Chapter 9 What's Here?

"What's here?" Xiao Tan asked, looking at the large cross that Brother Jue pointed to on the map.

"This is the end of the corridor on the second floor. There's a sliding window on the wall," Feng Bujue replied. "Earlier, during those few minutes when I 'went to the restroom,' I set up a little contraption on the window..."

"With transparent tape?" Xiao Tan immediately responded.

"Heh... quite clever," Brother Jue said with a smile.

"I remember you used that trick back in the second grade," Xiao Tan said. "That night, you snuck into the school and sawed through the desks and chairs of several boys in the neighboring class overnight..."

"You remember that quite well," Feng Bujue said. "I'd almost forgotten about it myself."

"I remember pretty much all the bad things you did..." Xiao Tan said, a thoughtful look on his face. "Hmm... I don't know why."

"Heh... maybe your 'conscience' has some to spare, so it took on my share of 'sins' as well," Feng Bujue joked.

"Actually... I think... you definitely have a conscience too..." Xiao Tan said, "It's just that your views are a bit different from normal people..."

"Hmph..." Feng Bujue gave a meaningful smile. "Perhaps..."

Two seconds later, he brought the topic back to the "matter at hand": "Alright, now that you know my methods, let's cut the small talk and I'll assign the tasks..."

As he spoke, Brother Jue looked at Xiongji: "Xiongji, you're the heaviest here, and your attire is both conspicuous and inconvenient. So, when we form the human ladder later, you'll have to be at the bottom."

"Huh?" Xiongji was stunned for a second. "What human ladder?"

It turned out that he still hadn't understood the meaning of the "transparent tape contraption"... so he had no idea what the two of them were talking about.

Of course, he couldn't be entirely blamed for this. Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi had years of tacit understanding. There were many things they could comprehend without saying them explicitly. But with Xiongji's IQ and EQ... you'd have to explain everything ten times over for him to understand.

"At the end of the corridor on the second floor, there's a window that looks closed, but it can actually be opened..." Xiao Tan was patient enough to immediately turn to Xiongji and explain, "We'll go in from there."

"Oh..." Xiongji responded with a vague understanding.

Feng Bujue continued: "Considering that Hayatarou's hand isn't very convenient for opening windows, the one at the top of the human ladder has to be me." He raised his cat paw and waved it in front of the bear and the falcon. "Besides... I'm light and not afraid of falling from heights. It's undoubtedly most reasonable for me to be at the top."

"Understood," Xiao Tan naturally had no objections to this.

"Uh... Cat Saburo-sensei, how do the two of us get in?" Xiongji then asked a very low-level question.

"Is your round, big head full of shit..." Brother Jue's desire to mock was ignited once again. "I'm already in the house, what do you think?"

"Uh..." Xiongji thought for two seconds. "Could it be... you'll throw a rope down from the second floor and pull us up?"

*Slap—*

This time, Brother Jue didn't slap Xiongji's bear face, but pressed his palm against his own face. "I have to be patient... there are still twelve chapters... after twelve chapters, I'll stab him to death..." he muttered viciously in a voice only he could hear.

"Sigh..." Xiao Tan patted Xiongji's shoulder and said earnestly, "Since Cat Saburo has already gotten into the house, can't he just go back to the first floor and open the front door for us..."

"Ah! That's right!" Xiongji clapped his hands.

"Alright, alright... let's move." Feng Bujue took out two flashlights from his pocket and gave one each to Xiao Tan and Xiongji. "Put them away for now, and turn them on when you get inside... When you turn them on, don't forget to cover the front with your hand to prevent the beam from shooting out all at once."

"Eh? Aren't you using one?" Wang Tanzhi looked at Brother Jue with a suspicious expression.

"I'm a cat, did you forget?" Feng Bujue replied.

...

Five minutes later...

Climbing over Meowmei's outer wall didn't take too much time for these three night thieves. It was just an ordinary low wall, and Feng Bujue, with his cat-like agility, could easily jump over the wall. Once one person was up, it was much easier for the other two. The one who went up could help pull up their companions as they climbed.

After entering the wall, the three quickly and quietly passed through a not-so-large backyard...

In the wee hours of the morning, everything was silent, and even the slightest sound would be much more noticeable than during the day. Therefore, the three of them had to be extra careful, or they would easily alert the cat.

"Hmm... hmm hmm hmm... hmm... hey!" After arriving at the wall, Feng Bujue lowered his voice and, accompanied by small humming noises, gave Xiao Tan and Xiongji six hand signals.

And Xiao Tan and Xiongji's reactions after seeing that set of hand signals were the same. They both stared at Brother Jue with wide eyes, their expressions as if to ask, "What are you doing?"

"Sigh..." Feng Bujue shook his head and simply spoke, "You, here, squat steadily. You, over there, prepare to run." As he spoke, he repeated the hand signals from before.

"You could have just said it..." Xiao Tan replied quietly.

*Slap—*

"Eh? Why did you hit me?" The next second, Xiongji was slapped for no apparent reason.

But when Feng Bujue hit him, his eyes were looking at Wang Tanzhi.

"Hey... is this mental intimidation?" Xiao Tan muttered.

"Stop the damn nonsense, and move," Feng Bujue replied irritably.

The two couldn't resist him, exchanged a glance, and then acted accordingly...

A true "three-person human ladder" is a technical skill that requires a lot of coordination. In theory, with this skill, even ordinary people can climb to very high heights. To give a more extreme example... Rantaro, Amaru, and Shinbei (all from *Nintama Rantarou*) have used this move to climb extremely high cliffs.

And now, Cat Saburo, Hayatarou, and Xiongji only needed to reach the second floor. Using a three-person human ladder shouldn't be too difficult (if they weren't set up as elementary school students, maybe a two-person human ladder would have been enough)...

"We're ready~"

Two minutes later, Xiao Tan, who was riding on Xiongji's shoulders, quietly called out to Brother Jue, who was a few meters away.

At this time, Xiongji straightened his back, bent his legs, and assumed a horse stance, with his hands stacked together, palms up, ready to be used as a stepping stone for his companions.

Xiao Tan's posture wasn't easy either. In addition to using his waist and feet to stabilize his body, he also had to extend his wings forward to provide a "second layer" of stepping stones.

"Alright... I'm coming..." Feng Bujue, seeing that his companions were ready, responded and started to run.

As the saying goes, a sustained effort is vital, then relaxation, and finally exhaustion. When performing a movement that has a certain degree of difficulty and requires both strength, endurance, and skill, the probability of success is highest on the first try.

Feng Bujue naturally understood this, so he went all out from the beginning, raising his concentration to the limit...

In the blink of an eye, there were two "poop poop" sounds (the sound of paw pads stepping was not loud)...

And a swift black shadow, light as a cat, stepped on the fur and went up.

It wasn't until he was halfway up that Feng Bujue realized... his body was even more useful than he had imagined.

A cat is a cat. Although it has been anthropomorphized, many characteristics are still retained. For example... during the day, Feng Bujue saw a reflective glass bottle on the ground, and he had an inexplicable desire to go over and play with it; also, when he saw regular, high-speed, back-and-forth moving objects, he wanted to rush up and stop them; the most outrageous thing was... today, he passed by a fruit stall and smelled oranges, and then he couldn't help but run away...

In short, "Cat Saburo" still retained many characteristics of a cat.

In addition to those "cute points" that made Brother Jue feel a little embarrassed, there were also many useful skills... night vision, climbing ability, balance, a flexible body, and claws that could injure when necessary were all things that Brother Jue was happy to see.

"Hmph... this is easy..." Feng Bujue easily grabbed onto the window sill, feeling that his body was not heavy at all and that he could support himself with one arm.

Soon, he placed the paw pads of his other paw on the window and pulled it open...

He flipped into the house and looked ahead.

The darkness in the second-floor corridor was ineffective for Feng Bujue. Not to mention that when he came here during the day, he had already memorized 90% of the terrain, distance, and other factors. Just now, his light-gathering eyes, relying on the little moonlight shining in from outside, could directly see everything in the house clearly.

*Poop poop poop poop—*

Feng Bujue took off his shoes (because he was an anthropomorphic character, he was wearing shoes, just like Xiongji in the previous case), and moved around the house at high speed with his hands and feet. The paw pads under his feet made only slight "poop poop" sounds on the floor, almost without any noise.

In less than a minute, Brother Jue groped his way down to the first floor and stood at the front door.

There would be a little bit of noise when opening the door lock. Even if the sound wasn't loud, the sound of metal objects colliding should still be very noticeable in this dark night.

Therefore, Feng Bujue's movements when opening the door were very slow, aiming to minimize the sound of the lock popping out.

It took him a minute to go downstairs, but it took him a full two minutes to open the door...

Two minutes later, the door opened.

Outside the door were two figures who had been waiting for a long time.

"Hmm..." Feng Bujue really didn't speak this time. It was one thing to say a few words outside, the sound would dissipate, but it wouldn't work inside, "Hmm hmm..."

He winked and hummed a few times, signaling Xiao Tan and Xiongji to enter the house.

When all three of them were standing inside the house, Brother Jue used a very light and slow method... to close the front door again.