement, waves of intense dizziness surged through her brain, so strong she nearly threw up on the spot — but she managed to hold it in.
Sitting in the wheelchair, Xu Zhi slumped completely, tightly closing her eyes to block out all external stimuli. Her mind felt like it was shattering, and the slightest sound hit her ears like thunder. Even a glance around made her feel irritable and overwhelmed. So she shut her eyes tight and let her bonded kin wheel her back to her room, then guarded the door to keep everyone else out.
Inside the room, aside from a small mutant creature and a black cat, there was no one else.
The little mutant was curled quietly in her pocket, not daring to make a sound. The black cat, however, paced silently across the room. Whenever it was about to touch the floor, it would dissipate into a puff of blue smoke, avoiding any sound.
But it didn’t seem to be moving randomly — every few steps, it would pause and look at Xu Zhi, who sat with tightly furrowed brows and a deathly pale face, lost in pain. In its emerald eyes, as bright as gemstones, flickered a distinctly human hesitation.
Eventually, it made up its mind and leapt lightly into Xu Zhi’s lap.
Startled, she opened her eyes. Her gray irises now carried a faint red hue, and the surge of hostility awakened by the surprise was glaringly apparent.
The moment the cat jumped into her arms, Xu Zhi felt a wave of agitation shoot up through her skull. She had to use every ounce of self-control to not hurl the cat across the room.
That was only because it was her own bonded kin — and way too cute.
Xu Zhi forced herself to endure the unexplainable violent impulse and simply stared at the cat in silence, her eyes asking: What do you want?
The little cat’s green eyes glimmered. Xu Zhi felt it activate its supernatural power — soon, a kind of “connection request” brushed against her mental field. It was similar to a psychic identification skill, but not quite. The cat wanted to use its own supernatural power on her — but the gap between their mental strength was too vast. Without Xu Zhi’s permission, its ability, [Nightmare], couldn’t touch her.
Since bonded kin couldn’t harm her, Xu Zhi accepted the request.
For a brief moment, her vision blurred. When it cleared, nothing seemed to have changed.
She was still in her room, still in her wheelchair, still hugging a little black cat. The door was closed.
But something had changed: her headache was greatly diminished, and the dizziness was more tolerable. It felt like she’d entered a dream — where all sensations, including pain, were dulled.
And another difference: the sunlight outside the window was far too radiant.
Yuncheng never had such brilliant sunlight.
Everything in the room had a soft, hazy glow. Xu Zhi knew it was because she was inside a dream. But this — this wasn’t a nightmare.
It was the kind of beautiful dream she had longed for.
“What a sweet little thing.” Xu Zhi’s gray eyes no longer radiated pain or rage. Even though the dream couldn’t completely block the mental contamination — her real body was still suffering the consequences — for now, she could escape the feeling.
Overjoyed, she lifted the kitten with both hands and gave it a big kiss on the head. The cat let out a weak “meow” of protest.
Xu Zhi could tell that even this simple dream was draining the black cat significantly. So she stopped teasing it, gently placing it back on her lap and wheeled herself over to the window. Even if the sunlight was fake, it still felt warm on her skin.
She didn’t care that the feeling was only an illusion.
Unfortunately, bearing Xu Zhi’s suffering was too much for the cat at its current level. Even though it was only creating an illusionary dream — and Xu Zhi had fully dropped her defenses to let it work freely — it could only sustain the dream for less than ten minutes.
When the time was up, the dream faded. The room returned to its dim, oppressive state. The pain came flooding back.
Xu Zhi sighed softly and looked down at the little cat, now so exhausted it couldn’t even stand up.
She stroked its back in comfort. “It’s okay. You did really well.”
Then, she took five moth-type cores from her inventory and placed them in her palm. “Eat up. Then rest a while.”
Even those few minutes had been a tremendous relief for her. After enduring constant pain and waves of rising fury, that brief reprieve helped dissipate much of her irrational aggression.
This time, after eating the cores, the cat didn’t go off to rest alone. Instead, it obediently stayed curled on her lap — as if trying to ease her discomfort through closeness.
After all, this human seemed to really love cuddling with it.
