Chapter 647 - 650: Jottings
The system was surprised.
It had seen Manman come all this way just to find this body and thought she planned to move it.
It never expected her to just take a look.
The system couldn’t help but remind her.
"This place is very secluded, but there’s still a chance it could be discovered.
That guy, Ah Qi, is still searching for your remains. It would be bad if he found this place.
I think you should move the body and bury it as soon as possible. That would put an end to Ah Qi’s search for good."
Hua Manman’s fingertips lightly traced the surface of the coffin.
"I can’t move this body just yet."
The system was confused. "Why not?"
Hua Manman replied meaningfully, "I have to leave myself a way out."
The system didn’t understand. "What way out?"
Instead of answering, Hua Manman countered with a question of her own. "You want to know? Then first tell me, why did you choose me as your host?"
The system hadn’t expected her to suddenly ask about this and was taken aback for a moment.
"Those are two different things."
Hua Manman said, "So what? You ask me a question, I ask you a question. We take turns answering. Seems fair to me."
The system immediately fell silent and said no more.
Hua Manman walked out of the ice cellar, closing the heavy metal door behind her.
She retraced her steps, lantern in hand.
The girl and the cat climbed out of the tunnel, and she closed the bottom panel of the wardrobe again.
Hua Manman was about to leave when she saw the little cat walk toward a curio shelf.
The shelf had once displayed several antiques, but now they were all gone. Only a wooden box remained.
The wooden box had originally been locked, but someone had forced it open, and its contents had been rummaged through.
The little cat walked up to the wooden box, stretched out a paw, and pushed it aside, revealing a book that had been pinned underneath.
It turned its head and meowed twice at Hua Manman.
MEOW MEOW~
"Weren’t you wondering why you were chosen as the host? The answer you’re looking for is in here."
Hua Manman strode over and bent down to pick up the book.
It seemed someone had stepped on the book. There was a dirty footprint on the cover, and several pages were crumpled.
She wiped the footprint off the cover and saw a single word written on it—
Untitled.
Hua Manman was completely baffled.
’What a strange title for a book.’
When she opened it and saw the contents, she realized it wasn’t a book but a journal.
The journal chronicled many fragmented events.
From the childish handwriting and prose, it was clear that the person who wrote these things was a child.
She flipped through it, page by page.
The first part seemed quite normal, just the daily life of an ordinary child.
But in the latter half, the child started having dreams.
Every night, he would dream of a strange world where he became a Three-colored Cat.
Seeing the world from a cat’s perspective was quite fascinating.
The child found the dream very interesting and immediately wrote it down in his journal after waking up so he wouldn’t forget it later.
Reading this, a guess began to form in Hua Manman’s mind.
She quickly flipped to the next page.
The child dreamed of being a cat again, and this time he met a strange little girl in his dream.
The little girl would pass by the same place every day. She always had injuries on her, always kept her head down, and was shrouded in an aura of gloom.
These words instantly transported Hua Manman back many years.
Back then, she would walk home slowly with her schoolbag on her back, her head hung low.
She didn’t want to go back. She didn’t want to face her terrifying father.
Suddenly, she heard a cat’s meow.
MEOW~
She stopped and looked toward the sound.
Perched atop a high courtyard wall was a Three-colored Cat.
Its long tail dangled down the side of the wall, and its emerald-green eyes were staring at her without blinking.
The girl and the cat locked eyes.
In that one glance, an eternity seemed to pass.
Hua Manman’s hands, holding the journal, trembled slightly.
She carefully, cautiously, flipped to the next page.
The child dreamed of being a Three-colored Cat again.
He crouched on the path the little girl always took home, watching her with curious eyes.
The little girl thought it was hungry, so she took out the only milk candy she had left and offered it to the little cat’s mouth.
The Three-colored Cat looked at the milk candy, then at the little girl, and opened its mouth to accept it.
Seeing it eat the candy, a happy smile spread across the little girl’s small face.
It was the first time the Three-colored Cat had seen her smile.
’She’s actually pretty cute when she smiles.’
After waking up, the child was still savoring the taste of the milk candy.
He wrote about it in his journal and then had the family cook make him some milk crisps to eat.
The milk crisps were fragrant, but he still thought the milk candy from his dream tasted better.
So that night, the first thing the Three-colored Cat did upon entering the dream was to find the little girl.
When the little girl saw the Three-colored Cat wagging its tail and begging for food, she was at a loss. Her eyes turned red, and she burst into tears.
The Three-colored Cat was startled. It didn’t know what to do and could only stare blankly as she cried.
Hua Manman’s fingertips gently brushed across the handwritten words.
After her father went bankrupt, getting three meals a day became a problem, let alone having any allowance. Snacks were completely out of the question.
The milk candies were snacks she had saved from before. Whenever she got hungry, she would eat one.
But no matter how slowly she ate them, the bag of milk candies emptied quickly.
She had given the very last one to the Three-colored Cat she occasionally met on the roadside.
She never expected to see it again the next day, much less that it would ask her for food.
Her pockets were empty back then; she couldn’t produce any food at all.
She felt so useless. On top of that, she hadn’t eaten lunch, and her stomach was rumbling with hunger.
She didn’t know how long she would have to live like this.
Her emotions spiraled out of control, and she couldn’t help but start crying.
The owner of this journal was just a child; he didn’t understand why the little girl was crying.
After waking up, the child was still thinking about what had happened in the dream.
He ran to ask his father, hoping he could help him understand.
But his father said, "It’s just a dream. Everything in a dream is fake. If she wants to cry, she’ll cry. There’s no rhyme or reason to it."
The child was very disappointed that he didn’t get the answer he wanted from his father.
To others, it might have been just a dream, but to the child, everything in it felt incredibly real, so real it was as if it had actually happened.
Every night after that, the child would interact with the little girl as the Three-colored Cat.
The girl and the cat gradually grew closer.
Until one day, the Three-colored Cat waited on the courtyard wall for a long time, but the little girl never appeared.
Worried that something had happened to her, it followed her scent to find her.
Eventually, it found the little girl’s home.
It jumped onto the windowsill and, through the glass, saw the little girl locked in her bedroom.
She was sitting on the floor, hugging her knees and whimpering softly.