As the little cat slowly woke up, she squinted her eyes and looked around groggily, only to realize that something furry is poking her mouth in all sorts of places.
She blinked her eyes several times and took a closer look at what was poking her. It was an orange cat touching her mouth with his paws as he spoke to himself, "Where did it go? I remember that she clearly ate my phone away but where did it go?"
She remembered Zhao Yao calling this orange cat by the name of Matcha. Matcha was obviously trying to get back his phone sneakily while she was sleeping.
"What do you think you are doing!?"
Startled, Matcha instantly retracted his paws and after realizing that the little cat had just woken up. He dashed towards Zhao Yao at incredible speed and shouted, "Zhao Yao!! That silly cat just woke up! Come help me get my phone out of her stomach!"
Feeling annoyed, she curled her lips and leaped onto the sofa. Suddenly, a large cat appeared from behind her and whispered," You just woken up? Were you also brought in by the two punks? I"m talking about the cat and the man."
The cat was none other than Roly Poly. Ever since the black cat stepped into the house, Roly Poly had his eyes on her all this while. He wanted to see if the black cat could become his comrade and eventually come out with a plan of getting out of here.
The black cat refused to answer and instead stood up with her tail raised high. With her front paws extended fully to the front, she arched her back and did a lazy cat stretch.
"It"s been so long since I had such a good nap. My body feels..." After moving about a little, the black cat could instantly feel the difference. It felt as though some mysterious energy is coursing through her every inch of meat and skin. She felt incredibly relaxed and healthy.
"This feeling..." The black cat frowned to herself and not before long, she saw from a distance, Matcha and Zhao Yao walking about busily in the kitchen with Matcha constantly trailing behind him and talking non-stop.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth was sitting on the window ledge minding her own business.
Roly Poly followed her behind and asked anxiously, "What are you doing? The metal door over there is very secure. The only way out is through the window, but the only problem is we are stuck on the 17th floor with barely any place to stand once we are out of the window. We have to seize the opportunity to escape when these two punks take their leave..."
Suddenly, Roly Poly froze as he saw the black cat take a deep breath and make a dash for the metal door. As she ran, she opened a small hole in the metal door and leaped out of it.
It seems like a good night"s rest allowed her to regain her powers.
"What the!" Roly Poly immediately gave chase, but his body size was way larger than the little black cat. He went straight for the hole, but only his head made it through while his body remained stuck in the hole.
He tried his best to push himself out of the hole but realized that his efforts were in vain. He began to start scratching and flailing about with his claws in an attempt to free himself from the hole. However, as expected, he still didn"t budge a single inch.
Roly Poly started to panic and begged the black cat (Blackie). "Please don"t go! Please! Can you help me out of this?"
At this moment, Blackie felt that something was off. As soon as she left the house, she couldn"t feel the warm energy which she felt back in the house anymore. A burdensome and depressing energy sunk back into her. It was as if she was carrying a 50-kilogram backpack on her back.
Suddenly, Zhao Yao appeared right in front of her with a smile and said, "Stay with me. You aren"t fit to roam the streets anymore."
Blackie stared at Zhao Yao and arched her back with her fur standing on its ends as she hissed, "Who are you really? Why do you understand our language... And why..."
" Let"s not talk about this first." Zhao Yao gestured to the bowl of food on his hand. " Come in and eat something. You slept the whole night; you must be hungry now right?"
Zhao Yao looked at the bowl of food and smiled, "This cat dish right here is my new invention. I"m actually very confident of its taste."
"This steamed dish contains chicken heart, chicken liver, beef, salmon, tuna, carrots, celery, pumpkin, black fungus topped with a little bit of taurine and calcium powder. It should taste great and most importantly, it is very healthy."
Through many rounds of experimentation and trial and error of creating this excellent dish, Zhao Yao decided to rely on natural ingredients as the main source of vitamins and nutrients.
The final step now was to discover the perfect ratio of ingredients in order to further improve the level of the dish.
Blackie, who had been wandering around the streets her whole life, had never seen such a scrumptious dish presented to her. As Zhao Yao read out the ingredients of this dish, her eyes subconsciously lit up as she stared intently at the dish as soon as Zhao Yao placed the bowl of food in front of her.
However, though she is dying to eat the dish in front of her, she kept on circling around the food and did not start eating immediately. She seems to be extra wary when it comes to deciding if the food was safe to eat; perhaps it was an old habit from the days spent living on the streets.
Zhao Yao understood the habits of a stray cat. He knew that in order to survive in the streets, a cat must be extra careful and vigilant.
Unlike domestic dogs who ate whatever food their owner fed them with, most stray cats and a minority of domestic cats would choose not to eat the food at once. Some would even wait till no one was around before they start to eat the food.
Zhao Yao waited patiently from a distance as Blackie sniffed the food. After less than a minute, Blackie finally licked the food.
It didn"t take long before Blackie started to dig in and gobbled down the food voraciously.
Zhao Yao smiled and thought to himself, "Ha! Seems like I won her over with my culinary skills."
He squatted down beside Blackie and reached his hand out to stroke her back as she ate. Just as his hand was about to touch her, she looked up for a moment but went back to eating right away.
"Hmm? It seems like she is fine with it." Zhao Yao thought and continued to extend his hand towards Blackie. He stroked her back and realized just how skinny and fragile Blackie was. He could feel Blackie"s bones protruding gently on the skin as he moved down her spine. Zhao Yao couldn"t help but look pitifully at Blackie.
Meanwhile, Roly Poly who was still stuck at the door sighed and mumbled under his breath, " I can"t believe she fell for it... Another one that enjoys eating sh*t..."
Compared to Matcha who was raised domestically from a young age, there was a noticeably big difference in eating speed between Matcha and Blackie. After all, in order to survive on the streets, these stray cats had to eat very quickly in order to prevent their food from being s.n.a.t.c.hed away by others.