Cat 101: The “Crazy Zoo” Instance Ends

Chapter 101: The “Crazy Zoo” Instance Ends

Yan Jiyun’s finger froze mid-air. He knew Uncle Man was just playing mind games with him and asked, “Why can’t I press it?”

Uncle Man, gasping desperately, patted the giant orange paw holding his throat. “L-Loosen up.”

Yan signaled for Orange to ease his grip. Orange only loosened a little, not letting go completely, still positioned so he could crush Uncle Man’s throat at any time.

Coughing, Uncle Man said, “The green button is the activation switch. If you press it, we’ll all die—everyone, all these precious creatures you love, everything will die!”

Uncle Man’s eyes burned with madness. Even though Yan Jiyun could often see through people’s minds, facing this momentous decision, he still hesitated.

Should he press the red button, or the green one?

But he wasn’t the type to dither for long. He called to everyone, “Quick, let’s come together for a meeting.”

Caesar and the Wolf King rushed over; Xi Xi also flew in from outside.

Seeing this, Uncle Man was consumed with jealousy. Why did these animals listen to this young man so obediently? It was infuriating. If he had this ability, wouldn’t he have managed the zoo far better long ago?

Two minutes were enough for an ultra-brief meeting.

Yan Jiyun spoke immediately: “Check the director’s current condition. How much truth—or lies—is there in what he says?”

Uncle Man, about to have another manic outburst, couldn’t even continue. Why bother consulting with a few creatures whose consciousness was so unclear—was this some kind of mental issue?

Now, it was Uncle Man who grew anxious. “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you!”

Ignoring him, Yan Jiyun asked, “Soy Sauce, with your work experience, would you choose the green or red button?”

The black panther scrawled a large ‘G’ on the ground, meaning ‘green’.

Yan, of course, knew they were all colorblind. He said, “Don’t look at the buttons; focus on Uncle Man’s face. Is he telling the truth or lying?”

Caesar squeezed to the front, lowered his head to scrutinize Uncle Man, then snorted. The director looked ugly—not at all to Caesar’s taste—so he turned away in disdain.

He flashed Yan Jiyun a look: This old man’s eyes are cloudy, definitely not a good person.

Caesar scratched out two letters on the ground, forming the English word: GREEN!

Yan Jiyun: Only a rich kid would be so willful.

Next were the Wolf King and his mate, but this time it was the she-wolf who approached, circled Uncle Man, then stood before Yan Jiyun and wrote a ‘G.’

She also chose the green button.

The Wolf King’s mate had once been a renowned psychologist—Yan Jiyun trusted her judgment.

Everyone had chosen the option that meant Uncle Man was lying. Yan glanced at the timer.

[00:40]

Only forty seconds left.

He put the remote in front of him, clenched his fist, then let it go, taking a deep breath.

“You’ve all chosen the green button, so I’ll go with you. In fact, that’s what I would have chosen as well.”

“Let’s hope we’re right.”

Even as Yan spoke, Uncle Man persisted, “No, no, no! It’s not green, it’s red!”

[00:35]

Yan Jiyun still raised his hand and pressed down on the green button.

Suddenly, he said to Orange, “Hold him down! Don’t let him escape!”

And then bolted out the door to find Dr. Zhou.

He needed to check whether the button had worked—what if the signal hadn’t gone through? That would be awkward.

Dr. Zhou was still sitting where he’d been—the time bomb strapped to his chest had stopped counting down.

“Great, you’re safe,” said Yan.

Dr. Zhou unstrapped the bomb and threw it out the window. It didn’t explode.

Standing by the window, Dr. Zhou turned back to Yan Jiyun and sighed in relief. “Thank you for saving us.”

[Congratulations, player, you have completed the ‘Final Mission’: you found the mastermind, rescued all ‘special patients,’ and successfully resolved the biggest crisis faced by Xianghe Zoo.]

[Congratulations, player, for breaking the instance’s previous record for fastest completion.]

[Congratulations, player, for gaining 100% favorability with all 8 special patients.]

[Congratulations, player, on successfully being promoted to the new director of Xianghe Zoo.]

[Congratulations, player, for clearing the ‘Crazy Zoo’ instance.]

[3 days 9 hours remain before the instance closes. You may choose to exit immediately or automatically leave when the instance ends.]

It had barely been a day, and Yan was about ready to run off.

Of course, Yan Jiyun chose to exit immediately!

Exit!

The first time he called for it, nothing happened. He confirmed again.

“I choose to exit the game immediately. Completely certain and definite.”

[We regret to inform you, all 8 special patients with 100% favorability unanimously wish to attend your inauguration as zoo director. You will remain in the instance until its scheduled end.]

Yan Jiyun: ???

What did you just say???

Say that again???

What inauguration???

What do you mean, stay until the instance ends???

Yan Jiyun collapsed to the ground like a deflated balloon. Why did all the other players get to leave but he alone was left behind!

Lousy game, lousy system! Let him out!

If he’d known, he wouldn’t have rushed through the mission. Would it have killed him to rest for a day or two?

What kind of twisted logic was this?

[Be Human] live broadcast room:

“Hahahahaha!”

“Hahahaha! Help! Oh my god! Why does this insane twist exist! This cat cub’s ending is killing me with laughter!”

“When did he max out NPC favorability? So with 8 big guys at 100%, cat cub is stuck here?”

“I was just feeling sad for the ones experimented on, and then—bam! Plot twist! I’m dying. Not bad, I can watch for three more days in cat cub’s room.”

“I never saw this ending coming!”

“Cat cub looks so hopeless. Congratulations, you get three extra days in the instance! Treat it like a vacation—other players don’t even get this chance.”

Yan Jiyun didn’t want to be a zoo director—he just wanted to quit and leave the instance immediately.

But in reality, he had no choice at all. When he stood up, all those big creatures fixed their eyes on him.

Sigh—

So Yan Jiyun remained in the instance; no matter how much he protested to the system, he got no response.

That night, Uncle Man—the threat to the zoo—was taken away by police, and the entire zoo—including Dr. Zhou—was investigated.

As Dr. Zhou was led away, the black panther watched from the shadows for a long time.

Yan Jiyun patted the panther and called after Dr. Zhou’s departing figure, “Dr. Zhou, what’s the black panther’s name?”

Dr. Zhou turned and replied, “He’s called Yu Shinan.”

Yan glanced down at the panther. “Aren’t you brothers? Why are your surnames different?”

Naturally, the black panther didn’t answer. Not that Yan cared—maybe their parents had divorced, one taking the father’s name, the other the mother’s, and thus the different surnames?

That night, Yan Jiyun spent a restful night in the new director’s lounge.

Early the next morning, he underwent a tedious and boring inauguration, but came away with an electric cart that never ran out of charge, a private office, a director-only house, and a pile of problems to solve.

He cruised around the zoo in his special electric cart—yet a huge unresolved problem remained.

Could the black panther and the others ever return to being human?

The police had taken away all the patients kept by the previous director in the second building, but the animals remained safe in the zoo.

The very first thing Yan Jiyun did as director was to tackle a big project: he and the black panther sought out every animal that had ever undergone experimentation and recorded them all.

The panther leapt onto the passenger seat. Yan held a stack of organized files and asked, “Do you want to become human again?”

The panther pressed the horn with his paw: Yes.

Yan privately thought, I’m no doctor, so I’m not sure what I can do.

On the third afternoon, Dr. Zhou was released and returned.

Yan lit up when he saw him. The final problem would have to be solved by him.

He tossed all the documents at Dr. Zhou and, as director, ordered him to return the consciousness of all the “normal people” to their original bodies.

The black panther sat beside Yan, gazing quietly at Dr. Zhou, and the doctor agreed.

Although the experiment subjects had been taken away, they weren’t far. The animal bodies’ consciousness could still be restored.

Yan spent another day crating nearly two hundred experiment subjects.

Dr. Zhou spent a night researching, and finally worked out how to send everyone back.

His first forced day in the instance, he took office.

His second day, all but the eight main patients had their consciousnesses freed from animal bodies.

His third forced day, he spent the whole day counseling the eight patients, touring the zoo, playing with them, and finally, before leaving the instance, held a meeting with them beneath the star-strewn sky on the grass.

The eight were too badly injured to revert to humans just yet, but Dr. Zhou had shifted his research to restoring them to their bodies and reviving them from vegetative states.

[3 minutes until the instance ends.]

Yan produced a cat teaser for the last time and said, “Let’s play a game!”

Xi Xi flew beside him shouting, “Play! Play!”

He jumped up on a fake mountain, stretched out the cat teaser with its biggest, brightest feathered bell.

Left, then right.

Jingle, jingle, jingle~

The big beasts’ eyes followed the flashing bell.

[2 minutes left until the instance ends.]

The liveliest wolf cub leapt for the teaser but suddenly collapsed to the ground midjump.

Yan was stunned. Why did the cub faint?

He shook the teaser again.

In the next moment, the Wolf King and his mate collapsed too.

[1 minute left.]

Soon after, Xi Xi dropped into his arms.

He looked at Orange and Caesar—their bodies swayed unsteadily.

With two heavy thuds, Orange and Caesar fell, and so did the brown bear, who Yan didn’t know as well.

He looked at the cat teaser in his hand and at the sole remaining panther.

[30 seconds left.]

In that instant, he understood.

The cat teaser was the instance’s most important item—the bell awakened consciousness, leading the way back to the real world.

He kept shaking the teaser.

Jingle, jingle, jingle~

“Soy Sauce, call out one last time, will you?”

“I’m about to leave; you probably won’t remember me after this.”

The panther’s form shimmered—his vision was blurring, all but a single human figure fading before him. He felt the urge to say goodbye.

He wanted to call the man’s name—what was the keeper’s name again?

In the final moment, the panther cried out, “Miao—!”

With that leopard’s cry, Yan Jiyun transformed back into a black cat. He watched as the panther’s body, like the others, slowly collapsed onto the grass, eyes closing for the last time.

Just then, the walkie-talkie in his arms broadcast Dr. Zhou’s joyful voice: “Jiang You! My brother woke up! Come see!”

Too late—his instance time was up, and he’d never see it.

[3 seconds until the instance ends.]

2 seconds—

1 second—

[‘Crazy Zoo’ instance ended. Player exiting instance. Teleporting—]

[Be Human] live broadcast room:

“So that’s how it is—I finally get it!”

“What, what did you figure out this time?”

“It turns out you actually need a cat teaser for this instance! As long as the player brings the right item, they can awaken the consciousness inside the feline animals!”

“But the brown bear isn’t a feline, and Dr. Zhou helped the non-key animals too, didn’t he?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The panther and Orange and the rest are the key NPCs here. Cat cub used the consciousness-awakening item right at the start. The more he used it, the clearer their consciousness became. That big sister mentioned feline animals—maybe she misunderstood; it should be ‘key NPCs.’ As long as the key NPCs get the cat teaser, they’ll awaken. Most crucial is the panther; once he’s awake, the plot changes.”

“I’ve watched cat cub seriously acting as director these days, playing with the panther and the others—I almost forgot this was an instance livestream. Also, I suddenly wonder: if the player went the ‘animal’ route, there was a beast riot on day one, animal theft day two, so what about the remaining three days? This cat cub didn’t walk the usual path. Honestly, what’s the standard outcome?”

“The third day Dr. Zhou appears, revealing his specialness. On Dr. Peng’s path, the fourth and fifth days revolve around evidence from him leading to Dr. Zhou. The player finds Dr. Zhou’s lab and exposes his experiments—in which case, once he’s caught, you can clear the instance and leave. Honestly, even after ten runs, I never knew Uncle Man was the true BOSS—the director’s stroke was just a ruse.”

“Ahh, no more cat cub and big cats. See you in the next instance!”

Meanwhile, players who had exited earlier were growing desperate in the temporary rest area.

The instance was completed out of nowhere. They exited, thrilled they’d survived by laying low.

But they hadn’t expected that the only thing worse than running missions was waiting endlessly in the system’s holding pen. They waited and waited, until finally the instance ended!

In the rest area, they raged many times—why did someone insist on staying behind and not exiting? As long as that player refused to leave, the rewards wouldn’t be settled and everyone else was stuck in limbo!

This wasn’t a rest area at all—it was more like a small detention center. Wait any longer and the place would grow grass.

The system finally alerted them all:

[Final player has exited the instance. Scoring and rewards now being settled.]

The ranking for instance points appeared.

First place: Yan Jiyun

Second place: Meng Changsheng

…

All surviving players: ???

Wasn’t Yan Jiyun bottom of the popularity ranking?

How did he get first place—what did he do?

Who even is he!

Players were full of questions and complaints.

Impatient player: “Who is this guy? How did he get rewards worth ten times ours?”

Rational player: “How did a bottom-ranked player win by doing missions when this game is supposed to be about popularity?”

Self-reflective player: “I wasn’t diligent or clever enough. I deserve it.”

Players who survived by luck: “Thanks to the first place player for finishing the main quest early—I got to survive.”

Only Meng Changsheng felt differently. He was still bewildered three days out of the instance—not having the slightest idea what he’d done to earn so many points.

How did he get second place? He’d been ranked first in popularity.

Well, he wouldn’t have to rerun this instance now. That was a relief.

Whatever, happy accident—he’d gotten tons of points!

As for Yan Jiyun, the moment he was booted from the instance, he just lay flat on the rest area floor, unwilling to move an inch.

The panther, Orange, Caesar, and the others had all returned to their human bodies—the instance restored everyone at the last possible second; perhaps because Yan had found the right item.

Finally, it was over.

Now, all he wanted was a good rest.

The rewards for this instance were impressive!

And a slew of achievements:

[Congratulations, player, on unlocking a new ending for ‘Crazy Zoo.’]

[Congratulations, player, for full 100% favor on all eight NPCs.]

[You completed your first instance in the beginner level, not only placing first, but also breaking the record for fastest completion. You’ll receive a grand reward package from the system.]

[Congratulations, player, on entering the live tip leaderboard top 200.]

Yan still had a handful of unused experience cards from the last round. What you bring in can’t be brought back—the cards remained in the instance. He’d reverted to cat form, but using a card, became human again—he was used to communicating this way, and had plenty to ask the system now.

After several days’ absence, the youthful system voice returned:

“Congratulations, player, on clearing the ‘Crazy Zoo’ instance. You’ve taken first place again—would you like to view your points and rewards?”

Yan Jiyun: “View.”

This time he’d earned two hundred thousand points; his live rewards were triple the last round’s. More spectators watched the intermediate field, and the rewards and viewership were on a whole new level.

What he cared most about was the contents of the big reward package: “What’s in it?”

System: “Would you like to open your reward package now?”

Yan: “Open it.”

As soon as he spoke, a gift box materialized in front of him. He reached out and tapped it.

With a burst of firework effects, the box exploded open.

A notification popped up in the bottom left corner:

Congratulations, you have received: Tuna x1;

Congratulations, you have received: Sardine x1;

Congratulations, you have received: Beef Patty x1;

Congratulations, you have received: Lucky Card x1.

He could understand the Lucky Card, but what was with these food-related items?

System: “Except for the Lucky Card, the other items all increase your intimacy with your main account.”

Yan Jiyun: “…”

Was the system determined to get him to wrestle with his main pet system to the end?

To spare himself a heart attack, Yan decided to push these aside for now.

He’d almost used up his experience cards. The past three days spent with the panther, Orange, and Caesar, he had mostly been in cat form, learning fighting skills from them—though most of that meant being pounded into the ground by giant paws, it was still a worthwhile takeaway from his three days in the instance.

He had learned a lot from this run.

The quest format was filled with traps—one misstep, and you were doomed. Every detail mattered. What’s more, the variety of challenges seemed to be expanding: people becoming animals this time—what if aliens next?

This instance was a reminder that the further the road, the more dangerous the challenges. There could be no slackening, not even for a moment.

Even upon exiting, his mind was still filled with the world of the instance. He asked the system, “Is there an epilogue for the new ending?”

System youth voice: “Yes. Would you like to view it now?”

Yan: “Show me.”

He’d take a moment to rest before heading out. True, the physical exhaustion wasn’t much, but three days inside, being run ragged by the panther, Orange, and Caesar, was still a lot!

Not only did he have to train fighting; the little wolf cub just wanted to play ball with him.

Three days as zoo director—exhausting, but it healed the psychological and physical strains of the previous two instances.

He could hardly wait to see the panther, Orange, and the rest in the epilogue.

System: “Since this instance involved multiple NPCs, you will see only a short snippet of the ending.”

Yan nodded. “Alright.”

From Dr. Zhou’s last good news, the panther and company ought to have fared well.

On the big screen, the title appeared: “Who Will Own Xianghe Zoo?”

No matter whose, Yan thought, it wouldn’t be his; the zoo really was a fine place.

The surrounding light faded. A table on the grass came into view.

Seated around it were several men, each handsome and distinguished in his own way.

Soon, a couple arrived, their appearances newly repaired—though not without flaws, no one dared look down on them.

Yan recognized them all, though when last he saw them, their eyes were closed—in this moment, everyone seemed perfectly restored.

Caesar, the rich scion, flung a black card on the table: “I’m buying the zoo. None of you better try to outbid me.”

President Gu placed a contract beside it: “I’ve already bought all the land around the zoo; I can expand it any time.”

Former black panther Yu Shinan calmly surveyed the others. “All of us want the best for this place. I propose we join forces. Most important is choosing a director.”

Phone-in-hand Han Xi put his beloved device down. “I have a candidate, but I can’t remember who it is.”

Yu Shinan lifted his eyes: “Let’s just select a deputy director, then.”

President Gu: “No objection.”

Caesar: “None here either.”

Just then, the camera panned to Dr. Zhou, coming forward with a cage in hand. He walked up to Yu Shinan. “Brother, is this the black cat you’re looking for?”

Yu Shinan picked it up. “It’s a bit similar, but not quite right.”

Suddenly Han Xi said, “Why not make the little black cat our director?”

The scene shifted: Xianghe Zoo remained itself, but now a black cat statue stood by the main gate—its director a pure black feline.

Yan Jiyun: “…”

Ha. Could that black cat be modeled on him?

Wait—could NPCs remember players?

No, he’d been acting as an NPC; the instance recognized him as such, so the panther and the rest remembering him was logical—he was part of the story, an NPC himself.

As Yan’s thoughts tangled, the five-minute ending clip finished.

He straightened up and stepped out of the instance’s rest area.

Inside and outside the instance—two different worlds.

He emerged, hoping to find his “shoveler”—yearning for dried fish treat.

The moment he stepped out, all he saw were bewildered, angry, and confused faces.

He could guess from their expressions they’d all survived the same instance. He waved lightly to the crowd.

Meng Changsheng was still at the exit. When he saw Yan Jiyun, his eyes went wide!

Isn’t that the keeper?

Wasn’t he an NPC?

Why was he coming out of the instance?

Then realization struck—he wasn’t an NPC, but a player like him!

No wonder he was number one and Meng was number two!

Aaaaaaa! Who knows how much embarrassing stuff he’d done in front of this guy!!!

Yan Jiyun didn’t recognize a single soul from the instance. But though he didn’t know them, that didn’t mean they didn’t know him. He just wanted to slip away and avoid trouble.

He glanced around—no sign of his shoveler, and felt a pang of disappointment.

Then he remembered—the shoveler didn’t know he’d entered the beginner-level instance.

Just as he was feeling despondent, a system-wide announcement rang in every player’s ears.

“Attention, players: the Monthly Peak Tournament will begin shortly. If you have received an entry ticket, you will enter the arena in three days.”

“You can view your ticket in the inventory tab.”

Yan checked his notifications—a new message: Congratulations, you have received a ‘Peak Tournament’ entry ticket.

Shit!