The spring in Yunxi City arrived quickly. Not long after the Lantern Festival, girls on the streets gradually start wearing skirts.

Shuo Yu is afraid of the cold, so she still wrapped herself in a long down coat and wears a thick knitted scarf, showing no signs of just returning from a business trip to the south.

After getting off the plane, she called her best friend, Shen Zhiyin, to pick her up. Estimating the distance, it seemed there were still about ten minutes left before she arrived.

Not wanting to continue freezing outside, Shuo Yu turned into a cafe by the street. Her phoenix eyes swept over the price list, and she smiled at the clerk and said "One cup of hot mango pomelo sago, with extra mango, three parts sugar, thank you."

Shuo Yu has one-eighth Russian blood. Her whole demeanor is cold, with thick and dense eyelashes. When she is expressionless, she carries a kind of untouchable sharpness.

But as soon as she speaks, the cold beauty on her face is broken—her voice is soft and lazy, a very gentle and soothing mature-sister tone.

Since she entered, the staff in the cafe felt this lady looked familiar.

But they couldn't remember where they had seen her before.

Seeing her place an order, they quickly snapped out of it and said, "Alright, please pay here. This is your number card. You can take a seat and wait for a bit."

This time, Shuo Yu had been away on a business trip for more than two months, flying across five cities in a row. She didn't even have time to rest during the New Year and had been diligently shooting in the studio.

A couple of days ago, on her birthday, she cried to her manager, finally earning herself a one-month vacation.

Feeling nostalgic about the streets of Yunxi City, Shuo Yu deliberately chose a seat by the window. After sitting down, she thought for a moment and sent a message to Shen Zhiyin, telling her the exact location of the sugar water shop.

Just as she finished sending the message, a strange system notification popped up—

[Cat Island Diary has been installed. Would you like to open it?]

"This game downloads way too slowly." she muttered, then clicked the open button.

Shuo Yu loves playing games, but her work is too busy. She has no time for big games that require logging in daily to complete tasks, so she can only satisfy her cravings with small indie mobile games.

Just now, on the plane, she had been bored and browsing the game center, downloading several mobile games that piqued her interest.

She had to admit, nowadays, mobile games were either misleading in their descriptions, with content completely different from what was advertised, too simplistic and boring within minutes, or so visually ugly they were unbearable for someone who cared about aesthetics.

Shuo Yu ruthlessly installed and uninstalled them one after another.

She thought this journey to find a new game would end in total failure, but unexpectedly, one survivor remained!

The icon of Cat Island Diary was a fluffy little calico cat with watery eyes, incredibly cute. If it were made into a plush toy, she would buy it without hesitation.

Shuo Yu remembered the description saying this was a cat-raising game where players could freely virtually raise cats on an island, unlock new cats, befriend them, collect materials to make clothes for them, and defeat monsters to obtain special interactive cards.

The promotional page showed cats of various colors and breeds, all drawn in a lively and fluffy style, incredibly adorable.

As an unfortunate cat-lover allergic to cat fur, she was instantly sold. She just didn't expect the internet speed to be so slow, only finishing the download now.

['Cat Island Diary' requests network access, location access, storage access. During gameplay, it will request the use of the camera, microphone, calls, messages...]

As soon as the game opened, like other apps, it requested permissions.

Shuo Yu was very familiar with this process and agreed to everything with her eyes closed.

If she didn't agree, she couldn't play. As a collector of trash mobile games, she was well-versed in this procedure.

After granting permissions, the game officially started.

The screen suddenly changed, revealing a simple world map drawn in crayon.

The camera zoomed in, the map shrank, and finally, it locked onto a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. The island's shape resembled a cat's head, with symmetrical cat ears on both sides.

Right now, only the tip of the left ear was illuminated, while the rest remained shrouded in dark gray mist. It seemed like it could be gradually unlocked later.

Clicking on the "West Ear Coast, the scene shifted to a golden beach.

The cat island was much larger than she had expected. Just this small ear tip required several swipes across the screen to fully view.

Shuo Yu felt like no one had ever set foot here before. It was completely different from the beaches she had visited for photo shoots—no annoying plastic trash, no traces of human interference.

She followed the beginner tutorial, learning simple actions like chopping trees, planting, fetching water, and fishing.

Before she could fully enjoy it, her energy bar was depleted.

At the same time, her level increased to Level 2, earning her:

[Cat Coins ×180, Diamonds ×2, Wood ×10, Freshwater ×6, Farmland with Cat Grass ×4, Small Miscellaneous Fish ×2, Beginner's Gift Pack ×1]

Materials and currency were automatically stored in the inventory as numbers, not occupying bag space.

Still eager to continue, Shuo Yu opened the beginner's gift pack, which contained three items:

[Ordinary Canned Cat Food (to be placed): The most basic canned food, with poor palatability—only when extremely hungry would cats touch it.]

[Greasy Fried Chicken Leg (to be placed): A roasted, fragrant, and appetizing fried chicken leg, high in oil and salt—probably not suitable for cats.]

[Unknown Blueprint (to be unlocked): A blueprint with vague patterns. It's unclear if it contains cat items, clothing, buildings, or special tools. Takes 30 minutes to decipher.]

The cat food came in a set of twelve and could only be placed where cat paw prints appeared, to attract cats.

Shuo Yu dragged it from her inventory, and the glowing paw prints on the beach indicated the available spots.

She placed the cat food at four different points, happily imagining little cats coming to eat her food, feeling delighted.

The fried chicken leg was wrapped in a piece of fresh green lettuce but had no designated placement spots. It seemed like it could go anywhere.

After thinking for a moment, Shuo Yu decided, "I'll just put it next to the cat food."

This was the game world, after all—maybe there were special cats with strong stomachs that could eat anything!

A beginner's gift pack couldn't possibly contain useless items!

With the food placed, the only interactive item left was the blueprint.

Shuo Yu tapped the button to speed up the deciphering process, but the system showed that accelerating required 10 diamonds. She didn't have enough, so a purchase screen popped up.

"Spending money is impossible. If I have to spend, at least let me see a cat first!" she mentally declared to the game system and closed the purchase screen.

Thus, she didn't notice the list below, selling items like "Cat Island Touch, Vision, Taste, Smell, Hearing, Cat Affinity, Cat Allergy Medicine," each with a fantastical description.

Hearing a WeChat notification, Shuo Yu switched out of the game and saw a message from Shen Zhiyin: "I'm almost there."

She picked up her mango pomelo sago, which had been mostly ignored while she played, grabbed her suitcase, and walked straight out the door.

During a break, a staff member at the sugar water shop scrolled through Weibo, suddenly remembering—

The lady who ordered the mango pomelo sago today looked just like the skincare model from an ad that had been on the app's opening screen a few days ago!

* * * *

"Xiaoyu, you're finally back! Have you been eating well lately? You look so much thinner!"

Shen Zhiyin was Shuo Yu's childhood best friend. She now worked at an advertising company and, in her free time, was an UP主 (content creator) who posted makeup tutorials and fashion videos online.

Her hair was dyed a deep cyan, with two strands of silver-white highlights framing her ears. Her outfit was bolder than most girls on the street—she was a true hot girl.

Although she was half a head shorter than Shuo Yu's 1.78-meter height, her pink leopard-print plush coat, the sharp choker around her neck, and the studded leather boots on her feet gave her a distinctive, unapproachable aura. Compared to Shuo Yu, she looked even harder to approach.

"You sure have a lot to say. It's freezing—let's hurry home."

Not having seen Shen Zhiyin for so long, Shuo Yu originally wanted to hug her.

But she was worried the studs on Shen Zhiyin's outfit might poke holes in her down jacket. In the end, she withdrew her hand and simply patted the car trunk, signaling her to open it.

Shen Zhiyin helped store Shuo Yu's luggage, then pulled out an unopened cat-print mask and grinned at her ingratiatingly. "Xiaoyu, put this on."

"You got a cat?"

Seeing the mask, Shuo Yu's lips twitched unnaturally. If someone suddenly handed her a mask, it could only mean one thing—this traitor had definitely transported a cat in her car recently!

Traitor!

Shuo Yu had a severe allergy to cat fur. Even the slightest exposure would make her sneeze uncontrollably and break out in red rashes.

They had clearly agreed not to keep cats! This woman had only been out of sight for a few months, and she had already betrayed their pact!

Shen Zhiyin waved her hands frantically. "No, no! It's just that a friend's cat needed a vaccine a couple of days ago, and I gave them a ride."

The two of them lived across the hall from each other, in a two-unit-per-floor apartment.

If Shen Zhiyin got a cat, Shuo Yu wouldn't be able to visit anymore. To preserve their friendship, Shen Zhiyin wouldn't adopt a cat so easily!

Especially since, for her birthday, Shuo Yu had spent nearly ten thousand on an overseas marketplace to buy her a one-of-a-kind vintage piece.

And Shuo Yu's only birthday request in return was that she not get a cat!

They soon arrived at the apartment complex. Since Shuo Yu had been away for months, she didn't plan to invite Shen Zhiyin in.

They agreed to have dinner together that night, then went their separate ways.

Shuo Yu stuffed the clothes from her suitcase into the wardrobe, started the robot vacuum, and went straight to the bathroom for a soak.

Only when she lay in the bathtub, watching the rising steam, did she truly feel that she was home.

After finishing her bath, there were still two hours before she had to meet Shen Zhiyin.

Thinking for a moment, Shuo Yu opened "Cat Island Diary."

As soon as she logged in, the blueprint deciphering page popped up.

The blueprint from the beginner's gift pack had been deciphered—it was a fully enclosed, roofed cat house.

Most of the materials needed for crafting the cat house were already available.

However, a special material called [Sparse Rain Leaves] could only be obtained randomly when chopping trees.

Since she hadn't logged in for a while, her stamina had recovered to two-thirds.

With a flick of her fingers, Shuo Yu switched the game view to the forest and started diligently chopping trees.

* * * *

"Mianmian, that strange noise is back again... I'm scared..."

On the other side of Cat Island, a pure white kitten meowed anxiously. In Ji Mianmian's ears, the meowing was perfectly translated into human speech.

The girl, who had a pair of cat ears on her head, smiled and rubbed the little white kitten. "All fear comes from the unknown! Little White, don't be afraid—we'll go take a look!"

As the most special cat on Cat Island—the only one with a human form—Ji Mianmian had always been the bravest.

She placed Little White and Little Flower, the two little kittens, into a small woven grass backpack, then crouched down and cautiously made her way toward West Ear Coast.

But before she even got halfway there, the sudden rumbling noise vanished.

Staying out after dark would bring bad things.

Just as Ji Mianmian was deciding whether to leave West Ear Coast and return to the sand pit under the reef to keep hiding—

The greedy Little Flower stretched out a soft paw, patting the right side of her neck, and meowed excitedly:

"Mianmian, there's delicious food over there!"