She rubbed a fireplace cat lamp to life, and its faint warm-yellow, firelike glow illuminated the small private room.
Jiang Han patted her cheeks, then patted the fireplace cat lamp's belly. Smiling gently, she said in cat lamp language:
"Meow-ao, everything here must be kept completely secret, meow-ao. Cat must swear a Cat Lamp Oath and must not secretly tell Meow Yi Ao anything that happens here or any research results."
The fireplace cat lamp blinked its huge cat eyes, its pupils rolling once.
"Meow-ao, Cat's lips are sealed."
"Of course Cat believes Cat's lips are sealed, but that doesn't conflict with making a Cat Lamp Oath, does it?"
Jiang Han said with a smile:
"If Cat has no other thoughts in Cat's heart, then swearing should be easy, right?"
The fireplace cat lamp twitched its ears.
"Meow-ao!"
"..."
Ever since becoming a Cat Lamp Witch, Jiang Han had always felt a sort of fear in the presence of these cat lamps in her life—the fear that "the boss cat is watching you." When she bathed, did research, or wrote in her diary, it felt as though cats' gazes were everywhere. Though she knew Cat Wei was not that bored, nor did she possess the ability to monitor the entire world, the worry still lingered.
So, after pestering Cat Wei for more than a month, Jiang Han had finally received, with the other woman's growing impatience, a method that "could keep cat lamps from reporting back."
That was to force cat lamps to swear Cat Lamp Oaths.
Legend had it that the powerful Thunder Giant Cat adored her sister, the Cloudmist Giant Cat, and so forced every kind of Giant Cat's cat lamps to swear the Cat Lamp Oath: "Do not beguile the Cloudmist Giant Cat." But the Thunder Giant