Chapter 219: The Cat Isn’t A Freeloader After All [Part 2]
The gray cat itself wasn’t doing very well either when it woke up. It scanned the area and detected a lot of mechanical parts around it. Unfortunately they were all low quality parts that were of little use to it. There was also the problem where it didn’t recognize the place they were currently in. At the time it didn’t pay too much attention to either of these problems, but now that it had eaten it had recovered a little from its earlier ordeal.
Chang Seven stared at them while biting his finger, not understanding the gray cat’s language. This cat’s meow is different from others!
Cillin patted the gray cat’s head before smiling at Chang Seven, “Seven, do you have anymore food around here? Can you bring some over for me?”
“We do!” Chang Seven grinned and rushed out of the room like the wind. The storage cabinets weren’t far away from here.
Chang Seven might not know how to speak the imperial language, but he could listen and understand some of it. Plus, Cillin had picked up a little on the dialect on this place. Basic communication between the duo was no longer a problem.
The gray cat looked at Cillin in puzzlement, “I’ve never heard the language you speak before.”
“This isn’t GAL. This is probably a place at the other end of the time vortex. So pretend to be a normal cat before you have learned the language around this place.”
The gray cat’s whiskers shook, “Are you tell me to meow like a cat??”
Cillin gave it a ‘duh’ look, “You are a cat.”
“Fine. I’m going to learn the language here in no time though,” It would take less than a minute to learn the language here through these machines.
“Oh right, your current appearance is off, Cillin,” The gray cat pointed at Cillin’s face with its paw. If it wasn’t all too familiar to the connection between it and Cillin, it would’ve thought that someone else was lying beside it.
“Off, huh?”
Cillin sat up and stared at his own reflection from a small metallic piece not far away. He couldn’t help but smile at it.
As it turned out, the trip through the time vortex put his genes through phenotype reformation and restored his true appearance.
Right now Cillin looked just like the guy that was on Planet Brown Earth. Even his frame had changed back to what it used to. Cillin rubbed his face once while feeling very satisfied with the transformation. There was simply nothing cooler, more pleasing and comforting than one’s original appearance.
“This is how I originally look,” Cillin said.
“Oh,” The gray cat looked carefully and curiously at Cillin. It had heard from Cary and the others that Cillin used to have a different look. It didn’t realize that the him now was his true appearance.
Cillin roughly explained what happened after they were sucked through the time vortex and into this place to the gray cat. If it wasn’t for Old Chang’s family, Cillin had no idea how much longer they would have floated silently in foreign space.
“The kid playing cover-a-paw with you just now is Chang Seven. He’s one of the triplets of the family.”
The gray cat was about to explain that the reason he played such a childish game with the brat was because it was half asleep at the time when it heard Chang Seven’s returning footsteps. It stopped talking and started ‘communicating’ with the machines around the area, learning a new language.
Chang Seven had came in while holding a large plate. There was a large piece of meat of some unknown animal and two small fishes beside it on the plate. The fishes were specifically prepared for the gray cat.
Judging from the way Chang Seven was exerting all his strength to hold up the plate, the food were apparently slightly too heavy for Chang Seven to handle. Cillin hastily accepted the plate and patted Chang Seven’s head, “Thanks, Seven. Oh, they’re warm. Did you make them yourself? You’re pretty good, Seven!”
“It’s… it’s no biggie!” Chang Seven chuckled as it stared at the gray cat.
Cillin took the plate on the low table where Wheeze had just eaten its meal earlier and put the fishes on them. He then spoke the imperial accent with the local accent, “Wheeze, this is Seven’s gift to you.”
By now the gray cat had almost figured out the language of the place completely, so it understood what Cillin was talking about. It showed its teeth at Chang Seven to indicate its understanding and jumped next to the plate and began eating.
It only needed to sniff at the fishes to know that it didn’t taste too well, but it was neither the place nor time to be picky about food. It buried its head and cleaned out the two fishes.
“Aren’t you going to eat, Seven?” Cillin cut a piece of meat and passed it to Chang Seven.
Chang Seven shook his head and said, “I’m not hungry!” However his eyes never strayed from the gray cat as he raised and dropped his chubby little hands. He looked like he very much wanted to touch the gray cat.
Cillin smiled and started eating the meat in his plate.
Everything on the plate came from compressed capsules. These relatively cheap compressed capsules were something everyone in the lowest rung used because they were convenient and saved time. Cooking was a simple matter of putting the capsules into a specialised machine and pressing a button. The meal would be done in just half a minute.
But although the controls were very simple, the fact that a five years old child like Chang Seven could do everything on his own was not. Poor kids often grew independent real quick.
Cillin ate while inspecting the leaf patterned tattoo on his thumb. This thing had operated like a navigation pin and caused him to be pulled into this place. There was no other explanation as to why he was the only one who was pulled over otherwise.
Therefore, the Gen Family was probably at the imperial capital star region Old Chang had spoken to him about.
Differing from GAL’s administration system, this planet was in the 23rd star region of the Mist Bodhisattva Empire. The empire ruled over a total of 26 star regions, and this was but one of the many small and insignificant planets that existed in it.
In the former star system, a person’s genotype decided their entire future. But here in the Mist Bodhisattva Empire, a person’s birthplace triumphed over one’s natural talent. There were a lot of people who were rank A humans by GAL’s standards that worked as bodyguards for weak noble descendants. Also, life was extremely cheap in this place.
Cillin stared at the food inside his plate. The capsules might be relatively cheap, but it was still meat. The poor simply didn’t have the economic source to eat food like this for long. He was sure that Old Chang didn’t have many capsules like this, and that what he was eating right now was probably their family’s entire day’s worth of food.
Old Chang loved his grandchildren a lot; one could see this just from the meals they eat alone. Holding fast to the belief no child should ever suffer, Old Chang did everything in his power to ensure that they ate well in the family. One of the major reasons the family savings hadn’t grown by much was because they had all gone into the children’s food expense. Cillin only needed to look at their round figures to know that the kids had almost never starved in their lives.
Chang Seven happily watched the gray cat finishing its meal from the side. One doesn’t bite the hand that feeds, so the gray cat gave Chang Seven face and said ‘thank you’ to him after it was done with its meal. It was a perfect replication of the local dialect.
Chang Seven’s eyes grew wide open as he pointed a chubby finger at the gray cat, “You… you can talk!”
The gray cat licked its paws and wiped its mouth, “Why the meow wouldn’t I know how to speak?”
Chang Seven didn’t respond and simply stare at the gray cat with a stupid grin on his face. Finally, he recalled something and ran downstairs, screaming, “Grandpa, Six, Eight! There’s a smart cat in the room!”
The corner of Cillin’s mouth twitched incessantly. In the eyes of these children, he was apparently far inferior to this gluttonous cat.
The gray cat categorized Chang Seven as a human of good insight the second it heard the words ‘smart cat’. It raised its chin proudly and modeled the appearance of an elite.
Hearing Chang Seven’s cries, Old Chang put down his repair work temporarily, wiped his hands briefly and headed upstairs. Chang Six and Chang Eight were long gone the second they heard Chang Seven’s cries.
Both grandpa and grandchildren were very much surprised to see the cat they thought to be dead a long time ago alive. Old Chang especially examined the cat critically. Although it looked like an ordinary glance at a glance, he discovered that it was extremely intelligent at close range.
“Grandpa, grandpa!” Chang Seven pulled at Old Chang’s hand and said boastfully, “The kitty greeted me just now!”
Chang Six and Chang Eight’s eyes were bright. They had met some talking pets on the streets, but they were the precious things of the families who owned them. The triplets only dared to stare at those pets from afar. Therefore, when they heard Chang Seven’s claims, the duo couldn’t restrain themselves from surrounding the gray cat and chatter like a magpie.
While bathing in the triplets’ praises, the gray cat raised its head, pumped its chest and fired a greeting in perfect dialect, “Hello!”
Cillin curled his lips at the gray cat that looked serious on the outside but was probably about to take flight to the air on the inside. Shame!
Cillin introduced Old Chang and the children to the gray cat, “This guy here is a pet I accidentally ran into a few years ago. It has followed me since. It’s name is Wheeze.”
Old Chang didn’t think much into Cillin’s explanations. He simply smiled and watched the triplets surrounding the gray cat and talking to it. He was a little surprised that the cat was able to speak the local language perfectly though.
The explanation Cillin gave was that they’d a run in with some people on this planet earlier, and that the gray cat had picked up the dialect from them.
Old Chang didn’t show any regret towards Chang Seven serving their best meat compressed capsule and two fish compressed capsules to Cillin and the gray cat.
Cillin would recover enough to move around without worry in another two days’ time. When Old Chang inquired about his future plans, he expressed his hope to stay with Old Chang temporarily and aid him with his work. Cillin was quite familiar with machinery repair and maintenance, and he didn’t need a salary. All he requested was a place to eat and stay for now.
For now, the imperial capital was off limits because Cillin hadn’t figured out everything about the Mist Bodhisattva Empire. Cillin was not one to act recklessly. That was why he chose to stay here temporarily until his body fully recovered and his plans fully made. After all, Cillin had no patrons to lean against at this place.
Old Chang was very happy that Cillin had decided to stay behind and help him with his work. The house had plenty of empty rooms anyway, and although an new adult and a cat added more burden to the family, they should gain more from Cillin’s aid. Old Chang insisted on paying Cillin a salary, however: it wasn’t right for a young man or woman to live without some money in their hands.
Cillin and the gray cat’s decision to stay gladdened the triplets the most. Now they could play with the kitty everyday!
Old Chang smiled and watched the triplets cheer with great love in his eyes.
Although Cillin hadn’t recovered enough to help Old Chang yet, the gray cat was a different story. Since then, a new scene had appeared inside the shop after lunch; three kids chasing behind a gray cat while carrying some parts.
To Old Chang’s surprise, the gray cat saved him a lot of effort. In the past, he would have to describe the parts in great detail before the triplets could bring him the right model number of the parts he needed. Now, the gray cat and the triplets would present him with the parts he needed almost immediately when he needed them. The model numbers were always right, too.
Old Chang was very happy with this: The cat isn’t a freeloader after all.