A Peculiar Kidnapping

Yuan Anqing had intended to use the leopard man, Yuan Zhanhui, to stage a fake kidnapping, hoping to gauge the authorities’ reaction to him being “lost.”

However, Zhuo vehemently rejected the idea, deeming it far too perilous for his fragile Savior. “Over my dead body!” he declared. “Don’t even think about it!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Yuan Anqing said, gently pulling on Zhuo’s sleeve to calm him down.

“How can I not be agitated?! Why shouldn’t I be?” Zhuo rose, looming over him and tapping a finger against Yuan Anqing’s chest. “You’re toying with your own life. You’ve changed, glasses!”

“I’ve changed?”

“You never used to care about such things,” Zhuo continued.

Indeed, Yuan Anqing had always been a man who took life as it came. He possessed no inherent desire for exploration; even a mystery as great as his own transmigration hadn’t spurred him to pursue the truth. He was the type of person who would see a fire and simply walk in the other direction to avoid the heat.

“We haven’t known each other for very long,” Yuan Anqing reminded him.

“Was there any difference between the past decades of your life and the state you were in when you first appeared in that office?” Zhuo pressed.

Indeed, there was none. Yuan Anqing found himself without a rebuttal.

“So why are you so insistent on doing this now?” Zhuo asked. “If it’s too much trouble, just let things be. After all, you’ll be eaten by me one day, anyway. Why rush it by letting some amateur kidnap you?”

Yuan Anqing froze.

“You remember, don’t you? You promised you’d be my first real meal,” Zhuo said, reiterating his possessive concern. “You can’t die prematurely!” He swallowed hard, a clear sign of his internal tension.

“Oh. Right,” Yuan Anqing responded, finally understanding.

Investigating the “truth” behind the Saviors would undoubtedly be troublesome. There was no practical need for him to meddle; it likely wouldn’t change his daily routine anyway. He was fundamentally powerless to alter the system that summoned him.

So why had I wanted to explore it?

Yuan Anqing realized he had become somewhat peculiar. A subtle shift in his mental gears had occurred unnoticed. Once he acknowledged it, he felt a sudden, reflexive resistance toward these new, active emotions. They felt like foreign objects in his mind.

“Yuan Anqing?” Zhuo called out.

“Hmm? What is it?” Yuan Anqing blinked.

“Are you sad?”

Zhuo sensed it immediately. Yuan Anqing had suddenly lost his spark. Although Yuan Anqing typically lacked vitality, after spending every waking hour together, Zhuo could now discern subtle shifts in the “weather” of his perpetually unchanging expression.

“Ah? No.” Yuan Anqing waved a hand dismissively, picking up his drink. He had finished eating, but Zhuo was still enjoying his massive meal, so he had to stay and accompany him. “I just hadn’t fully processed the logistical difficulties. I’ll drop the plan.”

He quickly composed his face into a mask of professional neutrality. “Keep eating. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Zhuo found the words unconvincing. “You look so dejected.”

“I’m not dejected. I just don’t understand why I suddenly developed a curiosity for the truth,” Yuan Anqing explained, his voice returning to its familiar, flat monotone. “Thinking back on that plan now, it seems quite exhausting. I’d rather just go home.”

“It is exhausting. You shouldn’t bother with such things,” Zhuo said, feeling a wave of relief.

“Do you want some dessert?” Yuan Anqing proactively changed the subject. “Shall we go buy a cake after this?”

Zhuo was tempted, but he still felt something was off. “Never mind. Let’s just take some porridge to Yuan Zhanhui instead.”

“That works too,” Yuan Anqing nodded.

Zhuo finished his last bite, observing Yuan Anqing intently. The Savior seemed perfectly normal, sipping his drink while waiting for the check. Yet, Zhuo couldn’t shake the feeling that something was severely amiss.

Later, as they returned to the hospital with the porridge, Yuan Anqing continued to chat about trivial matters—grocery lists, the weather, the office—seemingly unconcerned with the grand truths he had pondered earlier.

In the hospital room, Yuan Anqing and the leopard-man conversed easily. Yuan Anqing seemed remarkably gentler; previously, he had mostly ignored Yuan Zhanhui, showing little enthusiasm even when he knew he needed to build a rapport for the mission. But this time, he was being polite, attentive, and perfectly “pleasant.”

Zhuo listened silently from the corner and finally pinpointed the problem: Yuan Anqing was placating them.

Yuan Anqing’s placation wasn’t a lie told to humor a child. His “earnestness” was actually a form of total resignation. It wasn’t the typical “shrug and give up” attitude; Yuan Anqing’s brand of surrender involved adopting a “business-as-usual” corporate mask. This stance didn’t make Yuan Anqing comfortable, but it was his most familiar and secure survival mechanism.

Now, Yuan Anqing was using it on Zhuo. He was retreating back into the shell of a numb living corpse to avoid further conflict or emotional expenditure.

Zhuo hated it. He disliked this version of Yuan Anqing. The “Savior” had clearly been becoming more relaxed, more sarcastic, and more human lately. Zhuo didn’t want him to hide again.

With that thought, Zhuo suddenly stood up and grabbed Yuan Anqing’s arm. “Let’s go home. Now.”

“Yuan Zhanhui is still on an IV. He has no one to look after him,” Yuan Anqing said, surprised. He didn’t think Zhuo would be this willful while someone was sick.

“He’s been on that drip for an hour; he’s a grown leopard, he can take care of himself!” Zhuo tugged Yuan Anqing out of the hospital room. “Come with me!”

Yuan Anqing couldn’t resist Zhuo’s strength, nor did he bother to struggle. As they reached the doorway, he could only offer the bewildered Yuan Zhanhui a quick, polite apology over his shoulder.

Zhuo dragged Yuan Anqing out of the hospital but didn’t head for the taxi stand. He pulled Yuan Anqing into a dark alleyway—a blind spot in the surveillance.

“I’m kidnapping you!” Zhuo declared. “Since you want a kidnapping so bad, I’m the one doing it!”

“Huh?”

Before Yuan Anqing could process the words, Zhuo reached out and snatched the glasses right off his face.

Taking the glasses wasn’t enough; Zhuo also reached out and ruffled Yuan Anqing’s neat hair until it was a mess. “Don’t be sad. Stop pretending.”

“I’m not sad,” Yuan Anqing replied, his vision blurry. He only felt a sense of profound bewilderment.

“You are. You definitely are.”

Disappointment must have been a common occurrence in Yuan Anqing’s past life—so ordinary that it no longer elicited a visible reaction. But Zhuo could feel the stagnant air around him.

Yuan Anqing sighed. “If it makes you feel better to insist I’m disappointed, then fine.”

Zhuo gazed into Yuan Anqing’s dark eyes, partially hidden behind messy strands of hair. Without his glasses, they looked vulnerable, yet they remained deathly still. Yuan Anqing was being “tolerant” and “mature,” but Zhuo knew this was merely his way of shutting down.

“I don’t care! I’m eating you now!” Zhuo didn’t want to argue logic with a man who used logic as a shield.

“If you eat me, the authorities will hunt you down,” Yuan Anqing warned, still trying to be the voice of reason.

“No, they won’t. Because you won’t die,” Zhuo said, folding Yuan Anqing’s glasses and tucking them safely into his own pocket. “Anyway, if I ‘eat’ you, it technically counts as a kidnapping. The bureaucrats will definitely panic.”

‘Eating’ without dying? Yuan Anqing was confused. “How exactly do you intend to do that?”

Zhuo extended his massive arms. “Come here.”

Yuan Anqing took a step forward. This was the first time someone, knowing they were about to be “devoured,” had approached Zhuo with such calm. Zhuo knew this was born of Yuan Anqing’s numbness, but he still felt a surge of possessive joy.

In that instant, Zhuo’s aura erupted, dark and overwhelming, enveloping the alley.

Yuan Anqing, once again, saw Zhuo’s true form. The colossal red monster held him in its grasp. The massive eye on its chest swiveled, splitting open into a maw filled with countless rows of crystalline fangs.

“Don’t be afraid. It won’t hurt,” Zhuo’s voice boomed in his mind.

The hand holding Yuan Anqing brought him toward the opening. Yuan Anqing felt the ground disappear, as if he were falling into a bottomless, warm void. After a long moment of descent, he felt himself land on a soft, familiar surface.

Yuan Anqing stumbled a few steps, blinking his eyes.

He was standing on a floor. Specifically, he was standing in the middle of their living room.

“Zhuo?” Yuan Anqing looked around, confirming his mind hadn’t been invaded by an illusion. “Where is this?”

“You can think of it as the inside of my body,” Zhuo’s voice echoed from everywhere at once. “But I don’t actually have human organs. I don’t digest things with a stomach; gastric acid is way too slow for my metabolism.”

“Then why does the inside of your body look like our apartment?” Yuan Anqing instinctively reached to adjust his non-existent glasses, his hand stopping mid-air.

“Because I can change the interior at will,” Zhuo stated matter-of-factly. “My human appearance is just a transformation. This space is more ‘real’ than the person you see outside.”

Yuan Anqing ran a hand through his messy hair. “You really are nothing like a human.”

“I’m not, am I?”

As Zhuo finished speaking, a section of the living room floor suddenly turned crimson. The substance stretched and morphing into the shape of a massive cat. The crouching animal was a full head taller than Yuan Anqing. Once the details like the whiskers and ears were formed, its fur turned a brilliant, snow-white. It was a perfect, giant odd-eyed Turkish Angora.

The cat shook its fur, then walked toward Yuan Anqing, nudging his head with a giant, soft snout. Zhuo’s voice came from the cat’s mouth: “I don’t shed. Do you want to lie down and rest for a bit?”

“Were you really that bothered by Yuan Zhanhui’s fur?” Yuan Anqing asked, leaning against the giant creature.

“I don’t care about that leopard,” the Angora cat huffed, lying down and haughtily licking a paw. “His fur isn’t half as comfortable as mine.”

Yuan Anqing sat beside the massive cat, then slowly lay down against its soft, warm belly. “So you transformed into this just to prove a point?”

“Here, I can be anything I want, as long as I’m happy,” the cat said, draping a heavy, fluffy tail over Yuan Anqing like a weighted blanket. “This cat is me. This room is me. This air is me.”

This was Zhuo’s internal domain—a place where he usually digested his prey. But Yuan Anqing had been moved from “food” to “friend.”

Suddenly, the floor around Yuan Anqing turned red again, and a dozen red, scaly hands emerged from the ground. Yuan Anqing tensed, but the hands didn’t grab him. Instead, some began to gently massage his temples, others softly patted his back, and a few began to knead his shoulder muscles to help him relax.

Yuan Anqing was startled. “Wait—what are you doing?”

“I think you’re tired. You’ve been working too hard at being ‘normal,'” Zhuo said. “This is the safest kidnapping in the world. You can actually relax here. The authorities will be terrified when they realize I’ve ‘swallowed’ the Savior, but they can’t get in here to bother you.”

Yuan Anqing reached out and grasped one of the red wrists emerging from the floor. “Tell me the truth, Zhuo. Why did you bring me here?”

Silence followed for a moment.

“I like the way you’ve been changing,” Zhuo whispered, the cat’s ears flattening. “I don’t want you to go back to being that numb living corpse from the first day. I saw you trying to retreat earlier… I was anxious, so I acted without thinking.”

The giant cat nudged Yuan Anqing’s chest. “I don’t want you to change back. Don’t hide from me again.”