A deafening roar, shaking the mountains and forests, echoed behind him, followed by a stench of blood. Ke Xun instinctively swerved to the side, narrowly avoiding the tiger's pounce, and continued his frantic sprint towards the target tree.
But neither man nor cat could outrun a tiger. The second pounce came in an instant, giving Ke Xun almost no time to dodge.
Ke Xun never imagined that one day he would engage in a life-or-death struggle with a real tiger in a painting. When that gaping maw viciously attacked him, Ke Xun experienced the fear of impending death.
He instinctively pressed his hand against the tiger's throat, his mind filled with only one instinctive thought: he couldn't let it bite his throat, the most common way for wild beasts to attack and hunt. With
one hand against the tiger's throat, Ke Xun clenched his other fist and pounded hard on the tiger's eyes and nose. He didn't know where the tiger's weaknesses were, but he desperately punched those two spots based on guesswork.
Perhaps because he was in the process of transforming into a cat, Ke Xun retained his human strength while possessing the agility and speed of a cat. His punches were incredibly fast, and the tiger couldn't dodge them in time, taking a solid punch to the eye. The tiger recoiled in pain, dodging to the side.
This dodge freed Ke Xun from the tiger's claws, but his body was still scratched and bleeding from the tiger's sharp claws.
Ke Xun, however, didn't care about anything else. He scrambled up a tree, and the tiger, enraged by the attack, roared and leaped up, trying to grab Ke Xun from the tree.
Seeing this, Ke Xun improvised, grabbing a branch and swinging his body forward. The tiger followed him through the air, flying towards the river before crashing down with a thud.
Ke Xun climbed back onto the tree trunk, panting heavily. The near-death struggle had left him completely blank-headed and drenched in cold sweat, remaining in shock for a good ten minutes.
Finally, slowly recovering, Ke Xun let out a trembling "meow": "From now on, I'm a tiger hunter, meow..."
The tiger had fallen into the river and remained motionless. Ke Xun waited in the tree for a while, but the forest was quiet as usual, with no new clues appearing.
Ke Xun climbed down the tree, deciding to venture deeper into the forest to search for the hidden world. He was extremely worried about Mu Yiran and desperately wanted to find Hailibu's world as soon as possible.
Although the fight with the tiger had left him exhausted, Ke Xun gritted his teeth and ran, quickly traversing the forest.
The sky in the forest gradually darkened, and various birds and beasts hurriedly returned to their nests.
Ke Xun inadvertently looked up and saw a monkey leaping rapidly among the branches, suddenly remembering what that monkey had told him earlier.
He also had a cat child named Mimi…
Why hadn't he seen this cat child since entering this world?
A thought struck Ke Xun, and he ran while shouting "Mimi!" As he ran, he saw a crow flying in the sky. Ke Xun called out to it, "I just dealt with Awu and avenged you. Now help me find my child, meow!"
Ke Xun remembered that the tiger in the cartoon had bullied this crow before.
"Ah! I'll go find him, I'll go find him!" the crow cried out, echoing a line from the cartoon, and quickly flew into the sky.
"Ah! Over there, over there!" the crow's cry echoed.
Ke Xun followed the direction the crow pointed and ran quickly. In the distance, he saw a small tabby cat crouching in the woods. He immediately shouted, "Cat—cough, child…"
…Having a son is truly indescribable, meow…
The kitten turned its head and glanced at him, but before he could reach it, it took off running into the depths of the woods.
Ke Xun gave chase, and just as he was about to catch up with the kitten, it leaped into the air, transforming into a beam of light. When the light fell, a round door appeared in the void, exactly the same as the one on the wall of the initial room.
"Hidden World, meow!" Ke Xun shouted. "Alright!"
Without hesitation, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Emerging from the door, he found himself in an old-fashioned brick house. A large brick-built kang (heated brick bed) stood by the window, and various old pieces of furniture lined the walls. The room was impeccably clean.
Most strikingly, on the kang by the window, a beautiful black and white kitten was fast asleep in a cat bed shaped like a carp.
Ke Xun was initially taken aback: Why were there cats everywhere?
Then it dawned on him—this was the world of *Good Cat Mimi*!
He remembered that carp-shaped cat bed very well. His family had cats for a few years when he was little, and he'd begged his mom to get them the same kind of bed.
This was Zhu Haowen's world. Ke Xun didn't linger; he immediately turned back inside and ran back towards the starting room.
He needed to find Zhu Haowen quickly and get him into the world of "Good Cat Mimi." This would not only temporarily stop his mutation into a mouse, but might also unlock more hidden worlds within it.
When he returned to the starting room, only Wei Dong and Li Yaqing were there. Li Yaqing had stayed in the starting room the whole time, while Wei Dong had returned from the world of Ma Liang's Magic Brush.
"Holy crap, how did you get so hurt?" Wei Dong exclaimed in shock when he saw Ke Xun covered in blood.
"It's alright, don't worry about me," Ke Xun waved his hand. "How are you, meow?"
Seeing that he was in good spirits, Wei Dong calmed himself down and brandished his brush: "Knowing the plot, I'm basically cheating! After I went in, I went straight to the magistrate, and without saying a word, I drew a sea on the wall for him, and a golden mountain on the sea, so the magistrate and his men died on the sea. Now I know why I got fat, because the art style of the animated film 'Ma Liang and His Magic Brush' is round and chubby, remember?"
Ke Xun thought for a moment: "If you ask me to recall the specific characters' appearances, I can't quite remember, meow, but I do remember that the visuals were very dim, because it's an old animated film, meow, so the sound quality wasn't very good either. And, meow, it's completely different in style from animated films like 'Deer Bell' and 'Nine-Colored Deer,' meow. I remember 'Deer Bell' was in the style of ink painting, and 'Nine-Colored Deer'..." "It seems to be in the Dunhuang style, while things like 'Tiger Learning Skills' and 'Good Cat Mimi' are more like regular animation. 'Ma Liang and His Magic Brush' looks a bit like clay or wooden puppets."
Wei Dong nodded, "That's right, it should be a wooden puppet."
Ke Xun: "...I'll scratch you, meow!"
Wei Dong: "It's all your fault, you've led me astray."
Ke Xun: "Stop talking nonsense, what happened after you dealt with the magistrate, meow? Did you get any clues or trigger the door to the hidden world?"
Wei Dong: "The door to the hidden world? No, I searched everywhere inside but didn't find any clues, so I came back. Did you find the hidden world?"
Ke Xun's brain raced, and suddenly he clapped his hands: "Dongzi meow! Do you remember a scene in 'Ma Liang and His Magic Brush' where he was imprisoned by the magistrate, meow, and then he drew a door on the prison wall and ran out, meow?"
Wei Dong clapped his hands excitedly, "That's right! I have a magic brush! If I draw a door on the wall, it might be the gateway to the hidden world! I'll go back to Ma Liang's world and try it!"
"Remember, draw a round door, meow," Ke Xun reminded him, "Whether you trigger the hidden world or not, come back to this room first, just in case, meow."
"Okay!"
Ke Xun didn't delay any longer. At the same time as Wei Dong entered Ma Liang's world, he also went to the snowy mountain world that Mu Yiran had gone to.
Zhu Haowen came in with Mu Yiran. Besides finding the four newcomers who hadn't reappeared, the two also planned to try to find the hidden world.
Ke Xun followed the marks Mu Yiran had made, struggling through the snow-covered mountains. Perhaps because cats are animals that are afraid of the cold, Ke Xun, dressed in thin clothes, was almost frozen in the knee-deep snow.
Ke Xun wanted to run to speed up his blood circulation, but after running for a while, he still couldn't resist the cold of the mountains.
His body and limbs grew increasingly stiff, and he kept yawning. Ke Xun repeatedly reminded himself that he absolutely couldn't fall asleep, because once he did, he might never wake up again. However, his eyelids grew heavier and heavier against his will.
Finally, Ke Xun collapsed, his body stiff and cold, onto the snow and closed his eyes.
So cold… The last vestige of his subconscious mind was still wracked with pain from the cold, muttering incessantly in the final stages of his life.
So cold… I'm freezing… cold… um… warm… a little warmer… comfortable… um… feels good… a little warmer… hold me tight… hold me tight… so warm…
"Meow…" Ke Xun's consciousness returned, and he slowly opened his eyes.
Above his head was the face of the person he loved, who was looking down at him from afar. Although the person still wore an expression that was cold and unapproachable, a pair of perfectly shaped eyes contained a perceptible concern.
Ke Xun stretched out his arms and hugged the person tightly, rubbing his head and face against the person's chest frantically, his cat tail swaying back and forth affectionately.
—A cat tail?!
Ke Xun tumbled out of Mu Yiran's arms, his face pale with shock as he reached behind him—Holy crap! It really was a tail!
—He'd grown a tail!
—Damn it!!!
He'd only been unconscious for a while in a world that didn't belong to him, and a tail had actually grown for him!
Ke Xun was on the verge of tears, his two cat ears drooping as he looked at Mu Yiran.
"Don't go to other worlds anymore." Mu Yiran reached out and ruffled his hair. "How are your injuries? Dr. Qin has already given you some basic treatment."
Ke Xun shook his head. No matter how painful his injuries were, they weren't as exciting as discovering he had a tail…
Mu Yiran changed the subject: "I heard from Wei Dong that you discovered a hidden world?"
Only then did Ke Xun realize that he had been brought back to the initial room. There were all the other members in the room except for Zhao Haicui. Obviously, the other three newcomers were found by Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen. They found him half-frozen on the way back and brought him back as well.
Ke Xun recounted how he discovered the hidden world, and then asked Mu Yiran how Zhao Haicui was doing.
Mu Yiran glanced at the three still-shaken newlyweds and said calmly, "They got lost in the mountains last night. They spotted a fire on the mountaintop and followed it to a cave. Inside, there was an old man dressed in ancient attire, warming himself by a fire."
The four newlyweds were already half-frozen, and seeing the fire, they forgot their fear of the old man and gathered around to warm themselves.
Unexpectedly, around midnight, Zhao Haicui suddenly stood up without a word, glanced at the old man, and then jumped into the fire.