He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 130 Oh my Gravity Cat

This late-night conversation, of course, did not escape the keen eye of the cat—perhaps Hugh had already woken up from the very beginning, and he had quietly hidden behind the door, listening to the entire conversation.

He was entertaining a complete stranger he had only known for a day, whose background and connection to him were unknown. His usually absent-minded father, under the influence of alcohol, told him almost everything he could: funny stories about Hugh wetting the bed as a child, the joy a father felt when Hugh showed technical talent—all sorts of little things, countless trivial matters, some memories that even Hugh himself had almost forgotten, but Li remembered them all very clearly.

Letting strangers know about how you grew up is always embarrassing, but the cat doesn't have the mind to think about that right now.

When the conversation outside the door came to an end, the drunken Li was almost unconscious. Xie Niao squatted to one side, staring absently at the remaining liquid in her glass, until Hugh, who was also dressed in thick clothes, walked up to her.

"They're here."

Without turning her head, Aina stroked the mouse's round ears twice, then shoved him back into Hugh's arms. The latter silently returned to the house, and a few minutes later he walked back slowly, closing the door behind him to prevent the cold air from entering the house.

He first sat a few meters away from the bird, staring blankly at the deep night sky, until the cold wind became unbearable, and then he hid behind the shelter.

Aina raised her eyelids, her eyes, which were sensitive to light, able to penetrate the darkness and see the little guy's watery eyes, sticky and wet, with a pair of cat-like green pupils that would widen in the night, slightly reddish.

"Your cheapskate father is quite a cute guy."

Bird broke the silence first, resting her chin on her hand and saying softly, "Of course, judging by my standards is quite troublesome."

"He's always been a nuisance." Hugh frowned, glancing at the last bit of liquor in the bottle beside him. Without much thought, he gulped it down, but he underestimated the potency of this diluted alcohol. He struggled to suppress a violent cough, his face turning red from the choking. "Cough cough—"

"Sigh, alcohol really is no good." While pretending to soothe Hugh, Aina secretly stroked Hugh's bouncy cat ears a couple of times. She sighed, then heard Hugh's soft words, which were still squeezed out of his mouth before he had fully calmed down.

"Tomorrow, I'll take you to—the junction of [Copper Moss]."

-Um?

The bird's eyes widened: "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"No." Hugh maintained his deliberate distance. "Didn't you say before that you were very useful? Your strength is useful in many commissions. With your help, I might be able to accumulate wealth much faster—"

Without beating around the bush, Hugh stated his purpose directly.

Aina silently observed the kitten, watching its frantically flashing eyes. Her enigmatic, half-smiling expression was chilling. "I've said it before, I hate profit-seeking. Such a boring target. If you want to recruit me, can we pull something bigger?"

"Besides—" she added jokingly, "why should I help you?"

Although he was young, Hugh was used to being alone and secretly had a "side business." He couldn't possibly be unaware of the interests between people, and he also knew that the adult world wasn't so easy to talk to. As for an outlier like Aina, when utilitarian thinking couldn't prevail, he had very few bargaining chips from the start.

"You can treat this as a deal."

Hugh took a deep breath. "I can see that you're unfamiliar with everything here, but you're also full of anticipation—I've never met such a strange and terrifying guy as you. But if you can help me out a little so I can get Li's human rights contract back faster—once I've settled him in, I can fully dedicate myself to a guide's job."

It seems that the conversation just now, whether it was about "lifespan" or "pipeline area," triggered something in the cat, and he looks a bit agitated.

"A guide?" Aina wasn't in a hurry at all. She was quite interested. "How do you know that what I need is a guide, and not a henchman, cannon fodder—or a scapegoat?"

After a few seconds of silence, Xiu opened his mouth.

"Because I can see that what you care about is far more than just something simple." He finally used the word "simple" to describe it. Cat Cat also found it hard to understand Aina—after all, this mysterious bird had always been equally curious about all phenomena and things.

This sense of incongruity is like—a newborn chick reaching out its arms from its swaddling clothes, opening its eyes, and embracing a brand new world.

Xiu said in a deep voice.

"Even—what you said before, saving the world? And ruling—I could try joining you."

These two words were too shameful for anyone over thirteen to utter, so Hugh blushed, his tail drooping limply, trying to suppress the pleading tone in his voice while making his request sound neither humble nor arrogant, "If you help me, I will do my best to repay you in the future—"

"That's starting to get interesting—" Aina raised an eyebrow and then changed the subject.

"But—aren't you worried about what your father said just now?"

She poked her face. "For you, he was prepared to give up everything, preferring to give his son to a complete stranger rather than stay by your side as a burden. Tsk, that reminds me of something even more special—"

"He is not a burden."

This time it was the cat's turn to interrupt the worthless bird. Taking a deep breath, trying to calm her turbulent emotions, her bared teeth gave her a predator-like ferocity. "This guy always keeps spouting meaningless things like 'inferior breed,' 'rat—' and it's so annoying! So incredibly annoying!"

At this moment, the kitten finally showed the rough emotions that were appropriate for his age. His brief loss of composure allowed him to vent his long-accumulated dissatisfaction: "Old man, at such an old age, he still wants to run away from home—ha, I have contact with almost everyone he knows—his social circle is so small, even if I let him go, where can he go—even if he runs to the pipe district, I can still bring him back."

—Oh my god, I'm such a father-obsessed cat!

Aina nodded tremblingly. She also felt that the "gravity" born of certain emotions was indeed a troublesome thing, but individuals like humans were still willing to be entangled by this gravity, and even give everything for others.

but----

Aina had something she wasn't telling Hugh—in fact, she had also glimpsed a restless crimson within Li's soul.

That is the precursor to the development of potential.

—Coincidentally, Aina also unconsciously connected this trait to the scale corresponding to the mysterious realm:

The power that is based on “dedication”, “sacrifice”, “equal harm”, and “painful and suffocating love” has a criterion that contains its essence.

【Jing】

Of course, she wouldn't explain this to Hugh until the situation changed significantly, at least not in the near future.

"Aha~"

So, Aina yawned and stretched in the most standard way. She originally wanted to turn around and go back to the sofa to lie down, but the thought of being awake all night made her head ache. In the end, she chose to face the darkness and step into the depths of the night with her back to the lights behind her.

"Then I'll come find you tomorrow."

Hugh did not stop her, quietly watching her walk away, followed by a faint, indistinct murmur that echoed from the darkness.

"I'm really looking forward to it."

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