Cultivating Immortality by Raising a Cat (GL) Chapter 3

Lin Mianmian, who had already possessed a blade of grass for more than a hundred years, never imagined there would still be a day when she returned to a human body.
Broad daylight. Someone else’s yard. A body without a single thread of clothing.
A cool breeze blew past. Lin Mianmian, who had just woken from her faint, had no time to marvel at the strange experience of changing from grass into a person. By instinct, she reached out and covered the important parts of her body.
In the old cartoons, when ginseng spirits turned into ginseng children, they at least had a little bellyband! When it was her turn, she did not even get a scrap of cloth!
At the most awkward moment of her grassy life – no, her human life – Lin Mianmian hesitated for less than a second before hurrying from the corner of the wall to the rope where clothes were hung to dry. She grabbed Madam Cui’s clothes from the line.
Maybe she had been grass for too long and had not walked in ages. Even those few steps made Lin Mianmian stagger. But compared with walking unsteadily, putting on clothes was obviously much more urgent.
Lin Mianmian could not bring herself to steal. But compared with waiting naked for the owners to return so she could borrow clothes, of course she would rather put something on first and wait for them to come back. At worst, she could stay and work for a while. Lin Mianmian had deliberately aimed for the oldest set of Madam Cui’s clothes hanging on the rope. That way, it would be easier to repay later.
In this awkward situation, it was the best plan Lin Mianmian could think of.
The cotton clothes were thin and old, but they felt very soft in her hand. Of course, that was not the point.
The point was, why was the hand grabbing the clothes so small?
Lin Mianmian quickly lowered her head to look at herself. Mm… her skin was quite fair. But that flat little chest, that small body, those small feet…
So she had become a little girl?
In an instant, the difficulty of surviving in this strange era seemed to double. Lin Mianmian silently let go of Madam Cui’s clothes and pressed her trembling little hand onto Tian Xiaoyu’s clothes instead.
There was nothing to choose from among Tian Xiaoyu’s clothes. There was only one set on the rope, made of coarse cloth and rough to the touch. No matter what, this set should be cheaper than Madam Cui’s clothes and easier to repay, Lin Mianmian comforted herself.
The Tian family was an ordinary household, and their clothes were made for work. Lin Mianmian’s seven years of watching had not been for nothing. She soon put on Tian Xiaoyu’s still-slightly-damp clothes. From the clothes being a little large on her, Lin Mianmian guessed that her current body might be even younger than fourteen-year-old Tian Xiaoyu.
After becoming human, Lin Mianmian’s hearing was still very good. Even so, while dressing she was tense and afraid, her small hands shaking wildly. She did not know whether it counted as luck or misfortune. From the time she changed into a person and fainted naked in the yard until the time she woke and dressed, no one entered the yard.
Standing in the familiar yet unfamiliar yard, Lin Mianmian felt lost. When the Tian family came back, how was she supposed to explain herself?
The one who felt just as lost was Tian Xiaoyu, who had been sent home by her parents to change clothes.
From the time she was very young, Tian Xiaoyu had known that once every ten years, Yingxian City welcomed immortals. When the immortals arrived, her family would have her try to enter an immortal sect. Tian Xiaoyu had always felt that immortals were very powerful, perhaps even more powerful than the fortune-teller who had read her parents’ fate years ago. But compared with leaving home to cultivate, Tian Xiaoyu wanted more to marry the Qiao family’s young man after she reached marriageable age and live as an ordinary couple.
Her parents’ orders were hard to disobey, so Tian Xiaoyu only hoped she would fail, just like the Qiao family’s young man had failed ten years ago. Because of that, when the immortals entered the city earlier and Tian Dali and Madam Cui urged her to hurry home and change into new clothes, Tian Xiaoyu dragged her feet and was not very cooperative. But she never imagined that, in anger, Tian Dali would let slip that if the immortals did not choose her, they would marry her to the son of Fengji’s shopkeeper.
Tian Xiaoyu felt as if lightning had struck her. In a daze, she did not even know how she made it home.
The wooden gate creaked open, and the noise outside squeezed through the open doorway.
Lin Mianmian had already recognized Tian Xiaoyu’s footsteps. She clenched the corner of her borrowed clothes, feeling that all the explanations she had prepared were unreliable. She also felt the awkward shame of someone caught doing a bad thing on the spot. Her hands and feet, which had finally started moving properly, became stiff and cramped again.
But Lin Mianmian was shocked. Tian Xiaoyu opened the yard gate, walked in, turned back to close it, and went straight toward the house. It was as if she had not seen a person standing in the yard wearing her clothes at all.
Could it be… that I am invisible? Lin Mianmian lowered her head to look at her hands. They were fair, but not transparent. Besides, even if the person was transparent, the clothes were not.
“Ahem…” Lin Mianmian had already decided she would not steal this set of clothes, so she had no choice but to call out to the owner.
Tian Xiaoyu, who had nearly reached the door of the house, turned back blankly at the sound. Only then did she see that at some point a little girl had appeared in the yard. She was so frightened that she covered her mouth and stepped back several times.
“I… I’m not a bad person. I just borrowed some clothes. I don’t know how much this outfit costs. I have no money now, but can I pay you back later? Or I can stay and work for a few days…” Lin Mianmian quickly spread her hands to show that she was harmless.
How much danger could a little girl have? Tian Xiaoyu had only been startled because she had not expected another person to suddenly appear in the yard without her noticing. Now that Lin Mianmian spoke, her voice was soft and gentle, somehow making people relax.
Tian Xiaoyu patted her chest and looked carefully. The little girl who had spoken had fair skin, fine brows and eyes, delicate features arranged just right, and long black hair falling to her waist. At a glance, she did not look like a daughter of an ordinary family. As for the clothes on her… all right, they really were Tian Xiaoyu’s. But those coarse clothes looked as if they did not suit the little girl at all.
“They are old clothes. They are not worth much. Just wear them,” Tian Xiaoyu said. Then she looked at Lin Mianmian’s tender bare feet standing directly on the ground. She turned and picked up a pair of shoes from beside the house threshold, then placed them by Lin Mianmian’s feet. “Wear these too.”
Lin Mianmian had spent seven years in this yard, after all. With one glance, she knew these were shoes Tian Xiaoyu had made not long ago. They were much newer than the pair Tian Xiaoyu currently wore.
Seeing the little girl hesitate, Tian Xiaoyu softened her voice. “Wear them. I don’t want money.”
Stepping barefoot on the ground really did hurt.
Lin Mianmian pursed her lips and delayed for a moment, but in the end she put on the shoes. Owing clothes was owing. Owing an extra pair of shoes was still owing.
Speaking of which, Lin Mianmian had more or less watched Tian Xiaoyu grow up, and she roughly knew what kind of person Tian Xiaoyu was. These words and actions were indeed things Tian Xiaoyu would say and do. But why did Tian Xiaoyu ask nothing? Could it be… that she had seen through Lin Mianmian and knew she was a grass spirit? Lin Mianmian could not help smiling at the thought. That was completely impossible.
Tian Xiaoyu watched the little girl frown in conflict like an adult for a long time before putting on the shoes, and found it rather interesting.
To be fair, Tian Xiaoyu was not without curiosity. But the old woman who sold sugar dumplings on the next street loved pulling people aside to tell stories about immortals. When Tian Xiaoyu went to buy sugar dumplings for Tian Jinbao, she was often caught by her.
Immortals only stayed in Yingxian City for three days every ten years. Although the old woman loved talking about them, she truly only knew a little. So what she liked talking about most were the people who came to Yingxian City hoping to enter the immortals’ sects.
Whenever the immortals were about to arrive, many, many people came to Yingxian City from near and far. The journey was long, and the hardships on the road went without saying. Some people met accidents on the way, arrived late, and missed the immortals. Those were the truly pitiful ones. There had been families who set out a year early from their hometown with all the children of the clan, only to meet a flood and miss the immortals by three days, weeping at the city gate. There had also been groups who crossed mountains and rivers, met bandits and horse thieves, and failed to bring everyone in the caravan alive to Yingxian City.
As for a little girl like the one before her, who seemed to come from a wealthy family yet had to borrow even a set of clothes, perhaps she was the kind the old woman spoke of most often: someone who came from very far away, spent all her family wealth, and sought entry into an immortal sect.
Tian Xiaoyu thought of how her own family pushed her toward the immortal sect and even prepared a new outfit for her. This little girl, meanwhile… her old clothes were so worn that she needed to borrow Tian Xiaoyu’s. Who knew how ragged her original clothes had been? Perhaps she had suffered countless hardships on the way here. With that thought, Tian Xiaoyu felt even more sympathy for her. But the old woman had also said that some questions, once asked, only poked people’s scars.
If it were before, Tian Xiaoyu would have kept the little girl and seen whether she could help more. But today, Tian Dali’s words and Madam Cui’s silence had made Tian Xiaoyu suddenly understand what place she truly held in this family. Parents who would calculate how much money they could exchange for their own daughter could no longer be called reliable in Tian Xiaoyu’s heart.
Right now, Tian Xiaoyu herself could barely protect herself. Her heart was a mess. For this little girl who had suddenly appeared in the yard, she could only offer a small bit of help.
Perhaps because her thoughts had turned too much, Tian Xiaoyu did not notice the biggest hole in her own logic. If this little girl had come to borrow clothes because her clothes were too ragged, where were those ragged clothes? And those tender white feet did not look like they belonged to someone who had walked a long way without shoes.
No matter what, Tian Xiaoyu never noticed the flaw in her imagination. Lin Mianmian finally walked out of the yard where she had stayed for seven years.
The coarse clothes were washed a little pale. The shoes were seventy or eighty percent new, but a bit loose. Lin Mianmian was grateful that Tian Xiaoyu had not questioned her. Thinking that as long as the green hills remained, there would be a chance to repay her later, she left very decisively.
But once she truly reached the street, Lin Mianmian felt lost again.
A strange time and space. No relatives or friends in sight. Not a single possession to her name. The borrowed clothes and shoes on her body, plus a steamed bun and ten copper coins that Tian Xiaoyu had forced into her arms before she left, were all Lin Mianmian owned.
Why had she come here? Where should she go? Lin Mianmian leaned against the wall in an alley by the street and looked at the bustling crowd passing the alley mouth. Her heart felt cold, just like the brick and stone behind her.
When a person was too cold, she wanted something warm to heat herself up.
Lin Mianmian took the steamed bun from her arms. It was palm-sized, slightly yellow, and a little flattened from being pressed against her. It looked like an oval cheesecake from a bakery before the apocalypse.
Mm… it only looked like one.
The three-flour steamed bun was made from mung bean flour, corn flour, and wheat flour mixed together. It was the staple food the Tian family often ate. Such a small one had been Tian Xiaoyu’s usual meal.
Now that Lin Mianmian had taken this bun, Tian Xiaoyu would surely go hungry for one meal today. Naturally, Lin Mianmian had not wanted to take it. But first, Tian Xiaoyu had forced it on her. Second… Lin Mianmian was truly so hungry.
After Lin Mianmian put on clothes and waited for the Tian family to return, she moved her arms and legs and slowly regained the balance of being human. At the very least, simple movements were no longer as stumbling as before. But once balance returned, the rest of her body’s feelings returned too.
For example… appetite.
What sort of feeling was it? Hunger. At first, she only felt her belly empty, as if her whole body floated three parts off the ground, leaving her uneasy. Then her stomach seemed to stick to her back, and her belly faintly hurt. After that came the urge to eat, clawing at her heart. She could not control herself from thinking of foods she had eaten before: sweet-and-sour mandarin fish, sizzling eel paste, lotus root in osmanthus syrup, honey chicken wings, pineapple buns with butter, taro balls in sweet soup, red bean rice balls… the sweet foods lined up first in her mind. In the end, she could no longer tell whether it was her body that was hungry or her soul.
In that state, Lin Mianmian, who had waited for Tian Xiaoyu to return, truly had no strength to push that bun, filled with the fragrance of grain, back out of her arms.
From the alley, looking toward the street, the lively crowd was so strange and distant. It seemed that only the warm bun in her hand was something real she could hold.
She bit down. Nearly half the bun entered Lin Mianmian’s mouth in one bite. Unlike the soft, fluffy steamed buns from before the apocalypse, this three-flour bun used as a staple was dense and chewy, even a little hard on the teeth. But it was so fragrant. Truly so fragrant.
Lin Mianmian could no longer remember how long it had been since she had eaten normal food like this. Ever since the apocalypse came and plants mutated, she had not tasted this long-missed flavor. To say nothing of the hundred-plus years she had spent as grass.
Delicious. So delicious. Lin Mianmian could taste that there was still some flour in the bun that had not fully risen and steamed through, but she still felt that this was simply a delicacy of the human world.
Then again, after being hungry for over a hundred years, what food would not be a delicacy?
The bun was too small. It only lasted Lin Mianmian three bites.
After swallowing the last bite, Lin Mianmian felt not even the slightest easing of her hunger. She touched the copper coins Tian Xiaoyu had given her. At last, amid her confusion, she found a path forward.
No matter how hard the future might be, at this moment, she only wanted… another steamed bun.
There was a saying: plans could not keep up with changes.
Lin Mianmian, who wanted to buy a steamed bun, had not walked far out of the alley before a familiar fragrance drew her away.
A familiar fragrance. The familiar Qiao family’s young man. And something she had smelled countless times but was seeing for the first time: braised meat noodles.
Just as Lin Mianmian took root in front of the Qiao family’s braised meat noodle shop and could no longer move, racking her brain for a way to eat a fifteen-coin bowl of noodles with only ten coins, somewhere in the city center, a young woman holding a rabbit suddenly frowned. She looked through the distance toward Lin Mianmian’s direction and murmured two words.
“So fragrant.”