Chapter 5: A Pretty Little House

“Either go work the streets, or stand there and watch them beat me to death!”

That was the last thing Wuxue remembered her stepmother saying to her.

Thank goodness for Qiongna, the wife of Torre—the man who had shot Wuxue.

Without her, Wuxue might have been forced onto the streets at a tender age. She could still be living in that filthy slum now.

But her stepmother really had been beaten to death. She died in some corner of the slum, surrounded by trash and sewage.

Wuxue would never forget her stepmother’s twisted face in life, or the contorted body she’d left behind.

Wuxue hated everything about the slums—the gangs, the sleazy little men. Ever since leaving home, she’d done her best to avoid people like them. But the singer had dredged up those memories again today. Wuxue snatched an object off the nearby table and swung it at the singer’s head.

The singer had dodged her attacks all the way here, and Wuxue had expected her to slip away again. This time, though, the blow landed squarely. At last, the woman who’d been chattering nonstop fell quiet.

As soon as the singer hit the floor, Wuxue crouched and searched her. Her gun wasn’t there. It had to be somewhere in the house.

The sudden exertion had made Wuxue’s wounds throb. She’d probably torn them open again and needed to rest.

She went to a chair beside the round table in the middle of the room and sat down, then injected the medicine from her pocket.

At least the singer hadn’t hidden her supplies. In less than a minute, the medicine had begun to take effect, and Wuxue felt much better. The things from the civilized world were far more effective than these local remedies.

Wuxue looked around and finally took in the room’s unusual furnishings. The place was a shack, just like the slums she’d grown up in, but inside, everything was neat and carefully arranged. A porcelain cup sat on the table. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was so clean it looked brand-new. The cups weren’t the only spotless things in the room; the whole place was immaculate. A framed oil painting hung on the wall beside the bed where she’d rested earlier. The frame was a little battered, and something that didn’t belong—oil, perhaps, or something else—had stained the painting. Still, it looked right at home there.

Wuxue glanced at the singer sprawled on the floor, then at the room. She couldn’t imagine this being the home of such an ugly woman.

People who could barely afford to eat didn’t care much about what their rooms looked like. In Wuxue’s memory, every slum she’d ever walked through had been piled with garbage and reeked of rot. They were little more than breeding grounds for maggots.

She lifted the kettle. There was water inside, so she poured herself a cup without asking. The ache in her body eased a little. Then she went back to searching for her gun.

“I told you, the gun… isn’t in the room.”

Wuxue hadn’t expected the singer to wake up so soon. Maybe she hadn’t hit her hard enough.

“Give me the gun,” Wuxue said.

“Give me the money,” the singer shot back, still refusing to give in.

Wuxue hadn’t expected this little nobody to be so stubborn. Two hundred thousand Orbs really wasn’t much—about a month’s wages for someone in the city. It was worth less than one of the parts on her gun.

Besides, if the gun hadn’t meant so much to Wuxue, she wouldn’t have cared this much.

“Fine. I’ll give you the money.”

Wuxue didn’t want to make things harder for the singer. Being poor wasn’t a crime, and Wuxue had agreed to trade money for the Black Box. Torre had taken it, after all.

“I’ll go back to the city and get it,” Wuxue relented. “I’ll bring you the money. You give me back my gun.”

“No!” the singer refused. “If you get your gun, what’s to stop you from running off?”

The singer’s obsession with money was baffling. Anyone else would have realized that the gun and the medicine were worth far more, but the singer seemed to think nothing in the world mattered more than cash.

As Wuxue tried to make sense of it, the door opened. On instinct, she grabbed the nearest thing—a broom.

“Shisan, what are you doing?”

The voice was very young, and its owner was a child.

The girl looked eight or nine, maybe a little older. Children raised in places like this were often malnourished. She was no exception: thin, sallow, and dressed in rags. She even wavered as she walked, as if the slightest breeze could knock her over.

“Nothing!” The singer’s stern expression vanished at once, replaced by a smile. It was still just as ugly.

“Then why is there blood on your head?” the girl asked.

She trotted over to the singer and wiped at the wound with her sleeve. The sleeve was filthy, but the singer didn’t object. She just grinned and let the girl help.

Wuxue looked at the child. Ten years ago, she’d probably looked much the same—small and dirty, accustomed to the violence in the streets. She lowered the broom and set it aside.

“I bumped into something,” the singer said cheerfully, shooting Wuxue a few pointed glances as if asking her to play along.

“She bumped into it,” Wuxue said, backing up the lie.

The girl noticed Wuxue for the first time and walked over to study her from head to toe with wide eyes.

“What should I call you, Sister?”

The girl spoke like a grown-up. She’d called the singer Shisan without a second thought, and now she was asking Wuxue’s name. The serious tone coming from such a childish face struck Wuxue as rather cute.

“My surname is Su.”

Even if she was only a child, she was still a stranger. Wuxue didn’t want to get too close, especially since she’d once grown up in a place like this herself. Children could be just as cruel as adults.

“I’m Jian Shier,” the girl announced, patting her chest.

“All right, Shier. Go on back. Miss Su and I still have things to discuss,” the singer urged her.

“Yes, Shier and…” Wuxue caught herself. She still didn’t know the singer’s name. But the girl had called her Shisan, so she went with it. “Shisan and I still have things to discuss.”

The girl circled them again, still wearing her grown-up expression. “What kind of thing do you need to do in secret?”

“It’s grown-up business. You wouldn’t understand. Go on back.”

As the singer spoke, she ushered the girl toward the door.

“Don’t keep trying to shut me up by calling it grown-up business,” the girl grumbled. “I came here for something important.”

“Tell me about it later.” The singer ruffled the girl’s hair, then glared at Wuxue. The singer wanted the two hundred thousand Orb, and Wuxue wanted her gun back. As long as Shier stayed, the two of them couldn’t settle their deal.

Seeing the singer grow impatient, the girl didn’t argue. She obediently headed for the door, then stopped after a couple of steps and turned back.

“The nun said everyone chipped in a hundred thousand Orb. That should just about cover this month’s food. If you can’t find the rest, don’t force yourself. Don’t work too hard.”

“All right, all right,” the singer replied.

Wuxue had lost count of how many times she’d heard “two hundred thousand Orb” today. But this was the first time the words had come with an explanation. From the girl’s brief comment, Wuxue finally understood why the singer needed the money. Two hundred thousand Orbs really wasn’t much to Wuxue.

Maybe the poverty here had stirred up too many painful memories. Maybe it was something else she couldn’t put into words. Whatever the reason, Wuxue found herself a way to justify the deal: Torre had made the agreement with the singer before he betrayed her. That meant the deal still stood.

“All right, let’s continue,” the singer said. “But no more hitting!”

She snatched the broom from beside Wuxue, though it wouldn’t have been much of a threat anyway.

Wuxue looked at the singer, battered and disheveled. The way she seemed ready to throw away all her dignity for money reminded Wuxue of someone.

Wuxue went back to the round table. “There’s no need to discuss it. Tomorrow, you come to the city with me. We trade the money for my gun.”