Chapter Text
He Xuan burst into the police station and shoved the person standing at the front desk aside.
“The missing person case,” he barked at the poor receptionist. “Xie Lian. I got a call there was an update. Who do I talk to?”
The guy he’d shoved aside had a few things to say to him. Just before words came to blows, someone dragged him off and shoved him into a small, sterile room, bare except for a table, four chairs, and Yin Yu.
“They found him?” demanded He Xuan. “Please tell me they found him. I just got off the phone with Hua Cheng, he’s losing his fucking mind.”
Yin Yu hesitated. He was still wearing a suit, even though He Xuan had told him that morning not to bother coming into the office, and to sit in the police station waiting for any update instead. His sallow face looked even more sallow when he was worried. “They think they found him.”
“Think? What the fuck does that mean?” He Xuan paled. “Like a body? A decomposed body? Shit. Shit. The one time I ask Hua Cheng to go meet the client instead of me, and his boyfriend ends up- shit!”
“It’s not a body,” said Yin Yu.
“Oh thank fuck-”
“It’s a cat.”
“I’m going to call Hua Cheng and tell him it’s not a bo- what?”
The door opened. Two grim-faced men in bland suits wielding notebooks stepped into the room. They had to edge sideways to get past and into the chairs on that side of the table.
“Thank you both for waiting,” said the older one. With his clipped-short hair and broad shoulders, he looked like one of those typical good-guy cops from the old gangster movies. “I’m Detective Pei Ming, the lead investigator on this case, this is my partner Pei Xiu. I understand you two are friends of the victim’s partner?”
“Colleagues,” said He Xuan, still pale. “Co-founder and PA- yeah, sure, friends, whatever. What’s this about a cat?”
Detective Pei flipped through his notebook. “The partner is a Mr Hua Cheng, correct? CEO of Paradise Analytics? How long have he and the victim been in a relationship?”
“Three years. They had a big anniversary thing two weeks ago - private Ferris wheel ride, fireworks, dinner - we went through all this at the first interview, when we reported him missing. Can you please just tell us what the update is?”
“Mr Hua Cheng still hasn’t returned from his business trip in Yongan?”
Yin Yu shook his head hopelessly. “There’ve been no flights. The typhoon...he’s booked on the first flight back tomorrow morning. It lands at ten-thirty.”
“Guishi International Airport?” Detective Pei made a note in his notebook, and went on, “Do either of you have reason to believe that Mr Hua might have wanted to cause Mr Xie any harm?”
“What?” The very idea made He Xuan speechless for a second. “No. No. He’s head over heels in- did you not hear what I said? Private Ferris wheel ride? No, he’d never hurt Xie Lian. Never.”
“No fights or disagreements between them that you know about?”
“No. They’re so happy together it’s almost disgusting. My wife says they’re more romantic than any couple she’s seen in the movies.”
Yin Yu glanced at him. “There might have…wasn’t there…weren’t people at the office saying, after their anniversary date…Boss wasn’t bringing packed lunches anymore…”
“What’s that?” Detective Pei leaned forward.
“Nothing,” said He Xuan emphatically, glaring at Yin Yu. “Just stupid office gossip. Look, they’re sickeningly in love, they were still sickeningly in love until Hua Cheng left for Yongan five days ago. Now will you please tell us what’s going on?”
“Alright.” Detective Pei nodded at the chair closest to He Xuan. “You might want to sit down for this.”
He Xuan threw himself in it. “Tell me.”
Detective Pei flipped back several pages in his notebook. “In the early hours of this morning, an injured cat was found in a residential neighbourhood of Xianle. We understand Xianle is Mr Xie’s hometown?”
“I don’t- Why the fuck are we talking about a cat?”
“This cat,” said Detective Pei, “was found with a curse on it. The passerby who found it took it to a veterinary centre. The vets there realised its condition and immediately transferred it to Xianle District Hospital, from where it was transferred urgently to Guishi Central Hospital. Stroke of luck. Our hospital is one of the only hospitals left in the country that still has a Medical Sorcery department. The specialists there attempted to identify the cat through soul resonance records. Sounds like something out of a movie, doesn’t it? So few people put stock in sorcery these days, no one bothers to get their souls scanned anymore. But here’s another stroke of luck: ten years ago, at the age of seventeen, the victim, Mr Xie Lian, was admitted to Xianle District Hospital - back when it still had a Medical Sorcery department - and his soul resonance was recorded and logged in the national database. So we can confirm that this cat is, actually, Mr Xie Lian. Cursed.”
Detective Pei put down his notebook and leaned back in his chair.
He Xuan and Yin Yu gaped at him.
A moment later, He Xuan’s head landed on the table with a thud.
“Hua Cheng’s going to kill me.”
Hua Cheng swept into Guishi Central Hospital’s Medical Sorcery wing, his carry-on suitcase thundering down the tiles behind him.
“Hua Cheng! Over here!” He Xuan and Yin Yu waved from the reception area in the atrium. The overcast sky above washed the scene in grey.
“Police met you off the plane?” He Xuan guessed when he reached them. He reached behind Hua Cheng and took his suitcase.
Hua Cheng was too furious to notice him take it. “Bastards. I told them I’d answer whatever stupid questions they had after I’d seen him, but they wouldn’t let me come until they’d dragged me down for an interview.”
“I think you’re their prime suspect. Friends and family always are. But your alibi’s airtight - Mr Chen’s driver told Yin Yu dozens of people saw you making a scene- I mean, making enquiries at Yongan police station these past couple of days. You’d have to move faster than the speed of light to abduct someone, take them to Xianle, then show up in Yongan later that morning…”
They turned down a long, harshly-lit corridor lined with windows and doors looking into six-bed wards. Nurses and porters dodged out of Hua Cheng’s way as he strode through.
The private rooms were down the far end. Two women were waiting outside one of the doors: Ban Yue, work phone in hand, looking like she’d come from a morning of putting out fires at the office, and Shi Qingxuan, pacing with her arms folded, face drawn, hair mussed.
“Why are you both standing outside?” demanded Hua Cheng. “Is he alone in there?”
Shi Qingxuan shook her head. “The doctor told us only one visitor at a time. He’s been through a lot, and cats get frightened easily even on a good-”
“Cat?” Hua Cheng turned on He Xuan. “I thought you said the surgery was successful.”
“Not surgery, working. Like a magic working. It wasn’t to turn him back into a human, it was for…his injuries.”
“Injuries?” No one would meet his eyes. “What injuries?”
Nervously, Yin Yu offered, “We’ve told the doctor you were on your way. She’ll be here soon to catch you up on everything. She’ll tell you-”
“What injuries?”
“Mr Hua?” They all turned to see a tall woman in a white coat coming down the corridor. Her eyes were dark behind rectangular glasses. Her black hair was scraped back in a high ponytail. There was a jade pendant swaying at her waist as she walked, in the shape of a cloud, identifying her as Master Sorcerer. “My name is Dr Ling Wen. I'm in charge of your partner’s care. I know you’ve come a long way and have a lot of questions - but let’s let you see him first.”
On any other day, a cat curled up in the middle of a hospital bed might have been funny.
Every step Hua Cheng took towards that bed threatened to tip him into a pit of horror.
Dr Ling’s voice drifted around him, the occasional phrase echoing louder than the rest.
Leg amputation. Kidney removal. Rib fractures. Pneumothorax.
He stared at the small white cat curled up on the pillow, at the stump that was all that was left of its right hind leg. Panic, hot and squirming, crawled up his throat.
“You’ll notice the cursed shackle,” said Dr Ling. The direction gave Hua Cheng somewhere outside his own panic to focus: the scribble of malevolent black script spinning slowly around the cat’s neck. The enchanted ink sat on top of the cat’s white fur like oil on water, moving with a liquid glossiness that was deeply unnatural.
“A curse is what we call any form of sorcery that inflicts harm upon the subject. We can count two ways Mr Xie has come to harm: his injuries, and his transformation into a cat.”
“In that order?”
“I believe so. I could be more sure if I could decipher the curse. Unfortunately, the script this sorcerer chose is highly obscure - I’ll have to consult the literature to do further analysis. My initial impression, based on some brief experience with ancient scripts, is that it acts as a bridge between his body and soul to something else. Something or someone on the other end of the working. Considering the extent of his injuries, and the fact that they were magically inflicted, I would presume it was some sort of botched exchange. An attempt to transplant his leg and kidney to someone or multiple persons in need of them via sorcery, perhaps.”
“You think someone kidnapped him…for body parts?”
“At this point I can only guess. I understand the police are still continuing their investigation.”
Hua Cheng stamped down a surge of annoyance. The doctor wasn’t at fault here. She was the only one who had a clue about anything.
“What about his…transformation? Is that part of the curse?”
“Not as far as I can tell. I have to say, I can’t see any reason why a sorcerer would want to do such a thing, unless someone held a very specific grudge. But I have been told by all of Mr Xie’s many friends who have visited that he is very well-liked.”
“He is. He’s the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate person you could…” Hua Cheng swallowed.
On the bed, the cat slept on.
Arms folded, Dr Ling asked him, “What do you know about the soul-body relationship?”
Hua Cheng dragged in a breath to answer. “Not much, beyond that we all have them. The soul fuels the body. Sorcerers draw on the soul to fuel their workings.”
“Precisely. Of course, magical workings can have many uses - in Medical Sorcery, when a patient comes to us, we draw on the patient’s soul to fuel a working that heals their body. To be honest with you, I’m not fond of the word ‘soul’ for this purpose. I find calling it something like ‘life-force’ or ‘life-fuel’ to be easier to understand. You’re born with a certain amount, if you use any up during your life, you have less.”
“So you die earlier.” It was the reason why most people choose modern surgery over medical sorcery these days - the risks of general anaesthesia and getting cut open were somehow easier to stomach than the certainty of losing a few months off the end of your life.
“People do like to focus on that part, yes. Rest assured, I did my best to limit how much I drew from Mr Xie’s soul to heal his injuries - as I do for all my patients.” Dr Ling raised her hand to push her glasses up her nose. “The soul fuels the body. Meaning the soul is intricately connected to the body. When a soul warps, its body will invariably follow.”
“Warp?”
“It can happen when a magical working - or curse, in this case - is too taxing on the subject’s soul. There are instances in the literature of animal transformations in such a scenario, but they’re rare, even going back centuries. I’ll have to do more research to devise a strategy for reversal. In any case, I don’t think that should be our main concern.”
“You don’t think him being a cat should be our main concern.”
She acknowledged his point with a small nod. “The curse. I can’t tell you whether the curse is complete or not. ‘Complete’ in the sense that it has achieved everything that the sorcerer who cast it intended it to achieve. I would imagine that Mr Xie’s transformation interrupted the process. There’s a chance that, if the curse is incomplete, and Mr Xie turns back to human, it might reactivate.”
For a long moment, they both only looked at the cat, curled up on the bed; its tiny body; its missing leg; its shackled neck.
“I’ll do my best,” said Dr Ling, “and hopefully I’ll have more to tell you at Mr Xie’s follow-up appointment in a week’s time.”
That brought whatever Hua Cheng was thinking to an abrupt halt. “Follow-up appointment? He’s ready for discharge?”
“One of the advantages of magical workings over modern surgery: the recovery is much accelerated. There’s no reason to keep him in hospital until I find out more about his curse. I’m sure he’d much rather wait at home, with you.”
The cat’s eyelids twitched. Two slits of dark eyes became briefly visible, before they fell closed again.
Hua Cheng had to ask. “You’re absolutely sure it’s him? There’s no chance you could have mistaken his identity?”
“No. Even when warped, a soul’s resonance doesn’t change. This cat’s soul is an exact match for the record we have for Mr Xie on the database. Don’t expect him to understand human speech or expect him to communicate meaningfully with you in any way - he is in a cat’s body and has the brain of a cat - but if his soul recognises yours-”
A quiet meow interrupted her.
The cat had lifted its head from the mattress. Its wide eyes were fixed on Hua Cheng.
Frantically, clumsily, it stood up on three shaky legs, and began to hobble painstakingly across the bed in Hua Cheng’s direction.
Hua Cheng stepped up to the bedside. He reached out to touch - but the cat froze, and shrank back, ears flat.
“Don’t take it personally,” said Dr Ling in a low voice. “He won’t let anyone touch him. It’s not pain. Most likely a trauma response to humans after his ordeal.”
Hua Cheng’s hand fell back to his side.
“These injuries,” he said. “When he turns back into a human…” He looked at Dr Ling’s face. “You don’t know.”
“If I were to make an educated guess? I would guess that the injuries would follow. I’m sorry,” she added. “I know this is difficult. I’ll ask one of the other visitors to come in while I go check all the discharge preparations are ready. That is, if you’re happy to take him today?”
“I am.”
“Good. Then I’ll check my diary and arrange a follow-up appointment. I hope you don’t mind if I invite his two childhood friends who visited earlier this morning - a Mr Mu Qing and Mr Feng Xin.”
Hua Cheng frowned. “Why?”
“I understand this isn’t Mr Xie Lian’s first brush with sorcery. Are you aware of his hospitalisation in Xianle when he was seventeen years-old?” A beat of silence. She went on, “His two friends know a bit about it. They’ve told me what they know, and I’ve requested his old records from Xianle District Hospital. But I think it’d be useful to have the two of them at the follow-up appointment. Two instances of sorcery resulting in hospital admission are likely to be related. There might be some holes they can help us fill.”
“Non-clumping, natural odour control,” He Xuan read off the bag of cat litter. “99% recycled paper, no additives or chemicals, biodegradable- how does it have natural odour control if it’s just recycled paper with no chemicals? If we just shred paper and throw it in a litter box won’t it be the same thing?”
“This one has an easy-open-spout,” said Yin Yu, lifting another bag from the shelf. “Also, ‘triple odour protection’.”
“Why ’triple’? Piss, poo, and what else?”
“Uh…I don’t think that’s what it-”
“Can you not talk about ‘piss and poo’ like that?” protested Ban Yue, looking upset. “He’s turned into a cat, but he’s still a person.”
“I’m a person, and I call my poo poo…”
“You.” Hua Cheng stopped one of the pet shop employees in her tracks, and gestured towards all the ten shelves of cat litter. “Which one is the best?”
The ponytailed girl put down what looked like a ton of shrink-wrapped hay and came over obligingly. “Well, it depends a bit on your lifestyle and your cat’s preferences. Are you a new cat owner? So there’s clumping and non-clumping - the clumping kind clumps around the urine and poo, and it’s easier to take bits out every day without having to clean the whole tray so often. Also, is your home small? If it is, you might want more odour protection, so you don’t smell it as much. Does your cat tend to have smelly poo?”
All four of them stared back at her with complicated expressions.
“You know what,” said He Xuan finally, “just point at the most expensive one. We’ll get that.”
They also got her to point at the most expensive cat food, litter box, scratching post, and cat tree.
“But you know, I wouldn’t buy the cat tree from here,” she said to Hua Cheng in an undertone. “We don’t have much of a selection. There’s places online that do really nice ones, you should take a look.”
Hua Cheng shook her hand, pressed a large bill into her palm, then turned to give directions to his squadron to get everything in the car.
Shi Qingxuan was waiting in the backseat of Hua Cheng’s car, cat carrier in her lap.
“Oh, wow,” she said, when she saw their haul. “You’re going to have to get an actual cat, after A-Lian turns back.”
Hua Cheng put a hand on the carrier. A nose poked through the slats at his fingers. “Has he been okay?”
“Still very shy. But I think he’s comfortable in the car, you know. I think he recognises it. Hopefully he knows he’s going home.”
They had to shove some of the stuff in He Xuan’s car, but they did eventually get everything back to Hua Cheng’s apartment. Hua Cheng thumbed the passcode into the lock as everyone filed out of the lift behind him, cat paraphernalia in tow.
The cat meowed when the door swung open.
The air inside was stale. Dust motes swirled in the afternoon sunlight as they all moved through the entryway and into the living room. Hua Cheng put the carrier down on the rug, opened some windows, and took a breath.
Five days. Five days since he’d left.
A layer of dust sat on the windowsill. Hua Cheng ran his finger through it.
“You sure he’s better off here than his own place?” He Xuan called, shouldering through the front door with a litter box under one arm and food bowls under the other.
Hua Cheng turned back around. He went to crouch in front of the carrier. “Dr Ling said a familiar environment would be best. All his clothes and books are here.”
“Of course he should be here,” said Ban Yue, peeking over Hua Cheng’s shoulder. “He hasn’t been back to his place in months. Even his mail comes here.”
“Right, so, which room? The doctor said only one room at first, didn’t she? So he doesn’t get overwhelmed.”
“The bedroom,” said Hua Cheng.
He Xuan pulled a face. “Really? You know he’ll be burying his clumps and then walking all over your…” Seeing Hua Cheng’s face, he wisely shut up. “Okay, bedroom. On it.” He kicked open the door that stood between the living and dining spaces, and wandered off down the long corridor behind it.
Hua Cheng had bought this apartment a year ago. His and He Xuan’s business had fully taken off by then, and he had his sights set on something grander, had viewed several penthouses with views over the harbour and townhouses on exclusive streets. Xie Lian had been the one to rein him in.
“It’s too much space for one person,” he’d said, turning away from the harbour view out a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, forty floors up. Hua Cheng could remember the stark white sunlight that day, how its glimmer off the water had made Xie Lian wince.
He’d reached out to take his hand. “Maybe I’m hoping there’ll be more than one person living here.”
And Xie Lian had laughed, but Hua Cheng didn’t miss the pink tinge to his ears. “It’s still too much space for two people. You don’t need a place like this to impress people, San Lang. Your work speaks for itself. The money you would spend on a place like this, do you know how many people you could…I don’t want to preach to you.” He looked genuinely distressed at the idea, as if Hua Cheng would ever think that was what he was doing. “I just…I want you to know, we don’t need a big house to be happy.”
Hua Cheng didn’t say at the time: ‘I know we don’t need it. I want to give it to you anyway.’
Give him a big, bright house, miles away from the mouldy, water-stained flat Xie Lian had struggled to pay rent for the whole time Hua Cheng had known him.
The flat they’d gone for in the end wasn’t nearly as big. But the minute Hua Cheng had walked in, and saw the tall, airy ceilings, and the windows overlooking the local park that Xie Lian could run in, he knew this was the one.
Xie Lian had tried to stay tight-lipped during the decorating process. This was Hua Cheng’s achievement, he insisted, and Hua Cheng should decorate his own home as he liked, don’t worry about me. But after some gentle prodding, and some tactical procrastination on Hua Cheng’s part, Xie Lian finally pulled up some furniture-shopping websites.
The plush white sectional was first to arrive, followed closely by the creamy wool-blend rug. A vibrant monstera took the spot between the TV and the window. A wide walnut bookcase for the spare bedroom, whose shelves got more and more colourful with each trip Xie Lian made from his apartment to here, until Xie Lian had no more to bring. Matching mugs for the kitchen. Framed photos from their travels for the gallery wall in the entryway.
Hua Cheng had never lived somewhere with pictures on the wall before.
He passed the one Xie Lian had deemed not good enough for the gallery wall, and stuck in the corridor - the one Hua Cheng had taken of him sitting on a boulder in a forest in Thailand, with his head turned towards a waterfall in the background - as he took the cat carrier into the bedroom.
He could hear Xie Lian’s voice, breathless with exasperation, echoing in the corridor.
‘You really want this one hung up?’
‘We hiked all morning to get to that waterfall, gege. This is the only photo we took of it before we went swimming.’
‘I just hate the way those shorts make my legs look...wait, don’t look, San Lang!’
Laughter, fading behind him.
The curtains in the bedroom had been left closed. Ban Yue put the food bowls on the floor, and went to pull them open. More swirls of dust motes. Hua Cheng put the cat on the bench at the end of the bed, gave him a quiet reassurance that he could come out of the carrier soon, and went to help He Xuan set up the litter-box.
“Ugh.” He Xuan grimaced as he opened the bag of cat litter. “Never realised what a faff pets are. Why does anyone willingly put themselves through this?”
Shi Qingxuan laughed. “I said the same thing about marriage. But look at us now, four years cleaning up after you and I still choose to have you in my house.”
“Yeah, but I bring home my paycheque. What does a cat do?”
Ban Yue went to see what the cat was doing. She crouched in front of the chair the carrier was perched on. “Can we let him out, Boss? He’s been in there a while.”
“Someone might step on him.”
“Hua Cheng!” Shi Qingxuan burst out laughing. “No one’s going to step on him. If you’re that worried, we’ll all go outside, give you some space.”
They said that, and filed out, but Hua Cheng could hear them in the corridor, and see them sneaking looks around the doorframe. He put the carrier down on the floor. A soft meow came out from it. He swung open the door, backed away from it a bit, and tilted his head to look inside.
Two large amber eyes peered back at him.
“Come on,” said Hua Cheng.
It kept on staring at him.
“Come on. You’re going to have to come out sometime.” Cat body. Cat brain. But even if the cat didn’t understand the words, it might have liked a soothing voice. “If you stay in there too long, I’ll get worried.”
The cat slowly unwound itself. With more encouragement from Hua Cheng, it stretched its body out towards the door. Its nose, then its head, poked out of the carrier. Mindful of its reaction when he tried to touch it at the hospital, Hua Cheng kept his distance.
The cat peered up at Hua Cheng’s face. It got one paw out of the carrier. Looked up at Hua Cheng again. Then the other leg, and finally the last. It walked slowly, hopping slightly on its single hind leg, until it nearly bumped into Hua Cheng’s knee.
“There you go,” said Hua Cheng softly.
“He’s out?” someone shouted from the corridor.
The cat jumped, then scrambled to hide under the bed.
Hua Cheng stood up, and went out into the corridor. All four of them were sitting along it like little trolls.
“Thank you all very much for your help today,” he said, “but it’s time to go. Get up.”
“We were being quiet!”
“Time to go.”
“Boss, can I just take one more look?” asked Ban Yue timidly.
Hua Cheng made a small ‘okay, but make it quick,’ tilt of his head. She padded quietly to the door, and looked very quietly around it.
“Oh! He managed to get in the litter-box.”
“Wait, really? Let me see.” He Xuan barrelled over. “See, aren’t you glad I told you to get the one with the low sides? Oh, wow, he’s really in there.”
Against his better judgement, Hua Cheng took a look too.
They’d set the litter-box in the corner beside the wardrobe, away from the bed and the window. It was low-sided, for accessibility purposes, so the little white cat sniffing around in there was easy to spot.
“A-Lian’s really in that cat,” said Shi Qingxuan with awe. “A normal cat wouldn’t have figured that out on its own, would it?”
“Figured what out? Maybe he’s just playing with the litter.”
The cat suddenly stopped moving in the litter-box. It looked over its shoulder, at the five floating heads watching it from the doorway. Its ears flattened.
“What?” wondered He Xuan. “Do you think he wants some privacy?”
That was it.
“Out,” said Hua Cheng, personally dragging He Xuan down the corridor. “All of you, out.”
“Don’t forget to crumble the vitamins in when you feed him tonight!” Shi Qingxuan reminded, right before she got shoved out the door.
“Yeah, and the thing for scooping poo is in the-”
Hua Cheng slammed the door shut. But not really, because he didn’t want to scare the cat. He closed it with a reasonable amount of force, and went back to the bedroom door. He didn’t enter right away. He snuck a look to make sure the litter-box was empty, then went inside.
He stood just inside the door, searching. Considering the long list of the cat’s injuries, the last thing it needed was to be stepped on.
He found it plodding around in the cat-bed, near Xie Lian’s bedside table. The bed was a fuzzy grey affair with half a roof, a bit like a cave.
Assured the floor was clear, Hua Cheng went to sit on the bed. As soon as he sank into the mattress, the room swam around him. Ten hours ago he’d been boarding his flight. It could have been ten years.
His back landed on the mattress. He hadn’t changed or showered. He needed to feed the cat. Two minutes. He’d just close his eyes for two minutes.
‘Meow.’
Hua Cheng’s eyes flew open. He bolted upright.
The cat was sitting on the floor, next to where his legs were dangling off the bed, blinking up at him.
“What’s the matter?” Hua Cheng asked.
‘Meow.’
Once the girl at the pet shop had heard his cat only had three legs, she’d suggested a set of stairs, in case his jumping ability was impaired. Hua Cheng was just about to go and find it, when the cat leapt up. Its front paws just cleared the edge of the bed, leaving its back leg dangling, kicking frantically.
“Careful!” Hua Cheng grabbed it, and pulled it up.
The cat landed on the duvet on its belly, looking dazed. The second Hua Cheng was sure it was safe, he let go of it, and slid himself across the bed so he wasn’t too close.
The cat turned its head towards him. Hua Cheng lay down on his side, and did the same. Same eye level.
If he looked long enough in the cat’s triangular little face, deeply enough in its limpid eyes, maybe he would have found something, some sign, any sign, of his partner of three years.
He didn’t let himself look long enough. His eyes moved down to the silent, sinister runes spinning slowly around the cat’s neck; to its missing right hind leg.
‘If I were to make an educated guess? I would guess that the injuries would follow.’
Hua Cheng rolled onto his back, and put his arm over his eyes.