It sounded almost absurd — a person who wasn’t even afraid of corpses, afraid of cats.

To explain it, one would need to go back to the very first crime scene Yan Qing had ever attended.

At the time, Yan Qing was still a new student in the forensics program, but her uncle always made special exceptions to bring her along to scenes. Believing herself to be utterly fearless, Yan Qing attended her first scene only to encounter a murder case — and not just any murder, but one of unspeakable brutality.

A woman, intent on killing her unfaithful husband, had raised fifty feral cats in a basement, starving them for four full days. She then covered her drunken husband’s body in fish flesh and threw him in. The cats tore him apart alive.

By the time Yan Qing saw the body, the man had been gnawed down to nothing but bones. A single bloodied, mangled skull sat perched atop the skeleton, alone and hollow.

Dozens of feral cats prowled the basement, their bodies matted with blood, like a pack of soul-devouring demons, staring up at her with pairs of eerie, luminous green eyes.

That day, Yan Qing was truly terrified. She suffered terrible nightmares for a long while afterward, and in the end was left with this lasting fear of cats.

Murong, however, was baffled — because back at the Yan household, some of the mistresses kept cats. Miss had liked them before and had even held Si Yitai’s long-haired cat herself. Murong had served at her side since childhood and had never once known her to be afraid of cats.

But Murong had no time to dwell on this, because at that moment, cries of alarm from somewhere nearby were rolling into one another in a continuous wave.

All she caught was the word “tiger” — and then something struck her hard from behind, sending her stumbling. The terrified crowd surged forward like a crashing tide, sweeping Murong away in an instant.

“Miss!” Murong struggled desperately to get back to Yan Qing’s side, but the crowd kept carrying her further and further away.

Yan Qing, too, was thrown into confusion by this sudden chaos. She was just searching for somewhere safe to take cover when someone crashed into her from behind, and with that impact, she was flung clean off her wheelchair.

A sharp pain flared through the palms of her hands. Instinctively she squeezed her brows together.

In that moment she truly understood the hardship of being Sixth Miss — her legs were crippled, her mobility limited, and even in a situation like this, she had no way to help herself.

Unable to walk, Yan Qing could only use her arms to try to drag herself away from the surging crowd. Just beside her was a newly built small performance stage — if she could just get there…

She was straining toward the stage when her arm suddenly felt warmth — someone had gripped it — and then a low, magnetic voice rang out through all the frenzied noise: “Forgive me.”

Before she could react, she had already been lifted into someone’s arms.

At this closeness she could clearly see the person’s features. Even when she first heard his voice she had already identified him — but running into him here, in this sea of people, was nothing short of astonishing.

Yan Qing stared blankly at the sharp line of his jaw, her thoughts momentarily adrift.

“Sit here for a moment.” Shi Ting stepped up onto the stage and bent to set Yan Qing down.

The warmth at her waist vanished in an instant, and it was only a beat later that Yan Qing felt the heat rise to her cheeks. Whether in this era or in her previous world, she had never been this close to another person — this… this counted as being carried in a princess hold, didn’t it?

Fortunately, Shi Ting’s expression remained entirely cold, showing not the faintest trace of anything personal — which did help ease her embarrassment somewhat. Otherwise the awkwardness alone might have been the death of her.

“Director Shi, what’s happening over there?” Yan Qing was worried about Wen Yan and the two maids she had lost in the crowd.

—