Chapter 277: A Small Problem
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
The hospital that the cat doctor worked at wasn't initially called Kitty Provincial Hospital. Its original name was Citizen Lake First Hospital—though that isn't important. More importantly, there was an old residential area behind the hospital where the dormitory apartments were likely built for the hospital staff. Meowie Hu once lived there.
"Embarrassingly, I once was a prominent character in this small residential area," the cat nodded his head modestly. "Everyone respected me."
Lin Sanjiu looked at the cat, puzzled. After she asked him that question, the cat doctor denied it flatly and decided that he needed to explain his story from the beginning. Once he started, Lin Sanjiu already found it a little hard to understand.
Even though she was bewildered, she finally understood his story after a while.
Most of the people living in that residential area were the hospital's retired staff. To "pay their respect" to him, quite a few elderly men and ladies would often place cat food, or small cooked fishes under a long bench in the residential area to feed Meowie Hu.
Perhaps, the elderly people were too lonely, or maybe Meowie Hu was too cute, so he was "well-respected" in that area. With the exception of the times that he had been caught to be vaccinated, he had an easy life… until one dark, stormy night.
Even before that night, Meowie Hu already had some inkling that something was wrong. The few elderly people, who often prepared food for the cat, began to wander around the residential area frequently, involuntarily and expressionlessly. The cat didn't know what they were doing. The food bowl under the long bench had already been empty for two to three days and that had never happened before.
Consequently, when Meowie Hu spotted a familiar figure in the darkness while he was hiding in a bush, he quickly rushed toward the person, mewing in relief. In the residential area, this elderly lady "respected" him the most and visited him most frequently. Like every other night, the elderly lady brought a mix of cat food and fish as well as a bowl of clean water for the cat. The woman sat on the long bench before bending over and placing the food on the floor.
Just as Meowie Hu was about to approach the food, he immediately froze because there was a stench of sour, rotting food coming from his food bowl. It might not be that obvious to humans but it was torture for him when he caught a whiff of that pungent stench.
The bicolor cat sat down. He looked up and mewed.
"Why aren't you eating?' the elderly lady lowered her head. Compared to before, her voice sounded a little strange, as if she wasn't breathing properly, "Don't you like sardines?"
"But, it is really smelly." Meowie Hu wanted to mew again to communicate that he didn't dare to eat the food. Just as he was mewing, he was suddenly interrupted by a shadow of something which fell to the ground. Thud, thud, thud. The little cat was startled and quickly leaped to one side. It was only then that he saw what that thing, which had fallen and rolled a few meters away from him, was. It was the elderly lady's head.
"I was terrified then," the cat doctor sighed at this point and looked at his audience who were listening intently. He took a few sips of water from the tea cup that Rena had prepared for him before continuing, "The fallen head could still talk…"
Meowie Hu was still a normal cat then so he only felt that there was something very, very wrong. He stared blankly at the woman's moving lips, "Eat. Why aren't you eating? Aren't you hungry?"
"Should, should I help her?"
Faced with the options to "push the woman's head back to her" or "turn and run", Meowie Hu's animal instincts finally kicked in. The fur on his back stand on end and he started running for his life, not knowing what had happened to the normal old lady he once knew. The human head seemed unwilling to let him escape, horrifyingly, it started rolling on the ground, "Why aren't you eating? Why aren't you eating?"
The woman's head chased after the cat relentlessly as she said those words over and over again.
After darting about like a headless fly, Meowie Hu finally lost sight of the human head after he jumped over the wall surrounding the hospital. He seemed to have shaken her off.
He looked behind him with a lingering fear. While he hesitated whether to return the next day to observe the situation, he froze involuntarily when he turned his head back.
"Apparently, the hospital was the fastest place to be fully corroded by black matter. It had completely turned into a haunted location of an urban legend."
After the cat doctor drank some water, he yawned as Reno stroked his fur gently and continued, "But I was considerably lucky because the lead role of that urban legend was a cat—"
And animals cannot become duoluozhongs.
Meowie Hu did not know what particular changes happened to his body when he entered the hospital after a series of coincidental events. Even the siblings who were from the Twelve World Centrum didn't have a clue.
The apocalyptic worlds themselves were strange and erratic, let alone an unpredictable B-level world like Kisaragi Station. Thus, it wasn't surprising that there existed changes and evolutions in the various worlds that even residents from the Twelve World Centrum are unaware of.
"If you are keen to get an explanation, the hospital needed to hire a doctor and I was incidentally very suitable for the position." The cat doctor lifted its chin slightly. His rather haughty attitude distracted them from asking him about his lack of medical background. "In short, after I finished my internship, I became an official doctor there.
From his story, it was as if Kitty Provincial Hospital had a life of its own.
After Meowie Hu gained sentience and the ability to charm humans, he could no longer return to his normal cat life.
Lin Sanjiu couldn't help thinking of B.Rabbit. Even though they were both animals, their lives turned out quite different. Lin Sanjiu thought about the situation and started examining the cat's back. The fact that there wasn't any number on the cat's smooth fur seemed to prove that what Meowie Hu said was true.
After hearing the cat doctor's story, the siblings finished their meal and waited upon the bicolor, little cat until it was happy and satisfied without much trouble. After losing successively at rock-paper-scissor against his sister and the cat doctor, Reno took the plates and metal container and washed them obediently.
Lin Sanjiu could not comprehend how he could lose to an opponent who could only throw out "paper".
When the night gradually grew dark, the siblings felt that it was almost time for them to go out to get some corpses for the cat doctor. At that time, Mrs. Manas's voice suddenly rang out in Lin Sanjiu's mind without any warning.
Ever since Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness body had fully been developed, Mrs. Manas had not shown herself for a couple of days. Lin Sanjiu quickly gathered her focus. She did not know why Mrs. Manas would suddenly appear this time.
"About that," Mrs. Manas mumbled her words a little, speaking rather hesitantly, "actually, I want to tell you something…"
"What?" Lin Sanjiu asked. The cat doctor immediately perked his ears and looked around as if he was trying to figure out where that sudden voice came from…
"Well, regarding the matter of you regaining your physical body, there is a small little problem…"