Xu Ye returned home, feeling that the post was a bit strange. Then again, maybe she was overthinking it; perhaps the OP simply had a bit of an embarrassing condition.[mfn]Tl’s Note: OP – Original Poster, the person who made the forum post.[/mfn]
She first searched for “Cat-Dog Alliance” to see what it was all about, but there was no information about this app online.
The only apps on this phone were Cat-Dog Alliance and an anti-fraud app, but the anti-fraud app had no alerts.
Her various balances were still at the level they were when she got paid two days ago, neither decreasing nor increasing.
Xu Ye closed the search engine, opened the forum’s “Dog Zone” while eating her rice noodles. The atmosphere here was much more harmonious, although a few posters’ posts clearly exuded a sense of pure stupidity.
[I accidentally bit a hole in my big brother’s new sofa. What should I do? Waiting online for help urgently!]
[It’s the second day since my sister went on a business trip. I miss her so much, woohoo.]
[I’m still trying to learn how to open the door today. Opening doors is so hard, I want to cry.]
Xu Ye tried to think about who was posting here. The second post was easy to understand, but what kind of strange hobby was biting a sofa? What kind of illegal organization was this, why did everyone’s posts frequently mention the word “big brother”?
As for the third post, maybe it was from a disabled person. Xu Ye silently cheered for the poster in her heart, hardworking people are never unlucky.
Until she saw a post that was remarkably similar to a human’s statement— “The new sister in Unit 5 is so beautiful, who knows what breed she is? She just moved in, she probably doesn’t have a forum account yet.”
Xu Ye silently looked at the screen, feeling that she couldn’t substitute this phrase through a human’s perspective. Meanwhile, if you replaced the protagonist of the post with a dog, it would make more sense, and this section was the dog forum, so it made even more sense.
It was absurd yet somehow logical.
But how could a dog possibly go online and type? Xu Ye shook her head and threw these strange thoughts out of her mind.
Nowadays, many people like to create a “pet persona” for themselves, maybe these people were dog persona enthusiasts. As a loyal salted fish persona enthusiast, Xu Ye expressed her understanding and respect.
Xu Ye still had some work to do, and she planned to quit her job at the end of this month. She temporarily put down her phone and turned on her computer.
A few hours later, she rubbed her brows wearily, took a deep breath, and picked up her phone again. The Cat-Dog Alliance seemed strange, and she decided to investigate the forum’s audience.
As soon as she opened the forum, a new post in the cat forums caught Xu Ye’s eye.
[I made an appointment for a friendly fight at the flower lawn by the fountain, are there any sisters willing to help me restore the glory of the tricolored cats?]
If Xu Ye remembered correctly, a tricolored cat is a cat with three different colors of fur on their bodies.[mfn]Tl’s Note: Like a calico cat. [/mfn]
Many posters who claimed to be tricolored cats expressed their willingness to respond to the poster’s call, and many others expressed that they would watch the excitement.
Xu Ye’s eyed widened, openly gathering a crowd to fight in public…
She hesitated for a long time about whether to call the police, but just then, she heard a group of people excitedly shouting in the yard.
Xu Ye walked to the balcony and looked out, just in time to see a girl waving to her companions: “Two groups of cats are fighting by the fountain!”
The unit building where she lived had no buildings blocking it, so she could see the central musical fountain in the community. The fountain would operate from 7 to 8 pm on weekends, and there were usually a bunch of kids playing around, looking very lively.
Today was no exception, except that people weren’t treating the fountain as the main attraction. At this moment, a bunch of colorful cats were gathered on the grass by the fountain, one group was orange cats, and the other group was mainly black, white, and yellow cats, the tricolored cats.
Besides these cats that were standing with their tails upright and confronting each other, there were also a few scattered cats on the trees and nearby grass, all curled up with their tails, as if they were watching the excitement.
There were also many onlookers, all of them filming with their phones with curious expressions.
Xu Ye opened the window and heard a cat “meow” very close to her. She looked down and saw a black and white cat sitting on the balcony downstairs, staring intently at the fountain.
She remembered this cat, because it was so silly-looking that whenever the downstairs neighbor carried it out in a cat bag, it would be surrounded by people.
The cat sensed Xu Ye’s presence, and the human and cat looked at each other for a moment, then tacitly looked away and focused on the fountain gossip.
After a while, the two groups of cats pounced on each other, scratching and slapping, making her feel quite shocked. But they didn’t seem to be really fighting. Xu Ye had seen wild cats fight, and they were usually shrill and sharp, and every paw they raised was ruthless.
These cats’ ears were normally upright, and the strength of their tails and paws when attacking each other was obviously much smaller.
The two leading cats of the two groups of cats stood facing each other, quickly slapping each other’s heads with their paws, and Xu Ye mentally captioned: “Novice cats pecking at each other.”
After a few minutes, they seemed to have finished fighting, and they each dispersed following their leader.
The cats watching the excitement also got up and left one after another, leaving only the children playing in the fountain and the disappointed onlookers.
The black and white cat downstairs also called a few times with an unsatisfied expression, then climbed into the window.
Xu Ye retracted her head and refreshed the post on her phone, seeing that the poster had posted a new reply.
[28F: It’s over, it’s another draw, let’s make another appointment next time.]
[29F: So many humans are taking pictures, it’s so annoying.]
She felt that this post and the group of cats fighting just now were quite consistent, and the 29th floor’s reply also seemed strange that she had a vague, unscientific guess.
She refreshed it again, and saw the administrator’s message.
[Administrator reply: Unauthorized fighting and disturbing the community order without prior notice, all participants in the fight will be banned for three days.]
No new replies were brushed under this post, and those netizens seemed to have been really banned.
Xu Ye scrolled through the post for a long time without finding anything new, so she clicked on the dog forum.
[Hahaha, who saw what stupid thing Mu Mu was wearing today? A big red floral jacket hahahahaha! He even has a big red bow on his head!]
[2F: His big brother always has a unique taste.]
[3F: He mocked me for wearing leather pants yesterday, and today it’s his turn. Blessings.]
[4F: He mocked me for wearing a bellyband the day before yesterday, and today it’s his turn. Blessings.]
[5F: You thought I wouldn’t check the posts just because I went out to play, right? I knew you’re talking bad about me here!]
Xu Ye casually glanced out the window and saw an old man wearing a Northeast Chinese floral jacket, and the dog he was leading was wearing the same floral jacket, with a big, bright red bow on its head.
She looked at the ID called “Mu Mu” on the fifth floor, then looked at the dog’s back that was about to disappear around the corner, feeling that the world was too magical.
Xu Ye knew this dog, and its name was indeed Mu Mu, because the old man walked the dog every day, rain or shine, always muttering, “Mu Mu, good boy, Mu Mu, good boy.”
So she unilaterally got to know this dog.
Xu Ye thought for a moment and searched “tricolor cat” online.
Looking at the tricolored cats on the screen with fur colors very similar to the few cats by the fountain earlier, she was even more certain of her guess. To verify her guess, she continued to scroll through new posts in both sections.
Most of the posts were quite ordinary. Xu Ye scrolled for ten minutes before finding a new post in the cat forum.
[New goods just arrived today, are there any brothers who wants it? At the door of Unit 4, 301, my little brother didn’t close the door, first come first served.]
She lived in Unit 4, 302, and her neighbor did have a cat. She walked to the door and looked at the corridor through the small screen of the password lock.
The neighbor hadn’t closed the door, the security door was wide open, and the second wooden door was ajar. Xu Ye was very patient, just sitting on the sofa near the door scrolling through posts, occasionally glancing up at the small screen.
[2F: I’m coming right now!]
After ten or so minutes, a small yellow cat appeared at the door of 301. It meowed softly twice, and the ajar wooden door was pushed open, and a round gray cat poked its head out.
The gray cat used its paw to push a bowl to the door, the yellow cat ate a few bites, meowed at it a few times, and then ran away.
Two more cats of different colors came to patronize the gray cat’s free cafeteria, and finally it pulled the bowl back and didn’t appear again.
Xu Ye felt that her guess had been verified, and she continued to refresh that post, and brushed out a new reply posted by the poster a few seconds ago, as well as the thanks from other netizens.
[10F: Brothers and sisters, don’t come anymore, it’s all finished, I’ll call you next time I have some.]
[11F: Thank you, OP, I’m full.]
Xu Ye blinked at the screen, as if she had discovered something extraordinary.
Combining the characteristics of the posters in the two sections, it was easy to understand if you substituted the poster with an animal. The “little brother” in the cat forum was the cat’s owner, while the “big brother” and “sister” in the dog forum were the dog’s owners.
Whether it was people climbing trees, fighting in groups, demolishing houses, or envying the beauty of Afghan Hounds, it would make perfect sense to replace “people” with “cats” and “dogs.”
So she turned every post in both the cat and dog forums upside down. The oldest post was posted three days ago, and if she scrolled further back, the system’s prompt, “You have not registered an account yet, and cannot view posts from three days ago” would pop up.
Xu Ye registered an account according to the system’s prompt, and the system’s prompt popped up again – “Your account has not been registered for three days, and you cannot view posts from three days ago.”
She suppressed her curiosity and decided to wait three days before looking at the previous posts.
There weren’t many netizens in the forum, but there were quite a few posts, a total of several hundred. Many posters would post four or five posts a day, and Xu Ye had already familiarized herself with those particularly active IDs.
Everyone in the forum basically just chatted about the gossip of other cats and dogs, gave each other advice, and then made an appointment for a fight, the style was both reasonable and ridiculous.
Xu Ye was really curious about what type of technology these cats and dogs were using to go online, and how they could type human words, and what was the identity of the administrator who maintained order?
She casually put on a jacket and went downstairs, finding the place in the community with the most stray cats based on her impression.
There were residents walking their dogs on the road, and some were carrying cats out for a walk, but they all seemed to be normal pets, except for being exceptionally well-behaved – even Teddy that all the owners complained about no longer bit people when it saw them.
Three orange cats were curled up in a ball and napping in the central flower bed of the stray cat gathering place, and Xu Ye felt that they exuded a sense of loneliness that had been banned.
The number of stray cats had also decreased significantly. A few months ago, there were at least ten cats here, and many people didn’t dare to walk by the flower bed.
Xu Ye walked around the community for a long time, but still couldn’t find out what these cats and dogs were using to go online, and she couldn’t possibly pull a cat that was lying comfortably and ask it.
It was getting darker, and Xu Ye returned home empty-handed.
Because there was an uninstallable Cat-Dog Alliance on this phone, she dared not risk installing software on her phone, so she ordered the new Grape brand phone online, and the deliveryman said it would be delivered the next morning.
Only then did Xu Ye realize that she was really bored. Instead of enjoying the weekend happily, she went to investigate.
“Learning is the traditional virtue of human beings,” she comforted herself.
Xu Ye, who had just thought that she had wasted her weekend, opened the Cat-Dog Alliance without any psychological burden.
She just scrolled leisurely through the forums of the Cat Zone, then at the Dog Zone, until she came across a post that was completely out of style with the cat forum:
[In these troubled times, who wants to play games with me? Below 25 stars, as long as you can walk without making trouble, I’ll carry you.]
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