Shapeshifters

“I was surprised when suddenly a gust of wind blew through the window, and her hair fluttered wildly. For a moment, I felt a chill down my spine, an eerie sensation creeping into my heart. Su Ying smiled slightly, her hair dancing dramatically, and for a moment, I couldn’t distinguish reality from illusion, filled with doubt. Fifteen minutes later, I was lying in my own bed on the first floor. Chapter Four: The End of the Nine-Lived Black Cat (6) I’ve read many foreign detective novels where mysterious, even supernatural events often occur, but those are just appearances, a facade, often hiding some conspiracy. My current situation seems to be just like that. Of course, I don’t feel any criminal air, nor am I Kogoro Akechi, but one thing I can draw from is that everything that happens should have an underlying connection. But my trouble now is, I can’t figure out which events are related. Did the cat incident happen first, or the events at Zhidan Garden… Thinking about it, Zhidan Garden was a very old affair. My inclusion of archaeology in this mess was entirely influenced by Su Ying. The thought of Su Ying made me laugh and cry at the same time. However, the idea that the archaeology at Zhidan Garden might be related to these two events isn’t impossible, because without considering the time factor, there’s also the location factor. After all, these events also happened near Zhidan Garden. How exactly, I had no energy left to think about. After experiencing events beyond ordinary imagination, I had developed the habit of forcing myself to sleep no matter what. After all, maintaining vigor is most important. So, even after experiencing many inexplicable events today – the strange cat, the undying cockroach, and the question of whether Su Ying was a mermaid – I chose to go to bed and not think about them for now. Although my mind was full of questions, I believed that as long as that cat didn’t make any noise, I could still fall asleep. Surprisingly, that night, I slept quite well, and the cat made no sound at all. Thinking of that cat, my mind became even more chaotic – run over by a truck, falling from a high place… I gathered my spirits, determined to unravel these mysteries today, or at least get some clues. If conditions allowed, I would catch that cat and study it. After washing up, I planned to go to the newspaper office first. Just as I stepped out the door, I saw a crowd gathered by the pond in the nearby green area. Curious, I walked over, only to find several security guards with long bamboo poles, nets attached to the ends, fishing for something. A few old ladies were watching the excitement. Just as I was about to leave, I heard a security guard shout, ‘Got it, got it!’ followed by a chorus of exclamations from the old ladies. I turned back and was surprised to see that they had pulled up the black cat in their net. The guards dumped the cat’s body on the ground, and from the extremely unnatural bend of its body, I knew it was that cat. Its corpse seemed somewhat stiff, but its forelimbs were still curled in an arc, very strange. ‘What happened to this cat?’ I asked the security guard who had retrieved it. ‘Oh, I saw this cat fall into the pond while patrolling last night. It was too troublesome to find at night, and I was afraid of disturbing others, so I waited until morning to fish it out. It’s been dead for half a day. It looked like it jumped into the river by itself, what a stupid cat,’ he explained. The old ladies around muttered about ‘sin, sin.’ It seemed no one noticed anything odd about the cat. This cat had been dead in the water for so long, its body stiff; even if someone wanted to touch it, they might not notice its peculiarities, let alone a wet, dirty black cat corpse. It seemed the clues from this black cat would end here. Should I take the cat’s body to the relevant authorities for research… My mind was in turmoil, perhaps due to masculine pride, I decided to keep this possibly only-known-to-me fact hidden. But what was strange was, how could this cat, which couldn’t be killed by a truck or a fall, drown so inexplicably? I couldn’t believe that such a cat would be clumsy enough to fall into a pond. On my way to the office, I pondered deeply. The death of this strange cat must have a reason. Could it be that some mutation caused it to die while walking by the pond and then fall in? But now, any questions could no longer be answered. I tried hard to recall everything about this cat – run over by a truck, its midnight cries, jumping from upstairs to attack me, the last time I saw its sad, tearful eyes… Suddenly, an idea struck me. Perhaps this cat committed suicide. Its mutation must have caused unbearable pain, torturing it to cry out every night. It rushed out to get run over by a truck, jumped off the roof not to attack me or anyone but to seek death. Thus, it didn’t even use its instinct for self-preservation. Yet, it didn’t die, only adding to its pain. Finally, it chose to drown itself. So the security guard said it ‘seemed to jump into the river by itself,’ and it didn’t make a sound last night; if it had fallen by accident, it would have struggled and made noise, but it was very quiet. This also made perfect sense and proved my conclusion. Chapter Four: The End of the Nine-Lived Black Cat (7) After realizing why the cat committed suicide, I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for it. Yet, with the loss of this crucial clue, I still felt deeply regretful. Uncovering the truth became even more difficult. Back at the newspaper office, I finally relaxed a bit. The casual atmosphere of the office and the mundane conversations of my colleagues gave me a sense of normalcy. The recent events had somewhat detached me from reality, and I needed this environment to calm down. But ultimately, those strange events had happened, and I had to dive back into them. I’ve encountered many bizarre incidents, so I’m certain this world is full of unknown things, including details often overlooked despite being well-known. Trying to discover these is one of my joys, my motivation for living and working. I thought I might as well make a bold assumption: if Su Ying indeed is, as she claims, a mermaid, then the Zhidan Garden site is connected to mermaids as she said. And since I had already linked the cat and the cockroach to the archaeological event, there must be some connection between mermaids, cats, and cockroaches. I pondered this, picked up a pen, and started writing down my thoughts on a piece of paper.”