Always Ending Up as an Animal Cub

The protagonist, urged by the villain to circle around the bed a few times, gradually catches on to the situation.
Yun Mingchen is acting so nervous, could it be that he thinks his back leg was broken by the middle-aged man just now?
The protagonist shares his guess with the system.

8102 hesitates for a moment, [Are you sure?]
The protagonist wiggles his hind paw, "Yun Mingchen keeps staring at my right hind paw, and the man earlier grabbed this very paw."
[As expected of a villain, such dark thoughts.]

After carefully observing the villain’s reaction, the protagonist feels that it might not be his dark nature, but rather because he's been through something similar in the past.
Confirming that the little cat is walking normally, Yun Mingchen tosses him back into the nest, and returns to his bed to meditate.
He’s meditating seriously, and the protagonist doesn’t want to disturb him.

The system mentions that it’s shopping season and there are promotions at the mall.
The protagonist, in his current state, cannot do any tasks. Even if the villain were to listen to a little cat, he wouldn’t understand what the cat is meowing about.
Tonight, the protagonist plans to go to the mall and see if there are any items or patches that can make the task easier.

The system goes off to shop, while the protagonist, now a cat, lies in a cardboard box, deep in thought.
After the middle-aged man and his group enter the bedroom, Yun Mingchen shows an obvious sense of resistance.
He becomes irritable, anxious, and has a strong tendency toward aggression.

Though the protagonist knows it’s not ideal to make connections, seeing his reaction, he can’t help but think back to the small dog his family had when he was five or six.
It was a small male dog, very skinny. Due to malnutrition and never having been bathed, it shed a lot and was dirty and smelly.
The family had bought it to guard the house, but no one liked it except for the little protagonist.

The dog was usually tied up in the yard, eating leftover food, drinking watermelon rind water in the summer, and snow water in the winter.
Perhaps it couldn’t stand this life of hunger, exposure to the wind and sun, or perhaps it ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) didn’t want to remain tied up, unable to leave the yard for life.
One day, when there was heavy snow, the little protagonist heard the dog whining in the yard.
He thought the dog had been frozen and secretly opened the chain to try and bring it inside. The dog bit him, broke free, and ran away.

The next morning, the little protagonist was woken by the dog’s painful howls. The escaped dog was caught and beaten in the yard.
The protagonist, still a child who only knew how to play with mud, had no say in the matter and couldn’t stop it.
His parents beat the dog from morning till noon, leaving blood all over the ground. The dog was so beaten it couldn’t get up.

After that, every time the dog saw his parents, it would bark furiously at them. If it hadn’t been tied up, it would’ve bitten them on the spot.
Later, the protagonist went to elementary school in the county and lived with his aunt during the summer.
When he returned home with dog biscuits he had bought at the county pet market, there was already a new dog in the yard.

His parents said they couldn’t tame the old dog, it kept barking and biting people, so they sold it to a dog meat vendor.
The protagonist kept thinking and tilted his head, staring at Yun Mingchen.
The villain’s reaction to the middle-aged man is oddly similar to his family’s dog.

However, the female photographer who entered with them called Yun Mingchen “Young Master Yun” and addressed the middle-aged man as “Uncle Liu.”
From the titles and their attitudes, Uncle Liu doesn’t seem to be a family member of the villain.
He might be Yun Mingchen’s teacher, relative, or just someone favored by Yun’s father, someone of lower rank who doesn’t have the right to hit him.

So why did Yun Mingchen react so strongly? It’s as if he was triggered by something, like an emotional response.
The protagonist, who has read many online novels, knows the common trope: handsome villains either have lofty ideals or a tragic childhood.
In the original text, whenever Yun Mingchen appears, he’s usually provoking the male protagonist, with no sign of any grand ideals.

Considering the situation so far, it seems the root cause of his twisted personality and villainous path is most likely a tragic childhood.
The protagonist feels that by understanding Yun Mingchen better, he could help him unravel his emotional knots. Once he overcomes the shadows of his childhood, he might even become a kind and upright person.
With a general direction in mind, the protagonist crawls out of the cardboard box, ready to explore the villain’s bedroom.

————
Hearing the noise, Yun Mingchen, who had been meditating with his eyes closed, lifted his eyelids for a brief glance.
The little tabby cat, tail raised, was wandering around the room. Soon, it showed interest in the bag on the chair. It sat on the floor, raised its head, and began twisting its body as if gathering strength.

After a brief pause, the little cat leapt up with all its might, jumping five centimeters and slamming into the chair leg.
Although the pain was shielded, the protagonist still felt a little dazed from the impact.
Lying on the floor, holding his head, Yun Mingchen, who had been sitting in silence, suddenly let out a chuckle.

The protagonist turned his head and saw the handsome man with long black hair to his waist, exuding a gentle and refined aura, leaning on one hand, grinning at him.
The moonlight filtered through the window and bathed him in a soft glow, making him seem like a deity from a book, distant and unreachable.
While the protagonist was still marveling at the villain’s good looks, Yun Mingchen’s expression suddenly became very arrogant.

He casually picked up a piece of paper, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it at the protagonist’s feet, laughing mockingly, “What are you staring at, stupid cat? Did you knock your head dumb?”
The protagonist:…
“I remember mother cats give birth to several kittens at once, so why are you alone? Where’s your mom and your siblings? Did they abandon you?”

The protagonist:…
Such a beauty, but how does he have such a mouth?
When the system returned from shopping, the protagonist was sulking in his cat nest.

His originally pure and cute face was now twisted in anger.
Looking at the torn tissue paper and the cardboard box full of scratches, the system asked in surprise, [Little Yu, have you really adapted to your little cat identity?]
The protagonist, lying in his nest with a dazed look in his eyes, muttered, “You mean the scratches on the box? Yun Mingchen said I’m a kitten without a mom, and kept pressing my paws onto the cardboard to make me practice sharpening my claws.”

“I didn’t want to scratch it, but he kept nagging me in my ear. One moment he’d say no one wants me, the next he’d call me a stupid cat. I had no choice, I had to scratch.”
The system, trying hard to suppress its laughter, asked, [What about the name he gave you?]
The protagonist, full of resentment, replied, “After that, he poured some litter in and pressed me into it to teach me how to use the litter. He even gave me a name—‘Dog Thing’ as my full name, ‘Xixi’ as my nickname.”

“Then he squatted next to me, calling me ‘Dog Thing’ over and over, trying to make me remember the name. I swear, I just want to sew his mouth shut.”
The system, a machine unable to understand human emotions, tried hard not to laugh.
At this moment, Yun Mingchen’s face appeared again, looking even more handsome under the moonlight, holding a tooth grinding stick and poking at the little tabby’s head. “Dog Thing? Xixi? Meow.”

The protagonist ignored him. Yun Mingchen looked a little disappointed.
In the original text, the male protagonist sees Yun Mingchen as a genius, someone who should have a bright future, but whose talents were wasted on the wrong things.
The protagonist had originally planned to wait for the villain to fall asleep, then leap onto the bed as a cat and get close to him.

Even though he couldn’t stand the villain’s mouth and personality, he wasn’t going to show it.
As an excellent worker, he could separate personal feelings from his job.
But Yun Mingchen meditated the entire night, showing no signs of sleeping.

He didn’t want the cat on the bed because it was dirty.
With no tasks to do and the system's items still undelivered, the protagonist entered the system’s space and started chatting aimlessly with it.
8102 mentioned Yun Mingchen and asked how they knew each other.

The protagonist said they were childhood friends and had been together for a long time. He couldn’t remember exactly when they first met.
“So why do you think he wants to kill you?”
“I don’t know. We’ve always had a good relationship. Who knows what happened, but he suddenly went crazy and stabbed me like I was his father’s enemy.”

[I saw in your profile that you’re gay. Do you think he’s homophobic and that’s why he attacked you?]
“Bullshit, he’s gay too. He told me before that he’s gay, and he said he’s a bottom, telling me not to be scared or uncomfortable around him.”
The system was like a busybody, asking questions back and forth.

“Hey, hey, Little Yu, don’t you have any feelings for him at all?”
“No. When I was younger, I treated him like a big brother. But by the time I wanted to date, he already had a boyfriend. He’d talk to his boyfriend every night on WeChat, hiding it from me. Even though we were so close, he never introduced me to his boyfriend.”
“It’s strange. I spent every day with him, but I’ve never seen him meet his boyfriend in person. It’s like they never made video calls or voice calls. They only texted. But it’s whatever. He’s always been weird. I’ve gotten used to it.”

After a whole day of chaos, the protagonist was tired and sleepy.
His eyelids grew heavier, and his mind became foggy.
The system, still addicted to gossip, kept asking about his past with Yun Mingchen. The protagonist listened to its repetitive mechanical voice, slowly drifting off to sleep.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed when the system suddenly shook him awake.
“Little Yu! Little Yu, wake up!”
The protagonist groggily opened his eyes and poked his head out of the box.

It was pitch black outside, and it was only 3 AM.
Yun Mingchen was still meditating, but two monstrous, blood-red creatures had appeared in the room.
The creatures resembled skinless dogs and cats, with sharp teeth and a terrible stench. They were now kneeling by the bed, trembling in fear.

Yun Mingchen, no longer his previous childish self, sat cross-legged and coldly looked at the monsters.
“Students found two bodies in the woods. The matter of the monster attacking students is causing a huge stir at school.”
He lightly tapped his knee with his fingers, his voice turning colder, “You trash, can’t even clean up the bodies without my help?”

The protagonist, eavesdropping:…
Why does he call everyone "dog thing"?