Chapter 23

After the live stream ended that day, another 200 internal testing codes were distributed to local high-level fans with badges. Some people immediately started downloading the APP and, after trying it out, realized: "Has the APP been upgraded?"

The interface looked different from what they initially saw.

The APP's logo was a cute cartoon version of a tortoiseshell cat, which the fan knew must be Three-Five-Five. After clicking into it, they first entered the registration interface. Upon completing registration and enabling location services, they could see "Nearby Cats," "Cat Registry," and "My Profile."

Clicking on "Nearby Cats" allowed them to refresh or view a map display. Once displayed, they could see stray cats within a hundred meters of their current location. Looking at the cat heads lighting up on the map, the fan felt as if they were living among the cats as neighbors.

Switching to "Cat Registry" seemed to show all registered cats. They could be sorted by latest entry, street, or name, and there was also a search function. However, when the fan searched for "Three-Five-Five," they found nothing... which made sense, as Three-Five-Five was no longer a stray cat.

In the "My Profile" section... "What are Paw Coins?"

After pondering for a while, the fan discovered a chat interface pinned at the top. This "Paw Coin" was a new virtual currency that could be used to post help requests in the chat room, offer rewards, or donate to the "Stray Cat Self-Service Restaurant." Upon further investigation, the fan discovered—

"'Stray Cat Self-Service Restaurant,' this is actually a local stray cat rescue organization?"

It was so low-profile, with hardly any publicity!

The organization seemed to have attempted promotion, but there was little information online. Their rescue method involved opening short video accounts and livestreaming cats eating, then converting fans' donations into cat food.

They had several fixed feeding points for stray cats, with livestream cameras set up there. The stray cats that came to eat each day were random.

Paw Coins could be earned by receiving likes from other users. Users could like photos of cats taken by others or complete bounty missions. Each person had ten free likes per day; beyond that, each like would cost 0.1 Paw Coins. Daily check-ins also rewarded coins.

Moreover, taking photos of already registered cats and updating their latest status had a chance to randomly drop a coin, with a maximum of five chances per day.

The fan browsed the APP for a while and quickly used up all their likes... After all, with so many cat photos, it was normal to feel tempted. But they were reluctant to unlike previous posts, and they also wanted to donate to the self-service restaurant. Then the fan realized:

"Wait, you can't buy this virtual currency with real money?"

Not even if you wanted to pay?

After searching through the backend for a while, they finally found an explanation: the APP hadn't officially launched yet, and purchases were not available during the internal testing period.

The fan had no choice but to find the self-service restaurant's short video account and make a small donation. Then they switched to the bounty interface, which was currently quite empty, as many people hadn't discovered it yet, and there weren't many posts. But after pulling down to refresh, a bounty suddenly popped up. It only offered two check-in coins, which seemed rather stingy:

[Help needed: My friend's cat went missing two months ago on XX Street. Photo attached. No successful matches in the database yet. Hope everyone can help match if you see something similar! Just checked in, so don't have many coins, but can compensate offline!!! Thank you so much, everyone!]

The photo showed a large tuxedo cat, black and white, with no distinguishing features except for its face. The fan saved the image anyway.

"Might as well go out and earn some coins today!"

And maybe look for the cat while they're at it?

Meanwhile, Chu Tingwu was also looking at a photo of a missing stray cat, sent to her via private message by a fan—

"Hello Chu Chu, here's my donation record, and here are photos of my cat and purchase records. She's a three-year-old Ragdoll named Caramel. I didn't win an internal testing account during the livestream, but my cat has been missing for a week, so I'm sending you this private message... Could you please use the APP to help me find a match? I'm very grateful and willing to pay a fee!"

"Of course I can."

After having the system verify the information, Chu Tingwu directly sent an APP internal testing code to the person.

If the cat could be successfully matched, the owner could go and bring the cat home themselves.

A few minutes later, it seemed the match was successful, and a long string of emotional thanks came from the account... Chu Tingwu instructed the system: "For similar situations in private messages, please verify and then directly give them internal testing codes."

Judging by the current user activity after the APP update, her plan for a city-wide cat census seemed likely to be achieved ahead of schedule.

-

The morning sky had a faint purple tinge.

Director Xin wanted to film the scenery of Zhangshan Mountain and specially invited Chu Tingwu to join.

"You're usually free in the mornings, right?" she teased. "It's not time for you to join the crew yet, but you can come and get familiar with your future colleagues in advance."

In the city promotional video filming plan, Chu Tingwu's role was to do parkour, along with a cat.

She brought her own best and most obedient animal actor, which would speed up the originally planned filming process.

According to the script, Chu Tingwu would mainly perform parkour in the city and in front of green screens. Before that, professional parkour athletes would be invited to help design her movements and possibly even act as stunt doubles. The estimated filming time was in August, but Director Xin couldn't stay idle; she had to finish filming most of the scenery content.

Since Director Xin had invited her, Chu Tingwu went to Zhangshan Mountain early in the morning, quietly following Director Xin as a small assistant, occasionally helping to carry heavy objects.

This time she didn't bring her drone, as the filming plan was confidential, and there wasn't much room for the system to play a role.

But just having Three-Five-Five standing there, or lying on a nearby box, attracted the attention of many people to the woman and her cat.

Some people even used the excuse of coming over to move equipment to secretly pet the tortoiseshell mama cat.

Three-Five-Five: "?"

A few minutes later, Three-Five-Five was lying on Director Xin's lap.

No one dared to pet the cat on the director's legs.

Chu Tingwu: "Hmm..."

Three-Five-Five: "Meow~"

Let the kid go play, no need to hold her, she's heavy.

Director Xin was still smiling as she stroked Three-Five-Five's long fur, completely unaware that she was merely a human-shaped cat tree, and a rather strong one at that.

Zhangshan Mountain had a newly opened viewing platform and a small Taoist temple. On the donation box in the main hall of the temple, there was a sign for scanning QR codes to make donations. A lazy police cat was sprawled on top, conveniently blocking the QR code.

The young Taoist priest, who looked like he might still be in college, patiently moved the cat aside. The police cat would then stand up, take a few steps, and lie down again, denying anyone the opportunity to make a donation.

Someone sniffed and said, "It smells good, what's that smell?" Chu Tingwu silently replied in her mind: "It's braised pork being cooked in the temple's kitchen, already stewed until very tender."

The rich aroma of meat mixed with the faint scent of wooden buildings filled her nostrils. Although there weren't many animals around, Chu Tingwu was certain she could smell various wild animals, perhaps including wild pheasants—some scents she could directly identify, while others seemed unfamiliar, and she could only vaguely sense how large the animal was based on instinct.

"Why can I judge the size of unknown animals by smell?"

Isn't that unreasonable?

System: "Actually, you know what those animals are. Your genetic instinct tells you whether you can hunt them, but since you haven't seen them with your own eyes, the genetic information you receive is vague and can't be fully matched—you didn't judge the size first, but rather the species, and then associated it with a rough size."

Her current sense of smell hadn't yet reached the level of a normal cat... This made Chu Tingwu curious: if it were upgraded to the maximum level, would the world she smelled become three-dimensional?

The system suggested: "Kid, want to try closing your eyes and walking forward?"

The world plunged into complete darkness the moment Chu Tingwu closed her eyes. It seemed the system had helped her block out all light coming through her eyelids. With her eyes shut, in pitch blackness, all kinds of scents seemed to be magnified.

She heard Three-Five-Five's meow, seemingly puzzled about what its kitten was doing. She also sensed that the sheriff cat was swishing its tail—clearly these were all scents, but as the scent molecules floated in the air, blurry, dynamic silhouettes appeared in the dark world.

Chu Tingwu walked straight ahead with her eyes closed, her pace unhurried. Each step landed precisely on the joined stone path, never stepping into the soil between the cracks. The film crew's staff were bustling about moving equipment, talking in low voices. Chu Tingwu could smell the scent of hot sweat before people even approached her.

"Ah, make way—"

Before the person could finish speaking, they noticed the little girl with closed eyes had already moved aside, as if waiting for them to carry the equipment past.

But as they gestured, about to say, "You need to move a bit more—"

The little girl moved.

She leapt up on the spot, her feet landing perfectly on a nearby railing. What made people's brows furrow was that the slender railing was only three centimeters wide, and it was a perfectly round cylinder.

She didn't crouch, but stood normally, yet incredibly steadily. She tilted her head slightly, as if wondering why the person in front of her hadn't passed by yet.

The calico cat she had brought came over too, jumping onto the railing and crouching there.

The sheriff cat that had been lying on the donation box seemed to finally wake up, letting out a groggy "meow." It leaped directly from the donation box to the far end of the railing over a meter away, then walked along it like a tightrope to Three-Five-Five's side, sniffing her neck.

Three-Five-Five gave the sheriff cat a punch.

The sheriff cat yelped "Ow!" and fell off, and the two cats quickly became entangled in a fight.

Chu Tingwu finally opened her eyes and looked up to see a camera lens pointed at her not far away.

Director Xin smiled, "We might not be able to use this in the final cut, but I think we can release it as behind-the-scenes footage."

On the other side, the crew member who had put down the equipment turned back to look, and couldn't help but grab a passing colleague: "Did you see what just happened? When our little actress suddenly jumped up?"

"Yeah, I saw it. What about it?"

"I'm telling you..." the crew member mumbled, "She seemed to have her eyes closed the whole time."

Chu Tingwu opened her interface.

Her sense of smell skill was still at level 2, unchanged, but at the bottom of the interface a new skill appeared—

[Perception lv0]

[(Perception: Sense wind and air pressure, predict storms and earthquakes, feel temperature and spatial awareness, all thanks to your skin surface and adorable fur)]

The word "adorable" must have been added by the system.

And where did she have fur? It must be referring to her hair and body hair, right?

The system answered quickly: "It's like this: cats can predict earthquakes mainly through their perceptive abilities. Perception is a comprehensive ability. You've just unlocked it, but your dynamic vision, hearing, balance, jumping ability, and so on haven't reached their highest levels yet. Your perception skill will definitely improve slowly."

But it would also allow the child to slowly adapt to this new ability... instead of suddenly jumping onto tables at the slightest disturbance like when she first bonded.

Seeing Chu Tingwu resting, the system even played a documentary for her. The protagonist was a blind cheetah, but it could still hunt and climb trees, sensing the wind to form rough outlines of structures in its mind, using its sense of smell to shape the form of prey in its thoughts, and using its keen hearing to ambush prey, tearing open their innards for a hearty meal.

And its kitten would surely be even smarter, definitely able to do better than this cheetah.

Chu Tingwu was unaware of the system's subtle comparison. The film crew had lunch at the small Taoist temple. Three-Five-Five had also come to an understanding with the sheriff cat. The two cats ran back and forth in the temple, and Three-Five-Five even managed to mooch a meal—Chu Tingwu suspected that she stopped fighting the sheriff cat just for this meal. Three-Five-Five was quite clever. Sёarch* The novёlF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

While the humans were still naively adding food to the cats' bowls, the temple master received a phone call and his expression suddenly turned serious.

The temple master spoke with the assistant director for a few moments, and Chu Tingwu finally learned what had happened:

"A tourist has gone missing in the mountains."

-

The missing female college student's surname was You. She had entered the mountains alone on foot and hadn't visited the Taoist temple. She had been missing for over fourteen hours. The last time she was caught on camera was last night at the foot of the mountain—she seemed about to leave, but apparently heard something and went back into the mountains. She hadn't appeared on camera since.

Her roommate discovered the problem and reported it to the police. Although it hadn't been 24 hours yet, because the location of her disappearance was in the scenic mountain forest area and there had been no contact with her, the police immediately sent people up the mountain.

"I know her," Chu Tingwu said confidently upon seeing the photo.

You Zhenzhen had always been on her friends list. The last time they messaged was the last time, seemingly maintaining this kind of cool, distant relationship. Chu Tingwu sent You Zhenzhen a message, but predictably received no response.

The system told her: "Her phone is turned off, probably because the battery died."

Being stranded in the mountains for fourteen hours, it was normal for the battery to die. If it was just a dead battery and getting lost, that would be fine. What the police were worried about was clearly another possibility.

It was still only noon. Upon learning of the missing person, the Taoist temple was to cooperate with the police in the search. After some thought, Director Xin said, "Why don't we send a few people to help with the search?"

"You're not familiar with the mountain paths, so it's better not to get involved," the temple master politely declined. "It's best not to enter the mountains today. Let's wait until the person is found before deciding anything else."

It seemed their filming plans for the day would have to be put on hold.

Chu Tingwu went to listen in and learned that the film crew needed to apply in advance to enter the mountains. Director Xin felt that aerial shots alone weren't enough and wanted some footage from deep in the mountains, preferably capturing some wildlife. But it seemed that wouldn't be possible today—going in now would just cause trouble for the police.

She noticed Chu Tingwu lowering her head, lost in thought, and suddenly had an idea: "Little Chu, you won't go into the mountains on your own, will you?"

Chu Tingwu: "?"

Director Xin: "That's good. We'll do a headcount. You stay by my side. Everyone, don't wander off for now."

If it was a malicious incident, who knows what might be in the mountains.

She didn't know why, but instinctively felt that Chu Tingwu might run into the mountains to search for the person... Was this prejudice against minors?

Perhaps because of this thought, Director Xin kept her gaze on Chu Tingwu while everyone was resting.

Most people from the Taoist temple had gone out. The film crew was resting in the entrance courtyard, accompanied only by the young Taoist priest who guarded the donation box. He kept glancing outside, and upon seeing a black shadow, said, "Sparrow, where did you run off to just now?"

"Sparrow" was the black and white sheriff cat.

The sheriff cat meowed and licked its lips before going to drink water. The young Taoist priest stood on tiptoe and suddenly froze—

Behind the sheriff cat, another cat jumped over the threshold and leaped in.

The young Taoist priest: "Eh—"

Before he could finish speaking, yet another cat followed, entering through the door.

Then came a third, a fourth... In the end, a total of fourteen cats appeared in the courtyard.

The film crew staff immediately stood up, telling everyone to secure their valuables—most people aren't particularly afraid of stray cats because stray cats tend to avoid humans, but fourteen stray cats could potentially gang up to attack humans.

Someone's mind suddenly flashed to a phrase: "Re-revolt against human tyranny, the Earth belongs to cats?"

At this moment, Chu Tingwu let out a long "meow," and the stray cats seemed to have found their target, quickly gathering around her. Then, they watched as the young actress took out cat treats and canned food, and began to open them to feed the cats.

"Good grief..." a crew member muttered, "How did these cats know to come to her for food?"

The young Taoist priest sighed, "I'll go see if there are any leftovers."

Why did so many stray cats suddenly appear?

Only Director Xin seemed lost in thought, watching Chu Tingwu pat each cat on the head, "meowing" back and forth as if chatting. The cats responded in kind, some extending their paws for her to see, or coming closer for her to "sniff". But Director Xin didn't know that Chu Tingwu wasn't sniffing the cats, but rather smelling for You Zhenzhen's scent.

—Sure enough, You Zhenzhen had come to Zhangshan Mountain to photograph cats last night.

There was an upload record on her personal app account, with the last upload time at 10 PM last night, just before she went missing. Because she had brought cat food, several of the stray cats had specifically rubbed against her to beg for food, leaving her scent on their fur as they brushed against her legs.

Chu Tingwu distinguished You Zhenzhen's scent, confirming she hadn't been to the Taoist temple, then exchanged a few words with the stray cats, patting each on the head.

"I'll leave it to you then," she said.

Fourteen cats leapt into action, and finally the temple's "sheriff cat" came over, bumping its forehead against Chu Tingwu's before darting out of the temple.

"Swallow!" the young Taoist apprentice who had just brought leftover food shouted angrily, "Where are you off to now?"

The sheriff cat swished its tail, let out a gentle "meow", and in the next second, its form was hidden behind the doorframe, out of sight.

Chu Tingwu realized Director Xin was watching her. She turned and winked:

People may not be allowed to leave, but there's no rule saying cats can't go into the mountains, right?

-

You Zhenzhen was shivering, clutching her camera.

The good news was that she hadn't been kidnapped. The bad news was that she had fallen down a slope, twisted her ankle, and now couldn't even crawl. Her phone was dead, and the only thing with power left was her camera—how was she supposed to contact the outside world with just a camera?

You Zhenzhen's mind went blank.

She was cold, hungry, filthy, and felt like crying from frustration, but she knew tears wouldn't help.

Night fell and day broke. During the night, she pressed the camera screen to light it up every few minutes, using the glow to give herself a glimmer of hope. She endured until noon, but now the camera's battery was almost gone too.

She hadn't returned all night, hadn't replied to messages. Would her roommates come looking for her? Or would they not even notice she was missing, since she sometimes stayed out overnight anyway?

It's too easy to let your mind wander when you're stranded alone, and You Zhenzhen knew that while she appeared carefree on the surface, she was actually a very sensitive person, even with some people-pleasing tendencies—when someone read her message but didn't reply, or didn't message her at all, she would worry that something she said had annoyed them.

She knew it wasn't right to think that way, but she couldn't help it.

After her parents' divorce, she had followed her mother to a new family. Her stepfather's family all praised her for being lively, cheerful, and considerate, but only You Zhenzhen herself knew that she was subconsciously trying to meet everyone's expectations, using her bubbly personality to gain others' attention.

No, no, no, don't think about that. Just count cats instead.

...Though it was chasing a cat that had gotten her into this predicament in the first place.

To get more cat photos and surpass the second-place photographer, and to have an excuse to chat with Chu Tingwu, she had lingered at the foot of Zhangshan Mountain until 10 PM last night... She had heard from locals that there was a lion cat with heterochromia, and when You Zhenzhen realized she hadn't photographed it, she continued circling the area.

Then she heard a cat meow from the woods behind her.

The cat seemed not far away, and You Zhenzhen instinctively chased after it. Her phone still had 16% battery, but she didn't realize how quickly using the flashlight drained the power.

The cat seemed to lure her into the forest, and when her phone screen suddenly went dark, You Zhenzhen's foot slipped. She instinctively protected her camera but lost her balance, sliding down the gentle slope all the way to the bottom... and with extremely bad luck, twisting her ankle.

"Before I die, at least let me see what kind of cat that was..."

She knew her situation was no one's fault but her own, so she could only try to find humor in her misery. But listening to the wind rustling through the leaves, she still felt a lump in her throat.

The sun was warm, scorching hot, the air fresh, birds singing... The world was full of vibrant life, but she felt as if she had been forgotten.

Would anyone really come looking for her?

Counting cats! Better to count cats!

One cat... two cats... three, let's pretend they're all ragdoll cats... She stared at the leaves in front of her, fighting the thirst, imagining the veins on the leaves were a ragdoll's nose tip.

At the foot of the mountain, the guesthouse owner who had spoken with You Zhenzhen last night walked out with the police, pointing to a path not far away: "I think she went that way...?"

The inquiring police officer looked up and saw a cat perched on a garbage bin, licking its paw.

As they approached, they heard two meows, and the stray cat suddenly jumped down from the bin and ran into the woods.

The police officer: "Hm?"

-

Zhangshan Mountain only had a few trails for tourists to climb, and the cat ignored the huge "Do Not Enter" sign nearby, leaping over the chain and running into the forest.

The cat's soft paw pads stepped on the soil, leaping over dead wood. In the forest, the cat's meows weren't loud, but cats could hear some lower pitched voices. They were far apart, yet seemed to whisper in each other's ears.

"...Is it there?"

"...A bit further meow."

"This bug is interesting."

"Stop playing meow!"

"I'll bring the bug for you to play with."

"Okay meow QvQ"

Two cats that had encountered the police entering the mountain glanced at the unfamiliar humans from afar, then turned away uninterested, scratching a tree trunk twice before continuing deeper into the forest.

The police officers just marveled at the sight, but didn't choose to follow.

A police drone was circling high above, but its camera overlooked these small animals. So they didn't notice that the cats were setting out from different directions yet seemingly heading towards the same destination, leaving faint traces in the camera footage, just a few tiny paw prints in the soil.

You Zhenzhen turned on her camera again, and in that moment of illumination, she noticed the battery was almost dead.

It wouldn't last much longer... Should she try to crawl up?

Her ankle was badly swollen, and she had gone numb to the pain, only uncertain if this would leave lasting damage... like a permanent limp or something?

Maybe, when the battery finally dies, she should start crawling up?

"Meow—"

Suddenly she heard a sharp cat cry.

You Zhenzhen instinctively looked up. Though it was just a cat, her eyes lit up, she—

"What the hell!"

"Why is it a crow!?"

How could it be a crow meowing like a cat?

She sat back down, trying to stay calm:

"I've been counting cats for so long, I've gone crazy. Now I'm hearing things."

No, she wasn't hearing things, it really was a crow meowing!

The crow even flew down, landing not far from You Zhenzhen, almost making her tears burst out: Crows are scavengers, but surely it wasn't following her this early?

The crow turned its little eyes, tilting its head to stare at her from just out of reach, seeming curious, yet with somewhat of a mischievous air upon closer inspection.

"Meow-wow—"

The crow called out again.

Suddenly, it flapped its wings and took off. You Zhenzhen instinctively looked up, her gaze following the crow's movement. Then, she heard another cat meow.

The bushes rustled, and at the top of the slope she had slid down, a cat's head appeared.

Then a second, a third, a fourth...

Sunlight fell on the cats' heads as those arriving later nudged those in front further down. The crow circled in the air before cautiously landing, this time at the bottom of the slope with You Zhenzhen, both staring up at the cats above.

She instinctively picked up her camera, raising it to her eye. Her hands were surprisingly steady as she captured the standoff between the crow and the group of cats in the frame.

Then, in the instant she pressed the shutter, she saw the last cat appear in the frame.

It was a long-haired calico, its whole body smoky gray except for a yellow spot on its nose. It arrived last, but the cats in front made way for it. It looked down at You Zhenzhen and softly meowed.

You Zhenzhen: "Three-Five-Five..."

At that moment, the camera battery died completely, but You Zhenzhen could feel her eyes growing moist.

Three-Five-Five... Three-Five-Five had arrived. Clearly, it was just a cat, but for some inexplicable reason, You Zhenzhen believed that if it was indeed Three-Five-Five, it would surely know she was in trouble, would certainly understand what she was saying, and would definitely be able to call for help to rescue her!

Three-Five-Five moved. It suddenly leaped down from above, its feline silhouette momentarily blocking out the light. In the next second, You Zhenzhen heard a "caw!"

Three-Five-Five landed beside her, sweeping its tail across her wrist.

In Three-Five-Five's mouth was a still-flapping crow, which alternated between "meow-ow" and "caw-caw" sounds.

You Zhenzhen nearly burst into tears.

She actually did cry out—

You Zhenzhen: "Woof QAQ!!!"

Three-Five-Five: "...?"