After giving the drawing away, Yue Zhishi felt that his drawing was terrible. He regretted it a little and wanted it back, but the result was obvious.

Song Yu wouldn't even give him a chance to touch it up.

But the topographical map Song Yu drew was really beautiful, with a kind of orderly, serious, scientific aesthetic. Yue Zhishi even wanted to frame it and hang it by his bed.

For the first time in a long while, he had a good night's sleep. In his dream, he dreamt that he and Song Yu were feeding kittens together. He heard a familiar meow from behind, and when Yue Zhishi turned around, an angry Orange was right behind him, caught in the act.

Meow—

What a nightmare.

He finally made it to the holiday, but there was only one day off. Yue Zhishi was woken up early in the morning by Orange stepping on him. Just then, Lin Rong called him down for breakfast. He groggily got out of bed, holding Orange, and went downstairs to see Song Yu already changing his shoes at the entryway. Yue Zhishi instantly sobered up, shuffled over in his slippers, and asked, "Brother, are you going out so early?"

Song Yu nodded, tying his shoelaces. "Yeah, I have something to do."

"Can I come with you?"

Song Yu didn't answer directly, only saying, "You stay home and study."

Yue Zhishi knew Song Yu's way of speaking all too well. Not saying no meant yes, as long as he tried hard enough. "I want to go, can you take me? I'll be more efficient when I get back, really."

Yue Zhishi's voice sounded a little pitiful. Song Yu looked up and met his gaze for a moment. Yue Zhishi spoke again, aggrieved, "Brother, please, I even gave you my drawing."

Song Yu was out of options.

"I'll give you ten minutes to get changed."

"Okay!"

While waiting, Song Yu sat in the entryway and played on his phone. He saw a WeChat message from Xia Zhixu and replied to it.

In the early morning, the temperature was just right and the air was fresh. Not having to go to class and being able to go out with Song Yu put Yue Zhishi in an excellent mood. While waiting for the bus, Yue Zhishi sat on a bench, and Song Yu took a pink lollipop out of his pocket and handed it to him.

"You put it in my schoolbag. It's too sweet, you eat it."

'He still hadn't eaten the candy he had secretly put in his schoolbag.'

'On second thought, that makes sense. Song Yu hates sweets.'

Yue Zhishi took the candy, unwrapped it without much thought, and had just popped the candy ball into his mouth when the bus arrived. He immediately followed Song Yu and they got on the bus together. The bus moved quickly, and Yue Zhishi fell asleep just as quickly, swaying and leaning against Song Yu's shoulder until he was woken up to get off.

Standing at the bus stop, Yue Zhishi stretched. The bus drove away, and across the street, a pretty, tall girl waved in their direction. Yue Zhishi slowly brought his outstretched arms back down, glanced at Song Yu beside him, and saw him nod towards the other side as well.

'What's going on?'

It was finally a holiday, and he had run out early in the morning, only to meet a pretty older sister. He felt this was very wrong, completely inconsistent with Song Yu's usual behavior.

The pedestrian light turned from red to green, and Song Yu walked to the other side of the street. Yue Zhishi's mood suddenly soured. He followed behind him, hands in his pockets, with the lollipop in his mouth.

'Brother has never socialized with a girl privately before.'

The girl seemed to have a good personality and looked a bit older than them. She greeted Song Yu very warmly, "Have you had breakfast? What a coincidence, I just got here and saw you." After speaking, she glanced at Yue Zhishi, then looked back at Song Yu. "This must be your younger brother."

Song Yu nodded. Being addressed, Yue Zhishi also politely greeted her and introduced himself.

"Hello, hello, I'm Feng Yue." She glanced at her watch. "The car will be here soon."

'Are they going somewhere?' Yue Zhishi paid special attention to her attire: comfortable casual wear, a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, and flat sneakers.

'Could it be a place like Happy Valley? Or an outdoor trip?'

He once again recalled how Song Yu had been so unwilling to bring him along at first.

Feng Yue's phone suddenly rang. She said, "Excuse me," turned, and walked a few steps away to answer the call. "Yeah, right, we're at..."

Seeing her walk away, Yue Zhishi nudged Song Yu's arm and stood very close to him. When Song Yu turned his head, he suddenly asked, "Are you going on a date with her?"

Only Yue Zhishi would ask something so directly.

But the moment the words left his mouth, he himself felt it was strange, and his mood showed no signs of improving.

Song Yu raised an eyebrow. "If I were going on a date, why would I bring you along?"

This sentence immediately woke Yue Zhishi up.

'That's right.'

'Since he didn't refuse to let me tag along, it probably isn't a date with a girl. Besides, who would bring such a big third wheel on a date? Especially the kind of third wheel who could conveniently go home and tattle to their parents.'

If it really were a date, Yue Zhishi might actually tattle, because he was indeed a little unhappy.

He was about to ask Song Yu the true purpose of this trip when Feng Yue happened to walk back after finishing her call. The car she mentioned arrived half a minute later. It was a large, white car with plenty of space.

They got into the car together. There were two other young men in the car. The drive was smooth. Yue Zhishi was curious about where they were headed, but unexpectedly, the road became more and more familiar, and finally, they stopped at the side gate of Peiya School.

'What are they doing at school?'

There were quite a few people, so Yue Zhishi didn't say much. Song Yu got out of the car, walked over alone to talk to the security guard, showed some documents and a letter of approval from the school's administration, and only then did the guard let them pass.

After he returned, the car drove directly into the school, taking the road by the staff apartment buildings at the side gate, to the back of the cafeteria, and stopped by the old school building that was about to be demolished.

"Time to get to work." The young man in the hat got out first, rolling up his sleeves.

Yue Zhishi panicked a little. He recalled a video he'd seen online about capturing and killing stray animals. Without much thought, he grabbed Song Yu's arm. "What are they going to do? Are they going to kill all these cats?"

"No," Song Yu patted the back of his hand gently, then said to the others, "I've already had all of these spayed and neutered."

Feng Yue put on her gloves, a little surprised. "Did you pay for it yourself? That must have cost a lot. And it's unlikely to get so many spayed at once, you must have spent a lot of time on it too."

Another guy added, "If they've all been spayed, that's actually good enough."

Song Yu shook his head, using a key he'd gotten from the logistics office to open the iron-barred gate. "I'm graduating soon."

Yue Zhishi understood the subtext of his words.

"I see. It's okay, you can rest assured leaving it to us." Feng Yue nodded and started to get to work with the others. "I hope today goes smoothly."

"Are you taking them away?" Yue Zhishi asked and started to walk forward. "I'll help you guys."

Song Yu grabbed his wrist. "Don't follow."

Obviously, Yue Zhishi didn't listen to him. "I'm really good with animals, really." He gave many more reasons. Song Yu didn't want to reject Yue Zhishi in front of so many outsiders, as it would make him sad, so he agreed. He found a pair of gloves for Yue Zhishi and had him put them on.

Catching cats is a laborious and time-consuming task. Fortunately, Song Yu was there. The cats were relatively familiar with him and were a little more cooperative.

But none of them expected Yue Zhishi to be so right. He really did have a natural affinity with animals. Perhaps out of curiosity, some of the small cats would unconsciously approach him, and the other staff could easily catch them from behind.

Yue Zhishi was like a natural catnip, an excellent lure.

But whenever he tried to reach out to pet or catch one, Song Yu would stop him.

After struggling for nearly two hours, they finally moved all the stray cats in the area into cages, placing them in the car one by one. The cats that weren't used to it were meowing. Song Yu gave them the food they were used to eating, and they settled down a bit.

There was a particularly small kitten in a large cage with a mother cat. Yue Zhishi crouched down to look at it, and it stared back at Yue Zhishi softly.

"I counted a total of eight, which is basically consistent with your description." Feng Yue handed over a document. "Just sign here, and we'll take them back to give them a bath."

Listening to their conversation, Yue Zhishi learned that Feng Yue worked at the largest local stray animal rescue center, specializing in the transfer and adoption of stray animals. Song Yu had specifically asked them to make this trip.

"Thanks to you, this has been the easiest rescue operation ever. In the past, we'd get covered in bloody scratches, it was so frustrating." Feng Yue looked back at the cats in the cages, then smiled at Song Yu. "They listen to you quite well. It seems you've spent a lot of time on them."

"I didn't do much." Song Yu glanced at the cats, then after a moment of silence, took out a small, palm-sized notebook. "I've written down some of their personalities and habits here. It might be helpful for your follow-up work."

The people from the rescue center thanked him again and wanted to give him a rescue certificate, but Song Yu kept denying that he had done anything and also politely declined their offer of a ride home. He and Yue Zhishi stood at the side gate of Peiya School, watching the rescue vehicle leave.

Watching the cats go, Yue Zhishi couldn't help but observe Song Yu's side profile.

'He really is someone who can't show his emotions.'

'He says he didn't do anything, but he probably started taking care of them back in his first year of high school.'

"Won't you miss them?" Yue Zhishi asked.

Song Yu looked down, opening an app to call a car. "What's there to miss? This is the best choice."

The car they called pulled up in front of them. The two got in. Yue Zhishi vividly described his dream from last night about feeding the cats together, but he left out the ending where he was caught by Orange. Then he complained, "I've never even fed them once, I can't believe last night's dream was a flag."

"Simply feeding stray cats is just an overflow of goodwill." The words Song Yu spoke were a bit cruel, but very realistic. "If you just feed them and ignore everything else, letting them be, it might cause even greater damage to the surrounding ecosystem. For these cats, from birth to death, how many times can you feed them?"

After speaking, he looked out the car window. "Having the chance to get a home is better, right?"

Yue Zhishi thought about what Song Yu had said before: people have to be responsible for their actions, even those born from goodwill.

He began to understand why Song Yu would do these things so quietly. If people found out, the news might spread, and with Song Yu's many admirers, everyone might start coming to feed the cats, making the situation even harder to handle.

Yue Zhishi knew he wasn't thoughtful enough, but he wanted Song Yu's wish to come true more than anyone.

"Those little cats can all be adopted by kind people." He finished with a smile, then added very naively, even thoughtlessly, "Just like me. I can give them my experience points and good luck."

Song Yu didn't like hearing him say that. It even made him a little uncomfortable.

He glanced at Yue Zhishi as if displeased, then frowned and looked ahead, his tone a bit cold. "Your experience has no reference value, and you don't have any luck either."

"Who says?" Yue Zhishi was very dissatisfied. He felt he was very lucky.

Song Yu continued, "They'll be waiting at the adoption center, and they might not get picked. Even if they are chosen, the adopter might not be a responsible family. This kind of waiting is long and random; it really does depend on luck."

These words originally sounded quite sad, but Song Yu's tone changed. "You're different." With a very calm expression, he said something quite absurd. "You suddenly came crashing down."

Yue Zhishi frowned, "Am I a pie?"

Song Yu turned his face to meet his gaze. In his dark pupils, Yue Zhishi saw bright specks of light, and his own face.

"Apples also fall on people."

Song Yu used an obscure and old metaphor, even attempting to use another, more well-known story of a scientist to cover up his selfish feelings.

Yue Zhishi said "oh," his mind filled with nothing but the image of Newton's wavy wig from his portraits, and didn't think about it any further.

No matter what Song Yu said, in his heart, he took it upon himself to transfer his good luck to those stray cats, hoping that every single one of them could have a stable future.

Back at home, Lin Rong asked them where they went. Song Yu said the bookstore, and Yue Zhishi naturally played along. But he had been wearing black clothes when he went out, and they were covered in cat fur, which was very obvious.

"I'm so hot, I'm going to take a shower," Yue Zhishi said and ran upstairs.

Lin Rong showed off the things she'd bought for her son, packing an entire hiking bag for him. It was stuffed to the brim; anyone who didn't know better would think she was in a packing competition.

"Look, these are all very useful. Oh, right, there's also some medicine, you have to take it."

"So much. Am I going to go pioneering?"

"Xiao Yu! How can you be sarcastic about a mother's great love?"

"..."

Yue Zhishi returned to his room. While changing his clothes, he felt his pocket and pulled out a crumpled candy wrapper. It was the wrapper from the lollipop Song Yu had given back to him in the morning.

Before throwing it away, Yue Zhishi casually flipped it over for a look and unintentionally discovered something, frowning.

"Strawberry milk?"

'Strange.'

He had clearly bought the raspberry milk flavor.