The Cat's Repayment

As the family was thinking of what to do, Fang Yuan remembered Xiaozhu's phone watch.

He hurriedly took out his phone to locate the watch, only to discover it was right there at the hospital.

He followed the location outside and found the watch in a hospital flower bed.

Fang Yuan gripped the watch, his brow tightly furrowed.

Just then, meowing came from atop the hospital's perimeter wall.

Fang Yuan's eyes widened at the sound. He turned to his parents and said, "Stay at the hospital and wait for news. I'll go look."

Then he ran toward the meowing.

When he reached the wall, he saw the gray cat standing on top of it, meowing as though it were waiting for him.

"You know where Xiaozhu is, don't you?"

Fang Yuan didn't care how foolish he looked talking to a cat.

Right now, he could only pin his hopes on this gray cat.

Meow!

The gray cat meowed once and jumped over the wall.

Fang Yuan couldn't spare the time to go around to the main entrance. He leaped up, caught the top of the wall, and vaulted over.

Then he sprinted along the sidewalk after the gray cat.

The gray cat never took a normal route, either scaling walls or leaping onto rooftops.

Fang Yuan had no choice but to start racing over rooftops and walls, vaulting walls and trees.

Fortunately, his agility was high enough that scaling walls and climbing slopes posed no problem.

But this cat had 16 agility, plus Advanced Agility Enhancement. It was so fast that it kept appearing and disappearing like a ghost.

They passed through alleys and parks, gradually reaching an out-of-the-way neighborhood.

Just then.

His phone rang. Fang Yuan picked it up and saw an unfamiliar number.

When he answered, a somewhat familiar voice came through.

"I have your sister. If you want to save her, come alone to the warehouse at 63 T-shaped Bridge Road."

Fang Yuan frowned, immediately realizing whose voice it was, and roared, "Qinglang! Just fucking try laying a finger on my sister..."

Before he could finish, the line went dead. The caller had already hung up.

Fang Yuan looked around, his mind racing.

He swiped his phone open, opened the map, quickly pinpointed his location, then entered "warehouse at 63 T-shaped Bridge Road" to plot a route between the two places.

Then he dragged the map to find the hospital.

The map showed that his current location wasn't between the hospital and the warehouse on T-shaped Bridge Road, but in the opposite direction.

If Qinglang had abducted Xiaozhu and was holding her in the T-shaped Bridge warehouse, why was the gray cat leading him in the opposite direction?

Meow, meow, meow...

Seeing that he hadn't followed, the gray cat ran back and meowed at Fang Yuan's feet. There was actually a hint of urgency in its voice.

Fang Yuan thought rapidly.

Judging by how these two cats had behaved before, they were very close to Xiaozhu and remarkably intelligent.

When the gray cat saw that he wasn't following, it had run back to meow at his feet. Clearly, it wanted to take him somewhere.

Should I trust the gray cat?

Or should I trust Qinglang?

That question required no thought at all.

Besides, Fang Yuan soon thought of a possibility.

Qinglang had abducted Xiaozhu, but that didn't necessarily mean he was holding her in the T-shaped Bridge warehouse.

Xiaozhu might well be held somewhere else, while the T-shaped Bridge warehouse was actually a trap Qinglang had set.

On one side was a trap; on the other was Xiaozhu's actual location.

Fang Yuan didn't need to hesitate. He told the gray cat, "Hurry, take me there."

The gray cat immediately broke into a sprint, sprang onto a wall again, and raced toward a run-down street.

Three minutes later.

Fang Yuan entered a dim alley, then heard a beast's roar.

Roar!

Fang Yuan's heart lurched, and he sped up, charging over.

The gray cat slipped through a window into a house.

Fang Yuan rushed up and kicked the door open.

As soon as the door opened, he saw Fang Xiaozhu lying on the floor.

Two other people lay on the floor, their flesh mangled and bloody.

At the same time, a huge black shape fled through the house's backyard.

Fang Yuan couldn't worry about all that. He ran over, picked up his sister, and checked her pulse first.

Her pulse was a little weak, but she had no external injuries. It probably wasn't serious.

Then Fang Yuan turned to look at the two mangled, bloody people on the floor, his brow furrowing.

He didn't understand what had happened.

The orange cat and the gray cat were both there, circling Fang Xiaozhu.

Donghai's nights were a little cold.

Fang Xiaozhu was wearing a fairly thin hospital gown.

Fang Yuan took off his jacket and wrapped her in it.

Fang Xiaozhu murmured groggily, "Big... Brother..."

"I'm here. It's all right... It's all right..."

Fang Yuan soothed her with a few words, and Fang Xiaozhu drifted back to sleep.

Only after confirming that his sister was all right did Fang Yuan breathe out and move closer to examine the two mangled, bloody people.

Their bodies were covered in wounds that looked as though they had been torn open by a beast's claws.

Fang Yuan glanced back at the two cats.

These two cats did have claws, but they couldn't have inflicted such mangled, bloody wounds.

Besides, of their four attributes, only their agility was relatively high. Their strength was only 4 or 5 points. Their claws alone couldn't injure a person at all.

These two people had been torn beyond recognition. It had probably been done by an enormous beast.

Judging by their shredded clothes and boots, these two were probably Qinglang's men.

Now wasn't the time to investigate how the two had died.

Fang Yuan carried his sister on his back, left the house, and went out to the street to take a taxi back to the hospital.

In the taxi, Fang Yuan first called his parents to let them know they were safe.

When he returned to the hospital, Fang Xiaozhu was still unconscious.

They called the attending doctor over to examine her.

Fang Zhenguo pulled Fang Yuan aside and asked, "What happened?"

Anger churned faintly in Fang Yuan's eyes as he answered, "A few days ago, I crossed a guy in the underworld called Qinglang. He abducted Xiaozhu and told me to go to the warehouse at 63 T-shaped Bridge."

"Qinglang? From Qingtang Street?"

"Yes."

Fang Yuan nodded, then continued, "Once Xiaozhu's condition is stable, I'll go settle this."

"How do you plan to settle it?" Fang Zhenguo pressed with a frown.

"If they come at me, I'll fight them however they want. But if they dare take revenge on Xiaozhu, there's nothing more to say!" An icy edge entered Fang Yuan's voice.

During the fight between the two sides a few days earlier.

Fang Yuan hadn't intended to kill anyone, only to teach them a lesson and leave it at that.

He hadn't expected Qinglang and his people to abduct Xiaozhu.

This had crossed Fang Yuan's bottom line.

A little over ten minutes later, the attending doctor took off his stethoscope and said, "There's nothing wrong. She probably just had a fright. A few days' rest should do it."

"Thank you, Doctor," Li Shuhua hurriedly said.

Hearing that his sister was all right, Fang Yuan turned and headed outside, his eyes gleaming coldly.

At some point, Fang Zhenguo had slung a guitar case onto his back. He caught up and asked, "Are you going to the T-shaped Bridge warehouse?"

"Yes." Fang Yuan kept walking.

"It's too dangerous. Let me go instead," Fang Zhenguo hurriedly urged.

"Qinglang told me to come. Stay here and watch over Xiaozhu. Don't let anything else happen," Fang Yuan said gravely.

Fang Zhenguo didn't try to stop him again. He stood there until Fang Yuan had left the hospital, then went out through another hospital entrance and got into a taxi. "T-shaped Bridge Road."

The taxi slowly pulled away from the hospital and arrived at T-shaped Bridge Road thirty minutes later.

Fang Zhenguo got out, surveyed the surroundings, and headed toward the clock tower at T-shaped Bridge.

(There'll be another bonus chapter at eight tonight. Please vote with your recommendation tickets!)