The System Mistook Me for a Cat

When Chu Tingwu went to work, Chu Xiao also got up.

He was usually an early riser, but today his steps felt slightly heavier than usual—

Sure enough, not long after breakfast, his cousin Sheng Anli called.

Sheng Anli was still in Qihe City. Not only had she infiltrated the law firm’s group chat as an intern, but she had also, through connections, joined the company group of Wu Voice Group. Now, she lurked in the group chats every day, gathering tidbits of information about the progress of various projects.

Chu Xiao: "...Can’t you just ask Chu Tingwu directly?"

Aside from that, her other favorite pastime was updating Chu Xiao daily on her work progress. As for calling Chu Tingwu, she didn’t quite dare.

Chu Xiao: "...But I don’t work at her company."

Thus, Chu Xiao was forced to learn about the company’s ongoing project with the government: increasing the frequency of city buses to the ranch and developing a dedicated bus line from the airport to the ranch.

In addition, there were some projects related to river management. It seemed that Chu Tingwu’s company had also partnered with a company researching new energy dredging operations. According to Sheng Anli:

"The colleagues in the group chat say this is probably another one of Auntie’s companies. The attitude over there is so good, it’s like they’re practically begging to be merged into the group."

Everyone had experience with this—the last one that was similar was the "Yarman Neuroscience Lab," which developed VR experience pods.

Sheng Anli also shared another piece of gossip:

"Everyone in the company seems to have this inexplicable obsession with creating IPs related to fairy tale movies? Remember the ‘Dis○ey’-themed virtual projection concert we did before? That was basically a promotional event for the company’s AR projection equipment. But when other IPs came knocking, only Dis○ey didn’t, and they even urged us to pay the final installment."

Of course, the world’s number one fairy tale movie IP had the capability to host AR concerts on its own; they just hadn’t done it yet.

"After that, the colleagues in the marketing department kept saying we need our own IP..."

Chu Xiao: "Hmm... hmm..."

Let’s just finalize the first wave of IP collaborations for the ranch first.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

As soon as he hung up Sheng Anli’s call, other younger cousins started reaching out, asking if the parkour competition in Fallen Phoenix City was fun. In reality, they were all hesitantly trying to find out if it was fun to be around Chu Tingwu.

Chu Xiao: "She doesn’t bite..."

Chu Xiao didn’t think Chu Tingwu was hard to approach. On the contrary, she was a considerate and generous friend. She remembered every friend’s hobbies and habits, and when she went out, she would bring back gifts that they liked. In this somewhat cold era, she still maintained an old-fashioned, simple attitude toward everyone—

If you’re good to me, I’ll be good to you.

So Chu Xiao thought that as long as these guys bothered Chu Tingwu the same way they bothered him, they’d quickly get familiar with her.

Sheng Anli spoke up in the group chat on behalf of the younger cousins:

[But she’s the same type of person as you!]

Do you really think you’re easy to approach either, Xiao Xiao?

Back when they played house as kids, Chu Xiao was always the teacher, and even Sheng Anli, as the older cousin, didn’t dare to argue with him. She just followed his lead! If it weren’t for their family ties, Sheng Anli would’ve steered clear of such a difficult, genius child!

With a mix of reverence for her boss and exasperation toward her cousin, Sheng Anli silently put down her phone.

But the next second, she unlocked it again and entered the chat interface—the company group had announced that the IP collaboration was finalized!

The first IP collaboration for the ranch was the domestic ancient-style MOBA game "Yuan Tang"!

-

Even Chu Tingwu felt a slight numbness in her feet when they finally touched the ground.

She glanced at the live chat and saw that her fans were already overwhelmed.

This downhill mountain descent was nothing short of a mental rollercoaster. Everyone was still reeling from the experience. Just watching it was thrilling, let alone following Chu Tingwu’s perspective. It felt like their brains were still spinning.

[Wait... something feels off. I’m a parkour practitioner, and a lot of Chu’s moves don’t seem like standard parkour...]

[Isn’t parkour just a faster way to move? Why force yourself to stick to textbook moves?]

[But that’s dangerous! And bad for your body!]

If she were an ordinary human, she’d be completely exhausted after running like that... wait, why am I thinking that? Master Chu is human too!

But Chu Tingwu wasn’t exhausted. In fact, she seemed quite energetic. She was lightly sweating and took a bottle of water from a staff member. She looked up at the mountain path—to avoid accidents like the one during the last competition’s training, the organizers had hired professional staff instead of volunteers, and the mountain path had been closed the night before. The staff checked it twice daily.

As Chu Tingwu chatted with her viewers, she began walking back up the mountain. Halfway up, she spotted a drone flying by and instinctively threw something at it.

An empty water bottle hit the drone, bounced off the delivery bag below, and then rolled to the ground.

[Uh... is this a protest against the drone division’s business?]

[I’m also unhappy. When will drone deliveries become mainstream? I’ve seen them a few times in Fallen Phoenix City (waving hand).]

Chu Tingwu: "== Sorry, force of habit."

She was used to the drones at the ranch that could help pick up trash, so she instinctively "threw" the bottle.

She picked it up and dutifully tossed it into the trash can.

Then, she pulled out the skateboard she had brought from the temple.

The viewers: "?"

Wait, was she going to do what they thought she was?

She carried the skateboard back to the summit, where San Wu Wu, who had been arguing with other cats, froze upon seeing her and pretended to be busy.

Chu Tingwu whistled.

The viewers’ scalps tingled.

Chu Tingwu set down the skateboard.

Viewers: Wait... wait...

Chu Tingwu: "Hah."

[Don’t laugh like that!!!]

The skateboard flew out!

Viewers wearing VR gear instinctively screamed, while those watching the live stream (of course it was live) felt their scalps tighten. Normally, skating down a mountain’s steps to the bottom was already considered an extreme sport, but this person... was she planning to skate down the entire parkour route? The kind with two-meter drops between steps?!

Chu Tingwu was clearly serious about doing this!

The earlier parkour had only been a warm-up for her, and from this moment on, she began to fully engage all her senses—

The system also quietly minimized its interface, not wanting to disturb her.

It could see from the physical data that its cub was excited and joyful, and from the slowly increasing experience points, it could tell that all three skills were gradually leveling up. Only by walking the path of pursuing limits did she truly improve.

So the system thought proudly, my cub is the best little cat!

...Better call the medical team first, though.

This was probably the most chaotic live chat Chu Tingwu had ever had—

Even though everyone knew the streamer loved extreme sports and had participated in every one of her extreme activities, parkour rarely involved mountains, and rock climbing was more "slow." Rock climbing was like solving a math problem—even if you watched a genius solve it, you couldn’t feel the storm in their mind or the tension in the air, because if you couldn’t figure it out, you just couldn’t.

At most, you’d feel the danger and difficulty, and maybe even the "beauty" of the sport, but the heart-pounding thrill could only be experienced by actually doing it—

Chu Tingwu: "Come try downhill mountain descent!"

Chu Xiao, who felt like someone had just zipped past him: "...?"

Did I open the temple door wrong? Let me try again.

He ​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌‌​​​​‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​​​‌‌‌​​​‍pushed the door open again, turned around, and first heard the sound of a skateboard hitting a railing. Then, he saw Chu Tingwu’s back as she descended.

Chu Xiao: "..."

He opened the small group chat and refuted the claim that they were the same type of people.

Humans would never share a category with such an agile monkey ==

-

After safely reaching the finish line, Chu Tingwu leaned on her knees, catching her breath for a moment.

Even though she was full of energy, she could still feel the exhaustion setting in. As for her livestream, the number of viewers had fluctuated—some even dropped out for a while—but now, it had surged back, far exceeding the previous count.

...Those who left weren’t disliking the content; they just found it too intense and needed a break to recover.

Just as the audience was about to start complaining, Chu Tingwu waved her hand, bidding them goodbye.

No more livestreaming today. Really, that’s it for today.

Everyone should go and process what they’ve seen on their own.

Under the rustling shade of the trees and the cool breeze, Chu Tingwu felt her legs tingling after the intense session. She didn’t even bother using her skateboard to get around and just stood there for a moment before turning—

A staff member, who had been standing under the canopy for a while, hesitantly approached and handed her a bottle of water.

Staff member: "It feels like this just happened not too long ago, doesn’t it?"

Under the canopy sat another person—Senior Brother Sun.

Senior Brother Sun had a monkey perched on his shoulder, and the monkey was holding his phone, intently watching something.

Chu Tingwu walked over and sat down to rest, chatting with Senior Brother Sun about the competition—

Senior Brother Sun wasn’t an amateur. He had participated in several parkour competitions before, always taking first place. However, those were more grassroots events, all held within the province where the Cloud Temple was located.

Senior Brother Sun shyly admitted, "I never had enough money for travel expenses to compete out of province, so I couldn’t participate before."

Chu Tingwu: "Well, congratulations, you’re finally able to compete this time."

Actually, the Tiger Head Cup competition required an entry fee. While the well-known participants they invited could stay at the mountaintop hotel for free, those who weren’t as famous and had to pay their own way had to find their own accommodations. It was a bit harsh but also realistic.

If Senior Brother Sun didn’t have enough money, Chu Tingwu would have to sponsor him personally.

Senior Brother Sun shook his head: "Actually, I didn’t have enough this time either, but the monkey helped me earn some money."

Chu Tingwu: "…So the monkey is really called Senior Brother Monkey?"

Can you still make a living by performing these days?

Senior Brother Sun noticed her confusion and explained, "Actually, it was through gaming. Someone bet on whether the monkey could win a match in a game, and it actually did. They ended up giving me the money."

Huh…

That game sounds pretty good, huh?

Chu Tingwu had already heard the game’s music, and the familiar tune left her speechless.

What kind of player could lose to a monkey in *Cat Can’t Learn*? Did they not answer a single question correctly?

Wait, how did they even get matched with a monkey in the first place, given the game’s intelligent matchmaking system?

System: "?"

System: "=,="

The monkey just guessed the multiple-choice questions correctly—what else could it do?