Chapter 122: A Chill Down the Spine

“Officer Song, I want to file a report!” As soon as He Honghong calmed down, this was the first thing she said.

“A report?” Song Changfeng looked at her.

“Yes, he killed my Xueqiu. I want him to pay for it!” He Honghong gritted her teeth, her voice trembling with anger.

“But do you have any evidence that he killed your Xueqiu? Or even proof that the cat that was killed was yours?” Song Changfeng was glad she chose to go through legal channels, but the police couldn’t act on emotion alone. Everything had to be backed by evidence. Without it, they’d just be wasting their time.

“I…” He Honghong faltered, unable to respond. Then suddenly, her eyes lit up and she pointed toward the surveillance camera at the gate. “We can check the footage. The camera must’ve caught Xueqiu coming in, and when he threw her out, that should be on there too.”

“Let’s not even get into whether the surveillance is still functioning. Just think about how many people pass through that gate every day. Sorting through that footage would be incredibly difficult. Even if you file a report, without direct evidence proving he did it, it won’t help.” Last time, during that murder case, they had nearly worked themselves to death combing through the nearby surveillance footage. That was a matter of life and death, so of course they gave it everything they had. But a cat…

He Honghong pressed her lips together and said nothing for a long time. In fact, the day the cat went missing, she had already gone to the police to report it. They had taken her seriously at first and even helped her check the surveillance around the area, but when nothing turned up, the case was quietly dropped. She understood. So many people filed reports every day, and the police already had their hands full with human-related cases. How could they spare the time for a cat?

He Honghong and Kong Xiaoxiao left in disappointment. Aofeng watched their retreating figures until they disappeared from view, his eyes burning with fury. Evidence, huh? He didn’t believe that psycho who tortured and killed so many kittens could have left behind nothing at all.

Aofeng went to find Da Ju and gave him a few careful instructions. Da Ju nodded and said he’d take care of it soon. By evening, Da Ju came back with the results of his investigation.

After hearing it, Aofeng felt a bit helpless. That afternoon, he had asked Da Ju to send a nimble little cat into that psycho’s house to see if it could find anything. The kitten did manage to get inside, but found nothing unusual in the rest of the house—except for one tightly locked door. No matter what it tried, it couldn’t get through.

Aofeng figured that must be where the guy kept his tools and whatever else he used to torture cats. But so what if they knew? They couldn’t just break into someone’s home and search it.

Were they really supposed to just watch him keep doing evil with no way to stop him? Aofeng couldn’t accept that. If that was the case, then they’d just have to use animal methods to force him to slip up.

…

Lately, Wang Bo had been feeling like someone was following him. But every time he turned around, there was no one there. And yet, the moment he looked away, he’d hear faint rustling behind him. After a while, it started to really get under his skin.

Tonight was no different. As soon as he left campus, he felt a pair of eyes glued to his back. That gaze was cold and clinging, like a bone-deep infection, making his scalp tingle. When he sped up, the thing behind him sped up too. When he slowed down, it slowed with him. He suddenly spun around, but all he saw were a few people chatting casually—no one was watching him.

He walked a bit farther, but finally couldn’t take it anymore. He spun around and shouted into the darkness, “Come out! Get the hell out here! Who the hell are you?!” His voice was hoarse and hysterical, but no stalker emerged. Instead, the people nearby frowned and backed away—they thought he was crazy.

Wang Bo’s chest heaved, his eyes bloodshot, breath ragged. He really did look a bit unhinged. His gaze swept over the bushes lining the road. He was sure the thing following him was hiding in there.

“Rustle—” A soft noise came from the bushes, like something darting through the leaves. Then came a gentle meow, the voice high and tender, clearly a kitten.

Wang Bo would never forget that sound. If he did, it would be an insult to the arm that got bitten and the multiple rabies shots he had to get. So it was a cat that had been messing with him all along. A cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. If it were anything else, maybe he’d be scared. But a cat? He’d killed more of those than he could count. What was there to fear? With old grudges and new rage boiling over, Wang Bo grabbed his backpack and charged forward, swinging it wildly. Every blow came down with full force, as if he meant to beat the cat into a bloody pulp.

By the time the security guard arrived at the scene, this was what he saw: broken branches and scattered leaves littered the ground, and the man people suspected to be insane was still wildly smashing the bushes with whatever he had in his hands.

“Stop right there!” the guard shouted, pulling out the stun baton from his belt and aiming it at him. “Put that down! If you don’t stop now, don’t blame me for what happens next!”

Wang Bo turned to look at him, the ferocity in his eyes gradually fading. Only then did he realize what he had done. Staring at the mess of broken shrubs, Wang Bo lowered his backpack, but his mind was still on the tabby cat that had vanished without a trace.

For maliciously damaging the greenery in the community, Wang Bo was fined two hundred yuan. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The real blow came when a video of him swinging his backpack and furiously smashing the bushes was posted in the Fu’an Community residents’ group chat¹. Everyone who lived there saw it. His crazed expression, teeth clenched in rage, unsettled many of the residents, who began to genuinely question his mental state.

Every day as he walked through the neighborhood, Wang Bo felt people pointing and whispering about him. His expression grew darker by the day, and the fire in his heart burned hotter and hotter. He was desperate to vent his emotions, but those damn animals wouldn’t come near him anymore! No matter how much cat food he scattered on the ground, not a single cat would approach. Occasionally, a kitten would try to come closer, but the moment another cat meowed, it would bolt like he was some kind of monster. Wang Bo was furious, but not wanting to draw attention, he didn’t dare make a big scene trying to catch them. For now, he had no choice but to let them go.

But that day, Wang Bo logged into one of his accounts and discovered that a cat abuse video he had casually uploaded before had been featured. Tons of people had watched it, liked it, and left comments. The tips he’d received had already added up to several hundred yuan. Overjoyed, Wang Bo felt like his luck had finally turned after a string of misfortunes.

He opened the comments and read through the messages from like-minded viewers, things like “So satisfying” and “That was awesome.” It filled him with a deep sense of gratification. As he scrolled further, one particular comment caught his eye.

A user named “Damn Cat Lovers” had written: “Your edited video looks great. Have you thought about taking on bounty tasks?”

Bounty tasks?

Wang Bo was intrigued. He’d had such a rough few days that he hadn’t been online at all, so he had no idea the site had launched a new bounty task feature. Following the user’s instructions, he found the bounty task section and saw that many tasks had already been posted, with quite a few marked as completed.

He randomly clicked on one and saw that the task required skinning a puppy alive, ideally leaving it barely breathing afterward. The completed video was posted below. Wang Bo clicked to watch it, and his hands trembled with excitement. That task was worth five hundred yuan, and once accepted, the money would be transferred directly to his account.

Eagerly, he clicked through several bounty tasks, comparing their payouts and difficulty levels. Eventually, he chose one. It was a two-thousand-yuan task requiring the torture and killing of a pet cat, with the added demand of throwing the mutilated body back in front of its owner and capturing the owner’s devastated reaction on video.

To Wang Bo, this wasn’t difficult. Compared to strays, pet cats were far easier to fool. In the past, he’d only killed them when the opportunity arose, avoiding deliberate targeting to stay out of trouble. But now those damn strays refused to come near him, and this task had come along at just the right time. It was the perfect distraction.

That very day, Wang Bo put on a hat and a mask and headed out. He exited through the side gate of the community and walked to a nearby park. From his observations, pet owners often brought their cats and dogs here for walks in the evenings. He needed to scout the area first and decide which one to target.

As he watched the pet cats, a feline perched on a nearby tree was also watching him. From the moment he stepped outside, his every move had been under their surveillance.

Soon, his suspicious behavior was reported by the lookout cat to Da Ju, who then passed the message on to Aofeng.

Aofeng pondered for a moment and said, “Keep watching him. Pay attention to which cats he’s focusing on. If he’s about to make a move, alert them immediately. We can’t let him succeed.” They couldn’t risk innocent kittens just for the sake of gathering evidence.

In truth, Aofeng was being overly cautious. The park now was no longer what it used to be. Ever since He Honghong found out Xueqiu was gone and couldn’t track down the abuser to take revenge, she had started coming to the park on her own initiative. Using her own story as a warning, she would talk to pet owners, urging them to always keep their cats and dogs on a leash and never let them out of their sight.

She was a literature major, and with her good looks and sincere tone, how could the pet owners in the park not be persuaded? As a result, Wang Bo staked out the area for two days but didn’t find a single cat alone and easy to snatch.

Cursing his bad luck under his breath, Wang Bo had no choice but to search farther afield. But after wandering for an entire day, he still couldn’t find a suitable target.

When Da Ju told Aofeng about the situation, Aofeng also found it strange. Why did that guy seem to be deliberately looking for something? If it was just about venting his emotions, wouldn’t the choice be random? But the way he acted, it was as if he absolutely had to catch a pet cat.

Aofeng couldn’t figure it out, but he knew one thing for sure—whatever that man was planning, he couldn’t be allowed to succeed.

Soon, Wang Bo realized that his mission was not going smoothly at all. Every time he spotted a pet cat that looked like an easy target, a few loud, piercing cat cries would ring out nearby, as if sounding an alarm. Any pet cat that heard those cries would instantly puff up and bolt from the scene.

The first couple of times, he thought it was just bad luck. But after it kept happening, he finally understood—this cat was doing it on purpose! It had been tailing him all along, and now it was constantly ruining his plans. Wang Bo had always known that cats could hold grudges, but he hadn’t expected that tabby he almost caught to be so vengeful—and so clever.

Even after he had completely calmed down, thinking back on what happened that night still felt surreal. He remembered hearing a cat’s agonized howl, which was what had drawn him in. But when he got there, the cat hadn’t been caught at all—it had even moved the trap. Most importantly, besides the tabby cat, there had been another, much larger cat that had kicked him in the back with surprising force.

Are there really cats that big in the world? But if it wasn’t a cat, then what was it? And since when did cats know how to use tactics? Thinking about all the strange things that had happened recently, Wang Bo couldn’t help but feel a chill run down his spine.

Translator’s Notes