The Nightmare Experience of a Useless Person

Does being stabbed in the head with a dagger cause pain throughout the body?

I don't know, whatever.

Jiang Zhiyang's vision went black, but he felt a sense of relief. It was like having a sword hanging over his head; the real pain was more pleasant than the constant worry of it falling.

It seems he's not dead yet. Should we wait a little longer?

How come he's still alive? He seems to be able to move.

He tried to open his eyes and realized he was still alive.

The intense sunlight, the parched earth, the restless chirping of cicadas—has summer returned? A faint floral fragrance soothes his senses, and Jiang Zhiyang gradually comes to his senses.

He staggered to his feet, but everything seemed so strange—his field of vision had expanded? The sky was so high, the ground so close, and the ants lined up in a bustling procession, as if trying to crawl into his eyes. Behind them, the dense weeds resembled a lush forest, and even a single foxtail grass had to crane its neck to look up.

And the way it swayed gently in the wind was kind of cute, wasn't it? I wanted to pounce! He raised his hand, but saw a pair of furry paws.

Cat paws? Cat paws! I've been reborn? Reborn as a cat? What's going on?! Jiang Zhiyang wanted to shout, but could only let out a few weak meows.

"Meow! Meow! Meow..."

At the same time, the raised claws affected the whole body, bringing back those unbearable pains.

He was hit hard on the left temple, and a blood blister swelled up.

The deep marks on his neck made every breath difficult.

Several patches of hair on his back had been plucked, leaving behind bare skin with stray hairs mixed with blood.

There was also a cut on his abdomen, from which blood was gushing out in small spurts.

What a disastrous start! Before they could react, a sound came from afar.

"It's all your fault! You insisted on eating the cat. Who eats a cat?"

"If dogs can eat it, why can't cats?"

"Then you have to kill it first before plucking its feathers, you can't pluck the feathers first."

"I thought it was already knocked dead, stop nagging."

"Aren't you the one nagging here?"

The two burly men argued incessantly, their footsteps drawing ever closer.

Eat the cat? Eat me? Eat me?! Before he could figure out what was going on, Jiang Zhiyang knew he had to run.

He tried to move his paws, but his four legs were really difficult to maneuver. He managed to get up, but before he could even stand up, he tumbled over and fell into the ditch next to him.

The stone struck his spine, and Jiang Zhiyang instantly lost consciousness again...

I woke up again because I was hungry.

But what came to mind wasn't hot pot, barbecue, or rice, but fish, baby mice, and a clumsy sparrow that landed on the ground.

How disgusting! Instantly, Jiang Zhiyang vomited at the thought of such raw and bloody eating.

He was so hungry. He had to stand up and get out of there. Even though the pain bound his body, he had to stand up, or he would become food for wild wolves and dogs before he could even fill his stomach.

One step, two steps, the pain hindered his steps, but Jiang Zhiyang had to move forward. He was terrified, so he replaced his panicked heartbeat with almost fleeing steps. He was prepared to carry his intestines with him even if they fell out of the wound.

Moreover, Jiang Zhiyang always had a feeling that as long as he kept moving forward, he would find the answer—who had he forgotten? And who was calling him?

He walked, walked, walked, and kept walking forward.

He leaped out of the dense weeds and onto the muddy path. The sky was unpredictable, sometimes filled with stars, sometimes pouring rain. He endured the damp cold while basking in the warm sunshine, and even forced himself to eat some small, dead fish that had died on the shallows.

Time flies so fast? But he had no energy to think about it; all his thoughts were trapped in the little cat's head.

The road was long, seemingly endless. He gradually adapted to being a cat that walked on all fours, just like when he was a human, only now he was wandering alone.

He could feel himself getting weaker and weaker, but fortunately, as a cat, he didn't need to show up at various places to work part-time every day to save up for tuition, he didn't need to put on a smile to face those so-called subsidies and condolences, and he didn't need to eat well, sleep well, or pretend to live an active life.

That's fine too...

But gradually, he seemed to lose his sense of time.

Why do the sun and moon appear at the same time? Is it daytime or nighttime?

After the sweltering sunshine comes a biting cold wind? Is winter following summer? Or is autumn too short?

The fragrance of osmanthus wafts through the air again in the chilly spring. I'm too tired to doubt it anymore, so be it.

The occasional passersby were dressed extremely simply, like passersby in an ancient costume drama, wearing coarse linen clothes, just enough to cover their bodies, as if they had traveled from another time.

Rather than a rebirth, everything here feels more like a dream—chaotic, upside down.

Was he having another nightmare? Jiang Zhiyang seemed to have no time for fear or confusion; perhaps for a small cat's mind and weak body, everything was too much to handle.

The only thing that caught Jiang Zhiyang's attention was that the people passing by all seemed to look the same, yet different...

Or rather, it seemed he couldn't see their faces clearly.

There were many houses, some exceptionally clear, so clear that he could find fish bones and fish spines lying in the corner of the yard, while others were blurred into a mess and could not be distinguished at all.

He kept walking, back and forth, circling around, until he reached the entrance of a village, where a huge rock stood with the three characters "Qiushui Village" carved on it.

It turns out he had never been able to leave this place.

In the village, Jiang Zhiyang could see the faces of many people clearly, even though most of them were ugly and mean-spirited.

He was strangely familiar with the roads here, as if he had lived here in some past life. Which past life? Or had he had this dream before? He tried to recall the scene, but found his tired head like a wad of waterlogged cotton, completely unable to think.

But, in my memory, there seems to be a temple here? And a... girl?

The blurry figure lingered in the kitten's mind, like a ray of light in a thick fog. Touching it provided direction, yet it vanished the moment the lost one got infinitely close...

Is she... a very important person?

Why does thinking of her make my aching heart feel endlessly bitter—that familiar feeling has returned?

Another night fell, and with the twilight came a flurry of snowflakes—the first snow he had ever seen since becoming a cat.

The tiny snowflakes are so lovely.

It landed on his sparsely haired skin, giving him a shiver.

The tiny snowflakes are so lovely.

Jiang Zhiyang kept thinking, could good things be about to happen?