“Type any random string of pure numbers after ‘www’ in the browser, and it’ll auto-redirect to this site.
Don’t ask me how I found out.” Hayato gestured for Mi Xiaoliu to take her phone and see for herself.
Mi Xiaoliu didn’t get it.
She kept her mouth shut, chewing her food, watching him quietly.
[Memory Fragment 196]: Don’t smack your lips when you eat.
“Fine.
I figured girls these days knew plenty—give me the phone.”
Isn’t everyone always saying girls mature earlier than boys?
He’d had this skill down since fifth grade.
Right in front of Mi Xiaoliu, he navigated through the site a few times, then handed the phone back.
It was an extremely crude interface—no site logo, the whole thing looking like a shopping site with night mode switched on.
The overall display was dark, partly to keep some idiot from opening it in a public place and having it seen over their shoulder.
What sat on the homepage wasn’t merchandise, but jobs posted by various employers.
God knew how this site avoided the police yet quietly reeled customers in—maybe there was some data-related Esper behind it.
What puzzled Hayato even more: had no organization member ever been caught?
If they had, the police should’ve been able to find the site through their phone.
All kinds of jobs.
Robbery, beatings, bodyguarding…
with wildly varying payouts, some assassination jobs paying commissions of barely over ten thousand.
On that count, Boss Wei Shi really hadn’t lied to them.
Some human lives in this world really weren’t worth that much.
From these jobs, Night Hawk looked more like a mercenary organization, though its ceiling and floor were genuinely hard to gauge.
In the bottom-right corner was a “Me” button; tapping in, you’d find an account had already been auto-registered.
Username “Princess,” affiliated with Group 42, jobs completed 1, incomplete 0, total jobs 1, reputation 100%, positive rating 100%.
Job history: Assassinate a runaway employee and recover the documents; teammate Hourglass; five-star rating.
Employer review: Item received, my kid loves it.
“In exchange for handing over this info, Xiaohei needs to do me a favor—only fair.” Hayato held up one finger.
“I knew he was up to no good!
Master, don’t agree to it,” Sasha shouted angrily inside Mi Xiaoliu’s head.
Mi Xiaoliu said nothing, because what Sasha said clashed with the memory fragment “when others help you, you help them back.”
“Taking side jobs on our own, with our seniority we can only get gofer work—the kind of stuff only petty thugs do.
Now, this senior of yours has a rather frail body; I can only manage a hundred and fifty push-ups in one go…”
As he talked he took out his own phone and tapped a couple times.
For some reason, this man who’d stepped through the door only a few minutes before Mi Xiaoliu had started calling himself her senior.
A dialog box popped up on Mi Xiaoliu’s phone.
Hourglass invites you to team up for the job “Somebody come break his legs for me.” Accept?
Yes / No
Commission: 2,000 Mila
Compared to the amounts with all those zeros on the homepage, this job really did look like something you’d toss to a petty thug.
“Master, don’t accept.
This guy’s tricking you into free labor,” Sasha jumped in to stop her.
“It took me ages to find this job—close by, and something we can take on our own.
Miss it and we might not get to take a side job for a long time…
Oh, right.” Hayato stood up, looking at the whole table of dishes.
“You settle the bill.
I didn’t take a single bite, after all.”
With that, Mi Xiaoliu’s vision blurred, and she faintly sensed something off.
The Hayato before her had vanished.
The people nearby, at a living, breathing person suddenly vanishing, only glanced over and didn’t make much of a fuss.
Compared to someone vanishing, the pretty, handsome little girl was better at holding their attention.
“That son of a bitch!” Sasha cursed.
Mi Xiaoliu set down the drumstick she’d just bitten into, looked at the whole table Hayato had ordered, and suddenly felt she had no appetite.
“Pretty girl?
Your brother just went up to the front desk and said you’d be paying.” A server came over.
She’d agonized for two minutes over whether to call her “kid” or “pretty girl,” and in the end went with “pretty girl,” which felt a bit more respectful to a customer.
“He’s not my brother.
And I’m not pretty.”
Sasha said she wasn’t good-looking.
“Uh…
sorry, kid, it comes to 360 Mila.”
So this was a lolicon scumbag—making the girl pay, no less.
Pah!
And to think he was even decent-looking.
Or maybe he was some rich loli’s kept man—do young girls these days go for that kind of thing?
Mi Xiaoliu took out the card that hadn’t had much on it to begin with, then tapped “Yes” on the team-up request on her phone.
Hayato was a bad person.
I hate him.
Mi Xiaoliu redefined him.
Tennis courts.
Generally few people watch others play tennis up close, because it’s an activity with limited space and an easy chance of catching a stray ball.
Take the elective tennis PE class—you can’t say you’ve really been to class until you’ve been hit by a tennis ball.
But every afternoon after school, a few girls still gather around.
Because Yiwen holds club activities at this time, and when Yiwen takes a break they can run over and offer her water—she almost never accepts it, but who knows, maybe this time?
If Yiwen accepted, wouldn’t that mean she had feelings for you?
Bringing water was as nerve-wracking as a confession; many girls hesitated so long they never went over at all.
Isn’t it said that boys generally won’t refuse a girl’s overtures?
“Has Little Six started to like tennis?” Yiwen, resting on the steps, looked at Mi Xiaoliu sitting beside her.
“Want to join?
It’s club activities this time so I didn’t borrow equipment, but I’ve got a spare racket I can lend you.”
Yiwen deliberately put a little extra weight on the word “lend.”
Though the money she’d lent last time had been paid back, after yesterday’s lunch she still found Mi Xiaoliu’s character and conduct rather hard to read.
This time she hadn’t invited Mi Xiaoliu, yet after school Mi Xiaoliu came along all the same, just sitting here quietly, not offering to play.
Maybe she was just shy—she did seem pretty introverted.
Mi Xiaoliu shook her head.
She didn’t want to play; she’d only tagged along to wait and walk home with Yiwen, since they went the same way, because last time they’d walked together.
She sat quietly, waiting, not playing on her phone, just spacing out.
Sasha had said people might watch TV in their free time, but there was no TV at home, no novels, no computer; the only usable phone was a button phone, and Mi Xiaoliu didn’t know how to play the Snake game inside it, and going out shopping only ever earned her others’ fear at the sight of her badge.
This school’s homework was generally required to be finished in class; the academic workload was several times lighter than at a normal school, because excessive stress could cause classmates wearing danger-level badges to lose control outright.
So these past two days, once Mi Xiaoliu got home and finished eating, she’d sleep, or else keep spacing out, listening to Sasha talk at her one-sidedly.
Right now Sasha was chattering away in her head, asking why she’d come to watch tennis, whether she’d fallen for Yiwen and the like.
“Master, did you forget you’re also keeping a cat?”
“The kitten’s at home waiting for Master to feed it.
Forget about this stinky brat, Master.”
“Master, no man is any good.
Look at that basterd who screwed you over at lunch…”
“Basterd?” Mi Xiaoliu, mind emptied and hooked into the Malphite Network, caught only that one unfamiliar word.
“Ah—that’s a bad word, Master, don’t pick it up.”
“Yiwen, you’re up!” The club president called over.
“Coming.”
Yiwen stood and went to sub in for someone.
The weather today was fairly hot, and Yiwen was wearing lighter clothing than usual.
Anyone who’s just finished exercising, worked up a sweat, and sat down on the steps to rest could probably guess what would happen—like those two oval shapes forming a butt print left on the steps.
Mi Xiaoliu stared quietly at Yiwen’s butt print, watching it slowly shrink until it vanished.
Puzzled, she pressed a hand to the steps—no visible print like the one just now appeared.
Mi-style confusion.
Thank you all so much!