Chapter 367: First Words
"Meow~! Meow~! Meow~! Meow~!"
None of that mattered!
As long as Qiong Xing was there, nothing else mattered.
So hurry and help him!
It screamed with all its might.
But of course, the words never reached him.
Instead, it was chased away.
"I’m busy. Go play somewhere else."
Why?
Why couldn’t anyone understand what it was trying to say?
Frustration made every hair on its body stand on end.
It could understand their words, yet it had no way to make them understand its own.
Hurry.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.
Please save him.
If only it had hands like theirs.
If only it had a mind like theirs.
If only it could speak the way they could.
"Hel... p..."
"I told you I’m busy. I don’t have time to deal with yo... huh?"
Its body moved in a way it never had before.
But none of that mattered right now.
Desperately, it reached out a trembling hand.
"He... lp. He... lp... p-please... help."
"...You... that..."
"P-please... help. Th-that person... help."
The man stared with wide eyes in shock.
Ignoring his reaction, it lifted its unfamiliar hand and tugged at his clothes.
"He... fell... hurts..."
"Qiong Xing?"
It nodded frantically.
The man immediately told it to lead the way.
Returning to its original form, it rushed ahead and guided him back to where Qiong Xing had collapsed.
"Qiong Xing!"
The man easily lifted Qiong Xing into his arms.
The same body it had been unable to move even slightly was carried as though it weighed nothing.
"Damn it... why? He looked perfectly fine this morning. Joa! Joa! Elias! Qiong Xing collapsed!"
It chased after the man as he ran.
Soon everyone came rushing over.
Please save him.
That was all it could think.
Its own helplessness filled it with anger.
All it could do was watch Qiong Xing’s pale face and silently beg him to wake up.
"Lay him down first. Does he have a fever? He’s a little warm. Cari, keep some air moving around him. Albe, bring water."
"Heatstroke?"
"If it were heatstroke, he’d be burning up more than this. Anemia, maybe?"
They discussed possibilities while staring at his pale complexion.
None of that mattered.
Please stop talking and help him!
"Meow... meow... h-help... w-wake up..."
"Huh?"
The kitten jumped onto the pillow beside Qiong Xing’s head and repeatedly patted his cheek.
"Wait... you. Are you a beastman?"
"That form... what is going on?"
The voices around it were irrelevant.
It kept patting Qiong Xing’s face with hands slightly larger than before.
Then it saw his eyelids tremble.
Relief escaped its lips.
"...? Wha... what happened...? Hm? Who’s this child?"
"Qiong Xing!"
It tried to throw itself at him.
But before it could, someone else reached him first and pulled him into an embrace.
Instant irritation surged through it.
It smacked the man’s back repeatedly.
Unfortunately, in its human form, it lacked the strength to make any impact.
So it immediately returned to its original form and dug its claws into him instead.
"Ow! I told you to knock it off already!"
...
As soon as he woke up, Qiong Xing was confused by the sight of an unfamiliar child in front of him.
However, the strong arms that immediately wrapped around him brought a sense of relief.
"Leander... I’m sorry. Did I collapse?"
"I thought my heart was going to stop!"
It seemed he had caused everyone a great deal of worry.
Qiong Xing returning smiles to Elias and the others as they checked on him and accepted the water Albe brought over and took a drink before finally relaxing.
"I’m sorry for worrying everyone. I knew I was pushing myself a bit too much and was planning to go inside, but it looks like I didn’t make it in time."
He admitted that he had noticed something was wrong but had reacted too slowly.
That only earned him another lecture about being more careful.
"By the way... who is that child? Could it be that he was the one who helped me...? No, that can’t be right. I collapsed in the yard."
It was hard to imagine some stranger’s child just happening to find him collapsed in the garden and rushing in to help.
But if that wasn’t the case, he couldn’t think of any other explanation.
Perhaps he had mistaken someone for someone else.
"Ah, a new friend for Rui and Yue..."
"...Not... hurt? O... kay?"
".....Huh?"
Qiong Xing was about to accept that one of the twins’ friends must have come to visit when, in the next moment, the cat sitting on his lap suddenly transformed into a child.
His mind completely failed to keep up.
When he looked up at Leander for an explanation, he found him staring at the child in Qiong Xing’s lap with a similarly complicated expression.
"Hurt...? Not... hurt?"
"...I’m alright. Thank you... for worrying about me."
The child still seemed unable to speak properly, but it was obvious he was worried about him.
Qiong Xing thanked him and gently stroked his head.
The child immediately leaned into his hand like a cat seeking affection, leaving Qiong Xing momentarily at a loss.
"...Were you a beastman all along?"
"Hm?"
The wide eyes looking back at him seemed genuinely confused, as though the child had no idea what he was talking about.
When Qiong Xing took the child’s small hand in his own, the child broke into a delighted smile.
"You even have ears and a tail."
"Yeah. We were shocked too, but from the look of it, he’s definitely a beastman."
"This little guy found you collapsed and came to get me. He transformed into that form and kept saying ’help me.’ Scared the hell out of me."
No matter what the truth was, whether he had always been a beastman or had taken on this form in order to help Qiong Xing, one thing was clear.
If he had originally been a beastman and Qiong Xing had somehow become the catalyst for his transformation, then it made sense that he had always been able to understand their language.
