A sweet flavor.

By the time Xu You wakes up, it's light out, and she's arching her head out of the boy's tattered lapel, who notices she's awake and touches her head.

After a while, he took her out, put her on the floor, got up and opened the window which was covered with a small plank, he looked out, put the plank back, and went toward the door.

Xu You saw him open the door and said, "Meow--(where are you going)"

When the boy opened the door, he heard the sound, looked back, closed the door again, came over and made a little nest for her with straw, put her in it, probably because he was afraid that she would be cold, and covered her with more straw.

Only after doing so did he get up and leave again.

The door opens and closes, the wind blowing in is cold to the bone, and she sees that the outside is white, it should have snowed heavily last night.

How could a child of this age find food in this snowy day? But if he didn't go looking for it against the wind and snow, he wouldn't be able to survive the hunger.

Xu You goes to the door and pushes the door again with her face, she can't push it with all her strength, this door has to be pulled open on the inside, she looks at her claws and gives the broken wooden door two claws, of course it doesn't work, she can't make the pulling motion.

Xu You had no choice but to turn to the window, tilting her head up to see the height, which, converted to her human scale, was the equivalent of her seeing a two-story tree and having to jump feet first into the branches.

With a little difficulty, Xu You took a few steps back, moved his front and back legs, warmed up well and then started to run, sprint and then leap-

Okay, high jumper Yo Cat is flying at the moment, forming an arc in the air, moving perfectly, about to land to get the win.

Xu You then makes a very painful close contact with the wooden wall with her face, and falls back to the ground, and tries several times over and over again, all falling on her back, making her wonder about cat birth for a while.

Xu You gave up the struggle and stopped making moving pictures and made a static emoticon instead, and waited for several hours, she slept twice more in the middle of the day, and it was very late in the day before the boy returned.

A lot of snow had fallen on him, his face was red and frozen and a little blue, and crushed ice had formed on his slender eyelashes and feathers.

He didn't find any food, and after a day of walking in the mountains, he only found some usable firewood.

The boy piles the wood on one side and sits on the other, scrunched up in a ball. Xu You walks over to him and touches him with his head, noticing that he is shivering uncontrollably and his breath is coming out in white puffs.

The boy rubbed his hands together and picked her up by the back of her erect neck, lifting her to the side and setting her down gently.

Xu You again close over, wanting to warm his hand like yesterday, but he did not give her hand, she noticed that his red frozen green calves and ankles have a lot of scratches on the skin of the red marks, it should be to go to the mountain to get firewood by the branches of the tree scraped.

Xu You wrapped his ankle with his belly, then balled it up, and was lifted to the side again by his neck.

Xu You called out in confusion, not relenting to come over again, her head met a large piece of wet and cold fabric, she was stunned, it turned out that the snow that fell all over him melted and dampened his clothes, and now he is wet and cold, so he won't let her get close to him.

Xu You sighed and racked his brain to think of how a cat and a kid could mix better, he was plastered in wet and cold clothes, it was really easy for him to catch wind-chill, and if it caused another high fever it would be troublesome.

At that moment, there was a rustling in the room, accompanied by the sound of "creaking and clicking", Xu You ears twitched, this familiar feeling ....... When she looked up, she saw a gray and black thing in the corner, arching inside the pile of grass.

The boy reacted faster than she did and had already run over to catch it, the nimble little mouse dodged his siege and scurried around the house, but there was so little in the house and so little to hide in that the boy snatched it up and blocked up the little hole it had crawled in earlier.

This mouse is fast and agile, it's not that easy to catch it. Xu You watched it leap up and down, the boy pounced left and right, she was afraid that he would pull his wound, she pondered whether she should help, although this body is still not very flexible, but she is at least a cat.

As she was thinking about it, the mouse had come running at her, and as she scaled it to cat proportions, the other was many times larger, with dark mouse eyes, long wiggling whiskers, and sharp incisors bared at her.

By the time Xu You reacts, she's already running like hell, and she's still the one being chased.

I used to look at rats and only think they were a little bit gross, but now when I suddenly zoom in and look at them, they are simply dangerous and scary things.

In the small house, a harmonious scene was formed in which the boy chased the mouse, the mouse chased the cat, and the cat circled behind the boy, for at about the same speed, a delicate equilibrium was reached in a short time.

At last it was the boy who picked up a rusty iron bowl, and, predicting the way the rat was going to run through, threw it over to stop it; he caught it in his tracks, and with one hand pinched its back, and the rat's head twisted about, and its four feet stamped vigorously, and it made a gibbering noise.

Xu You is tired of running and collapses to the side to calm his heartbeat.

Seven Eight said languidly, "You're not as good a cat as you are a mouse."

"It's normal that cats can't catch mice, you've seen Cat and Mouse," Xu You said in a serious manner, "Art comes from life."

"......"

Seven Eight didn't talk, Xu You didn't bother to pay attention to it, it would find its own things to do to entertain its body and mind anyway, and sure enough it didn't take long for the theme song of Cat and Mouse to play in her head as Seven Eight took the popcorn and watched it while she ate it.

Xu You : I'd rather be a system than a host.

Before she could catch her breath, the large gray and black rat hung in front of her eyes, and it was still alive and stirring.

Xu You subconsciously took two steps back, and saw the boy squatting in front of her, pinching the back of the mouse and handing it over again, as if signaling her to eat it.

She swallowed nervously and dryly, raising her eyes to stare at the rat, which was bigger than her head, and was wondering what to do when her cat face was stomped on two legs.

Xu You : "......" Hey, you can terrorize me, but you can't humiliate me.

She lifted her cat's paw, ready to give it two ears and claws, but then there was another pain in her head; the mouse had knocked her head with its incisors, like a hoe on dirt, and the pain was excruciating.

Xu You's back legs held up, lifted the front two paws, and gave it a few fiery slaps, stopping only when its legs couldn't hold it up anymore.

It was only then that the boy carried the mouse away, looking at her with a slightly amused and helpless look, his other hand touching the side of her head where she had been knocked.

He picks up the rusty iron bowl, carries the rat out the door, and comes back after a while with the dead rat inside the bowl, and judging by the way its brain is chipped with blood, Xu You guesses it should have been stoned to death.

He pushed the iron bowl in front of her and gestured for her to eat.

Xu You pressed her head against the edge of the iron bowl and pushed it towards him to get him to eat, feeling that it would be really hard for him to hold out if he didn't eat, feeling his body heat and the protruding bones as she nestled into his arms.

The boy probably understood that she did not eat mice, so he picked up some wood from the house, built a small pile, and took two carbon black stones out of a dirty jar; he took one in each hand and rubbed them against each other, and Mars would rub out between the two stones.

Xu You understand, that's probably a flint, but it's usually hard to make fire.

The boy tried for so long that his hands shook, and when his strength ran out, he sat down on the ground and rested for a tea break, and then proceeded to pick up the flint and rub it, and a couple of times he almost succeeded, and the straw smoked, but it just didn't ignite.

Not to say thousands of times, but hundreds of times, if the average person would have been impatient, but Xu You found that he was not, there was no impatience or annoyance between his eyes, not to mention discouragement, there was only calm.

Excellent patience and toughness, like a sharp bamboo to break the ground, Xu You looked at this simple and tattered place, if there is no unusual people comparable to the toughness, he is afraid that he will not live today, right.

Finally, another wisp of smoke rises from the straw, and Xu You's heart is in his throat.

In a few moments the straw flared up into a bright yellow fire, and the boy put it between the cracks in the woodpile so that it would ignite the blocks.

The boy didn't make much of an expression, but Xu You couldn't help but meow happily, and he turned his head to look at her as he resumed building the fire.

Because the wood is a little wet, burning up a lot of black smoke, some choking, Xu You sneezed, the boy got up to open the window a crack.

He returned with some ice in an iron bowl, stood it on the fire to cook it, and took a strip of wood through the mouse and set it over the fire to roast it.

A quarter of an hour later, the water boiled and bubbled white, the boy took two pieces of wood and clamped them on the sides of the iron bowl and put them on the floor, the mouse's fur was roasted off, leaving the blackened charcoal ash on the skin, Mars made a soft rattling sound, and the smell of roasting meat echoed through the house.

The boy picks up the stick of wood with the mouse on it and looks at it, blows on it a few times, and reaches out to Xu You, gesturing to her mouth to take some.

Xu You still shakes his head and makes a push back motion with his paw.

Only then did the boy remove the rat from the wooden bar, take it in both hands, and wolf it down, even chewing hard on the bones and swallowing them.

Within two strokes, the rat was eaten clean.

That little fire was nearly finished, only some reddish Mars left to give off its lingering warmth, and the boy stripped off all his clothes and placed them on a wooden bar and set them up to roast.

Xu You had known that he was starving and skinny, but was still shocked by his naked body, the bones from the back of his neck to his back stood out conspicuously, the ribs on both sides of his waist were clearly defined, as if a body of bones were acting as a scaffolding to hold up a body of skin.

And there were still new and old wounds, large and small, on his body, slashes and burns, several of which were alarming to look at.

A sour heartache choked his throat, and Xu You walked over and rubbed his wrist with his head.

The boy raised his hand to touch her, noting the darkness in his palm, left from scratching the flint just moments before, and he tugged at the garment on the wooden bar, wiping his hand clean and putting it back on to bake before touching the side of her head.

After a while, he turned the garment over and baked it, picked up the iron bowl sitting on one side, drank a little water, tried the temperature just right, and put it in front of Xu You.

Xu You looks down and sees rust settling in the water, and the ash from the burnt wood floating in the air, but it's bubbling with warmth, hot enough to warm the heart.

It was completely dark, and the candle-less hut faded into darkness, leaving only a little reddened Mars to illuminate the boy's face and hands.

Xu You, in this bowl of water, saw the faint light of the fire, but also saw his eyes, and the Mars-like warmth in his eyes, even if it was only a little bit.

She lowered her head and stuck her tongue out to lick and drink the water, peacefully.

The bowl of water had the coppery smell of rust and the bitter taste of ash shavings, but inexplicably, she tasted a sweetness.

An indefinable sweetness.