I'm a Cat in the Northern Song Dynasty

They say it is better to be a dog in peaceful times than a person in an age of chaos, but Meng Yue has transmigrated into a cat.

The good news: It is now the Renzong era of the Northern Song, more than a century before the Jingkang Disaster. As a cat with a lifespan of only ten or twenty years, she can live in peace until she dies.

The bad news: She's a stray, and a weak one at that. She can't catch mice, and neither people nor dogs nor cats like her.

Her first priority is to find someone to clean her litter box.

After wandering the streets and alleys of Bianjing for a few days, she sets her sights on Shu Jingyun, a junior scholar at the Hanlin Academy.

Shu Jingyun has a home, is beautiful and kind, and isn't stingy. Even when she steals his dried fish right in front of him, he just smiles at her gently.

He's practically the perfect person to clean her litter box.

After rolling around, throwing tantrums, playing the pitiful victim, and staging a little accident, Meng Yue successfully makes herself at home and becomes Shu Jingyun's cat overlord.

Only then does she realize she's been duped.

Shu Jingyun's house is rented, for three strings of cash a month.

He's indeed handsome and refined, but he's also a sanctimonious bleeding heart who keeps getting swindled and taken advantage of by the neighbors.

Most importantly, junior scholars in the Song Dynasty don't receive a salary, only a monthly stipend of five strings of cash.

And living in Bianjing is extremely expensive. Even the common folk at the bottom of society need to spend at least twenty copper coins a day to afford the bare necessities. How much more must Shu Jingyun, a young official who has to socialize as well as pay for food and drink, spend?

His finances are so tight he can barely make ends meet.

To avoid starving to death, Meng Yue has no choice but to roll up her sleeves, or rather, the fur on her forelegs, and figure out how to earn her own cat food.

Why not start with the human traffickers who specialize in kidnapping noble children? After all, robbing robbers is a quick way to make money.

A little scene:

One day, Shu Jingyun suddenly says to Meng Yue, "The Princess Royal is grateful to you for finding her young son. She would like to hire you for her residence. Would you be willing?"

Meng Yue tilts her fluffy little head and considers it.

Being the household cat at the Princess's residence would mean delicious food and drink, and neither people nor cats would dare bully her. It sounds wonderful in every way.

But without her, this sanctimonious bleeding heart Shu Jingyun would give away the ten thousand strings of cash he'd worked so hard to save in less than half a year, and end up poor all over again.

Meng Yue decides that this household can't do without her.

So she darts right in front of Shu Jingyun and pummels him with both paws.

Shu Jingyun doesn't get angry at being beaten. He shields his face with his hands and says with a helpless smile, "If you don't want to go, then don't. Why are you hitting me? I didn't want you to leave either."

Reading guide:

1. Set in an imaginary Northern Song Dynasty; a slow-paced story of everyday life among ordinary folk.

2. The heroine is a cat at first, but will become human later.

3. Both are each other's first and only, happy ending.

4. Feisty little cat VS beautiful, kind litter-box cleaner.

Theme: Keep working those paws, and rely on yourself to live well and prosper.