Tokyo: Rabbit Police and Her Evil Partner

Chapter 469 Tamako Cat

Time passed quickly in the attic. After tidying up the room, the gloomy boy was about to leave for school. Yuan Yuzi was puzzled. Where was he going to school so late at night? But then she thought about it and realized that this was a dream, so it made sense.

"Don't wander off, I'll bring you food when I get back."

After saying that, the gloomy boy slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed out the door.

Yuan Yuzi wanted to ask what to do if she needed to use the restroom, but before the gloomy boy could leave, the door clicked shut and the sound of a key being inserted was heard, indicating that someone was coming in.

Yuan Yuzi panicked a little. She hadn't forgotten the second and fourth rules, so she hurriedly crawled back under the bed to avoid being discovered.

"It's me, I'm back."

The gloomy boy looked extremely tired. He was wearing a blue and white school uniform, which was covered in stains, as if he had fallen in a ditch.

After entering the room, he took a can of cat food out of his schoolbag, put it on the ground, and then went to the sink in the attic to wash his school uniform.

Yuan Yuzi crawled out from under the bed. She wanted to ask why he was back so soon, but then she realized that this was Xiaoluzi's dream. He probably didn't know what the room looked like when she was away, so time in the attic had been frozen until he returned.

"What happened?" She leaned closer, looking at the school uniform, and asked, "Did you fall?"

"No, a classmate asked to borrow my homework to copy. I told him to get lost, and then he beat me up," the gloomy boy said.

"If you don't want to lend it, then don't," Yuan Yuzi snatched the school uniform and helped him rub the stains off it. "Why can't you talk to your classmates properly?"

The gloomy boy remained silent. Yuan Yuzi glanced back at him and her heart softened. Children learn from their parents, and with the mistress's arrogant demeanor, it would be hard for the little deer not to be influenced.

Before she could even offer some words of comfort, she heard footsteps coming from downstairs.

The gloomy boy hurriedly shoved her under the bed to hide her. A moment later, the woman came upstairs and questioned him about why he had fought with his classmate. The gloomy boy still said "I don't know," and unsurprisingly, he was beaten.

Yuan Yuzi gritted her teeth and endured it while hiding under the bed.

And so time continued to pass, the gloomy boy repeating the same monotonous routine: leaving for school, returning home disheveled, being scolded by the lady of the house, tidying his room... and then the cycle would begin anew, with him leaving for school and returning home disheveled once more...

Yuan Yuzi spent eight hours like this, while only sixteen minutes actually passed.

The sky remained dark. The attic was cramped and gloomy. Looking out through the ventilation holes, darkness perpetually enveloped the earth, like the polar night in the Arctic Circle. The sky was devoid of any light, its inky blackness sending chills down one's spine.

Genji Tamako simply couldn't take it anymore.

What's the point of living like this? What meaning does life have? If she continues to do nothing and hide in this little attic day after day, she's bound to become depressed!
The gloomy boy had just finished tidying up his room when Minamoto no Tamako grabbed his arm and said, "Let's go! Let's run away together!"

"No."

"No way!"

"He's going to die."

"So what if we die!" Yuan Yuzi forcefully pulled him, opened the floor door, and said seriously, "What's the difference between staying here and being dead? Let's run first!"

“We have no money, no one will take us in, where can we go? Stop thinking nonsense! Just keep enduring it, I can leave when I grow up!” The gloomy boy kept shrinking back, trying to pry open Kaiyuan Yuzi’s fingers, like a cat being dragged out from under the bed, struggling incessantly.

Gen Tamako turned around, and with a slap, slapped the gloomy boy's face with both hands, pressing his head down and forcing him to look her in the eye:

"Listen up! To live is simply to find a place where you won't lose calories, and to get 2,000 calories of food and 1,000 milliliters of water every day. That's all!"

She stared intently at the gloomy boy and pressed, "Is this so difficult? What are you afraid of?"

"me……"

The gloomy boy stammered, unable to answer, and still dared not go downstairs.

Gen Tamako sighed, released her hands, put her arm around his shoulder, and asked, "Have you ever heard of the flea effect?"

The gloomy boy nodded. Of course he knew that the so-called "flea effect" originated from biological experiments. It refers to the phenomenon that fleas actively reduce their jumping height due to repeated collisions with the glass lid of a container. Even after the lid is removed, they are still limited by a "virtual upper limit." Its essence is a self-limiting psychological phenomenon caused by environmental constraints. In reality, it is commonly seen in the workplace, education, and other fields where the perception of ability has become solidified due to past setbacks.

When Minamoto no Tamako put forward this theory, she was simply trying to say that he was like a flea, trapped in a self-imposed cage, afraid to break free from the shackles of fear on his life.

He said whatever came to mind, and after listening, Yuan Yuzi felt that Xiaoluzi was smarter than she was when she was a child... At her age, she was still worrying about how to make friends!

"That's right, that's exactly what I mean, I'm glad you understand!"

Yuan Yuzi paused for a moment, and seeing that Xiaoluzi was unmoved, she simply sat down cross-legged and adopted a heart-to-heart talk posture: "When I was a child, I met a tutor who said something very philosophical to me that inspired me for a long time. Now I will pass on this motto to you."

"What?" The gloomy boy frowned.

"Imagine yourself as a small animal first, then ask yourself what you want." Gen Tamako hugged her knees and said earnestly, "Have you thought about it? What animal do you want to be?"

"Can't I just want to be a human being?" the gloomy boy asked.

“Humans are animals too, but humans want too much. Besides living, humans also want dignity, happiness, companions, and a sense of purpose in life…” Yuan Yuzi raised her hands and put them next to her ears, making rabbit ears with her little fingers, and said with a smile, “Look, if I were a rabbit, having food, drink, and companions would be enough for me.”

"What if we can't find any companions?" the gloomy boy asked.

“Only humans worry about not finding companions. How could a rabbit worry about not finding good friends?” Yuan Yuzi shook her head, pouted, suppressed her smile, and put on a serious face: “If this world is a huge forest, as long as you walk and walk, one day you will meet companions who are going the same way.”

After saying that, she reached out and picked up the fawn, encouraging it loudly, "So don't be afraid to set off, just think of it as a great adventure in the forest!"

The gloomy boy couldn't resist her and was dragged downstairs by her.

Voices could be heard coming from the living room. The hostess was entertaining guests and didn't notice the two of them coming downstairs.

Genji held up her little hand to shush, then lay down on the ground, trying to crawl towards the door. The gloomy boy found it a bit funny and didn't want to lie down, but Genji kept waving at him, signaling him to lower his body. He sighed and had no choice but to do as she said.

Two turtles crawled down the corridor, one after the other, trying to escape through the gate.

The gloomy boy quickened his pace, caught up with Yuan Yuzi, and walked alongside her. He whispered, "What are you going to do if we go out and get caught on camera?"

"What are you afraid of? It's so dark, the surveillance cameras won't be able to capture it." Yuan Yuzi's understanding of surveillance cameras is still stuck in the 90s.

This was her first time stealing, abducting a child from someone else's house. She was so nervous that her palms were sweaty and sticky, and could have been slapped on the floor like Spider-Man.

"It has night vision," the gloomy boy explained.

"Huh?" Yuan Yuzi was surprised. She suspected that Xiaoluzi's family was high-ranking officials, or perhaps a military base, otherwise why would they have night vision surveillance cameras installed at the entrance? To be able to install such high-tech equipment, it seems that Xiaoluzi's family is also powerful and influential! "What do we do now?" The gloomy boy felt that they were in a dilemma.

“That’s easy. Do you have any garbage bags at home?” Yuan Yuzi asked.

“Yes, in the kitchen,” the gloomy boy said.

"go!"

Yuan Yuzi turned around and crawled towards the kitchen. She peeked out from the door and, after confirming that the nanny was not there, she quickly got up and, like a thief, rummaged through the trash can.

"What are you doing?" The gloomy boy didn't understand.

"Put on a garbage bag!" Yuan Yuzi shook out all the garbage and planned to put herself in a black bag.

It's good to live in a rich family. The floors are smooth, the kitchen is spacious, and even the garbage bags are the same size as those in restaurants—they're ridiculously large and could easily fit her in one.

The gloomy boy silently opened the cupboard, revealing a large roll of brand-new, unopened garbage bags. Upon seeing this, Yuan Yuzi exclaimed, "Great!" and casually tossed aside the empty garbage bags. She and Xiaoluzi each tore off a bag and put it on.

To maintain a clear view and ease of movement, they poked several holes in the bag, sticking their hands and feet out of the holes and looking through the small holes, making them look even more like turtles.

"Good, let's go!"

Gentama was very satisfied. She tiptoed out of the kitchen and, with Kojima, headed back towards the front door.

The plastic bag made a loud noise scraping against the floor. After crawling on the floor for a while, they heard footsteps behind them. Yuan Yuzi turned around and saw the lady of the house leave the living room, and their eyes met.

"What are you doing?!" the woman roared, enunciating each word clearly.

Yuan Yuzi was shocked. Forgetting her pretense, she grabbed Xiaoluzi and ran away. The mistress screamed and chased after them. The nanny heard the commotion and blocked the door. Caught between a rock and a hard place, they were trapped in the passageway.

"Are you ready?!" Minamoto Tamako shouted as she ran.

"--What?"

The gloomy boy was confused. The next second, Minamoto Tamako responded to his doubts with her actions—he was pushed, stumbled and fell to the ground. Minamoto Tamako grabbed his hand and, with all her strength, swung him forward!
The gloomy boy fell and slid along, sliding between the nanny's legs. She didn't react in time and bent down to stare at him from between her legs.

Taking advantage of the moment, Yuan Yuzi leaped up, pressed down on the nanny's back, and performed a perfect leapfrog: "Get up!"

The gloomy boy quickly got up and ran away with Minamoto Tamako. The two rushed towards the front door one after the other. The gloomy boy unlocked it with his fingerprint, but Minamoto Tamako suddenly kicked the door open with a shark kick and broke out of the detached villa.

Outside the gate was the residential garden, pitch black, with the streetlights casting a dim blue glow that made the red lettering on the artificial hill look like blood. They fled in panic, running wildly along the path, the woman screaming after them, "Security! Security!!"

Yuan Yuzi turned around and saw a group of men in black uniforms emerge from a corner where the streetlights couldn't reach. At first glance, they looked like black ants, a dense swarm that kept wriggling and surging in the darkness, like a black wave sweeping in, vast and spectacular.

"Wow, so many people!!"

Gen Tamako was shocked. She was a daughter of a wealthy family and had seen families with a dozen or so servants or security guards, but she had never seen a family with hundreds or thousands of security guards... Could it be that Ooshiko's family was a warlord? These hundreds or thousands of people were almost as many as the entire Tokyo riot police!
She had been practicing long-distance running for a while and felt good about herself. She didn't even pant when she ran in her dream, but she was very nervous. Her heart kept racing and she always felt like she was about to be overtaken... As she ran, Yuan Yuzi felt like she stepped on something, but she didn't have time to investigate. She grabbed Xiaoluzi and forced herself to keep running.

In reality, she was lying on her side on the bed with her eyes tightly closed, her face tense, and she kept kicking her legs, kicking Nishino Touna off the bed.

The night breeze caressed his face, the streetlights receded, and the wind whistled in his ears. The gloomy boy looked up at the endless road and ran wildly.

Yuan Yuzi followed behind him, watching his mood index steadily rise from deep red to warm yellow. She laughed and asked, "How does it feel?!"

“Very good!” he replied.

Yuan Yuzi chased after her, running alongside Xiaoluzi. They seemed to have forgotten the danger behind them, or perhaps they were enjoying the feeling of escaping a cage, like the moment Shawshank Redemption embraced the torrential rain, savoring the freedom they had won.

In the distance, the sun rises, its light piercing the horizon. Darkness is like a thin sheet of paper, fragile and easily shattered. The first rays of dawn are particularly dazzling, and at the end of the road, a fiery sunset glows, its rosy light like an unknown dream.

It's almost dawn.

Yuan Yuzi didn't know why it was dawn. Maybe it was because she happened to be there, or maybe it was because the little deer had finally escaped.

They ran wildly into the morning light, rushed over the community fence, crossed the entire road, and ran through the green belt and bushes, finally falling heavily onto the lawn in the park.

Yuan Yuzi gasped for breath. She looked up and saw that no one was chasing her anymore; all the bad guys had been shaken off.

Great.

Finally free.

Yuan Yuzi smiled sincerely and couldn't help but glance at him. The gloomy boy didn't look so gloomy anymore. He looked like an ordinary boy. Sweat wet his hair and washed his eyes, making his pupils shine.

"Have you decided what kind of animal you are?" Gen Tamako asked.

"Hmm." The boy lay on the lawn, looking up at the sky.

“That’s right, what is it?” Gen Tamako straightened up.

“Deer,” the boy said.

"Huh? Why?" Minamoto Tamako asked curiously, "Is it because you can run fast?"

“No, in Shakespeare’s works, deer often represent untamed natural forces, such as in As You Like It…” As he spoke, the boy turned his head and asked, “Have you read any of Shakespeare’s plays?”

“Uh, no…” Minamoto no Tamako was not interested in drama.

“That’s true, after all, you’re just a cat.” The boy sat up as well.

Yuan Yuzi wanted to refute and try to prove her aesthetic sense, but after she opened her mouth, she could only let out a 'meow'.

"Meow? Meow meow!! Meow meow meow meow..."

She looked down and saw that her hands had turned into pink paw pads, and the low grass grew higher and higher until it was level with her chest... She saw warm yellow fur and her own tail.

The boy picked her up and lifted her high, finally showing a smile.

Ah, I've turned into a cat.

The boy seemed to see a colorful world, and the cat's pupils contained the entire universe. They possessed each other as if they possessed everything.

(End of this chapter)