Qiao Zhi hurriedly said, "I don't look down on cats who don't drink cat wine! I only wanted..."
Lulu shook her head with a sigh. "You only think of yourself. Have you ever truly considered what we think?"
Baimi added, "You just think you can use cat wine to make us work for you, don't you?"
Lulu said indignantly, "Are cats who don't work just supposed to die? Those orange cats never work at all!"
Qiao Zhi rolled his eyes. "You're not even an orange cat."
An orange cat spoke up angrily, "So you look down on orange cats?"
Qiao Zhi said helplessly, "I don't! Aren't I an orange cat myself..."
Baimi shouted, "Then are you measuring a cat's worth by whether it works or not?"
Qiao Zhi began grooming his fur to calm himself down. "That isn't what I mean. Aside from working ability, a cat's inner moral character is naturally very important as well."
Lulu scoffed, "Moral character is important? With times as hard as they are, do you intend to support a bunch of orange cats that have good morals but never do any work?"
The orange cat beside them protested indignantly, "You're discriminating against orange cats! You're judging us by our fur color!"
Lulu turned to the surrounding cat monsters and said, "Am I really the only cat here who thinks orange cats are all gluttonous and lazy?"
The orange cat retorted angrily, "How many orange cats have you even seen? Have you counted how many orange cats don't work? You're just spouting nonsense!"
"Who could count that?" Lulu said with an innocent, helpless look. "I'm only raising a question. Don't be so argumentative, all right? Why are you orange cats so fond of picking fights?"
Watching the cat monsters bicker among themselves, Chu Qiguang asked Qiao Zhi at his side, "Are cat monsters... all like this?"
Seeing Chu Qiguang's brow furrow deeper and deeper, Qiao Zhi said rather sheepishly, "Not all of them. See, aren't I quite sensible?"
Under Chu Qiguang's repeated questioning, Qiao Zhi was finally forced to admit a hard truth...
Qiao Zhi sighed inwardly: 'Most cat monsters are trolls and contrarians... There's endless discrimination over fur color among them... On top of that, they generally view hard work as a disgrace... and their tempers are one more obstinate than the next...'
Qiao Zhi added, "Besides, cats... are terribly defiant. The more you want them to do something, the more they refuse to do it."
Chu Qiguang looked back at Qiao Zhi, a meaningful glint in his eyes. "Then how were you trained to be so capable?"
'Wasn't that your doing?!' The question sent a shudder through Qiao Zhi's heart as painful memories flooded back, memories so agonizing to recall that his fur began shedding in distress.
Watching Qiao Zhi's reaction, Chu Qiguang patted his head with a smile, running his hand from the cat's crown all the way down its spine. He said leisurely, "I think we should use the same method used to train you on them."
Qiao Zhi felt goosebumps prickle across his entire body. He struggled inwardly: 'Isn't that just using that damned ultimate cat-training PUA you taught me...'
Seeming to sense Qiao Zhi's inner conflict, Chu Qiguang stroked the cat as he said, "Relax, Master Qiao. I owe you a debt of gratitude for recognizing my worth. My little sister is young and simple-minded, and I have neither a wife nor any heirs. The empire I conquer in the future will naturally be shared with you.
"These cat monsters will be your future foundation. Won't you put a little more care into them?"
'That's true!' Qiao Zhi's eyes lit up. He thought to himself, 'Chu Qiguang will have more and more subordinates in the future. I need to lead the Cat Faction to secure our place!'
Chu Qiguang guided him, asking, "What is the first step of the training?"
"Beat them!" Qiao Zhi swung his paw fiercely, brimming with vigor. "Whoever defies us gets a beating!"
Chu Qiguang nodded and smiled in satisfaction. "Whatever you say."
And so pandemonium broke loose as cats flew and leaped, accompanied by continuous wails of agony and clouds of flying fur.
Even the strongest among these cat monsters, Baimi and Lulu, possessed combat power only on par with the first stage of martial arts. Faced with Qiao Zhi's pounce, they were completely powerless to resist.
A paw struck Lulu squarely on the head, making her scream in pain: "Traitor to catkind! Sellout! None of you orange cats are any good! Aaargh..."
Pinned beneath Qiao Zhi, Baimi took punch after punch to the head, yet still shouted defiance: "I won't submit even if you beat me to death!"
Qiao Zhi thought to himself, 'You foolish brat, there's no reasoning with you. I'm doing this for the future of catkind!' With that, he chomped down and tore a clump of fur right off Baimi's head.
'I'm bald?!' Feeling the cold sensation atop his head, Baimi slumped to the ground in an instant, the light fading from his eyes. 'My proud snow-white fur... gone just like that...'
Beside him, Lulu was just about to burst out laughing when she felt a sharp pain followed by a cold draft—and went bald as well.
Chu Qiguang rubbed his chin as he watched from the side. Qiao Zhi grabbed the cat monsters one by one, violently forcing them into rows. Yet seeing them slouching and swaying haphazardly, lacking any semblance of discipline, one could tell how thoroughly defiant they remained.
Chu Qiguang did not intervene in Qiao Zhi's training. He merely stood up and began gathering all the cat monsters' food.
Seeing this, Baimi yelled, "What are you doing?"
Chu Qiguang said, "My name is Chu Qiguang. Starting today, there is no more free food. If you want food, you must complete each day's training."
Seeing the cat monsters squawk and argue back, Chu Qiguang did not bother answering. He simply had Qiao Zhi beat them until each and every one shut its mouth.
He methodically searched under the courtyard's paving stones, inside the flower beds, beneath the eaves, inside the rooms, and everywhere else. Every bit of food, cat leaf, and cat wine hidden by the cat monsters was rooted out and confiscated, drawing another wave of furious curses from them.
If not for the fact that all of them combined were no match for Qiao Zhi, they would have shredded Chu Qiguang with claw marks long ago.
Chu Qiguang put away all the food he had uncovered, while Qiao Zhi directed the cat monsters into further drills—what he called military training.
The training regimen was simple: sit, lie down, shake paws, and play dead.
Qiao Zhi barked, "Sit!"
Baimi's fur bristled, and he bared his teeth with a hiss: "Hiss!"
Qiao Zhi yelled, "Lie down!"
Baimi's fur remained bristled: "Hiss!"
Qiao Zhi yelled, "Shake!"
"Hiss!" Baimi thrust out a claw to swipe at Qiao Zhi, but Qiao Zhi dodged back.
Qiao Zhi smacked Baimi to the ground with a slap, then continued, "Play dead."
Baimi struggled back to his feet.
Seeing how uncooperative they were, Chu Qiguang shook his head. "Looks like they're still too full.
"Master Qiao, please keep watch over them here for the next few days. I will have Chen Gang bring food only for you every day."
And so, over the next few days, Qiao Zhi no longer accompanied Chu Qiguang. Instead, he stayed in the small courtyard to watch over the dozen-odd cat monsters.
At first, the cat monsters still refused to cooperate, unwilling to train. But as time passed, they grew hungrier and hungrier, craved cat wine more and more, and had to watch Qiao Zhi feast and drink heartily right before their eyes. Gradually, some of the cat monsters could no longer bear it and began cooperating with Qiao Zhi's training.
After two days of starvation, even the stubbornest and most argumentative, Baimi and Lulu, yielded for the sake of food and began participating in the drills.
Chu Qiguang and Chen Gang finally moved into the new courtyard as well, beginning a life of living and eating alongside these boot-camp cats.
Watching the cat monsters in the courtyard continuously forming ranks, then sitting, lying down, shaking paws, and playing dead, Chen Gang was secretly astonished: 'Is Dog Bro cultivating some sort of demonic art again? This looks so bizarre...'
Meanwhile, Chu Qiguang was writing something at his desk: "Qiao Zhi said that aside from the current training, there are things he doesn't quite know how to organize. Ideological and political education... thought reports... speaking bitterness meetings... the advanced guiding the backward... I have to fill in all of these one by one.
"Indeed. Not only does the body need training, but the mind also requires reform." Reflecting on what Qiao Zhi had said, Chu Qiguang couldn't help sighing in admiration. "Whoever came up with this cat-training method is truly an unrivaled genius—the savior of cat monsters."
Chapter 62