"Oh, I"m afraid I can"t do that," Elizabeth apologized, offering him a saccharine smile, "Idols cannot add fans on WeChat meow~ ."
Her grin dazzled the Cat King, who looked completely spellbound.
"But not to worry, I"ll post the photos on Weibo tonight. You"ll be able to see it later meow~ . I have to go now to prepare for tonight"s livestream. I"m counting on you to always support your lovely Lilibet meow~ ."
"Oh, of course, of course! You should go, Lilibet. I"ll gift you a hundred rockets tonight! And I"ll let everyone know that you are a hundred times cuter in real life," he said, nodding earnestly.
Elizabeth flashed him one last smile before whipping her head around. The corners of her lips immediately turned downward into a nasty grimace. She stuck out her tongue, as if she wanted to vomit.
"Geez, what a gross bald cat," she thought to herself.
Zhao Yao rolled his eyes after he watched their exchange.
"Seriously? That"s it?" he wondered, "Just how much does the Cat King desire Elizabeth? Hearing her voice was enough for him to overcome the infinite idleness."
"Does this mean that the transformations triggered by the Cat King are neither permanent nor absolute? That would only be natural. As a person or cat ages, his disposition will evolve and mature as well."
Zhao Yao checked if this was true with the Cat King, whom nodded in agreement.
"Of course. When you leave my influence for long enough, you will eventually revert to your most primal personality. It is difficult to change who we are at our very core. This is why my rehabilitation program requires more than just my superpower."
Now that he had this confirmation, Zhao Yao turned his attention to Elizabeth instead.
"What was that?" he started, "You"re acquainted with the Cat King of the West?"
"Kind of. He"s a fan of my livestreams. He"s quite generous, so I made him a moderator. He seemed to think that this gives him the right to ask me out all the time. It is so annoying."
The corners of Zhao Yao"s lips trembled with mirth.
"I see. I have one more question," he said, "When you were speaking with him just now, why must you end your sentences with meow~?"
Elizabeth answered in a deadpan voice, "A small part of me chips away and dies every time I say it, but otaku cats love it."
Zhao Yao shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, "Oh well."
He turned back to the Cat King and asked, "So, you"re alright now? Everything"s back to normal?"
Now that Elizabeth was not around, the Cat King"s sweet-tempered disposition seemed to have left the room too. The kindness in his face had been replaced with disdain when he turned to Zhao Yao.
When he spoke, his tone was condescending, "Oh, human, you"re the one who helped me? You"re also the guy who cleans up after Elizabeth? What a lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Here, this is my reward for you."
With that, he clawed at his b.u.m and removed a few strands of hair, which he then handed to Zhao Yao.
"You piece of sh…"
Before he completed his sentence, Zhao Yao already had one foot slammed against the Cat King"s face, pinning him to the floor. He stamped on him unapologetically, reducing him from a lofty king to a pathetic thing.
When he could finally get back on his feet, his hair was in complete disarray. He coughed purposefully, then bowed down to Zhao Yao.
"Thank you for saving my life, Your Highness," he said respectfully.
"That"s more like it," Zhao Yao commented, "Oh, where"s the meteorite fragment anyway? Michael used it to lure you, didn"t he?"
The whole thing was a little odd. Till now, not one of his supercats could feel the radiation from the meteorite.
"Sure, the fragment," the Cat King said.
He pottered to a corner at the end of the tunnel.
"Just give me a second," he added.
"Huh?" Zhao Yao muttered, eyeing the cat suspiciously.
He watched as the Cat King arched his back, sticking his furry b.u.t.t out. His face was scrunched up in concentration. Altogether, he looked very much like he was about to p.o.o.p.
"Oh G.o.d, no," Zhao Yao groaned as a bad feeling washed over him.
A moment later, the Cat King walked up to him and pointed at the pile of excrements that he had created.
"Sorry, I hid the fragment in my mouth and ended up swallowing it by accident. But it"s okay, see, it"s right there. I"ve p.o.o.ped it out," he explained.
The corners of Zhao Yao"s lips twitched involuntarily when he looked at the s**t he was supposed to sift through. Sieving was not even the worst he had to do. Based on his previous experience with Cat Sage, he had to absorb the fragment into his body.
He did not want to touch or absorb anything p.o.o.p-infested.
He was looking around for inspiration when his eyes landed on the supercats pa.s.sed out cold. With a wave of his hand, one of the cats came flying towards him. It was Matcha.
"Wow, the high-quality cat food is really worth the money. His hair is so s.h.i.+ny and smooth. It makes the perfect towel."
After cleaning it with the Matcha towel, dousing it in water, then polis.h.i.+ng it with an antibacterial wipe, Zhao Yao finally had the meteorite fragment in his palm.
Just like before, the fragment melted into his hand once his skin made contact with it. When that happened, he saw that the fragment collection mission was now 5% complete.
"Darn, I need to hit 10% before I"ll get any experience points."
Regardless, the prison situation had come to a successful close. Not only did Zhao Yao secure the fragment, he also completed two missions - one about investigating what was happening here and the other about waking the Cat King. This earned him a neat 3,000 * 2 experience points.
His Book also reached Level 6 (30,122 / 20,000).
Zhao Yao looked at Elizabeth"s experience points, which stood at Level 7 (1,600 / 20,000).
"I can level her up now, but I do want to maintain the 20,000 point surplus in case I need to fuse the Sphynx Cat"s powers. So I would still need over 8,000 points if I want to take her to the next level."
Zhao Yao pursed his lips, "But the failure rate of the Sixth Sense is just too embarra.s.sing. I"ve got to quickly upgrade Elizabeth to solve this."
Now that the mission was done and dusted, it was time to tie up loose ends. After getting Elizabeth"s family to wipe out Michael"s memory of the last 24 hours, Zhao Yao started to usher all his cats back home.
The prison episode would have ended perfectly if not for the fact that Nightmare Cat had managed to slip away once more. This was their second meeting, but Zhao Yao still had no clue what he looked like.
When everything and everyone was cleared out of the tunnel, Zhao Yao headed up to the prison complex. He found every supercat and person, prisoners and guards, sprawled out on the ground, looking very much like happy, but deliberated, opium addicts.
The happiest of them all was Dust Ball, who had created an endless portal between the prison cells using the extradimensional belly.
She was practically skipping through them, a bag of cat mint dangling from her mouth.
"Catmint! Catmint for sale!" she said in a sing-song manner, "Keep blazing and stay amazing, my friends. Come on, who wants some?"
There was no shortage of cats who would love to take up her offer. The lethargic haze draped over them like a warm, lovely blanket. There was nothing they wanted more than to curl up in a corner and enjoy some catmint.
Dust Ball wanted to do the same, but her desire to rake in lots and lots of money quelled any laziness that threatened to take hold. What was more, she could earn experience points along the way. Golden exclamation marks were popping up everywhere as each cat wished for some good, ol" catmint to be delivered to them.
She was killing two birds with one stone.
Dust Ball was smiling so hard that her cheeks were beginning to cramp.
"I sure have to hurry! The demand for my catmint is off the charts," she thought, pleased.
In an office somewhere else in the prison complex, a British Shorthair materialized from a sleeping guard"s head.
Nightmare Cat had finally appeared.
The Cat King and Michael were not the only ones he had pulled into the dreamscape. He had also brought in a random prison guard to serve as his escape route. This way, he would not have to meet any of them when he returned to reality.
The moment Nightmare Cat entered the real world, he fell to the ground, laying on his back with all four paws in the air. His mouth fell open as he stared blankly at the ceiling.
"I don"t want to move."