Selene didn't expect Faye to come so quickly.
It had been less than an hour since she had hung up the phone.
"Come downstairs and pick me up."
Faye's WeChat message was short as usual.
Selene subconsciously looked at the time. It was now 4:30pm. There was still some time before sunset.
It's okay to go out.
When the elevator door opened, standing across from Selene was her sister, Faye.
They are identical twins, and have been extremely similar since they were young, not only in terms of features, but also in terms of aesthetics and preferences.
The same preference for light-colored clothing, the same do not love to wear metal jewelry, the same like to stay black long straight hair, as well as ... the same in the dress themselves this aspect of extra laziness, make-up is not made, at most painted a lipstick.
At this moment, they are like looking in the mirror. In addition to the clothes and shoes worn on the body style is different, others almost exactly the same.
Faye was still leaning against the wall, clicking on her cell phone with one hand, before she sharply slipped it into her pocket as soon as she saw Selene appear and walk in Selene's direction.
She looked Selene up and down twice before saying faintly, "Long time no see."
"... Go up and catch up." Selene discreetly scanned the area, and after noticing that nothing had noticed them, she took Faye's arm and led the person into the elevator.
Faye glanced at the hand that was pulling her and was about to say something, but held her tongue.
The two sides were speechless, and a strange atmosphere filled the elevator.
"Dingdong-"
The nineteenth floor arrived.
Selene opened the door and took another new pair of white slippers from the shoe cabinet and put them in the doorway.
"Come in."
Faye silently took off her shoes, stepped into the door nonchalantly with her slippers, and began to look around.
As she looked, she couldn't help but clench her fists so tightly that she didn't even realize that her nails were sinking into her flesh.
The reason is very simple. With Faye's understanding of Selene, it's very unusual that she would rent a house in this kind of location, and then when she associates it with what she said before, Faye's kind of uneasy premonition becomes stronger and stronger ...
Selene walked towards the kitchen, "Something to drink?"
"No, why don't you explain to me what's going on right now?"
Faye raised her head and stared into Selene's eyes, her tone serious, "Why did you suddenly move? I asked mom and she said she didn't know."
Obviously the same black and white almond eyes. On Selene's face it was gentle and harmless. On Faye's face it was extraordinarily overbearing.
Selene stopped where she was and revealed a stunned look. She was not expecting Faye to go ahead and contact their mom because of her.
It had obviously been a long time since they had contacted each other.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to reconcile with her." Faye skimmed her head slightly.
"..." Selene was silent for two seconds before speaking again, "I don't know how to say it, but I just suddenly got a weird disease."
"A weird disease that turns into a cat when it gets dark."
Faye frowned, "What?"
After seeing Selene's serious look, Faye's eyes filled with disbelief, "Are you so stressed out that you're getting paranoid?"
"I'd like to be paranoid." Selene knew she was basically not going to be believed when she told people the truth.
"You stay here." Selene picked up her cell phone and glanced at it, "It's over an hour away, seeing is believing."
Selene proceeded to walk towards the kitchen, turning her head once more and asking with a light smile, "Can I get you something to drink?"
Faye wanted to say something, but finally managed to hold back only two words.
"Whatever."
She sometimes really hated Selene's dead fish face , which could be very calm no matter what happened.
Time passed quickly.
Faye sipped her hot tea while playing with her cell phone, taking the time to also glance at that Selene who had no idea what she had been busy with since half an hour ago.
Was it to make dinner for her?
Faye put down her phone and walked to the kitchen door.
Outside the glass window was the darkening sky. Inside, on the gas stove was a steamer whirring, and the smell of meat filled the air.
Selene was standing in front of the steamer, not moving.
Faye was a little curious and couldn't help but walk towards the steamer to take a glance and realized that the pot was filled with a bowl of meat paste ...
This stuff was definitely not for human consumption.
"What's this?"
Selene was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't even realize that Faye had come up beside her as she skillfully turned off the heat and lifted the steamer pot off the gas stove and set it aside.
She used anti-scald clips to clip the porcelain plate out of the steamer before turning her head and saying seriously, "My dinner."
Faye was stunned, the corners of her eyes twitching a few times momentarily.
She had kind of realized that her sister was indeed very sick, and was no longer just delusional, but probably had to add a little bit of omnivore or something like that to the mix.
Selene looked at Faye's expression as if she had swallowed a fly, and realized that she still didn't believe her, and thought she was "crazy".
Selene didn't explain, she just waited for the puree to cool down, took the plate to the table and sprinkled it with the nutritional additives she had bought.
When she was done, she sat down in her chair and did nothing else.
Faye's heart sank deeper and deeper as she watched this series of bizarre and erratic behavior from Selene.
Although she very much didn't believe Selene's words, the scene in front of her gave her an illusion ...
Selene was telling the truth.
This was also too ridiculous.
Faye walked up next to Selene, bent down, twisted Selene's head around with both hands, and looked straight at her and said, "Selene, what the hell are you up to?"
Selene, however, just raised her hand and put up a finger in her mouth, "Shhh, don't make noise, we'll be there soon."
Before the words left her mouth, she disappeared into thin air.
Faye couldn't believe her eyes, she subconsciously looked around and realized that she was indeed the only one, and the person who was just talking to her was instantly nowhere to be found.
There was an illusory feeling of being in a dream world, and the illusion was immediately shattered.
"Meow."
A cat's cry suddenly rang in her ears.
A cat? How could there be a cat here?
Faye lowered her head.
There was an extra pile of clothes on the chair where Selene had been sitting, and an orange cat was crouching on top of the pile of clothes.
The orange cat stared at her with its round green eyes, unblinking, but far from the clear, stupid eyes of a normal cat, they carried a creepy familiarity.
Faye's entire being was confused, and it took a moment for her to slow down, staring at the orange cat incredulously and asking, "Selene?"
The orange cat nodded.
Faye looked at the sky speechlessly and muttered, "... I should be crazy too."
"You're not crazy." The AI female voice with a mechanical feel suddenly rang out.
Faye was so startled on the spot that she almost jumped up.
She lowered her head before realizing that it wasn't the cat talking, it was the orange cat typing on the phone with its claws and then going through the text-to-speech conversion function to be able to 'talk'.
"Calm down."
Faye, a little embarrassed, explains, "I thought you were violating the biological structure here, a cat's vocal cords shouldn't be able to speak human."
"Don't worry, it's just a normal cat, no superpowers."
The orange cat held up a talking cell phone, looking very smug.
"Believe it now."
Faye was speechless for a moment before muttering, "Can I not believe it?"
Selene didn't care how mixed Faye's feelings were at the moment, she just briskly hopped up to the table and started enjoying her dinner.
Faye just stood and watched an orange cat huffing and puffing as she ate, half unable to say a word.
Finally, she snapped back to her senses.
"No, how are you still eating?"
The orange cat lifted its head out of the bowl with a look that seemed to say, "Or else."
...
Then, with a sigh, Orange Cat picked up her cell phone again and pushed it in front of Faye with a few clicks.
Faye looked down at her phone and realized it was the page for a takeout app.
Oh well, it was about time she had dinner.
The problem was ... that in this situation now, how could she be in the mood to eat any dinner?
"Do you realize that if you're caught in this state, your life will be completely over!"
Faye didn't hold back and raised her hand to grab Selene's furry front paws and started shaking them, trying to shake the water out of Selene's head.
If Faye's classmates saw her at that moment, they would definitely be surprised, because usually she was always cold. When has she ever been as vivid as this?
Selene broke free from Faye's clutches.
"It's okay, I'll be back at dawn."
"Now you're the only one who knows, no one else knows."
"Just don't tell anyone else."
"You..."
Faye froze in place for a few seconds before she gritted her teeth and said in a tone of voice, "I'll have you arrested and experimented on later."
"Uh, uh, uh."
"No shading."
Faye gave the orange cat on the table a hug and grabbed the kitten by the whiskers, threatening viciously.
With a fluffy touch under her hand, Faye didn't resist reaching out and ravaging the cat's brain a few more times.
Selene was caught off guard by Faye's embrace, the tip of her nose was instantly surrounded by a light fragrance, and for some reason, she always felt her mind was much calmer.
It was as if she had returned to her carefree childhood.
But back then, it was always her hugging a certain crybaby to coax her, and now the crybaby had grown up and knew how to comfort her, quite a contrast.
"Dingdong dingdong--"
The sudden ringing of the doorbell broke the long-lost warm moment between the sisters.
Faye and Selene both turned their heads in the direction of the door.
Selene wrenched herself out of her sister's arms, and in one swift motion, the orange cat's small but agile form appeared on the foyer counter and stood in front of the visual doorbell's display.
Appearing in the display were Mason and Rowan.
Selene immediately turned her head and raised her paw to wave at Faye.
Faye couldn't help but walk over, and she too saw the people in the screen.
"Who are these two? Your friends?"
Selene immediately leapt back into the kitchen, bringing her cell phone back with her, and began typing rapidly.
"Next door neighbor and his cousin."
"You open the door first."
"From now on, you're me."
Faye opened the door with a foggy head.
"Sister Selene!" Mason greeted very enthusiastically when he saw the door finally open.
"I thought you went out, you didn't open the door for a long time."
Faye couldn't figure out how Selene got along with other people, and could only nod haphazardly and respond succinctly, "Just had some business."
Mason looked to the side, and then enthusiastically introduced, "By the way, Selene sis, this is my cousin, you two chatted online."
Faye then turned her head to look at the other strange man, who she had actually noticed earlier.
She had never been a fan of overly good looking men. It reminded her of her dad, a good looking punk snack.
Not to mention, this guy in front of her was green as hell, almost demonic looking, and didn't look like a good guy at first glance.
Faye subconsciously took a step back, and resumed her "iceberg beauty" persona, nodding her head coldly: "Hello."
Rowan also nodded slightly and said politely, "Hello, first time meeting, my name is Rowan."
Mason looked at "Selene" and then at Rowan, countless question marks popped up in his head.
The atmosphere was a little weird for a moment.
Selene witnessed all of this and hated running out and speaking to Faye herself.
But she couldn't speak human language, so she could only "meow" twice, reminding Faye to ask them what they were doing.
Faye came back to her senses when she heard the cat's purr, and then asked, "By the way, what is it that you guys are looking ... for me for?"
Mason blinked, "Oh, we came to invite you to eat hot pot together. I'm not going back to school tomorrow. My brother just said that he would cook hot pot at home to give me a farewell party. I just wanted to ask you if you want to eat together. I just sent you a WeChat and you didn't reply ..."
"I just ..."
Faye was about to decline the invitation on the grounds that she'd had dinner when her stomach rumbled.
It was already six thirty, and she had just been so focused on paying attention to Selene turning into a cat that she hadn't felt hungry at all, only to realize at this point that she was already hungry up to her chest.
It was a little embarrassing.
Just as her cell phone rang with a message tone, Faye hastily took it out.
[Selene: Go eat, I'm usually pretty good with them, it seems weird to say no.]
Faye put down her phone after reading the message and nodded, "Okay, I'll be there later."
"By the way, Selene sis, was that your cat purring just now?" Mason asked curiously.
"Uh-huh."
Mason secretly poked and glanced at his own cousin, and purposely exclaimed exaggeratedly, "Wow, can I see it? I promise to only look and not touch! I've never met a cat in reality."
Faye:...
"Then I'll bring the cat with me when I go to dinner."
Mason froze, "Is that okay? Isn't it afraid of people?"
Faye glanced back, "Then she's definitely not afraid of people."
Mason smiled happily, "Okay, then we'll go deal with the ingredients first, you can just come straight over later."
"Good."
Faye immediately entered the door after dealing with the people.
The door closed with a bang.
"Pfft ..."
Looking at the closed door, Mason couldn't hold back his laughter, and he touched Rowan with his elbow intriguingly, "Brother, did you offend Selene in some way? I see that she seems to dislike you."
But Mason saw that Rowan just looked at him. Not a single point of loss could be seen in his eyes. He said calmly, "Mason, don't just speculate about others."
Mason was stunned for a moment. He had felt that since Sister Selene moved over, his cousin finally had some normal social activities, people were much more cheerful, and everything was going in the right direction.
But... At this time, he looked more like an indifferent bystander, completely unconcerned about other people 's attitudes towards him.
It was clearly no different from before.
The smile on Mason's face faded, and a few moments of worry surfaced in his eyes.
Obviously the two of them were close at hand, but Mason felt that there was an invisible high wall in front of Rowan.
Other people can't get in, and he won't come out.
---