1081 A Curse (1/2)

An ordinary night passed by just like that. But in an unknown place, something extraordinary had happened.

An amazingly tragic war had ended just like that.

Feeling the first rays of sunlight from the east, the few street lights in the patch of grass turned off automatically, saving solar energy to fuel the next night's light.

Zhang Zian moved his sore legs about only to find that his clothes and shoes were all moistened by the morning dew, chilly when the breeze blew past.

The center of the grass patch was a mess, the shrubs and vines all squashed flat and the grass looking like a blade had gone through it, folded and broken. Even the tree trunk as thick as a fat person's thighs was scarred. Two or three stone chairs were smashed to smithereens. If the police saw it, they would definitely arrest Zhang Zian for destruction of public property and want him to pay the damages fully… Thank goodness there had never been police here.

The most central area of the grass patch was an even more spectacular sight. The grasses were all pressed to juice, not a single piece of grass let off from a cruel fate. There was a hole two meters deep in the mud, made when the Holy Cat statue had been struggling for its life.

At the edge of the hole, the strays were all still panting, on the verge of passing out from exhaustion with blades of grass and mud in their fur. No matter their original color, they were all mud cats now, only the light in their eyes showing how excited they were after their victory.

Even Vladimir was so. It swiped at the mud on its face, but that only made it worse.

Old Time Tea brushed off the grass on its clothing, smiling softly. ”Satisfying!”

It had been some time since such a satisfying fight, since there had never been anyone strong enough.

They had won the fight due to their strength in numbers, and it seemed like an unfair win, but faced with a cruel perpetrator, there was no need to consider morality when dealing with them. Old Time Tea wasn't someone so deep in its stubbornness that it couldn't understand that.

”Excuse me, excuse me.”

The hole had been surrounded by strays. Zhang Zian wanted to see how the Holy Cat statue was looking now, but he'd been blocked. With his horrendous skills, he would have been seeking death if he dared go a step closer in the midst of the fight. Old Time Tea still had to spare some energy to protect him. Now that the fight was over, he wanted to take a look.

The strays gave him a look, wiggling to the side to give him a space wide enough to accommodate one foot.

Zhang Zian could only cat-walk then, heel to toe, slowly inching towards the middle.

With great effort he finally reached the hole, looking at the once-arrogant Holy Cat statue lying there quietly and merging together with the broken grass and mud as though it were dead. The only sign that it was alive was the faint red of its eyes.

Its eyes shifted, glaring at Zhang Zian with no bite behind it, using all of its strength to gasp out its last words. ”I will not lose. Never! One day I will be back and give you a taste of your own medicine!”

As it spoke, its eyes filled with hate and insanity, as though it were cursing this world, Zhang Zian, and all the elfins there.

”You're knocking on death's door, and yet you're still so stubborn?” Vladimir chuckled, its paw curled into a fist. ”With my holy sword, I'll chop you into three! See how you seek revenge! Take this—!”

Zhang Zian waved his hand. ”Don't waste your strength. It's already dead.”

The Holy Cat Statue's red eyes gradually faded away with the rest of its life. But its curse still hung around in Zhang Zian and the other elfins' hearts.

”Dead? How boring!” Vladimir said inappropriately, unclenching its fist.

Zhang Zian could tell from its eyes, right before the spark went out, that it had not just been bluffing. It had really hated them with all of its guts. After all these thousands of years, this wasn't the first time it had failed, but it would always lie in wait until its next revival. As long as there were cat torturers in the world, it would never truly die.