Chapter Text
Zhou Mingrui had just felt a throbbing pain pierce through his skull. With all his strength, he opened his eyes, only to discover that he was no longer in his room!
Zhou felt another sharp stab of pain as he tried to remember how he had arrived in that strange, unfamiliar room.
As the pain subsided, he noticed bloody pieces of flesh covering much of the desk he was leaning on. When he turned around, he saw a full-length mirror that had been shattered by what looked like a gunshot.
When Zhou saw his reflection, he was stunned because: first, it was not his face; second, he had a head wound that was healing at a shocking speed; and third—he had cat ears and a cat tail!!
Zhou Mingrui did not consider himself a cat lover, but upon seeing himself with cat ears, he could not help but think of those internet novels where a cat girl and a dominant alpha wolf boy begin a love story.
Zhou quickly pushed those thoughts away.
As he felt another wave of pain, fragmented memories of the body he now inhabited began flooding into his mind.
He discovered that he was a young man who had just graduated from Khoy University’s History Department, with an older brother, Benson, and a younger sister, Melissa. His name was Klein.
Zhou learned that the three siblings were orphans, and that the one supporting the household was the eldest brother, Benson. Zhou began to understand more about this world: it was said that some humans from early eras had begun to evolve in ways similar to animals. Since they retained reproductive compatibility with humans, hybrids emerged and eventually became known as metahumans.
Zhou felt his head boiling as he analyzed the room more carefully. Although his new body intrigued him, there were far more important matters to focus on.
On the desk lay a revolver with an expensive appearance. Zhou inspected it, and although he had a rough guess about the era he was in, he was still surprised to realize it was a time after—or during—the Industrial Revolution.
He also noticed a crimson glow coming from the moon. Looking at it filled him with terror, as it seemed utterly abnormal to him.
In the end, he had to wash everything in the room. Although it looked like a suicide scene, there was no body anymore, so it was most likely that he would be accused of murdering someone. As he cleaned, he analyzed his current situation.
Klein’s family was going through difficult times and was now stuck in a run-down neighborhood. Although Melissa and Benson were his siblings, they did not have animal traits. Klein was the only one in the family born with this not-so-rare condition.
Zhou found it quite difficult to accept the fact that he now had a tail and cat ears. When he finished cleaning, he sat on the edge of the bunk bed, illuminated by the crimson light. He didn’t need to light the gas lamps in the dilapidated apartment because his vision had also improved.
Benson had convinced the landlord to install plumbing and gas lamps so that his two siblings could focus more on studying without being limited by daylight hours. Klein rarely used them, however, so as not to disturb Benson’s sleep, since they shared a room.
Zhou began touching his (now) ears and tail, noticing that the fur was soft and that he could control them at will. He also noticed that his hearing and eyesight had improved.
After examining his new parts, Zhou Mingrui began to recall what had been different from his routine that night—the thing that had caused his sudden transmigration.
He then remembered the mysterious luck ritual he had performed before going to sleep that night.
Soon, Klein found himself cursing that ritual that had put him in this situation. As his ears drooped and his tail curled around him, Zhou decided that he couldn’t think clearly at the moment and chose to sleep instead, hoping his thoughts would clear.
The next morning, he woke up early and noticed that he instinctively stretched like a cat. Zhou was about to analyze this when he heard footsteps in the next room—Melissa.
Zhou was so tired that he had forgotten he didn’t live alone!!
In a hurry, he grabbed the revolver and hid it in a random desk drawer. When Melissa finally appeared, she looked at him questioningly. At that moment, Zhou gave her a strained smile and showed her a pocket watch that had stopped working. Melissa looked at it and carefully repaired it.
Melissa noticed how her brother’s ears (as on many previous occasions) drooped while he watched her fix the old watch. When she looked up at him and said, “It’s done,” she saw his cat ears and tail perk up in surprise.
“You should take better care of your sleep schedule. I know cats are nocturnal, but you shouldn’t make so much noise or we’ll get another complaint,” Melissa said to Zhou in Klein’s body as she began taking her things out of the wardrobe to go to the bath.
“Sorry about that… did you hear me last night?” Zhou asked. Melissa took a moment to look at him.
“When don’t I?”
Fair point.
Zhou let out a sigh as he watched Melissa head to the building’s communal bathroom.
While Melissa was bathing, Zhou examined the revolver and, with the original Klein’s memories, recalled what had happened before the night when Klein Moretti had apparently taken his own life, along with the diary the original had left behind.
He discovered that Klein, along with Whelch and Naya (two university friends), had been studying an ancient notebook from the Fourth Epoch.
When Melissa returned, they ate a simple, bland, and small breakfast.
“Remember to buy lamb, vegetables, and bread—and don’t eat the meat raw. Even if you’re a cat, you’re still partly human,” Melissa reminded her brother, recalling previous incidents when he had gotten sick from eating raw meat.
Zhou nodded as he saw her off, though his ears revealed that he felt somewhat sad about the way his sister looked at him and treated him like a foolish little child.
Watching her leave, Zhou sighed without realizing it. As his body relaxed, he meditated once more on his situation and finally reached a conclusion: for now, he was Klein.
“I’m sorry, Melissa, but by the time you return, your brother won’t come back.”
As Klein went out, he noticed many people with and without animal traits—dogs, cats, birds, and even some horses and bulls.
During his walk, Klein began to feel that he was being followed. As he quickened his pace, he came across the tent of a traveling circus.
In his rush to escape his pursuer, he entered a random tent. The moment he stepped inside, he heard a female voice behind him.
When he turned around, he saw a mysterious woman. In front of him lay a tarot deck. Apparently, this woman was not a metahuman.
“Since you’re the first of the day, I won’t charge you.”
“So it’s free then?”
The woman looked surprised by the question asked by the metahuman in front of her.
“Of course,” she replied, somewhat confused.
“Well then, please, take the cards…”
...
After a tarot reading that seemed more like a comedy show, it turned out that the woman was actually an animal tamer. Defeated, Klein returned to the Moretti apartment.
Klein remembered very clearly the ritual that had brought him to this mysterious and cursed world.
When he performed that ritual, he heard thousands of maddened murmurs as an infinite grayish mist rose around him…
At the end of that strange gathering, after pretending to be a divine figure, Klein felt overwhelmed by the massive amount of information he received in such a short time—minutes, or perhaps hours?
In the end, he learned that the mysterious half-fish man and the woman who looked half-dragon were important figures in those circles. He learned about Beyonders. He learned that some Beyonder pathways could influence a person’s appearance and race, though if one was born human, they would remain human unless the pathway was particularly strange…
Klein quickly pushed those thoughts aside when he heard footsteps approaching.
Although he hurried to hide the revolver in his decrepit stove, he wasn’t fast enough to finish before the people walking toward his apartment knocked on the door.
When he opened it, he found the officer who usually patrolled his area, along with two other officers.
One of them was a man who appeared to be in his late thirties—a human.
The other was a tall man with somewhat wild black hair and green eyes, like the green of an open field. What caught his attention the most, however, were the two ears and tail behind him.
This man was half dog…