It wasn’t until 2 AM that it ended.
After showering, and with a groggy approval from Maimai, Cheng Lin used his phone to message Qin Lu and request time off.
As he exited the chat with the boss, Cheng Lin’s eyes fell on the next contact. The red notification dot had initially shown two unread messages, but now the number had doubled.
It seemed that, since Maimai hadn’t replied, He Xin had sent two more messages:
“Sorry, am I bothering you?”
“I didn’t mean any harm, I was just thinking about you.”
With an air of smug superiority, Cheng Lin moved his fingers slightly and responded, “Sorry, he’s asleep. We’re getting married soon.”
Hitting send filled him with a deep sense of satisfaction, like the rightful spouse reclaiming their place.
On the bed, Maimai, having given his sleepy approval, was already fast asleep, hugging the quilt.
Although he looked human, Cheng Lin couldn’t help but picture him as he had been when he was still a cat.
His cheeks, those long eyelashes fluttering over his closed eyes.
Propping himself up, Cheng Lin reached over to touch the cat’s hair, checking if it was dry. As his fingers continued to explore, they traced down to Maimai’s cheek, and he couldn’t resist planting a kiss—once, twice. It felt so good. But after a few more kisses, the cat began to grow irritated, sleepily shifting his head to the side.
Not wanting to disturb him further, the human slid under the covers, pulling the cat close like a long-lost treasure. The warmth of their skin touching sent a shiver through him. The scent and heat were perfect. Falling asleep couldn’t have been easier.
When Cheng Lin opened his eyes again, he found himself in the living room of his house. The space was familiar, yet something was off. Everything seemed strangely… enlarged.
The chair legs stretched up like the Tower of Babel, the coffee table looked like a skyscraper, and the cat bed seemed the size of a swimming pool.
It was eerily silent. Cheng Lin looked down and saw his furry paws. The pattern was unclear, but they were definitely cat paws. Judging by their size, he was a kitten. No wonder everything around him appeared so massive.
He had turned into a cat?
Cheng Lin accepted this reality with surprising ease, but then he remembered the cat he was supposed to be taking care of. Where was Maimai?
He started moving on all fours, taking two tentative steps along the wooden floor, and looked around in confusion. At that moment, the floor began to shake.
He turned to see a much larger orange cat running toward him.
Maimai trotted over, letting out a cheerful “meow.”
Though he still had that familiar round face, big eyes, and pink nose, Maimai was now at least twice Cheng Lin’s size, requiring him to look up slightly. He even had a bit of a dignified, leadership presence.
Cheng Lin compared his paw to Maimai’s, feeling a sharp pang of inferiority. He couldn’t fathom how Maimai had seen him this way before, but now Cheng Lin was definitely feeling the impact.
The orange cat circled him twice, his tail lightly brushing across his face each time it passed, almost as if doing so on purpose.
After a while, Maimai playfully nudged him with his big head, a gesture that felt affectionate.
Cheng Lin’s chest tightened from the nudges, and the constant swishing of the tail in his face made it hard to breathe. “Wait, wait, wait.”
The cat’s face, still somewhat childlike, lowered as he curiously sniffed Cheng Lin upon hearing his voice.
Then, as if deciding the moment was right, Maimai suddenly began licking his fur diligently—
The alarm clock rang, and Cheng Lin snapped awake.
After a long night, a corner of the quilt pressed against Cheng Lin’s cheek. The embrace was warm. In his arms, Maimai slept soundly, his head nestled against his chest. No wonder the dream had felt so real—everything matched up perfectly. Freud might have been onto something.
Cheng Lin quickly turned off the alarm, not making another move. The dream had been so vivid that he needed a moment to collect himself, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Turning into a cat shouldn’t be something transmitted through sex, right? Cheng Lin thought to himself. He opened his hand, relieved to see a palm and not a cat’s paw. Fortunately, everything was as it had been.
Although Cheng Lin had reacted quickly, Maimai was still woken up by the alarm. Having gone to bed too late the previous night, he was still groggy. “It’s time for work.”
Cheng Lin glanced down at him, grabbed Maimai’s phone from the nightstand, and saw that Qin Lu had already replied. “Go back to sleep. I’ve asked for leave for you. Qin Lu said a new employee is starting today, so you can relax.”
Originally, the cafe operated on a five-days-on, two-days-off schedule, from nine to six. But business had been so good that Qin Lu hired additional staff to rotate shifts. Now, the shop stayed open longer, with a one-day-off, one-day-on schedule.
With his work situation sorted out by his secretary, the ever-dedicated Maimai easily drifted back to sleep with peace of mind.
After confirming that it had just been a dream, Cheng Lin felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him as if he’d survived a close call. He tucked the quilt over Maimai’s shoulder, pulled him closer, and quickly fell back asleep.
The next time they woke, it was already noon.
Cheng Lin sat up, leaning against the headboard as he scrolled through the flood of work messages on his phone. Maimai looked at him in recollection. Since becoming human, this seemed to be the first time Cheng Lin had held him without any clothes.
Before, Maimai had always thought it was such a hassle that humans had to wear so many clothes. But Cheng Lin had reacted so strongly whenever Maimai didn’t wear any that he’d learned to follow the rules. Over time, he realized that, unlike cats, humans usually kept their bodies covered when interacting with others.
The way Cheng Lin used to care for him had been quite different. He would not only pet and kiss him from head to tail but also bury his face in his belly, inhaling deeply in a state of bliss. Such behavior didn’t seem to exist in human society.
But after last night, their relationship had changed. Now that they were finally facing each other with complete honesty, it was truly fascinating—
It turned out that human society did have similar behaviors after all, once the relationship reached a certain point.
The quilt slipped down, and just like before, Maimai burrowed into Cheng Lin’s arms.
Cheng Lin had no idea what Maimai was up to, but he wrapped one arm around him, idly stroking the back of the cat’s head while trying to focus on Yuan Jiaming’s messages. He was fully absorbed.
Maimai stared at the place where he was leaning against.
He hadn’t noticed it before, but it turned out this spot could be touched too.
Thinking back to what Cheng Lin had done last night, Maimai leaned in and gave it a kiss.
“Hey.” Cheng Lin jolted, immediately covering his chest with his hand, utterly embarrassed. “What are you doing?”
“What’s wrong?” Maimai rested his chin on Cheng Lin’s chest and asked, genuinely innocent, “You did the same thing to me last night.”
Last night.
Those two words instantly transported Cheng Lin back to the scene, his mind replaying everything he’d done in a loop.
“Now that you’re awake, does your body feel okay?” All the tension from the previous days had lifted. Cheng Lin, awkward yet content, turned his head slightly to pet the cat’s hair. “Is your, uh, estrus… over?”
“I’m not sure. The manual said it could last anywhere from two weeks to a month. Maybe it’s easing up.” With too many questions at once, he responded to them one by one. Maimai thought for a moment and then answered, “It didn’t hurt as much as I imagined. I felt a bit overfull at first. After a while, it actually felt pretty good.”
Then Maimai remembered how, even in that state, he had told Cheng Lin that he liked him.
Cheng Lin couldn’t handle the cat’s bluntness, so he turned away to calm down for a moment.
“What about you?” Just like newlyweds, neither of them wanted to move. With wide eyes, the cat asked, “Were you uncomfortable?”
Caught off guard, Cheng Lin replied, “No, not uncomfortable… It was actually… really comfortable.”
Given that, Maimai suddenly changed his tone and scolded, “How come you don’t understand anything? You went to school for so many years, didn’t they teach you this?”
“Just because you study something doesn’t mean you have to understand it. It’s not the same thing.” Cheng Lin felt wronged. “School only teaches about meiosis, not about how to cause it. What kind of manual did you even read? Where did you get it from? Is it even legit?”
Maimai, firm in his belief that the organization’s credibility was beyond question, wriggled out of Cheng Lin’s grasp and ran out of bed. After a while, he returned with two manuals in hand. “See for yourself! These were written by a whole editorial team! Rongrong brought them from the organization for me.”
The book’s title alone intimidated Cheng Lin. He carefully opened it, genuinely eager to learn, driven by a sincere thirst for knowledge.
The manual was impressively thorough, guiding him step by step with meticulous detail.
It covered symptoms and solutions for various scenarios, complete with simple illustrations.
However, the wording and style were extremely cold and objective, much like a high school biology textbook, so it didn’t provoke any wild thoughts.
It was a well-researched, scientific, and objective guide, clearly designed for the physiological health of kitty people.
“See, this is the position you used at the beginning.” Maimai nestled comfortably in Cheng Lin’s arms. He rolled his eyes back and pointed with his finger. “And this is what you used later on.”
“Alright, alright, I get it. I’ll read it myself.” Cheng Lin’s face flushed despite having already put the lessons into practice. He quickly kissed the cat before asking, “How did you even think of buying condoms? Was it because of what the manual said?”
“Yeah.” Maimai stretched out on the pillow and explained, “I bought them at the convenience store.” He only knew the brand and wasn’t even aware that there were size differences. The store clerk handed him a box, and he just assumed it was fine and went ahead with the payment.
“If I hadn’t used it, who else did you plan to give it to?!” Cheng Lin questioned with a sense of insecurity, imagining Cheng Maimai using it all by himself.
“No one. I just wanted to be prepared and figure out how to invite you because I react as soon as I smell your scent, especially these past few days,” Maimai answered innocently. “I guess not all kitty people are like that.”
The cat continued, “The manual said I had to get consent, but last time, Rongrong scolded a Ragdoll cat at the cafe for doing this. I was afraid you’d reject me and think I’m some kind of pervert.”
“How could I reject you?” Cheng Lin recalled Maimai’s recent distance, and now, understanding the true restraint behind it, his heart raced as he asked, “Do you think I have any principles left when it comes to you?” He had assumed the cat wasn’t interested anymore, but little did he know that it was precisely because Maimai liked him too much that he held back.
“Yeah.” Maimai slowly began to realize that Cheng Lin might care about him more than he had initially thought. After a moment of contemplation, he quietly hugged the human back and asked, “Were you sad? You cried last night.”
For pride’s sake, Cheng Lin wanted to deny it but ended up stiffly admitting, “I didn’t know why you suddenly started avoiding me.” He quickly changed the subject, “Why didn’t you let me pick you up from the cafe in the first place?”
“There were a lot of other cats in the cafe,” Maimai mumbled, “They all look a lot like me.”
Cheng Lin replied, “How could you be the same as other cats?”
“We’re pretty similar,” Maimai replied. “I’m just an ordinary mixed-breed cat.”
“Is that so? Maimai seems different to me.” Cheng Lin glanced at the nearby cabinet and said, “You’re my favorite.”
Cheng Lin had confessed his feelings for Maimai to other cats and people more than once, but he had never told Maimai himself.
Maimai was stunned for a moment before quickly shifting back into his cat form. He let out a couple of “meows” and dashed around the bed a few times. In his excitement, he accidentally tripped over Cheng Lin’s leg and, feeling a bit embarrassed, just lay down where he was and rolled over.
He hadn’t been groomed in a while, so his running and rolling left a bunch of short, wheat-colored fur all over the white pillowcase and bedspread.
Cheng Lin’s words had been far too sappy, which wasn’t his style at all. He needed to say something to kill the mood.
He picked up the cat, grabbed a lint roller from the drawer, and pointed at the fur. “You know, being human has its perks—you don’t shed, and I have to take a few less steps to clean.”
In the blink of an eye, Maimai transformed back into his human form, leaning into Cheng Lin’s arms. “Mm, becoming human was a smart move.”
Suddenly, something occurred to him, and he asked shyly, “So, after the mating, are we married now?”
Technically, no, but Cheng Lin wanted the cat to understand that their relationship was exclusive. So, he shamelessly replied, “Pretty much.”
He added confidently, “We’re basically in a common-law marriage.”
“I see.” The cat was delighted.
Cheng Lin thought about it for a moment and, still feeling a bit uneasy, emphasized, “What happened last night can only happen between a married couple. It’s a very private matter.” He hoped the cat would take fidelity seriously.
“I know,” Maimai agreed, recalling all the TV dramas he’d watched.
He thought about how model couples acted and then, testing the waters, sweetly called out, “Wife.”
Cheng Lin’s expression didn’t change. He hesitated for just half a second before agreeing, “Mm.”
Husband, wife—whatever. As long as they were married, who cared who was the wife or the husband? It was just a title. Everything was up to Maimai’s preferences.
