Become a cat [Zhan Zhao]

The cold and muddy water squeezed in from all directions. Although Alan managed to hold his breath after choking on the saliva, his ears kept buzzing, and his nose and throat seemed to be burned all the way.The thing holding on to her ankle was so powerful that it was inevitable that Ah Lan's movements in the water were not flexible enough, and he couldn't even struggle for a while.Her hands frantically clawed convulsively, trying to grab something to stop the downward trend, but only water kept leaking through her fingers.

The surrounding water showed a chaotic yellow-green color, mixed with silt and water plants, which made the eyes feel stinging.However, through these chaotic obstacles, when Alan lowered her head, she still saw the thing that refused to let go of her.I saw that its body was covered with yellow-brown hair, spreading out in all directions in the water, as if it was integrated with the water.The human-like but slightly smaller body was twisted and bent at a strange angle, coupled with the ugly and shriveled face, making this thing look like a deformed monkey.The pair of small yellow eyes were embedded in the upturned face, staring at Alan with excitement and some kind of bloody metaphor.Its mouth grinned, revealing a row of sharp, yellowed teeth and a scarlet, sticky tongue.

The feeling of drowning is contradictory and incomprehensible. Outside the body is the piercing water constantly oppressing the chest and ribs, while inside is the icy flame of suffocation.The pain in the ear was almost unbearable when she dived too fast. Alan tried in a panic to find a weapon that could attack the underwater monster that grabbed her, but she desperately remembered that she came out in such a hurry that she raised her eyebrows. The stick was left in the bedroom.

And all of this happened in just a moment.From the time when the water monkey suddenly jumped out of the water and dragged Alan down, to when it dragged Alan to swim quickly to the bottom of the water.However, this short moment was enough to make A Lan become dazed due to suffocation. Her hands and feet seemed to lose strength with the exhaustion of the last trace of oxygen in her lungs.

Alan opened his right hand in vain for the last time to catch something, the water was cold and smooth, and he refused to stay in the palm of his hand for a while.However, when her hands were about to close into fists, something colder and harder than lake water crashed into her palm.Alan grabbed it instinctively, as if grabbing some life-saving straw.However, this thing is as unreliable as a straw, only for a moment, it makes A Lan's falling figure slightly hindered.But at the next moment, something seemed to break apart soundlessly, and Ah Lan grabbed the cold and hard unknown cube and fell into the abyss again.

Her head was thrown up by the current, like a drowning and suffocating person's last desire for sunlight and oxygen, so her neck was bent into a fragile arc.Under the refracted yellow-green sunlight, A Lan seemed to see two people tightly entangled in the water above her sight, so she stretched out her hand towards them, but got no response.As the undercurrent surged, the two tightly entangled bodies whirled and turned in the water, and the head wrapped in black water plants—or hair—slowly moved towards Alan.

And those two empty eye sockets are also like the accusing stare of the dead who refuses to rest in peace.

A Lan suddenly lost the ability to hold her breath, she opened her mouth driven by the resurfaced instinct after suffocation, desperately trying to inhale oxygen, but only water gushed into her nose.A-lan suddenly convulsed and twitched, but more water poured in from his nose and mouth.She thought she would die in pain, but gradually, a wonderful auditory hallucination appeared in her painful ear, which temporarily stripped away the pain of the body, as if the cold flames were not in the nose, mouth, and chest. Intensely burning in general.

Time has been stretched infinitely, and Ah Lan seems to have fallen into another dream, like her weak protection in a desperate situation.Her soul departed from her body and returned to the dilapidated ancestral hall. The bright sun and hot and dry air were so realistic that it was hard to believe that this was a hallucination after drowning.It was empty and deserted, and there were no traces of living people.Alan thought of the foxes running and playing in the weeds. She used to be so envious of those little foxes, who could play carefree under the protection of their parents.

Then, she thought of her cat and that rainy night.

During that time, Lan had been seriously thinking about death.Because living is so painful and hopeless, there is not enough food to fill the stomach, and there is no suitable clothes to cover the body.When other girls could wear beautiful clothes and exquisite jewelry to go to temple fairs, she had to humbly endure cursing and even beatings, just to get some leftovers so that she would not starve to death.

Why do you want to live in such a despicable and despicable way?Alan began to feel puzzled in her hunger and despair. She heard that people could reincarnate after death.So in her immature mind, reincarnation after death seemed to be the only way to get rid of suffering.A Lan began to wander in the mountains, not knowing whether to find a suitable tree to hang himself, or a cliff high enough to jump off.She imagined that she could live the life she expected after death, and her heart was filled with rare joy and sweetness, pitiful and sad.For Alan, it was like having a second chance to get rid of the current hopeless life and live a life without starvation.

Then it began to rain, torrential rain and sudden gusts of wind, the heavens, earth, mountains and rivers trembled and howled.Such a sight made Ah Lan feel terrified, but she also felt that this was the call of death to her in the dark—in this kind of weather, as long as she stayed in the mountains for one night, all the sufferings would be over.

But she saw the cat, a pitifully small cat.I don't know if it was because he was too thin that he was abandoned. He was trembling alone on the mountain road, but he staggered down the mountain with perseverance that didn't match his pitifully weak appearance.

Alan seemed to have been greatly shocked, like a bolt of lightning splitting chaos from his mind.

——Even such a small thing can tenaciously survive, so she just swallowed her breath and died?In the end, there was no one to collect her body?An inexplicable impulse prompted her to step forward and pick up the cat struggling in the rainstorm, and then rushed down the mountain.

From that moment, it seemed that there was an invisible but unbreakable link connecting Alan and the cat.

Alan can no longer leave the cat.

And the cat was still waiting for her.

This thought made Alan open her eyes suddenly, she was still drowning, and everything didn't get better with the hallucinations—this is how life is, daydreams can never change anything.The water monkey had dragged her down to the bottom, crawling on the soft silt.

Alan's mind seemed to be in a state of chaos, but there was a trace of clarity.She raised her left hand, which was as heavy as lead, pulled out the hairpin from her bun, and then ruthlessly stabbed at the monkey's paw where the water monkey was holding her ankle.

The hairpin parted the flow of water, Alan didn't know how much effort he had made, and he didn't know how much obstruction the water had caused.However, the moment the hairpin pierced the water monkey's paw, the ugly and sinister thing let out a piercing scream.This frightening sound wave seemed to turn into countless sharp knives underwater, piercing into Alan's ears.

However, the water monkey's paws were also loosened at this moment.Alan broke free with the explosive power of a dying person, and swam desperately upwards.Her chest was about to explode, her eyes were blurred, and there was only one thought left in her mind - she couldn't die, she couldn't die here, at this moment.

With a "crash", the moment when you get out of the water and come into contact with the air is like going from one world to another.Alan swam desperately towards the shore, when she broke free from the water and her upper body was already lying on the shore, the heavy feeling caused by the loss of buoyancy of the water almost made her unable to move.And what followed was a tingling pain in her calf, and a strong force dragged her underwater again.

Alan screamed, although the scream became hoarse and weak due to choking on water.She grabbed the ground tightly with both hands, and dragged her body vigorously to climb to the shore.

At this time, she saw the cat.Those green, apricot-like eyes seemed to be radiating anxious light, the cat leaped forward, bit Alan's sleeve tightly, and pulled her up desperately.

It's like a tug-of-war, Alan and the cat fight against the underwater monsters together.She couldn't believe that the cat had so much strength—or perhaps she had unleashed her impossible potential with the cat's company—Alan finally broke free from the monkey's claws and scrambled to the shore.

"Hoooo!" The cat seemed to issue such a low threat from between its teeth, it jumped in front of A Lan, and arched its body towards the water.The water monkey was emerging from the lake, as if trying to pull its prey back into the water, but was blocked by a small thing in front of it.

I saw that the cat's hair was all tied up, and it looked like a majestic little lion.However, when the cat let out a threatening roar again and wanted to regain its glory, it was picked up by Alan and ran towards the distant hut desperately.

Zhan Zhao: "..." He was angry for a moment, and I don't know if it was because of A Lan's strategic retreat on his own initiative, or because he was weak and helpless.

However, he didn't have time to get angry. As soon as he ran to the porch of the hut, Alan staggered and fell to the ground, unconscious.Zhan Zhao anxiously walked around A Lan, he put his head on A Lan's arm, and licked her cheek.But the little girl covered in muddy water seemed to be exhausted, and she couldn't even open her eyes.

Zhan Zhao rushed to the mountain stream only after hearing A Lan's screams. The sound of the rumbling water was too loud for him who had transformed into a cat, and he almost couldn't stand up.The splashing water wet his fur, and the cold air penetrated into the bone marrow.But none of these can make Zhan Zhao take a step back.He scoured the water's edge, the messy footprints and scratches ominous.Zhan Zhao screamed in vain, his eyes widened, hoping to see the target he was looking for through the muddy water.He thought that misfortune had already befell Ah Lan, and he could only stand here, helpless.

Fortunately, everything has not developed to the point of no return.

Seeing that he couldn't wake Alan up, Zhan Zhao could only lie down beside her, waiting for Alan to wake up, or transform himself.He looked at the pale face of the little girl, and the eyes that were open not long ago shone with fear, which made people feel infinite pity.

Suddenly, something caught Zhan Zhao's attention.It was an iron plate held tightly in Alan's right hand, with a word written on it:

Royal.

This is a waist card specially equipped for walking guards in the palace.