Even if Huli Jing proves unwilling, all it takes is an encouraging gesture by his master for the dog to leave his post and come running, tail wagging happily at the sight of the visitor and eager to earn some scratches. It's the least Cat deserves for his trouble, to be greeted properly by a little friend.
Li Lianhua shouldn't be surprised to have another young man visiting his sickbed, but he still is, a little. He would have expected at least Cat to have enough sense to worry about himself first and save himself the reminder of their time spent together in that awful place. Or the reminder of how suddenly the boy's own fragile health could still be ruined in the blink of an eye, and all his efforts dashed. But then, Li Lianhua had been wrong about him back then, too. Even Cats aren't safe from sentimentality.
Although the painful burrowing of hungry roots in his chest has finally relented, easing his breathing a little, Li Lianhua still feels like the wrung out, near lifeless husk of a person as he rests in his bed. It still feels wiser to accept that something within him may yet give out at last from the strain, than to hope that he could ever return to the former vitality he'd been fortunate enough to enjoy these past months. All things will end. That hasn't ceased to be true just because he's enduring yet another brush with death. It's just become less comforting.
But he tries not to dwell on it. A difficult battle indeed while there's nothing else to do, and so Cat's visit does bring a small smile to his face, though he doesn't bother to try raising his own empty gaze as the boy enters. His voice, raw and faint, still bears the marks of the bloody struggle for air he's been fighting, even if his amused tone tries its best to make up for it.
"Friend Cat, it seems your lungs haven't suffered lately." Considering the ruckus he'd just brought to this house. "I'm glad to hear it."
"'Course not!" he easily boasts, coming around to the bed with more pep than he feels. "I'm an honest Cat, and my treatments are going well, more or less." While it was true that he didn't suffer long from the effects of the land's most recent attempt to kill off its invaders, and he was relieved to have been able to express himself enough to curtail another bout of it, worries nipped at his heels. This illness had taken one friend already, and he's not too proud to beg that it won't take another.
Hopefully it won't come to that, though, when he's making nuisance enough of himself by plopping down flat onto the bed after a ruffle between Huli Jing's ears. It doesn't matter where Li Lianhua is, because despite how chaotically Cat moves to take up space, what space he does take up is much less and much lighter than what it could have been as his shape changes to that of a small, scruffy orange cat. He rolls off his back and partially onto the man's pathetic form, starting in on licking his paw like he has no cares in the world. He swipes it over an ear and against the patchy spot around his eyes that one had blue boils, but now were almost normal in this form, outside of the missing fur.
"I suppose my Firefly and your Xiaobao have already made relentless cases."
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Date: 2025-03-29 12:18 am (UTC)Li Lianhua shouldn't be surprised to have another young man visiting his sickbed, but he still is, a little. He would have expected at least Cat to have enough sense to worry about himself first and save himself the reminder of their time spent together in that awful place. Or the reminder of how suddenly the boy's own fragile health could still be ruined in the blink of an eye, and all his efforts dashed. But then, Li Lianhua had been wrong about him back then, too. Even Cats aren't safe from sentimentality.
Although the painful burrowing of hungry roots in his chest has finally relented, easing his breathing a little, Li Lianhua still feels like the wrung out, near lifeless husk of a person as he rests in his bed. It still feels wiser to accept that something within him may yet give out at last from the strain, than to hope that he could ever return to the former vitality he'd been fortunate enough to enjoy these past months. All things will end. That hasn't ceased to be true just because he's enduring yet another brush with death. It's just become less comforting.
But he tries not to dwell on it. A difficult battle indeed while there's nothing else to do, and so Cat's visit does bring a small smile to his face, though he doesn't bother to try raising his own empty gaze as the boy enters. His voice, raw and faint, still bears the marks of the bloody struggle for air he's been fighting, even if his amused tone tries its best to make up for it.
"Friend Cat, it seems your lungs haven't suffered lately." Considering the ruckus he'd just brought to this house. "I'm glad to hear it."
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Date: 2025-05-13 03:48 am (UTC)Hopefully it won't come to that, though, when he's making nuisance enough of himself by plopping down flat onto the bed after a ruffle between Huli Jing's ears. It doesn't matter where Li Lianhua is, because despite how chaotically Cat moves to take up space, what space he does take up is much less and much lighter than what it could have been as his shape changes to that of a small, scruffy orange cat. He rolls off his back and partially onto the man's pathetic form, starting in on licking his paw like he has no cares in the world. He swipes it over an ear and against the patchy spot around his eyes that one had blue boils, but now were almost normal in this form, outside of the missing fur.
"I suppose my Firefly and your Xiaobao have already made relentless cases."