After Shen Zhuxi and Sui Rui had spent half a day strolling through the streets, Sui Rui headed back first to tend to her shop.

“Stop looking back like that — keep turning your head and it’ll fall off,” Shen Zhuxi said to Li Kun, who kept glancing over his shoulder.

Li Kun rubbed the back of his head and laughed, not the least bit bothered by the teasing.

“It’s been so long… so long since I’ve seen her.”

“From now on, you’ll be able to see her every day,” Shen Zhuxi said with a smile.

“Yeah!”

Li Kun answered loudly, then his expression suddenly changed. He stepped in front of Shen Zhuxi and puffed out his chest with force.

“Oof!”

A man who had stumbled out of a pharmacy in a side alley crashed straight into Li Kun’s chest. It was like hitting a stone wall — not only did the collision produce a loud thud, but the man bounced right back from the impact.

A young apprentice walked out of the pharmacy and snapped, “Stop coming here and disrupting our business — we said no, and we mean no!”

“Doctor, please take another look. Bone age doesn’t matter — can’t you just nurse it along?”

“We can nurse it along, but we can’t afford to!” the apprentice said flatly. “Come back again and we’ll report you to the authorities!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the apprentice turned and went back inside, leaving the man standing there looking deeply frustrated.

When he turned around, Shen Zhuxi noticed he was cradling a small calico kitten. For some reason, the man had bound all four of the kitten’s paws together. The kitten lay limp and curled in his arms, its pair of glossy black eyes gazing up at Shen Zhuxi with a pitiful look. The two rounded, fuzzy half-circle ears on top of its head were absolutely adorable.

“This…” Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help herself. “Why did you tie up all four of its legs?”

“What choice did I have? If it ran off, who would I answer to!” The man had barely finished speaking when his gaze fell on her high-quality cloth garments. His eyes lit up, and he walked over with the kitten in his arms. “If madam likes it, why not buy it and take it home to guard the house?”

Li Kun planted himself in front of Shen Zhuxi with a dark expression, letting out a heavy snort through his nose.

The man looked up at this tower of a person and took a sheepish step back.

“If you want to sell a cat, go to the market. What would a pharmacy want with a cat?” Shen Zhuxi offered helpfully.

“What do you mean, a pharmacy wouldn’t want a cat?” The man’s eyes darted around, and he said with great conviction, “Cat kidneys, cat organs, cat hearts, cat bones — they can all be used in medicine. It’s just this particular pharmacy that has no knowledge!”

“You want to kill it?” Shen Zhuxi said sharply.

“It’s not like I have a choice if nobody’s buying…” The man seized the moment to press his case. “Madam, a beautiful woman like yourself, keeping a cat to guard your home would suit you well. Why not spend a little and take it with you?”

The idea of keeping a cat to guard a house was something Shen Zhuxi had never heard before.

She certainly had no need for a cat to guard her home. But the look in the little kitten’s eyes was too pitiful, and it reminded her of the Persian cat she had once kept in the palace — a white fluffy one named Bai Tuan.

…She had already let Dou Lv go. Buying one small cat to keep her company surely couldn’t be called extravagant, could it?

Shen Zhuxi talked herself into it and asked hesitantly, “How much are you selling it for?”

“Not much, not much!” the man said. “Five taels of silver and it’s yours!”

“This is just an ordinary calico tabby, and you’re charging that much?” Shen Zhuxi frowned. “No wonder you can’t sell it.”

“This is no ordinary calico tabby! This is… this is a cat that never grows big! A new breed — the latest trend in the capital!”

Shen Zhuxi looked skeptical. She had been in the capital and had never heard of any such new breed.

“Madam, have a little sympathy. I went through no small amount of trouble to get hold of this little… cat. Nearly lost my life over it. If I sell it at a loss, how do I justify what I’ve spent?”

“Go sell it to someone else. Let’s see who’ll pay five taels of silver for your tabby.”

Shen Zhuxi lifted her foot to walk away. The man panicked when he saw her leaving and called out loudly, “Madam, you’re really not buying? If you don’t, I’ll take it to one of those traveling medicine men — they might skin it alive, drain its blood, and pull out its bones—”

“Are you threatening me?” Shen Zhuxi turned around.

Li Kun grabbed the man by his collar and slammed him against the wall. His voice was rough and menacing as he repeated Shen Zhuxi’s words.

“Are you threatening her?”

“I— I wouldn’t dare… It’s a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding…” The man’s feet left the ground, and he could only shake his head in a panic.

Shen Zhuxi hadn’t expected Li Kun to play along, yet without any prior arrangement, he had fallen into step with her so seamlessly and so naturally — as though this entire routine had long been ingrained in his very bones.

…What exactly had he been getting up to, following Li Wu around all this time?

Shen Zhuxi gave a light cough and deliberately kept her expression stern. “Your threats are useless on me. I do want to rescue this kitten, but five taels of silver — I simply don’t have that.”

“Simply don’t have it,” Li Kun echoed menacingly.

“Then… then how much can you give…” The man glanced back and forth between Li Kun and Shen Zhuxi with a trembling gaze.

“One tael of silver — do a good deed. My husband won’t be too upset with me over that.”

“One tael?!” the man pleaded. “Madam, I really did spend a lot to catch this cat… It’s a mountain cat — it’s got wild in it! Far fiercer than any dog. It’ll guard your home perfectly, I promise!”

Shen Zhuxi lowered her gaze, and said with a sorrowful air, “My husband is a dreadful man. If I spend five taels on a cat, he’ll bury the cat and me together.”

“Bury them together!” Li Kun bellowed with such force that the man flinched violently.

“Madam, add a little more — three taels, and I’ll sell it to you. Consider it my bad luck…”

“Two taels, and not a copper more.” Shen Zhuxi, sensing there was room to negotiate, immediately made a show of turning to leave. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it! I’ll take it! Two taels it is!” The man called after her.

Shen Zhuxi suppressed the delight rising in her chest, kept her face composed, and took out two taels of silver to hand to the man in exchange for the kitten in his arms.

She was just about to untie the ropes around the tabby’s legs when the man put down the silver coin he had been biting and murmured quietly, “Madam, it might be best if you wait a little before loosening those… just in case…”

“In case of what?”

“Nothing… never mind…”

The man trailed off and left unsaid whatever was on his mind, then turned and bolted away.

“What a strange person…” Shen Zhuxi muttered to herself.

She untied the hemp ropes binding the kitten’s four legs and gently rubbed the marks left by the cord. The kitten lay still in her arms without moving, its glossy black eyes paired with its chubby, silly little square face inspiring an instinctive tenderness in anyone who looked at it.

“Your ears are such a curious shape. All other cats have pointed ones — why are yours round?” Shen Zhuxi rubbed its ears.

The kitten didn’t move, its eyes simply tracking her fingers.

The more Shen Zhuxi looked at it, the more she adored it. She carried the kitten and headed toward the courtyard. On the way back, she also spotted an abandoned bunch of flowers someone had left by the roadside — they looked as though they had just been pulled from the earth and carelessly discarded. Each long stem bore a round, spherical flower head in a shade of green.

Shen Zhuxi had never seen anything like it before and found it utterly remarkable. She looked all around to see if anyone would claim it, and when no one did, she asked Li Kun, quite delightedly, to pick up the strange, soil-covered blooms.

Without Dou Lv, having these green-hued peculiar flowers as a substitute was perfectly acceptable. Shen Zhuxi thought about where she might plant them when she got home, and her steps grew lighter and more cheerful.

She had gathered quite a lot today and was in very good spirits — though for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, when she brought the kitten back to the courtyard, every maidservant and manservant she passed by seemed to wear an expression of sheer terror.

Perhaps people in Xiangyang simply didn’t like cats.

Shen Zhuxi quickly found a reason in her mind to explain their extreme reactions, and with this explanation, it also made perfect sense why the man hadn’t been able to sell his tabby at the market.

The people of Xiangyang simply didn’t like cats.

Shen Zhuxi cheerfully called over a pale-faced maidservant and told her to go cook a piece of meat, then asked her to find a thick cushion to serve as the kitten’s sleeping place from now on.

“Yes, ma’am…”

The maidservant fled from the room.

…It’s just a cat. Is it really so frightening?

Shen Zhuxi looked in puzzlement at the kitten stretching its limbs contentedly in the courtyard. She crouched down and beckoned to it, and the kitten padded slowly over on its thick, plum-blossom-shaped paws.

“This will be your home from now on — you need a proper name,” Shen Zhuxi said, gathering it into her arms. It offered no resistance whatsoever.

That utterly submissive, let-her-do-as-she-pleased disposition was too endearing for words. Shen Zhuxi couldn’t resist rubbing her cheek against its square little head, and the kitten kept blinking one eye closed as she nuzzled it.

“Following our family’s naming tradition, you shall be called…” Shen Zhuxi thought long and hard, then a flash of inspiration struck her. “You shall be called Li Juan the Second!”

The kitten blinked its eyes — dopey and adorable.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you grow nice and plump!” Shen Zhuxi said happily. “Do you know, I had a cat before too — his name was Bai Tuan, and he is your elder brother. If someday the two of you could meet, that would be wonderful…”

Shen Zhuxi was busy trying to cultivate Li Juan’s affection for her when a voice, grinding with fury, shattered their budding friendship.

“Shen Zhuxi — are you out of your damned mind?!”

Li Wu stood beneath the covered walkway, his face ashen as he stared at her. His expression was peculiar — beyond the anger, there seemed to be a trace of something else lurking there. Fear.

Fear? Shen Zhuxi thought she must be imagining things. Li Wu, that insufferable man — even if the sky fell down, he probably wouldn’t be afraid.

“What on earth are you yelling at people for!” Shen Zhuxi said, displeased.

Li Juan leapt out of her arms and bared its teeth at Li Wu: “Roar! Roar roar! Roooar—”

Shen Zhuxi scooped it back up immediately, looking worried. “Li Wu, its cry sounds different from other cats. Do you think its throat is hoarse?”

She lifted her head and met Li Wu’s even more ashen expression.

If looks could kill, Shen Zhuxi had no doubt she would have been pierced straight through by his gaze at this very moment.

“You… you damned… Shen Zhuxi, you crazy woman…” Li Wu forced words out from between his teeth.

“What’s gotten into you today? Keep this up and I’m going to start cursing too!” Shen Zhuxi said angrily.

“Put it down first, and come over here slowly… don’t provoke it…”

“Provoke what?” Shen Zhuxi gave the kitten two firm strokes on top of its head, beaming like a proud parent. “It’s very well-behaved.”

Li Wu’s complexion cycled between white and green in a way that made her think he might faint at any moment.

“…What is wrong with you?” Shen Zhuxi finally sensed something was off. “Why are you acting so strange today?”

Li Wu ground his back teeth and said, word by deliberate word:

“That’s a tiger… Shen Zhuxi, you brought a tiger cub home, don’t you know that?”

“What tiger? This is a cat that never grows big!”

Li Wu dearly wished he could unscrew her pretty little head and see what on earth was inside it.

If not for his fear of startling the tiger cub into attacking someone, he would not be standing here frozen in place. But that crazy woman, Shen Zhuxi? She hadn’t the faintest notion that she was in danger — she actually dared to go rubbing her hands all over the top of a tiger cub’s head—

Was she afraid she was living too long, planning to leave him as a widower before her time?

Li Wu clenched his fists, unsure whether he wanted to throttle Shen Zhuxi more, or the tiger cub in her arms.

“Shen Zhuxi… keep holding it like that, and be careful it turns you into someone who never grows big either…”