The shoot this time took them to U City, a small city in the south. It was the height of summer, hot and humid; Qin Ting had never been anywhere this damp. She felt as if every pore on her body was sweating. Nowhere outdoors offered any real coolness.
After they arrived at the location, she and Zhou Dao unpacked, then sneaked out to find a spot to livestream.
Nearby was a park said to house a five-hundred-year-old banyan tree. Qin Ting—who had already turned into a cat back at the hotel—looked up at it with big round eyes and couldn't help letting out a "wow" along with Zhou Dao, except what came out was a "meow-wow."
The trunk was so thick it took several people joining hands to encircle it. Dozens of branches at least spread outward layer upon layer, and from some of the lower ones, much slenderer aerial roots plunged deep into the ground, a dizzying tangle. From a distance you couldn't even tell where the main trunk was.
Tingting scrambled up high with ease, picked over her options, and settled down in a roomy spot where several branches intertwined. A breeze passed; Tingting narrowed her eyes in comfort, stretched, shifted, and lay down again.
Back home they never turned on the location tag for their streams. This time, out on location, they figured their follower count was small—what were the odds a fan shared their IP?—and turning it on might net a few new fans.
"Tingting just wore herself out running around down there, so she's resting in the tree now—don't worry, everyone~" Zhou Dao kept an eye on the comments while thanking fans for gifts. "Thanks to 'Miserable Without Tingting' for the hot-air balloon~ Thank you, sweetie. We'll let Tingting come out and play whenever conditions allow~"
"Streamer, is this Tingting's first time down south?"
"Yes, sweetie. I'm away on a business trip this time, and there was no one home to look after her. I couldn't bring myself to board her somewhere, so I brought her along."
"The streamer's IP used to show up north. Can she really adjust to being brought here all of a sudden? Do you actually love cats?"
"Friend, first of all, Tingting adapts beautifully and doesn't get airsick. I paid good money for a seat for her on the plane, and she stayed right beside me the whole flight, so I could tend to her the second she was hungry or thirsty. What do you think—do I actually love cats?" Having said that, Zhou Dao added, "If you still don't believe I love cats, you can tap that special follow. Then every video and stream I post will reach you first, so you can keep an eye on me~"
Under her verbal artistry, anyone who clicked in stayed a good ten-odd minutes, and nearly one in three hit follow.
The pet-streamer lane wasn't exactly crowded, but it was highly homogenous; few fans followed just one such account, and gifters were rare—most just tapped those little hearts. The user who'd just sent the hot-air balloon was suddenly sitting in the top five of the gift leaderboard.
And Zou Songpu, who gifted only to this account, had already spammed his way past level forty in a matter of days. The moment he entered the stream, a welcome animation fired.
"Welcome, Xiang Shuohua—'Wanting to Speak'~ Tingting just tired herself out running on the ground, so she's resting in the tree. No need to worry—I'm down here watching her the whole time~"
Before the words had finished, the reply came in the form of a helicopter, sent by that user.
"Thank you, Xiang Shuohua, for the helicopter~! Every gift we receive goes toward Tingting's daily expenses~"
Zou Songpu typed a single "mm," to show he understood.
That day he'd finished running his lines. He opened his phone, logged in, and found Tingting's daily account live. He tapped into the stream and discovered they were only a few kilometers apart.
The banyan on screen looked familiar. He searched nearby attractions and found, without difficulty, a park whose claim to fame was the city's largest banyan tree.
If only he could see it in person.
The second the thought formed, he booked a ride there.
It wasn't rush hour, and the local driver flew. Barely fifteen minutes had passed when Zou Songpu got out, hat and mask on.
Standing at the gate, when the crown of the banyan came into view, he felt oddly nervous.
For a long time now, he had been using this cat as a stand-in for talking things out with, pouring onto this strange cat all the feeling he'd once had for Shuohua. Watching her on video—bounding around one minute, curled up fast asleep the next—it was almost like having Shuohua back.
A voice came through his earphones: "Friends, I think Tingting's about to come down. Anyone afraid of heights, look away now~"
He hurried toward the tree, and just before he reached it, he saw a cat teetering on a branch, as if about to fall.
Zou Songpu couldn't quite see clearly and thought Tingting was going to take a tumble. He rushed forward. "Watch out!"
He did catch the "cat"—except at nearly the same instant his ears caught both the sound of the livestream and a noise from the other side of the tree.
Only then did he realize that what he was holding wasn't a cat at all, but a masked palm civet with white stripes on its face. Zou Songpu jolted in fright; the civet panicked too and dug in instinctively, its sharp claws raking bloody lines down his arm.
On the far side of the tree, Zhou Dao heard the shout, assumed something had happened, hastily ended the stream, and came over carrying Tingting. She saw a man with a small black animal—white stripe running from head to back—tucked in his arms, blood beginning to trickle down his arm.
"Oh no, are you okay?"
Zou Songpu recognized Tingting in her arms, and his tone warmed without his meaning it to. "Hello—do you know where the nearest pet hospital is?"
"I—I—I don't know either, let me look it up!"
Zhou Dao had a weakness for plenty of male celebrities, but Zou Songpu's voice and build she remembered best. Qin Ting, though, hadn't recognized him yet, too busy trying to work out what exactly the animal was; she climbed from Zhou Dao's arms onto her shoulder and craned her head to look.
"The hospital nearby is about fifteen kilometers away. I'll book a ride and we'll go together!"
"Thank you so much." Zou Songpu looked at the cat draped over her shoulder. "Is this Tingting?"
"Oh, you know her? Yes, that's her—she's clever and so well-behaved."
Of the two women and one cat, Zhou Dao was the first to place Zou Songpu. Then Qin Ting caught a familiar scent and finally remembered: this was the man who had called out her flat delivery again and again at the table reads. She immediately curled into a ball in her cat carrier and buried her head. For a while, the person in the car occasionally dredging up topics to break the awkward silence was—of all people—Zou Songpu, the man who could barely talk.
When they finally made it, Zhou Dao pushed the door open. "Doctor—someone and an animal are hurt here!"
The vet lifted the masked palm civet carefully out of Zou Songpu's arms and handed it off to colleagues for examination.
After his wounds were cleaned and bandaged, the results from the other room came back.
"This is a masked palm civet—a nationally protected Class II animal, also called a fruit civet. Where did you find it?"
"In a park nearby, the one with the big banyan tree." Zhou Dao finally snapped out of her daze, remembered that Zou Songpu's throat was bad and he should talk less, and took over.
She pointed at him. "He's the one who found it."
From inside the cat carrier, Qin Ting peeked up, saw that Zou Songpu's attention was nowhere near her, relaxed, and then stared at him unabashedly with both eyes.
"Civets are extremely wary—nocturnal, too. This one's young. My guess is it got separated, starved for days, and it still has wounds on its body. It was so weak it fell right out of the tree."
The vet held out a hand, and Zou Songpu shook it.
"Thank you, young man. Civet meat fetches a high price, so a lot of people who catch one either eat it themselves or sell it for good money. You're a good person. We've contacted the relevant authorities; they'll be here soon."
Zou Songpu shook his head. "It was nothing. Anyone would have. If there's nothing else, I'll be going."
On his way out he asked Zhou Dao where they were headed; she waved him off with some excuse. He gave a small "mm," made a phone call, and was quickly gone.
To avoid running into him at the hotel, the two of them wandered outside until nearly dark. Qin Ting was ravenous; back in the room the first thing she did was order a mountain of takeout—then pick absently at it once it arrived.
Assistant Zhou could tell something was on her mind. While clearing the trash she asked, "Sis, what's wrong?"
"I just think he looked familiar."
"You did a week of table reads together and 'familiar' is all you've got? That was Zou Songpu! Sis!" Zhou Dao kept her voice down in case the walls were thin, but she still squeaked.
"I don't mean from then. I feel like I've seen him somewhere before, ages ago."
Qin Ting thought about it even in her dreams, and so she dreamed it: Zou Songpu became the stranger who had appeared out of nowhere to save her during the accident, and the moment he saw her turn back into a human, he did a one-eighty and declared he was calling the police to have the monster carted off.
It scared her so badly she shut herself in her room the whole next day, terrified the nightmare would come true.