“Master, you absolutely cannot eat the kitten!”
“Why not?”
Mi Xiaoliu held the kitten in her hands.
The little thing was unusually docile; even when picked up, it didn’t scratch.
“Because kittens are meant to be kept as pets.”
“No one’s keeping it.”
“But the humans of this world have already agreed this species is a pet—the historical records show it was this way even before the Cataclysm.
If you kill it, Master, you’ll be morally condemned by others…”
Sasha rattled off a string of reasoning that may or may not have been reasonable.
“…”
“In some people’s eyes, a pet’s life might be even more precious than a human’s.
And it’s so small…”
“It’s so small”—that phrase echoed in Mi Xiaoliu’s ears.
A strange sense of déjà vu, yet she couldn’t dredge up a single thing.
It was like opening a short-video app meaning to search for something, only to forget what you came for the instant the homepage recommendations load—that same maddening itch, as if ants were crawling over her skin.
It deepened her craving for her memories, until she was ready to pour every last few hundred Mila she had into the gacha.
Mi Xiaoliu quietly set the kitten back into the cardboard box, sat down on the stool, and lowered her head, spacing out.
This was the thing she’d done most these past two days.
When she spaced out she might be thinking of nothing at all, or she might just be trying to recall the fragments she couldn’t recall.
Every time she tried to remember, she couldn’t help opening that wheel used to draw back memories—only to falter the moment she saw her balance.
“Master!
You can’t draw again!”
Sasha’s voice and the doorbell rang out at the same time.
Mi Xiaoliu lowered her hand and sat quietly, head bowed.
The doorbell rang again.
Her hands still didn’t move.
“Master, the doorbell means someone’s here to see you,” Sasha reminded her.
“Oh.” Still she didn’t move.
“Master isn’t going to open the door for them?”
“If someone comes to see me, do I have to open the door?”
“Generally you would…
Master could look through the peephole to see who it is first, then decide.
Pretending you’re not home when you clearly are is pretty rude.”
Mi Xiaoliu nodded, picked up the kitten she’d just brought home, and tried to see something in its eyes.
She could see nothing.
Feeling deceived, Mi Xiaoliu’s brow twitched, faint enough to leave no trace.
“Master, that little lens on the door is also called a ‘cat’s eye’—a peephole…” Sasha said weakly.
Mi Xiaoliu tilted her head back a little.
Eating a cat would get her morally condemned—but every door installed meant a cat’s eye had been gouged out.
Humans are terrifying.
Under Sasha’s guidance, Mi Xiaoliu managed to identify which one was the peephole on the door.
The height was just right—no need to stoop, no need to stand on her toes.
She pressed against it to look, but instead of the person outside as Sasha had promised, she saw only a field of blood-red.
Looking closely, she could make out white around the edge of the red, and a few blood vessels threading through the white.
She stared blankly for two seconds.
Only with Sasha’s prompting did she realize it was an eye—someone was locking eyes with her across a single door panel…
Many peepholes, when the interior is well-lit, let a person outside see in to some degree.
Mi Xiaoliu held still, silently pressed to the peephole, holding a staring contest across the width of a door.
They stared for several seconds.
Finally, the person outside blinked first, eyes going dry, and chose to look away.
She stepped back two paces, letting Mi Xiaoliu take in her whole appearance.
A pink-haired big sister with an otherworldly air, looking about thirty.
Her slightly messy hair was carelessly gathered into a single ponytail draped down her back; she wore a white lab coat and had a lollipop in her mouth.
Even with the obvious dark circles under her eyes, it was clear she was a beauty.
Though she’d rung twice with no answer, there wasn’t a trace of impatience on her face.
After the few seconds of eye contact with Mi Xiaoliu, she simply pressed the doorbell again.
“She’s your landlady, Master!” Sasha yelped.
“Oh no, oh no, how did I forget about this?”
When she’d tallied Master’s food budget, she’d forgotten to factor in the rent that still hadn’t been paid.
“Landlady?”
“It’s the owner of the house Master lives in.
Master has to pay the house’s owner rent—that’s how Master gets to live in the owner’s house.”
“…”
A whole speech, and she hadn’t understood a single word.
She’d only understood that she had to pay money.
So the landlady was a bad person.
“Master, whatever you do, don’t offend her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s got pink hair!” People with pink hair are never to be trifled with.
“…”
Mi Xiaoliu opened the door.
“You got the money for rent?” The landlady got straight to the point.
Her tone was flat, breathy, running out of air—the kind that made you wonder if she might just keel over dead the next second.
“How much?”
“Three hundred fifty.”
It was a student apartment, after all—a month wasn’t too pricey; there wasn’t even a deposit-plus-three-months’ thing.
Mi Xiaoliu nodded.
Her arithmetic common sense told her she had more money than three hundred fifty.
“But Master, if you pay the rent you won’t have enough left to eat!”
There was no telling when the next job would call for her.
They said she had to take at least one job a month; this month was nearly over, and what if next month they didn’t call until the very end?
“No money,” Mi Xiaoliu answered, decisive.
The landlady’s brow furrowed, plain as day.
“Master, you should be more tactful…
don’t answer so bluntly,” Sasha despaired.
“I might not have money,” Mi Xiaoliu offered, a less blunt version.
The landlady folded her arms.
Now even Sasha didn’t know how to help her.
After all, since moving in, she hadn’t even paid the first month’s rent.
That the landlady let her keep living here was already enormous mercy.
The landlady looked at Mi Xiaoliu in silence.
The two of them held each other’s gaze for a good while, across a lens and a colored contact.
“I’ll come ask one more time in three days.” That, it seemed, was the deadline the merciful landlady gave.
“Pay the water and electricity by the guard booth on the ground floor—here it’s pay first, use after.”
“Mm.” Mi Xiaoliu nodded.
Never mind what it was; just agree first.
“Don’t go running around outside at night.” Before leaving, the landlady kindly added a reminder.
“This city isn’t very peaceful.
Someone died again last night.
It’s dangerous for a kid like you to be out on the streets after dark.”
“Mm.”
Without further small talk, the landlady turned and went on to ring the next door’s bell, then pressed against its peephole and peered in for a good while.
“Rent—seven hundred this month…”
Mi Xiaoliu shut the door again, turned around, and saw the kitten gnawing on one of the steamed buns she’d bought.
Only a few months old, and it could already use a chair to jump onto the table.
Mi Xiaoliu sat down and watched it quietly, making no move to stop it.
She knew how miserable being hungry felt.
“Does Master want to keep it?” Sasha sounded a little surprised.
“Keep it?”
“It means from now on Master takes care of its food and its waste, gives it a bath now and then, and in return it repays Master with its cute looks and the occasional trashing of the house.”
“Then who keeps me?” Mi Xiaoliu poked the kitten’s head.
Envious.
“Uh, well.” A kid Master’s age was usually in the early rebellious phase—but hadn’t yet left the shelter of their parents’ arms.
Sasha, who had followed Mi Xiaoliu since she was small and knew nearly everything about her, fell silent.
Looking at the last remaining bun, Mi Xiaoliu took out a brand-less smartphone.
This was the phone the organization issued to each member—reissued to her by “Boss” after she completed the job.
The number was special: it couldn’t call normal numbers, couldn’t play games, and came with a dedicated browser and a chat app.
In short, it couldn’t be used as a normal phone.
Following Sasha’s guidance, she painstakingly typed out the two characters “job” plus a question mark to Boss.
He replied in an instant: Don’t get greedy.
It might be called Little Gotham, but there wasn’t always work.
People with money had to think hard about the downsides of hiring an outlaw organization, and people at the bottom…
this city didn’t even have cameras; for them, spending that kind of money to hire someone was worse than just taking the risk themselves.
Besides, not every job could be handed to them—they were just newbies, after all.
The jobs they could usually get were, at most, chasing down debts, or trashing someone’s shop like a petty punk would.
The money wasn’t anywhere near as much as that first time.