The wind in the cemetery blew wildly, as if with all its might.
A moment later, the orange cat and the white cat slowly woke. Discovering that they had both been tied to a tree, they immediately panicked. Looking to the side, they saw that even the black cat, the strongest fighter among them, had been tied up there as well.
“Hei Miao, even you were defeated?” the white cat said, its face full of despair.
The black cat muttered, “How could I possibly be the same as you two useless things?”
“It really is different from you two.” Yue Wen stepped out from the side and said, “It surrendered on its own.”
“What do you want?!” The white cat and the orange cat were both terrified.
“Just to have a chat first.”
Yue Wen sized up the few cat demons. These little demons really did not look like they were capable of committing any major evil. Most likely, if the Supernatural Administration Bureau caught them, they would simply be deported back to the Demon Realm. So he had not killed them outright.
But in the eyes of the three little ones, this was simply the scrutiny of a demon, and they could not help trembling all over.
“Do you have names?” Yue Wen asked first.
“I’m called Hei Miao.” The black cat was still fairly calm. It glanced at the white cat and said, “That one is Bai Miao.”
Yue Wen looked at the orange cat and asked, “Then there’s no need to ask. You’re Ju Miao, right?”
“No.” The orange cat shook its head and said quietly, “I’m called Chengzi Miao…”
“That name sounds pretty good.” Yue Wen nodded. “Tell me where you came from.”
The orange cat’s face was full of fear. The white cat seemed somewhat shaken, as if it wanted to say something.
But the black cat immediately rebuked them with a resolute expression. “None of you are allowed to say anything! Before we came, the cult master told us that if we were captured, we weren’t allowed to confess anything!”
Hearing this, the orange cat and the white cat both instantly shut their mouths.
Yue Wen frowned and looked at the black cat.
Before he could say any words of threat, he heard the black cat declare righteously, “Kid, let me tell you, we are members of the Miaomiao Cult! Our cult master is the great Queen of Cat Mountain, who once possessed tremendous power in the Demon Realm. If you know what’s good for you, hurry up and let us go, or she won’t spare you!”
“The Miaomiao Cult?” This was the first time Yue Wen had heard the name. He asked, “Is it some kind of demon organization?”
He had heard a little about the Cat Mountain King before, and knew that it was a Demon King with considerable influence in the Demon Realm.
But this Queen of Cat Mountain was something he had never heard of.
“That’s right! Scared now?” The black cat looked proud. “Our Miaomiao Cult is a demon force hidden in Jiangcheng City, made up entirely of powerful cat demons. Our ultimate goal is for the cat race to rule the entire world! For the sake of realizing this great ideal, even if you torture me, I won’t tell you anything!”
“Such an impressive organization. Then why did it send you to dig up a corpse?” Yue Wen asked again.
“Heh.” The black cat sneered. “Foolish human, how could you possibly guess our cult master’s plans? There was a human carrying something she wanted, and he was killed on the road. When the cult master learned that he had been transported to the cemetery east of the city to be buried, she sent us to bring that human’s corpse back! Even if you racked your brains, you’d never have thought of that, would you?”
“So that’s how it is.” Yue Wen nodded, thinking that although this black cat had an arrogant attitude, it was actually quite cooperative.
A classic case of saying all the right things with entirely the wrong face.
The orange cat and the white cat, meanwhile, felt more and more that something was off the more they listened. They both stared at the black cat in astonishment.
Wait.
You’re not letting us talk, and then you’re rushing to confess everything yourself?
Every sentence gets an answer from you!
“Hei Miao, what are you doing?” the orange cat asked strangely.
“Shut up!” the black cat cursed again. “Your intelligence isn’t high enough. He could easily trick words out of you. Let me deal with him!”
“Deal with him a bit longer and you’ll even tell him what color our grandma’s underpants are!” the white cat shouted, completely losing it.
“Do me a favor and stop arguing for now.” Yue Wen raised a hand to stop their quarrel, then asked, “What is it that your cult master wants to find?”
“How could I possibly know that?” the black cat said coldly. “If you know what’s good for you, go find that middle-parted man in overalls yourself and let us take him away. Otherwise, when the cult master arrives, you won’t have a good time!”
……
Yue Wen thought for a moment and felt that it was better to avoid unnecessary trouble.
These three little ones were indeed weak. But the more that was the case, the more it proved that the cult master sheltering them in a human city was formidable.
No matter what the other party was plotting, he had only come here to clear out the lantern monsters. There was no need to make an enemy of them.
The three little demons before him did not look like they were capable of committing any grave crimes. He did not want to kill them outright, but letting them go for nothing did not quite make sense either.
So Yue Wen rubbed his chin and said, “I understand the situation now. I don’t want to become enemies with your Miaomiao Cult either. However, your presence in the city is indeed a potential hidden danger, and I don’t know whether you have any criminal records. I’ll send you to the Supernatural Administration Bureau…”
“No!” the three little ones cried in unison.
The orange cat’s voice immediately turned tearful. “If the Supernatural Administration Bureau catches us, they’ll definitely deport us to the Demon Realm!”
Compared to life in the city, the wildlands were already extremely harsh. But in rumor, the Demon Realm was practically hell, a hundred times more terrifying than the wildlands.
If little demons like them were thrown in there, it would be almost impossible for them to return to the human world alive.
“No, please!” the white cat wailed as well. “In the month since I came to City No. 7, the only bad thing I’ve done was steal someone else’s ID card to spend the night at an internet café!”
“Can you two have some backbone?” The black cat looked at its two companions with disdain. After glaring at them a few times, it turned back to Yue Wen. “Kid, I advise you to weigh this carefully…”
Its tone remained arrogant. “If you don’t let us go today, then you will be making an enemy of the Miaomiao Cult, and our cult master definitely won’t let this rest. If you sensibly let us go, I can consider acknowledging you as my dad!”
Yue Wen looked at the black cat and wondered if schizophrenia existed in the cat world too.
Its face was in charge of arrogance, while its mouth was in charge of begging for mercy.
“There’s no need to be so polite.” After a pause, Yue Wen spoke leisurely. “It’s just that all the damage you caused will be counted on my head. I’ve also spent a lot of time dealing with you. You can’t expect me to have wasted my effort for nothing. You’ll have to think of a way to compensate me for my losses, right?”
“Oh!” The white cat suddenly understood. “I’ve seen this in movies. You want to kidnap us in exchange for ransom, right?”
The orange cat said weakly, “But we’re very poor. We don’t have anything… If you let me go back and notify the cult master, maybe she’d be willing to pay the ransom.”
“Notifying your cult master is even more out of the question. Whether she’d pay the ransom, I don’t know, but she’d definitely come deal with me,” Yue Wen said.
“She wouldn’t.” The orange cat girl’s eyes were pleading. “We cats are humans’ best friends.”
Yue Wen wore an expression that said, Do you think I believe that? Then he gave a wickedly charming smile. “You’d better think it over properly. I can tell that you don’t want to go to the Supernatural Administration Bureau either, right?”
Seeing the situation reach an impasse, the black cat suddenly shouted angrily, “Human, my patience has its limits! If you still don’t untie me, I’ll tell you a secret about a treasure!”
Yue Wen looked at it speechlessly. Every time this black cat spoke, he had to take a moment to process it. “Go on.”
“The three of us really don’t have anything valuable on us, but when we were wandering in the wildlands before, we once encountered a treasure,” the black cat recounted. “At the time, we saw a crashed helicopter. We originally wanted to go over and see if there were any survival supplies, but there was an intense fluctuation of spiritual energy within the wreckage. It was extremely suppressive toward demonic beings, and we couldn’t get within five hundred meters of it at all!”
“To us, it was a very threatening lethal weapon. But to you, it should be a powerful magical artifact. If you let us go, I’ll tell you the location of that artifact, and you can go look for it.”
Hearing it say this, Yue Wen’s heart stirred slightly. He then asked, “Do you have any proof?”
“We took a group photo at the time. I can show you,” the black cat said.
“The phone is in my pocket. Be careful when you touch it,” the white cat reminded him in a low voice.
Yue Wen took a very old smartphone out of its pocket. More than half the screen was already cracked. No wonder it had told him to be careful touching it.
Seeing the pained looks the three little ones gave this old phone, Yue Wen figured they must have picked it up from who knew where and kept it like a treasure.
Yue Wen opened the photo album and, following the black cat’s instructions, scrolled upward. Sure enough, he found a group photo of the three little demons.
It was somewhere in the wildlands, where a faint mist hung in the air. In the distance, there was indeed the wreckage of an old helicopter. Across a stretch of collapsed trees, the black cat was holding the phone high, revealing its own brows and eyes. Behind it, the orange cat stood delicately, while the white cat had shoved a big face into the frame, smiling in a goofy way.
Seeing the corner of a mountain peak exposed in the distance of the photo, Yue Wen was slightly surprised. “This is near North Vermilion Bird Peak. You were wandering there before?”
That was a place in the wildlands outside Jiangcheng City where demons and monsters gathered densely around a spiritual vein. Its danger level was very high.
With the strength of these little demons, they had actually survived there?
“We used to have a grandpa and grandma,” the white cat said pitifully. “Later, Grandpa and Grandma were both beaten to death by other great demons, and that was when we wandered out and met the cult master…”
“Now you understand, don’t you? We are not some stray, unorthodox demons!” the black cat said viciously again. “I won’t hide it from you. Back then, Grandpa and Grandma once passed down a secret art to me! If you really dare to hurt us, I’ll sacrifice all my lifespan and make your knees crack for three years!”