Incurable Chapter 6 Under His Roof (1)

Terms of Custody

Liu Qianxiu drove Mu Wan and Zhongfen to a veterinary hospital.

As soon as they arrived, Mu Wan explained what had been happening. The veterinarian took Zhongfen away for an examination, while she and Liu Qianxiu were shown into a waiting room.

The waiting area was divided into small glass cubicles, each furnished with a round table and two chairs.

Through the glass door, they could see the veterinarian examining Zhongfen.

After coming home from filming earlier that evening, Mu Wan had mixed formula and fed all three kittens.

Datou and Ertong had eaten well.

Zhongfen had not.

He drank a little, then vomited everything back up.

Worse, he had clearly lost his energy.

While the other two crawled and tumbled around the cat bed, Zhongfen had buried his head in one corner, leaving only his tiny rear sticking out.

Mu Wan tried feeding him twice more.

Both times, he vomited.

That was when she started to panic.

Newborn kittens without their mother’s milk had weak immune systems. Something that seemed minor could become fatal with frightening speed.

Zhongfen could not keep milk down, and he had looked weaker by the minute.

Mu Wan had changed clothes, wrapped him in a blanket, and hurried out to take him to a veterinary hospital.

That was when she happened to run into Liu Qianxiu.

Since entering the waiting room, the two of them had sat opposite each other across the round table.

Their attention remained fixed on the examination room.

Neither spoke.

Eventually, Mu Wan broke the silence.

“How did you find my home?”

Her voice seemed unusually clear in the quiet room.

Liu Qianxiu turned toward her.

Mu Wan had clasped her hands on the table and was looking straight at him.

When their eyes met, she smiled.

“Patients brought into the emergency department by ambulance have their addresses recorded.”

“Oh.”

Understanding dawned.

Mu Wan lowered her gaze and rubbed her fingertips together.

When she looked up again, something in her expression had changed.

She looked ready to negotiate.

“I asked you at the hospital whether the calico was yours.”

She paused.

“You said she wasn’t.”

The rest did not need to be spoken.

If the mother cat had never belonged to Liu Qianxiu, neither did her kittens.

He had no right to simply take them away.

“Mm.”

Liu Qianxiu understood perfectly.

His expression remained composed.

“But you don’t know how to raise them.”

The words were delivered so lightly that they almost sounded harmless.

They still struck with perfect accuracy.

Mu Wan ran the tip of her tongue lightly over her lower lip.

Then she looked toward the examination room.

The veterinarian was holding Zhongfen while examining him.

His tiny paws kicked wildly.

The glass blocked out every sound, but from the way his little mouth opened, Mu Wan knew he was crying.

“This is my first time raising cats,” she said. “I can learn.”

“They’re too young.”

Liu Qianxiu’s voice remained calm.

“They can die very easily.”

Mu Wan fell silent.

Because he was right.

She had barely slept properly since bringing the kittens home.

Their bed was close to hers, and several times every night she woke just to make sure they were still breathing.

Mu Wan had never thought of herself as particularly softhearted.

She had never owned a pet.

She had never even wanted one.

These three kittens were tiny, fragile, and difficult to keep alive.

They were ordinary domestic cats too, the kind people could find on streets and alleys all over the city.

She could give them to Liu Qianxiu.

Then she could buy herself some beautiful pedigree cat later, one that was older, healthier, and easier to care for.

But it would not be the same.

Datou, Ertong, and Zhongfen had already spent several days with her.

Somehow, without her noticing when it happened, they had slipped into the empty spaces of her life.

She jokingly called herself their stepmother.

In reality, she already felt far closer to an actual mother.

Their own mother had died almost as soon as they were born.

Their dependence on Mu Wan was absolute.

And to her surprise, she liked being needed.

Every morning, their tiny meows woke her.

Those soft, milky cries somehow felt warmer than the first sunlight of the day.

Affection came easily.

Letting go of it did not.

Mu Wan wanted these three.

She tried to think of another solution.

None came.

Eventually, her thoughts drifted away from the kittens and settled on Liu Qianxiu instead.

She still did not understand why he had come all the way to her apartment for them.

He had only fed the calico occasionally.

Why was he so persistent about her kittens?

The calico had certainly never entrusted her babies to him before she died.

And weren’t Daoist practitioners supposed to be detached from worldly affairs, free from attachment and desire?

Mu Wan could not make sense of it.

So she stopped trying.

Her brows drew together slightly.

“What exactly do you want, then?”

Liu Qianxiu met her gaze.

The earlier politeness had disappeared from Mu Wan’s expression.

There was something sharp in her beautiful eyes now.

He did not seem to mind.

His voice remained quiet.

“I’ll take care of them for now.”

Mu Wan said nothing.

“When they’re older, you can take them back.”

He paused.

“If you’re worried, you can come to my home and see them whenever you want.”

The air conditioning hummed softly around them.

Liu Qianxiu sat across the table, his complexion cool and pale, his features refined, his long frame perfectly still.

His expression seemed almost permanently untouched by emotion.

Like an immortal seated somewhere beyond a veil of mist.

Distant.

Silent.

Unreachable.

Mu Wan propped both elbows on the table.

Then she leaned toward him.

She stopped when barely a fist’s width remained between them.

“Doctor Liu.”

Her voice was light.

“Did you know me before all this?”

The question skimmed across the silence like silk brushing water.

Her arms remained braced on the table.

Beneath the dark green halter top, her skin looked almost luminous against the fabric.

Delicate collarbones showed above the neckline.

Her shoulders were straight, the lines of her frame unusually elegant.

Her dark eyes were clear enough to hold his reflection.

She studied him.

Carefully.

Her gaze traced his brows, his eyes, the bridge of his nose, as though she might discover some hidden answer simply by looking long enough.

There was something feline in her curiosity.

Like a young green snake newly emerged from the mountains, coiled on a rock beside still water as it studied the monk sitting opposite it.

Innocent.

Dangerous.

And somehow both at once.

Liu Qianxiu lowered his eyes.

A faint feminine fragrance drifted toward him.

His gaze rested briefly on the subtle flush at the corners of her eyes, then on the moisture-bright darkness of her gaze.

“Why do you ask?”

His voice was low and clear.

Why?

Mu Wan slowly leaned back.

One finger tapped against the tabletop.

Lin Wei had told her that Liu Qianxiu was cold by nature.

Detached.

A man who rarely involved himself in other people’s lives.

Yet since Mu Wan first arrived in the emergency department, he had noticed her birthmark.

He had personally sent her back to the hospital from Qingsong Pavilion.

He had checked on the calico’s kittens.

Called her.

Found her home.

And now he was sitting here with her in a veterinary hospital.

Taken together, none of that felt particularly distant.

At least, not toward her.

But every single thing he had done also had a perfectly reasonable explanation.

He had noticed her birthmark while examining her injury.

He had returned her to the hospital because she was his patient.

He had gone to her apartment because she had refused to hand over the kittens.

Perhaps he did not even want the cats for himself.

Perhaps he simply did not want her to accidentally kill the calico’s babies.

Mu Wan kept all of that to herself.

Instead, she said, “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“I didn’t know you before.”

Liu Qianxiu’s gaze remained steady.

“I only want them to survive.”

Mu Wan slowly withdrew her arms from the table.

The distance between them widened again.

Then she smiled.

Warm.

Bright.

“All right.”

Her voice softened.

“Then thank you.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“If you’re worried,” Liu Qianxiu had said, “you can come to my home and see them whenever you want.”

Mu Wan glanced toward the examination room.

Apparently, the custody arrangement had just come with visitation rights.

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— To be continued in Part 2 —

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