Chapter 92: The Cat's City

Du Zhengyi walked out of the narrow courtyard gate that Mahjong had cut into the high wall, and a calico cat slunk stealthily across the roof tiles on the other side of the alley. He instinctively raised his head to take a look, confirming that it was not the cat he often saw around Luo Qi. He might be getting a bit paranoid.

He was on his way to the local Mage office; normally, Teleportation would be the best method, but Mahjong had already warned him once again, and he could not truly ignore it completely. Besides, he was going to attend a summons from a Venerable anyway; what would it matter if he let the big shots wait a little longer?

The spring rain of Jiangnan drifted like silk threads through the ancient alley. He slowed his pace without realizing it and took a deep breath; it was the familiar, damp scent from his memories. He did not open an umbrella, and the drizzle landed on his trench coat—the apricot blossom rain that wets one's clothes—and being able to return to his childhood hometown on a day like this always brought him a sense of comfort.

He turned through several alleys, crossed a few small bridges, and walked to the widest river outside the ancient town. This river circled the ancient town, which was surrounded by farmland and villages on three sides, with only this direction facing a city of considerable size. He had encountered at least one cat on every small bridge along this road, and now was no exception. A white lion cat crouched elegantly on the railing of the stone bridge; he stepped onto the bridge, and the cat stared at him without moving. He felt a bit suspicious again. He stopped in front of the cat for a moment, but staring at a cat was truly silly enough, and after watching for a while, he could not see anything unusual about it. It would be even sillier if he started being paranoid about every living creature around him just because Luo Qi had suddenly unleashed his Telepathy.

Although it was much easier for a Telepath to control animals than people, given Luo Qi's novice status, he could at most control two cats simultaneously. Even though Luo Qi had a very cunning personality, loved maintaining an advantage, and was always tight-lipped about his current ability level, never willing to admit that those cats were forced to adore him, Du Zhengyi had never seen Luo Qi with more than two cats around him at once.

Du Zhengyi thought silently that, based on his close-range observations of the Telepath Luo Qi, perhaps he could publish a paper in a journal for Non-Telepath Mages in the future, proposing to describe Telepaths based on "cat power." For instance, Luo Qi currently possessed the power to control two cats simultaneously, which could be called "Two-Cat Power"—Luo Qi, who possessed Two-Cat Power.

He turned and left the white lion cat, walking on foot into the human city.

His luck was decent; not long after entering the city, he hailed a taxi. But his destination was on the other side of the city, in the old town district, where traffic was as severe as in any human city. For a Mage's movement speed and lifestyle, a traffic jam was truly one of the ten great tortures. If this Mage happened to be as impatient and pressed for time as Du Zhengyi, he would have been ready to kill someone after being stifled in the taxi for an hour and a half.

The little bit of good mood he had in the Jiangnan ancient town had been completely worn away, so for the final stretch, he simply got out of the car, intending to take a shortcut through the small alleys.

The eerie thing happened just as he walked into the alley. It was actually a very ordinary alley, with the dilapidated two-story buildings common in old districts on both sides. Many families had bamboo poles sticking out from their second-floor windows, hung with all sorts of clothes and underwear that were not brought in even when it rained. Occasionally, he would pass a few households with courtyards; the courtyards were all very small, and the gates were barely wide enough for an electric scooter to pass through. A few elderly people were chatting inside open courtyard gates, speaking in an accent Du Zhengyi could no longer understand. But he had only walked halfway through the alley when he realized something was watching him.

That feeling was like a needle prick. As a Battle Mage, someone selected and trained to be a Gushan Guard, Du Zhengyi relied on this feeling to survive most of the time. Even though all the detection Yajian he released did not detect a trace of Magic. This alley hung full of underwear was truly a human-occupied zone.

Du Zhengyi felt a bit tense. If he had not detected any traces of Magic, yet instinctively felt something abnormal, it mostly meant he had encountered a real opponent. It was unlikely that his plan to go to the office was a secret; Du Zhengyi had always been unpredictable, and there were few situations where people could accurately know his movements. If someone wanted to do something at this time, this was indeed the best opportunity for an ambush.

A sharp gaze stung him, making him shiver. He secretly gathered Magic power in his hands and Du Zhengyi suddenly raised his head.

Two tabby cats stood on someone's wall, looking down at him from a superior position.

Looking at him, yes, indeed. Hostility, however, was really not easy to observe.

He did not know what to do for a moment, stood stunned for a long time, and could only continue walking forward. The feeling of being watched by cats was impossible to shake off. He walked through an alley, thinking silently that there were truly too many stray cats in this city, and then thought with extreme annoyance that the cats in this alley had actually all gathered to go for a walk. He would walk twenty or thirty steps and would definitely see one or two cats on nearby walls, eaves, or people's door frames.

His annoyance escalated as he passed through three "cat alleys." Just as he was rushing through the third cat alley, a figure came toward him. He did not even look, sprinting at full speed. The person seemed to see at the last moment that they were about to collide and hurriedly tried to dodge. But what was Du Zhengyi's speed? He instead lunged forward one step and grabbed the person by the collar. Hey, it was the hoodie he had seen him wearing this morning, sewn with bizarre large labels, reflecting the trendy aesthetic tastes of human mental patients everywhere.

He slammed the person against the wall, as if knocking half the life out of him. Before his hand let go of the person's collar, he leaned in close and growled in a low voice, "Luo Qi, you..."

"Hi!" Luo Qi said. Being unable to breathe could not suppress his excitement. He grinned, revealing his little white teeth, "Surprise!"

"Surprise your head!" Du Zhengyi was furious, wishing he could stuff him into the wall. "After I got into the taxi, you were actually able to follow me using cats?"

"How could that be possible? A cat would run itself to death and still not keep up with a car! That's too inhumane." Luo Qi chuckled, "Let me go, and I'll tell you how I tracked you."

Du Zhengyi hesitated for a moment between strangling him and satisfying his curiosity. In any case, strangling him would be a disservice to the effort he had spent rescuing him before, so he let go in annoyance.

Luo Qi pulled out the phone they had issued him from Du Zhengyi's trench coat pocket. Luo Qi had helped him adjust his phone in the morning, which he hadn't paid attention to. "Hehe, I turned on the location tracking for your WeChat. I tried a few times but didn't succeed; as long as you enter Subspace and Teleport, the connection breaks and won't reconnect. I was lucky today; you didn't Teleport. As for the cats, they only take charge of monitoring you when you aren't in the car."

Du Zhengyi cursed out loud. Now he corrected his previous thought. Luo Qi did not just have Two-Cat Power; Luo Qi had One-City Cat Power.