A Catgirl’s Dream

After school, Lin Yi plopped onto the sofa. The tabby cat hadn’t caused any trouble today; its cage remained exactly as he had left it that morning.

Seeing Lin Yi return, the little cat quickly stood up and meowed twice. It was as if she was saying, “Let me out now!”

Lin Yi took off his jacket, then spent a moment opening the cage. The moment the door swung open, the tabby cat eagerly dashed out, rubbing against Lin Yi’s ankles.

Feeling a tickle from the persistent rubbing, Lin Yi affectionately stroked the little cat’s head. It was at this exact moment that a faint glimmer of light flashed from beneath the jacket he had tossed onto the sofa.

Inside the not-so-spacious rental apartment, Chen Sishi stared intently at her phone screen. The screen displayed Lin Yi stroking the little cat’s head, and after a brief pause, the image shifted.

Lin Yi rose and went to the kitchen, reheating the leftover dishes from earlier. After a simple meal, he settled at his desk.

A workbook lay open before him; the school had assigned some homework from it that day, which Lin Yi hadn’t finished during study hall.

After writing for a while, Lin Yi’s phone suddenly vibrated. He picked it up and saw it was a call from Li Yan.

“Hello, what’s up?”

“Hey, Brother Lin, we agreed to play games together today. You didn’t forget, did you?”

Lin Yi slapped his forehead. He had been so engrossed in his homework that he’d completely forgotten about Li Yan’s plan.

“Wait a moment, I’m just finishing this problem.”

On the other end of the line, Li Yan frowned upon hearing Lin Yi’s words.

“Brother Lin, what’s gotten into you lately? You never used to do homework until the last possible minute. Why are you suddenly so diligent, and it’s only Friday?”

Lin Yi paused, his hand hovering over the workbook. ‘My behavior really isn’t like the original protagonist’s,’ he thought. ‘But surely, no one would notice such a small detail?’

“Go on, go on. Wait for me to start my computer.”

“Alright, Brother Lin!”

Dropping his pen, Lin Yi returned to his bedroom and powered on his computer.

“What’s the game called, Li Yan?”

“Hold on, I’ll send you a link.”

After logging into his account on the computer, a game share link soon arrived from Li Yan. Lin Yi clicked on it, and a download page popped up.

“Alright, just let me create a character.”

“Hey, Brother Lin, only half-infected characters have animal ears in this game right now. Don’t pick the wrong one!”

“Got it, got it.”

The game’s initial screen depicted a horde of bloodied zombies rushing towards the camera, startling Lin Yi slightly. Once the game finished loading, two options appeared on screen: Human and Half-Infected.

Without hesitation, Lin Yi naturally clicked on ‘Half-Infected,’ and then a gender selection popped up.

For such an option, he, of course, chose female. ‘Wouldn’t it be a delightful experience to play the game while admiring pretty girls?’ he thought.

Shaking off those frivolous thoughts, Lin Yi carefully read the game description at the top of the screen.

Half-infected characters could possess traits of the infected, or choose to merge with a portion of animal genes. It seemed the game developers, in an effort to maintain balance, had given humans special abilities that could be selected at the start.

However, none of this truly mattered to Lin Yi; he was only playing this game for the catgirls.

Before long, Lin Yi had sculpted a maiden, roughly 1.6 meters tall, complete with white cat ears and a tail. Her figure was curvaceous in all the right places, and overall, she looked quite harmonious.

下旬

Looking at the girl on the screen, Lin Yi felt something was still missing. He then changed her human pupils to vertical cat-like slits, which made her appear much more perfect.

After finalizing his character, a red dot illuminated on the game’s friends interface. He didn’t need to guess who had added him.

“Hey, Brother Lin, I’ve added you! Who’s going to open the map for us?”

The game boasted an open-world design with multiplayer capabilities. It was somewhat similar to the sandbox games Lin Yi used to play, where everything could be dug up and used as material.

After some thought, Lin Yi decided to let Li Yan open the map, as he was still new to the game and unfamiliar with many of its mechanics.

Upon entering the game, Lin Yi’s eyes immediately landed on a tall, enchanting woman. She was a full head taller than Lin Yi, and the ‘mountains’ on her chest were rather pronounced.

Lin Yi didn’t react immediately; it wasn’t until Li Yan’s voice came through the phone that he snapped back to reality.

“Brother Lin, you’re so tiny.”

“Huh? You made yours so big, aren’t you afraid you won’t be able to control yourself while playing?”

The two exchanged a few teasing remarks, bickering as they familiarized themselves with the game.

“Brother Lin, Brother Lin! There’s a dog, a zombie dog!”

“You got this. I’m going to hide for a bit.”

“No, Brother Lin, damn it, I’m dead!”

After some time spent in laughter, Lin Yi picked up his phone and checked the time. It was almost eleven, and he was beginning to feel quite drowsy.

After telling Li Yan, Lin Yi exited the game and shut down his computer.

Lying on his bed, he gazed at the familiar ceiling. Just as he was about to turn over, his hand brushed against something soft and furry. Instinctively, Lin Yi gave it a couple of strokes, and a purr, as expected, rumbled in response.

“I’m going to sleep. Can’t you go back to your own spot?”

Mrow… meow?

As if responding to Lin Yi, the tabby cat let out a lazy meow, then rolled over and fell back asleep. Lin Yi watched her, a wry smile on his face, before sighing helplessly.

Well, he was the one who brought the little creature home. She could sleep wherever she pleased, as long as she didn’t use the bed as a litter box.

****

His consciousness steeped in a dreamlike state, Lin Yi felt his body floating in the air. He looked around in confusion, reaching out to grasp something, but found nothing.

Just as Lin Yi’s consciousness began to drift, his hand touched something furry. The next moment, a powerful suction pulled him directly inward.

This strange dream left Lin Yi feeling utterly uncomfortable. He struggled to open his eyes, only to see his own face staring back at him.

His still-hazy mind instantly cleared, and Lin Yi felt the fur all over his body bristle.

Scrambling out of the covers, Lin Yi sensed something was profoundly wrong. His perspective was impossibly low, as if he were seeing through the eyes of a small cat.

As this thought struck him, he looked down to see his own white cat paws.

Meow?

Meow! Meow!

“What’s going on? What happened?”

His mind completely frozen, Lin Yi stared blankly at his two furry paws. A black and white tail twitched restlessly behind him, and a pair of cat ears drooped listlessly.

Meow?

Lin Yi tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth, only meows emerged. Pacing frantically on the bed, Lin Yi found his mind struggling to accept this reality.

In his current vision, vibrant colors were largely absent. He could only perceive shades of purple, blue, green, and yellow; everything else had transformed into a palette of gray and white, much like an old television screen.

Glancing at his own furry body, Lin Yi recalled that, if he wasn’t mistaken, this cat was a little female cat, wasn’t she? The thought made Lin Yi instantly gasp.

“Hiss~ Does that mean…”

“No, no, there has to be a way to change back. It can’t be that I turned into a kitten this morning just because I played as a catgirl last night, right?”

After much deliberation, Lin Yi still felt that this matter was connected to sleep.

“Yes! This must be related to that strange dream I had last night!”

Comforting himself inwardly, Lin Yi burrowed back under the covers. The light outside the window suggested it was probably noon, but all he wanted was a little more sleep.

The moment he snuggled back into the warm covers, Lin Yi involuntarily began to purr.

The sensation of being entirely enveloped in warmth was incredibly comforting, and he finally understood why the little cat loved sneaking into his bed in the middle of the night.

Perhaps it was due to being a cat, but the moment Lin Yi closed his eyes, drowsiness washed over him, and he quickly fell asleep.