Chapter 28

At the South District Police Station of Fallen Phoenix City.

The instructor wore a serious expression, while the Chinese Rural Dog Wangka kept staring at the two cats on the table, his expression curious and somewhat eager.

Long Zai kept lifting his head, and although he sat properly, his head swayed back and forth as he observed his surroundings and looked at the police emblem on the wall.

Three-Five-Five glanced at the dog, then at the person holding the police dog's leash, before lying down on the table, slowly wagging his tail.

Only Bubu wore an awkward smile: "Well... we didn't realize you were conducting a drill, and the child called the police too quickly. We're really sorry about that."

They had completely disrupted their exercise plan!

As soon as she said this, the surrounding officers who were peering around couldn't help but laugh, with someone patting Lin Undercover's shoulder, saying, "Old Zhong said you got hit by a cat and called for help, seriously?"

Lin Undercover: "...Come on, why don't you try letting the cat hit you too?"

The instructor coughed: "It's fine, it's also our fault for not having a more comprehensive exercise plan. We're sorry for the trouble—little one, you did the right thing by calling the police, but could you tell us why you were so sure about making that call?"

They exchanged glances and told Long Zai's story, though Hang Ling remarked: "It could only be Chu Chu, calling the police so directly. If it were me, I probably would have just been suspicious but not so decisive."

The child really trusted the cat's judgment.

Adults tend to overthink things.

Chu Tingwu: "Hmm..."

She couldn't say that she actually trusted her own judgment more—she had smelled it too, which is why she decided to call the police.

The police officers were quite impressed, and some came over to observe the orange cat that could smell drugs... As more people gathered, Three-Five-Five jumped down and returned to Chu Tingwu's feet, seemingly annoyed by the human attention.

Lin Undercover asked: "What about this cat?"

He still remembered how Three-Five-Five's paw had almost touched his hair when he was lying down.

Before Chu Tingwu could answer, someone suddenly clapped their hands and realized: "Wait, kid, are you the one from that promotional video outside, with your cat?"

For police officers, recognizing people by their build was a basic skill, and although Chu Tingwu hadn't shown her face, her figure was quite distinctive.

Chu Tingwu nodded, and the person said solemnly: "This cat isn't that one, it's an actor."

Three-Five-Five: "?"

Feeling that wasn't a particularly nice thing to say, he hissed at them first.

With this interruption, the police officers could see it too—Long Zai was clearly trained, not just in terms of strength, but in that sort of obedient manner. If it weren't for his distinctive color, he would be just like an obedient and sharp-sensed dog.

Meanwhile, Three-Five-Five was more cat-like, with eyes that carried that adult feline gaze of sizing up humans, along with that characteristic aloof feeling.

Someone came over to pat Long Zai's head and said: "Does he recognize the police badge?"

Indeed, those who could access drugs to train cats would likely be from only a few possible backgrounds.

At these words, those familiar with Chu Tingwu all turned their gaze toward her.

Police officers: "?"

Chu Tingwu leaned over and "meowed" twice in Long Zai's ear. Long Zai gave a deep meow in response, speaking about his previous owner for the first time:

His owner had brought him to the police station before.

He had sniffed various pieces of evidence during training.

They had even jokingly made him wear a police dog uniform, though Long Zai didn't like it because it smelled too much like dog. Meow!

Long Zai wanted his own uniform.

Bubu: "...That might be a bit too difficult, Zai."

That's too much, she couldn't handle it.

The police officers exchanged glances, and the instructor patted Wangka's head, sighing: "I've never seen a police cat in our country... As far as I know, there are no officially registered police cats. This cat was probably trained privately by someone in the force."

Although police cats and police dogs weren't the same species, having handled police dogs for many years, he instinctively wanted to praise Long Zai's reaction and speed in detecting drugs. However, thinking of Wangka beside him—

Police dogs were very intelligent and sensitive, and if he praised Long Zai, Wangka might get upset.

Cats and dogs naturally had different senses of smell, and it wasn't Wangka's fault they arrived late today... If anything, Wangka must be feeling down about the sudden failure of the exercise, and would need some comforting later.

After he finished speaking, he looked at Bubu, seemingly waiting for her to explain where the cat came from, but Bubu was also at a loss:

"Long Zai... actually found us on his own."

Unlike Little Sun, "Cha Mi Goes Home" didn't have a public hospital address, but they did offer adoptions. One day, Long Zai appeared carrying a kitten in his mouth, placed it at their doorstep, then observed from a distance, only leaving after seeing the kitten was taken inside.

At first, the Cha Mi team hadn't noticed, thinking someone had abandoned their cat at their door—despite having surveillance cameras, some shameless people still did such things.

But when they checked the surveillance footage, they were surprised to see it was a cat.

Some team members initially thought Long Zai was a female cat, since he was already neutered and gender wasn't obvious from the video. It wasn't until Long Zai's second visit, when someone happened to go outside, that they got a close look at him.

His tiger stripes appeared bright orange in the sunlight, and with just one leap, he could jump onto a wall nearly two meters high. His limbs were strong, his fur clean—he didn't look like a stray cat at all.

Bubu: "And he could communicate with us then, seeming to understand what we were saying!"

The person who went outside pointed at the kitten at the door and asked Long Zai: "Are you wanting us to adopt it?"

Long Zai gave a "meow" in response.

The person then asked: "Wait, is this your kitten?"

Long Zai's face showed an almost human-like expression of exasperation before he turned and walked away along the wall with feline grace.

They had considered catching Long Zai for adoption or trying to find his owner, but Long Zai was very clever, clearly familiar with human society's rules, and would even wait for cars when crossing streets. He just happened to be active near their rental property.

So things remained peaceful between them for several months, until one time when Long Zai came to knock on their door, leading them to a litter of nearly dying kittens in a drain. After the Cha Mi team took the kittens, just as they were about to leave, they discovered Long Zai leading them to two puppies barking in the bushes.

The Cha Mi team: "Wait... these definitely couldn't be yours, right?"

Besides, their main job was rescuing cats, not dogs!

They still rescued them though.

After rescuing the cats and dogs, Cha Mi managed to take Long Zai with them—though from their perspective, it seemed more like Long Zai willingly followed them, as if he was offering his services in return for their help with the rescued young ones.

Bubu: "...Then Long Zai helped us discipline the cats."

Like mediating fights between cats in the house.

Like stopping bigger cats from bullying smaller ones, and even once when Bubu was wailing about not being able to handle work, he helped her hiss at her colleague.

At that time, he seemed to be saying: "Bubu good, colleague assigning work, colleague bad!"

Such a clever and kind cat, Bubu couldn't help but show excessive favoritism toward Long Zai, and as she paid more attention to him, she began to care about his psychological well-being. Finally, she happened to run into Chu Tingwu training cats, and that's how they came together.

Looking at Long Zai sitting properly on the table with excited eyes, Bubu felt a bit sad: "Why does a cat like you insist on trying to do a dog's job?"

They're not even in the same league.

Probably having heard there was a cat that could smell drugs, and an orange one at that, even officers from the neighboring unit found excuses to come and observe. After hearing Long Zai's story, someone joked: "Why don't we let this little cat try on a uniform? After all, he did detect drugs, that deserves a reward."

Wangka lowered his head and whimpered beside them.

The instructor glared at that person and thoughtfully said: "Where are you from? I'll ask the dog training facilities in that area, maybe it's a colleague's cat that ran away."

Bubu: "We're from Tian City, and when we first met Long Zai, we asked around the neighborhood, but no one knew whose cat he was. We also asked at the police station and even asked our fans online... We do have over a million followers, but tiger-striped orange cats are too common, and Long Zai doesn't have any other distinctive features and wasn't wearing a collar, sigh."

Chu Tingwu added from the side, "The APP didn't match any photos."

The system had helped her check the surveillance footage, and it seemed that Long Zai was not a local cat from Tian City, but had run in from outside the city. It could be a rural cat or one that had come from another city. There was a long stretch of road where no surveillance cameras had captured him, and if they were to expand the search to include the entire national surveillance system, the biggest challenge would be to filter out all the tabby orange cats that looked exactly like Long Zai.

Perhaps when the APP's user data reached over a hundred million and the number of registered cats also exceeded a hundred million, with owners actively uploading photos, it might be possible to find him.

Since it was a misunderstanding, the group left with the cat. Chu Tingwu called out "Three-Five-Five," and Three-Five-Five immediately walked in front of her. But when Bubu called out "Long Zai" twice, Long Zai took a few steps, looked back, and finally stopped at the door, his tail wagging slower and slower until it finally drooped down, and he turned to slowly follow Bubu.

Bubu: "Oh..."

She crouched down, wanting to give Long Zai a hug, but felt it was inappropriate in the police station and might block the way, so she took a couple of steps forward, making a gesture to wait for Long Zai to jump into her arms. However, Long Zai merely approached and gently rubbed his forehead against her.

Very restrained.

But before they had walked far, Chu Tingwu heard the panting of a dog running—

The instructor led Wangka out and said, "Wait, let's exchange contact information. I'll help ask around!"

A cat like this...

A cat that could sniff out drugs, save people, and save cats—the person who trained him must have put in a lot of effort. How could he be casually abandoned?

The Chinese Rural Dog Wangka, panting with his mouth open, suddenly leaned over and licked Long Zai's butt.

Long Zai: "Meow?!"

Wangka, just expressing friendliness: "?"

The cat and dog stared at each other, but both being trained, they did not attack each other. Only Three-Five-Five looked around, disdainfully turning her head away.

Chu Tingwu: "Wait!"

She could also ask around!

Long Zai had previously seemed to have signed a confidentiality agreement, not revealing anything about his previous owner. But now they were in the police station, with police officers around, even a cat in the police station had to tell the truth.

So, the instructor saw the short-haired girl squat down again, hugging the orange cat's head and having a "meow" conversation with him, back and forth, chatting for a long time. Then the girl stood up, and the tabby cat behind her came over, rubbing against her knee and wiping off the scent mark left by the orange cat.

Chu Tingwu: "Long Zai said he followed his previous owner all the way to Tian City."

"He searched for him for several months but couldn't find him, and the trail ended in Tian City. Later, when winter came, he followed Bubu and the others back home."

The instructor's expression turned serious: "That's a missing person case—wait!"

Could a cat really express all that? Okay, Long Zai is special, but why can this girl translate?

He hesitated: "Any more clues?"

Chu Tingwu was also helpless: According to Long Zai's information, the place he lived had a courtyard, but it wasn't a villa, more like a rural big yard. His owner was male, often bringing various things for him to sniff and training him to find them. Later, he took him out for drills, training him to climb trees, rescue people and cats, find people... judging whether someone was engaging in dangerous behavior and reacting accordingly. Later, he even took him to the police station to sniff other things, looking like he was a police officer.

But Long Zai... he can't read!

He doesn't know which city he lived in before.

One day, his owner probably had to go on a business trip, left him with a colleague, and then suddenly disappeared, never returning.

Long Zai first ran out from his colleague's home, back to his own dusty house, and then started using his training to search for his missing owner.

He suffered a lot, took many detours, and the clues often broke off, finally finding his way to Tian City.

In reality, while dogs can chase people for miles, cats can do it too. However, Long Zai didn't meet a fairy tale ending; he didn't find his owner and had no items with his owner's scent.

After all, it's just a cat's testimony, not enough to report a missing person. The instructor hesitated and said, "I'll help ask around internally."

Since he was left with a colleague, the colleague should be able to recognize Long Zai, right?

-

Today's experience was too rich—going out for a while and ending up at the police station. Long Zai's mood was low, and Bubu was a bit tired. Everyone silently returned the way they came. Hang Ling suddenly clenched her fist: "Otherwise... I'll go to Qingshan Temple and draw a fortune slip!"

Qingshan Temple is that Taoist temple on Zhangshan Mountain, though it's on Zhangshan but called Qingshan, often confusing people, but the abbot doesn't care.

When ordinary paths don't work, one can turn to metaphysics!

Bubu chuckled, and Chu Tingwu also found it amusing: "The normal path isn't completely blocked yet..."

Compared to ordinary people, those here are all UP hosts with a large number of fans. Just posting a dynamic could reach at least tens of thousands of people, and maybe someone related might accidentally see it.

Chu Tingwu first posted a reward on her APP, with the content changed to find a stray tabby orange cat spotted in Tian City within the past half to one year, to determine Long Zai's past route, preferably to identify the city where his previous owner lived.

According to Long Zai's clues, his previous owner drove away, and it should have been for official business, riding in a police car, which allowed him to chase after it.

Seeing that Three-Five-Five liked the camera on her neck, Chu Tingwu helped her take it off in the police station and put it back on after they left—though it's not very comfortable for a cat to wear and might get stuck when squeezing through walls, Three-Five-Five isn't that clumsy.

She fell asleep on time under the system's music hypnosis, and tonight the system didn't schedule any lessons.

The metal sphere floated around the yard and then rolled over to charge, but it suddenly paused when it touched the charging dock.

In the dark, Three-Five-Five, lying on the bedside, opened her eyes, glanced at the drone camera, and then jumped onto the wall, "meowing" twice.

System: "......?"

Did she find out that the young one was upset about Long Zai's situation and decide to call friends to beat up Long Zai?

The system silently connected to the camera on Three-Five-Five's neck, seeing through the cat's first-person perspective that Three-Five-Five indeed called over the village's tabby and orange cats.

The orange cat jumped into the yard, washed his face with his paws, and then lay down next to Chu Tingwu's slippers, snoring loudly.

System: "......"

The mother decided to go out and called a bodyguard for her baby?

While charging, it continued to watch Three-Five-Five's situation. She walked in front, with the tabby keeping a distance, and they left the village together.

After running for half an hour, the tabby and Three-Five-Five parted ways. After a while, a crow flew over and landed on Three-Five-Five's head, "meowing" twice:

"Play together, play together?"

It turned out the tabby went to Teacher Zhang's house to call the crow, as she knew the way.

Three-Five-Five threatened with a hiss, and the crow had to flap its wings and jump to the side. Three-Five-Five then bent down and, with the cat's powerful flexibility, bit off the camera.

System: "......"

When adopting Three-Five-Five, she did escape several times by picking locks.

Then, the crow picked up the camera, and the system's view shook for a while before stabilizing.

...Luckily, the positioning on the collar was still there, but the system was already thinking about whether to remind the baby to get a subcutaneous chip positioning surgery for Three-Five-Five.

The crow carried the camera and, together with Three-Five-Five, ran to the hotel where Bubu and the others were staying. Then, Three-Five-Five waited downstairs, and the crow flapped its wings, circling the hotel and making "meow" sounds.

After flying two circles, the curtain on the sixth floor moved, and a big face of an orange cat appeared at the window.

Long Zai: "?"

What's wrong with this crow?

Bubu rolled over in bed, oblivious to the conversation between a cat and a crow outside the window. The camera, meanwhile, remained focused on Long Zai. The crow then flew down to chat with Three-Five-Five before returning—

Bubu rolled over again, burying her face in the pillow, drowsily thinking, "Why do I hear a bunch of cats meowing even in my dreams?"

The system, understanding their conversation, responded with a resigned "=="

You meow and no one translates for you!

The crow then flew down to exchange a few words with Three-Five-Five, who let out a low "meow" and hid the crow under its belly. They waited by the roadside until they caught a ride on a small tricycle heading out early in the morning to gather ingredients.

The tricycle owner was completely unaware of the two stowaways. After a while, the crow and Three-Five-Five disembarked and switched to several other vehicles, eventually reaching the foot of Zhangshan Mountain.

The system thought, "I knew it."

Whether by "guessing" or using road data, it knew—these two were going to Zhangshan Mountain to seek fortune slips!

Three-Five-Five probably only understood the mention of Zhangshan Mountain from a few conversations, having roamed the mountains before. The crow, however, shrewdly realized they could go to the temple to seek fortune slips, possibly not its first time doing so.

The two quickly ascended the mountain. The temple was quiet at night, except for a tabby cat that suddenly opened its eyes. In the darkness, the cats' eyes met, and the tabby meowed, making way:

[Got any food for me?]

[I'll make it up to you next time.]

The feline conversation concluded, and the tabby, being mischievous, pounced on the crow. Then, the three entered the temple together. The tabby, named Yanzi, skillfully pulled out the fortune slip tube, scattering the slips on the ground. After sniffing around, it picked out several:

"Humans like these ones!"

All were marked "Great Luck."

Even a peach blossom slip?

The three animals silently divided the slips. The tabby took two and hid them under a cushion, the crow took one, and Three-Five-Five took the remaining three. The crow then returned the camera to Three-Five-Five. Each went their separate ways, leaving behind deep shadows in the morning sun for early hikers to ponder.

"Hey, isn't that the parkour cat from the video?"

"Come on, what are the odds? All tortoiseshell cats look the same!"

Two hours later, the young monk woke up, first noticing the fortune slip tube and then the sleeping Yanzi on the cushion. He paused, then lifted Yanzi by the nape of its neck, immediately flipping the cushion: "Yanzi! What are you up to this time—wait, there are only two slips here. Where are the others? Spill it—you know the rules!"

In the villa district, Aunt Mei returned from shopping, but as soon as she opened the door, a wooden slip fell from the sky. She picked it up: "Great Luck... but why a peach blossom slip?"

The familiar caw and meow echoed from above, leaving no doubt as to who had thrown it.

Aunt Mei sighed, "Wu Classmate, where did you steal this from this time?"

The last time's stolen glass beads were still hidden in the gingko tree!

Chu Tingwu was probably the last to wake up. As soon as she got out of bed, she found a plump orange cat by her slippers—fat, slightly flawed, and very hungry.

"Big Orange?"

She asked the system in her mind, "Where's Three-Five-Five?"

Three-Five-Five was in the courtyard.

Probably not wanting to wake the sensitive young one, she crouched under a tree in the yard. The vinca on the second-floor platform had bloomed again, scattered by the recent rainstorm.

The tortoiseshell cat shook its fluffy tail, jumped off the rocking chair, and signaled Chu Tingwu to look at what she had hidden under her belly.

Three wooden slips, and a slightly dirty camera.

The tortoiseshell stood up, rubbed against Chu Tingwu, and meowed:

Long Zai, that silly one, can't find his way home, right? Use this camera, my dear. You said the camera can tell millions of people about something. Cats can't understand how many millions there are, but millions of people should be able to find traces of a little cat, right?

So Three-Five-Five ran half the night, then spent the other half cleaning the mud and dust from her paws, bringing back a camera and three lucky wooden slips for her somewhat unhappy little one.

She didn't know that without the system's backend control, the camera wouldn't capture anything.

She also didn't know that seeking fortune slips was pointless, and there was no need to travel all the way to the outskirts of the city to Zhangshan Mountain.

She just meowed and rubbed against Chu Tingwu's waist, trying to erase the last traces of Long Zai's scent.

Chu Tingwu took the camera with both hands and held the slips in her hand, saying, "This slip still needs to be returned."

Three-Five-Five turned her head.

"But the video..." She smiled, "Thousands, maybe millions, will see it."

Right, system?

【Absolutely, I've already edited it.】

The little one rarely makes requests, so the system ignited its nonexistent cyber-cosmos... even if it meant hacking into others' computers and phones, it would force the video into their minds!

It's not like it can't do it!