The wind in the cemetery howled with wild abandon.
A moment later, the orange cat and white cat slowly came to. They realized they were tied to a tree, and panicked. Glancing to the side, they saw that even the strongest of them, the black cat, was tied up too.
"Black Meow, even you were beaten?" White Meow looked utterly despairing.
Black Cat muttered, "As if I'd be as useless as you two."
"He's not like you two," Yue Wen said, stepping out from nearby. "He surrendered on his own."
"What are you going to do?!" White Meow and the orange cat cried in terror.
"First, I want to talk with you."
Yue Wen studied the little cat demons. They hardly looked capable of doing anything seriously wicked. If the Supervision Bureau caught them, they'd probably just be sent back to the Demon Realm, so he hadn't killed them outright.
But to the three little ones, his scrutiny felt like a demon's gaze. They couldn't help trembling.
"Do you have names?" Yue Wen asked first.
"I'm Black Meow." The black cat was still relatively calm. He glanced at White Meow and added, "That one's White Meow."
Yue Wen looked at the orange cat and asked, "Then I suppose you're Orange Meow?"
"No." The orange cat shook her head and said quietly, "I'm Orange Cat."
"That's a pretty good name," Yue Wen said with a nod. "Tell me where you came from."
The orange cat looked terrified. White Meow seemed to waver a little, as if she wanted to say something.
But Black Meow immediately scolded them with steely resolve. "You're not allowed to say a word! Before we came, the Cult Leader told us that if we got caught, we weren't to reveal anything!"
Hearing him, the orange cat and White Meow promptly shut their mouths.
Yue Wen frowned at Black Meow.
Before he could make any threats, Black Meow launched into a fervent speech. "Listen up, kid. We're members of the Meow Meow Cult! Our Cult Leader is the great Cat Mountain Queen, who once held tremendous power in the Demon Realm. If you know what's good for you, you'll let us go right now. Otherwise, she won't let you get away with this!"
"The Meow Meow Cult?" Yue Wen had never heard of it before. "Is it some kind of demon organization?"
He'd heard a little about the Cat Mountain King, a powerful demon king in the Demon Realm.
But he'd never heard of this Cat Mountain Queen.
"That's right! Scared yet?" Black Meow said proudly. "The Meow Meow Cult is a demon faction hidden in Jiang City, made up entirely of powerful cat demons. Our ultimate goal is for the cat clan to rule the whole world! To achieve this glorious ideal, even if you torture me, I won't tell you a thing!"
"Sounds like quite an organization. So why did it send you to dig up a corpse?" Yue Wen asked.
"Hmph." Black Meow sneered. "Foolish human, how could you possibly guess our Cult Leader's plans? A human carrying something she wanted was killed on the road. When the Cult Leader learned he'd been taken to the cemetery east of the city and buried, she sent us to bring his corpse back! You could rack your brains forever and still never figure that out!"
"I see." Yue Wen nodded. He thought that although Black Meow had a cocky attitude, he was actually pretty cooperative.
A classic case of talking big while having no backbone.
The orange cat and White Meow, meanwhile, grew more and more confused as they listened. They stared at Black Meow in astonishment.
Wait.
You told us not to say anything, then went and confessed everything yourself?
You answered every question!
"Black Meow, what are you doing?" the orange cat asked in confusion.
"Shut up!" Black Meow snapped. "You're not smart enough. He'll easily trick you into giving things away, so I'm the one who has to keep him talking!"
"Keep it up and you'll tell him what color our grandma's underwear is!" White Meow shouted, completely losing it.
"Do me a favor and stop arguing for a moment." Yue Wen raised a hand to silence them, then asked, "What is your Cult Leader looking for?"
"How would I know?" Black Meow said coldly. "If you know what's good for you, go find that middle-parted man in overalls and let us take him away. Otherwise, when the Cult Leader arrives, you'll be sorry!"
Yue Wen thought it over and decided that it was better not to invite trouble.
The three little ones were indeed weak, but that only meant the Cult Leader who sheltered them in a human city was probably even more formidable.
Whatever her plans were, he was only here to clear out the Lantern Monster. There was no need to make an enemy of her.
The three little demons in front of him didn't look like they were guilty of any serious crimes, and he didn't want to kill them outright. But simply letting them go seemed wrong, too.
So Yue Wen rubbed his chin and said, "I understand the situation now, and I don't want to make an enemy of the Meow Meow Cult. But having you in the city could cause trouble. I don't know if you have criminal records, so I'll take you to the Supervision Bureau..."
"No!" the three cried in unison.
The orange cat's voice broke into a sob. "If the Supervision Bureau catches us, they'll definitely send us back to the Demon Realm!"
Compared to life in the city, the Wasteland Zone was already harsh. But according to the rumors, the Demon Realm was practically hell, a hundred times more terrifying than the Wasteland Zone.
If little demons like them were thrown in there, they'd have almost no chance of ever making it back to the human world alive.
"Please, no!" White Meow wailed. "In the whole month I've been in City Seven, the only bad thing I've done was steal someone's ID card so I could pull an all-nighter at an internet café!"
"Could you two show a little backbone?" Black Meow looked at his companions with disdain. After glaring at them, he turned back to Yue Wen. "Kid, I advise you to think it over..."
His tone was still cocky. "If you don't let us go today, you'll be making an enemy of the Meow Meow Cult, and our Cult Leader won't let this go. But if you let us go, I might consider accepting you as my dad!"
Yue Wen looked at the black cat and wondered if cats could suffer from split personalities, too.
His face handled the bravado; his mouth handled the begging.
"You don't have to be so polite." After a pause, Yue Wen said unhurriedly, "You've caused a lot of damage, and I'll be held responsible for all of it. I've also spent a lot of time dealing with you, so you can't expect me to do all that for nothing. You'll have to find a way to make up for my losses, won't you?"
"Oh!" White Meow suddenly understood. "I've seen this in movies. You want to kidnap us and demand ransom, right?"
The orange cat said timidly, "But we're poor. We don't have anything... If you let me go back and tell the Cult Leader, she might be willing to pay a ransom."
"Don't even think about telling your Cult Leader. I don't know if she'd pay the ransom, but I do know she'd come after me," Yue Wen said.
"She wouldn't." The Orange Cat Girl gazed at him pleadingly. "We cats are humanity's best friends."
Yue Wen gave her a look that said, "Do you think I believe that?" Then he flashed a wicked smile. "You'd better think it over. I can tell you don't want to go to the Supervision Bureau, either, do you?"
Seeing the standoff, Black Meow suddenly shouted, "Human, I have my limits! If you don't let me go right now, I'll tell you a secret about a treasure!"
Yue Wen stared at him, speechless. He had to take a moment to process everything this black cat said. "Go on."
"We don't have anything valuable on us, but when we were wandering the Wasteland Zone, we once came across a treasure," Black Meow explained. "We saw a crashed helicopter and went to see if there were any supplies left. But a powerful spiritual energy came from the wreckage, and it was extremely harmful to demons. We couldn't get within five hundred meters of it!"
"To us, it was a dangerous weapon. But for you, it should be a powerful magical artifact. If you let us go, I'll tell you where it is, and you can go look for it."
Hearing that, Yue Wen's interest stirred. He asked, "Do you have any proof?"
"We took a group photo back then. I can show you," Black Meow said.
"My phone's in my pocket. Be careful when you take it out," White Meow reminded him softly.
Yue Wen took an old-fashioned smartphone from her pocket. More than half the screen was cracked, so it was no wonder she'd warned him to be careful.
Seeing how tenderly the three little ones looked at the old phone, he guessed they'd found it somewhere and treasured it like a prized possession.
Yue Wen opened the photo album and scrolled up as Black Meow instructed. Sure enough, he found a group photo of the three little demons.
It showed somewhere in the Wasteland Zone, shrouded in a faint mist. In the distance stood the wreckage of an old helicopter. Beyond a stand of fallen trees, Black Meow held the phone high, his eyes and brows visible in the frame. The orange cat stood neatly behind him, while White Meow thrust her face close to the camera, grinning mischievously.
Yue Wen spotted the tip of a mountain in the distance and looked surprised. "This is near North Vermilion Bird Peak. You were wandering around there?"
That was a spiritual vein in the Wasteland Zone outside Jiang City, a place teeming with demons and monsters. It was extremely dangerous.
How had these little demons managed to survive there?
"We used to have grandparents," White Meow said, sounding aggrieved. "Then the other big demons killed them, and we had to wander off on our own. That's when we met the Cult Leader..."
"Now you know we're not just some random demons!" Black Meow said fiercely. "And I'll have you know, my grandparents taught me a secret technique! If you really dare to hurt us, I'll sacrifice all my lifespan to make your knees crackle for three years!"
Before you continue