Shen Xin reached out to check Da Mei's injured leg.
She immediately dodged him, still meowing—the especially fierce kind.
Without a doubt, she had gone out and gotten into a fight with another stray cat. And she had lost.
Cats have a very strong sense of territory.
"Come on, I'll get revenge for you," Shen Xin said, standing up abruptly.
'This is outrageous,' he thought. 'How could anyone bear to lay a hand on such a beautiful cat?'
Unexpectedly, after Shen Xin said this, the icon above Da Mei's head actually filled up by one bar.
It was at 9 bars!
'It'll be full soon.'
Well, that settled it. He absolutely had to help her win this fight back.
He had to teach these feline punks of Xianghong Village a lesson.
Da Mei immediately followed him.
But after they left the courtyard, she jumped onto his car and wouldn't stop meowing at him.
"Let's go. You take me to them, and I'll get revenge for you."
Shen Xin urged her on. It was just a few stray cats; there was no way he couldn't beat them.
Da Mei still didn't move, just kept meowing incessantly.
She even jumped off the car and pawed at the car door.
Shen Xin was starting to understand. "You want to get in the car, and then... go back?"
'She lost the fight, is too ashamed to show her face, and wants to go home to recover?'
'That can't be right. From her furious and frustrated look, it's obvious she wants revenge.'
Shen Xin opened the car door. Da Mei leaped into the passenger seat and continued to meow at him.
After a moment's hesitation, Shen Xin got in the car too.
Only then was Da Mei satisfied, but she kept meowing.
Unfortunately, Shen Xin truly didn't understand cat language and could only guess.
"Home."
After a few guesses, he heard a change in her meow and figured he had finally guessed correctly.
"Going home to nurse the kittens, right?"
Shen Xin furrowed his brow slightly. 'Why does Da Mei seem a little cowardly?'
'I already said I'd help her.'
But since she wanted to go home, Shen Xin couldn't refuse.
It wasn't easy to raise this favorability meter; it was much easier for it to drop.
Besides, he wasn't getting anywhere with the Wu Zhicun situation, so slipping away for a bit wouldn't hurt.
He figured Da Mei was worried about her three kittens and needed to go back to nurse them.
Half an hour later, Shen Xin drove back home.
"Alright, let's go."
Shen Xin got out of the car.
But strangely, Da Mei didn't follow him upstairs. Instead, she turned around, went to the parking shelter, and precisely leaped onto Shen Xin's electric scooter.
She started meowing at Shen Xin again.
Shen Xin was completely baffled. He couldn't figure out what she wanted.
He guessed several possibilities, but none were right.
"You don't want to... go get reinforcements, do you?" As he reached his last guess, a thought struck Shen Xin, and a possibility suddenly occurred to him.
It was because Da Mei had chosen the electric scooter.
She had ridden that very electric scooter here from Spring Tide Home.
So, her current reaction most likely meant she wanted Shen Xin to take her back to Spring Tide Home.
She was familiar with that area, had a bunch of admirers there, so she was planning to rally reinforcements.
"Then you could have just asked me," Shen Xin said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. 'After all this trouble of coming all the way back here... I never said I wouldn't help you get revenge.'
Da Mei meowed twice, and Shen Xin understood the look in her eyes.
'This is a battle for the cat world. You don't need to interfere.'
"Alright, I'll take you to find your backup."
Shen Xin rubbed Da Mei's head. 'This cat has quite a bit of pride.'
He got on the electric scooter, and Da Mei settled down on the seat behind him.
Before long, the man and the cat had returned to the police kiosk at Spring Tide Home.
Old Zhou wasn't there.
Da Mei leaped off the scooter and shot off with a WHOOSH.
Shen Xin didn't even bother to park, hastily riding after her.
She sprinted all the way, not even avoiding people. Soon, she crossed the road and arrived at the opposite Phase II development.
"Holy shit!"
It suddenly dawned on Shen Xin.
Da Mei was going to find her man!
Da Mei jumped into the greenbelt and disappeared in a flash.
Shen Xin had no choice but to wait.
Just as he'd guessed, more than twenty minutes later, Da Mei returned with a tabby cat trailing behind her.
It was powerfully built, especially its two front legs, which were so thick they looked like a bodybuilder's arms.
Compared to the last time he saw him, he had even more scars, and a piece of his left ear was missing.
But he trotted over lightly, head held high, exuding an impressive aura.
Da Mei came close, jumped directly onto the electric scooter, and meowed twice at the Evil Bully.
Normal stray cats are afraid of people, but when the Evil Bully saw Shen Xin, he wasn't scared in the slightest. In his eyes, Shen Xin even sensed a hint of disdain.
He then smoothly hopped onto the scooter's footboard.
'This is insane!'
Shen Xin felt like he was watching a movie. A cat was actually acting out such a dramatic plot.
He got on and started driving home.
The Evil Bully lay steadily between Shen Xin's feet, eyes half-closed, like a dozing tiger.
He got a phone call on the way.
It was a delivery driver, asking if anyone was home.
'Perfect timing.'
'I can put sports cameras on these two cats and watch a live broadcast.'
Shen Xin was quite interested in this great war of the cat world.
Back home, he got the cameras.
The seller had included memory cards; all he had to do was download the app, activate them, and pair them.
Shen Xin was worried about the three little ones and wanted to take Da Mei upstairs to nurse them.
But she flat-out refused to go.
Her mind was probably consumed by thoughts of revenge.
Shen Xin strapped the camera around her neck. She resisted a little at first, but after pawing at it a couple of times, she quickly accepted it.
Shen Xin then went to put one on the Evil Bully.
The moment he got close, the Evil Bully swiped its claws, nearly hitting him.
Then it let out a hiss, baring its sharp teeth in a ridiculously fierce expression.
Da Mei rushed over and gave him two hard smacks on the head.
She was probably disciplining him.
Shen Xin tried to strap it on again, but the Evil Bully still dodged. Even Da Mei hissing at him didn't work.
Shen Xin had to give up.
'Anyway, having Da Mei's point of view is good enough.'
Da Mei was already growing impatient, pawing at the car door.
The Evil Bully wasn't scared at all and jumped right into the car after her.
On the way there, Da Mei silently licked her fur.
She even squeezed a little closer to the Evil Bully, as if trying to show some affection.
The Evil Bully was like a domineering CEO; he scooted away, ignoring Da Mei's advances.
Shen Xin watched this, finding it all very amusing.
By the time they reached Xianghong Village, it was only four o'clock, and the sky was still bright.
Da Mei shot out of the car immediately, looked back and meowed once, and the Evil Bully instantly followed.
One after the other, the two cats vanished in a flash.
Luckily, he had the camera. Shen Xin quickly opened his phone and connected to the sports camera.
The video wasn't crystal clear, but it was real-time, and the signal was quite stable.
The device wasn't cheap, so of course, the quality wouldn't be bad.
The camera faced forward, showing Da Mei darting about before finally leaping onto a courtyard wall.
She jumped down again, arriving at a patch of wasteland.
It seemed to be the plot of land for the wholesale market behind the village.
It was a huge area, over a hundred acres.
In the camera's view, some building ruins were visible, but the area had been mostly leveled.
Since it had been abandoned for a long time, it was now overgrown with weeds.
Da Mei weaved through the tall grass, her destination unclear.
Occasionally, she would stop, as if to get her bearings.
After a few minutes, she hopped onto a pile of broken bricks.
Before her was the base of a ruined wall.
Shen Xin heard Da Mei meowing and hissing at whatever was on the other side.
The next moment, a white cat leaped out from the ruins.
Then two, then three.
In one go, a total of five cats jumped out.
Two tabbies, one tortoiseshell, one white cat, and at the sight of the last one, Shen Xin's eyes lit up.
Wasn't that the tuxedo cat the suspect had been feeding?
The five cats stood motionless, their presence surprisingly intimidating.
'I can't believe the other side is a whole gang!'
No wonder Da Mei couldn't win. After getting bullied, she was insistent on going back for reinforcements.
But the numbers were still uneven.
On Da Mei's side, even with the Evil Bully, there were only two cats.
'Two against five... the odds still feel a bit stacked against them.'
Just as he was thinking this, the Evil Bully appeared on camera.
He leaped onto the highest point of the broken bricks. He didn't hiss, but merely lifted his head arrogantly, leaving Shen Xin with a view of his back, which oozed sheer dominance.
If a bleak, cold wind were to blow right then, it would be a cinematic-level shot.
The next moment, the Evil Bully shot forward with a WHOOSH.
He was a true badass, all action and no talk, attacking the moment he arrived.