Maimai Chapter 7

After dinner, with the dishes washed, Cheng Lin wiped his hands and sat down. “Hand me the remote.”

Realizing that the flattery techniques from TV didn’t work, Maimai abandoned the idea of saying “Yes, Your Majesty” and respectfully handing over the remote with both hands. Instead, he passed it over normally.

“Not speaking like an eunuch anymore?” Looking at him with amusement, Cheng Lin took the remote and began fiddling with it. He wasn’t much of a TV person, so he asked, “Where’s the main menu? Show me how to get there.”

Maimai pointed to a button on the remote. “Press here.” Being slightly shorter than Cheng Lin, when he lowered his head, the top of his head faced Cheng Lin, faintly giving off the scent of mint from his shampoo.

Cheng Lin stared at him without saying anything. He picked up a lock of Maimai’s hair and rubbed it between his fingers. It felt like real human hair, not fur. Amazing.

Maimai looked up and noticed how close they were.

Remembering how Cheng Lin had often rejected him and emphasized keeping a distance, Maimai shifted slightly away.

Cheng Lin noticed the movement and felt uneasy. He reached out and tugged at Maimai’s hair again. “When are you going to turn back into a cat?”

Maimai tilted his head. When Cheng Lin let go, he rubbed the spot where his hair had been pulled, remaining silent. The truth was, every day he would sit in his cat bed and silently wish to turn back, but it hadn’t worked yet.

Seeing that Maimai wasn’t interested in responding, Cheng Lin shifted his attention back to the TV. He clicked into the viewing history and was met with a chaotic list of show titles, mixed with all sorts of TV programs. His head spun. “How can you watch so much in one day?”

He asked, “Before, you never watched TV all day. You used to take naps and play on your cat tree. Why is it now either your phone or the TV?”

Back when Cheng Lin worked from home, Maimai used to curl up on his lap. When Cheng Lin was doing housework or taking a shower, Maimai would follow him around or stay on his cat tree.

Maimai replied, “Now I watch a bit in the evenings too.”

Since Cheng Lin didn’t let him follow or touch him anymore, and he couldn’t climb the cat tree in human form, Maimai could only spend his time on the couch watching TV to pass the time.

Cheng Lin checked out the “Tyrant Emperor and the Lovely Eunuch” video. It turned out to be a fan-made, heavily edited CP compilation uploaded online. What was once a serious drama had been turned into something completely different. The internet really did have all sorts of stuff. Short videos were a bad influence.

He glanced over at Maimai, who was also a man but perfectly fine with it, and his expression suddenly turned unnatural.

“Good thing you’re skinny. I was planning to wait a little longer before getting you neutered. Otherwise, right now…” He wiped his face, shaken by the thought. “You’d really be the lovely eunuch. You’d hate me for it.”

Maimai, having no idea what neutering even meant and not really caring, said seriously, “I wouldn’t hate you.”

Cheng Lin found Maimai’s earnest promise amusing.

After spending this time together, Cheng Lin’s initial wariness had faded, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that his sense of uncertainty had disappeared.

After all, the family cat was gone, and now, suddenly, there was a strange young man in the house without any official identity.

The gap between the human and the cat was vast, almost insurmountable.

But now, Cheng Lin was gradually getting used to Maimai in this new form. On one hand, Maimai was still obedient and cute. On the other hand, Cheng Lin had seen with his own eyes that Maimai could turn back into a cat. The same essence resided within that soul.

Cheng Lin realized that where once the person and the cat had each spoken their own language, now they communicated seamlessly, with back-and-forth exchanges. This was a good thing. In fact, life had become even more lively and rich because of it.

He decided to stop worrying about the practicalities of the future and instead focus on overcoming the challenges of the present. He still had a responsibility to take care of Maimai.

Cheng Lin gathered some materials he thought Maimai would enjoy, including not only literary and artistic works but also early education online courses for learning characters and numbers. Due to the somewhat unorthodox education Maimai had received, his academic abilities were not well-balanced. While he spoke clearly and fluently, occasionally throwing out refined idioms, he struggled with basic arithmetic—even counting to ten was a challenge, and his fingers weren’t much help.

As for social skills, those were practically nonexistent and didn’t match his apparent age in human form at all.

But because he watched all kinds of TV channels, the cat had picked up a surprising amount of information, from the development history of Chinese tanks to the past and present of the Jewish people. It was truly astonishing.

Cheng Lin reconsidered from a different perspective. Maimai was a top-tier genius among orange cats, well-versed in both ancient and modern knowledge. Most people had never seen such a clever cat. Unfortunately, he couldn’t brag about it.

When bedtime rolled around, Cheng Lin urged Maimai to brush his teeth and made sure his hair was completely dry before sending him off to bed. He even turned off the lights as he closed the door.

But at 1 AM, Cheng Lin’s alarm went off.

Since he was the boss in this house, there was no one to question what he was up to, so he could do as he pleased without a second thought.

After turning off the alarm, Cheng Lin got out of bed and tiptoed to the door across the hall.

He was going to steal the cat back into his bed for a little fun.

He turned the doorknob gently, slipped inside, and carefully lifted the quilt.

A beam of cold light illuminated Maimai’s face. Wide-eyed and confused, he stared back at Cheng Lin.

“Playing on your phone in the middle of the night?” Cheng Lin snapped on the room’s main light. “How long has this been going on?”

Maimai quickly turned off his phone, looking just as guilty as he did when he was a cat caught doing something wrong. “I was just looking.”

“I check on you once, and I already find a problem.” Cheng Lin lectured, taking the moral high ground, “From now on, you hand over your phone before bed. If I catch you doing this again, I’ll put a screen time limit on it.”

Maimai nodded, regretting that he had angered Cheng Lin again. “Okay.”

“What were you just chewing on?” Cheng Lin asked. “You brushed your teeth, and now you’re secretly eating? Your teeth are going to fall out.”

With the light now on, the room was brightly lit. Cheng Lin forcefully lifted the quilt and spotted one of his coats tucked underneath Maimai. The thing Maimai had been chewing on while playing with his phone was the zipper.

So the missing coat wasn’t just his imagination. Cheng Lin remembered watching surveillance footage of Maimai sneaking out in the middle of the night to retrieve something that had made him deeply puzzled. He asked, “Why were you hiding this?”

Maimai had been finding himself in embarrassing situations a lot lately. He avoided looking at Cheng Lin and mumbled, “It smells.”

“What does it smell like?”

“You.”

“…Me? For what?” Cheng Lin asked, momentarily at a loss, “To ward off evil spirits?”

Maimai didn’t respond at first, but when Cheng Lin urged him, “Talk to me,” he finally admitted, “It makes me feel like we’re still sleeping together.”

Now it was Cheng Lin’s turn to fall silent. Maybe he had been too harsh lately.

But all he said in the end was, “Then at least use a clean one. This jacket’s been worn outside.”

Maimai nodded and pulled the quilt back over his head.

Cheng Lin realized that standing there wasn’t helping, so he softened his tone and said, “Go to sleep.” He took the phone with him as he left and turned off the light.

He still respected Maimai’s privacy, so he didn’t check what had him so absorbed. Little did he know, Maimai had already made up his mind to go out and find a job the next day.

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Author’s note:

Not officially running away from home yet.