The Cat's Treasure

In the dim light, the girl's fair body had a hazy beauty, but the wicked smile on her lips was crystal clear.

"I must remind you, if the police notice anything amiss, it only takes them thirty seconds to get down from up there and break through..."

"Lin, a private investigator, usually only takes on simple cases such as digging up dirt on the partners of the rich and finding cats, dogs, or people. He doesn't like smoking or drinking, and he's single. Hmm, what a perfect resume. If you threw it at any company's HR, he'd probably be fired in less than three seconds."

The girl's face gradually drew closer, her pure sapphire-red eyes allowing Lin to see his slightly panicked face, and sweet breath leaked from the corners of her smiling mouth.

"This guy, who's like a piece of chewing gum left under a bus seat, easily saw through my plans."

"In fact, your plans... are too simplistic."

Lin snapped his fingers and pulled them out of the handcuffs. He punched the girl in the face, confident that this punch would make her suffer a lot.

"Bang!"

However, his fist was easily caught by her palm. To his astonishment, the girl smiled and slowly twisted his wrist. The intense pain forced him to bend over, and then she punched him in the chest, causing him to fall back onto the bed.

"Cough cough..." Are you kidding me? That petite-looking body actually has such great strength?

"Is my plan too simplistic? No, no, no, how could that be? How could such great 'knowledge' ever miscalculate?"

"I was just giving those two a small suggestion: to wipe out this rotten family that enjoys torturing and killing others, and to do them a little favor in the process." She rested her hand on Lin's forehead. "I wasn't caught, and what do I care if they live or die? Isn't that perfect?"

"Ahem... If it were as perfect as you say, then you wouldn't have arrested me..." Lin grinned, revealing a provocative smile. "Besides, you seem to be easily driven to extremes. Even if you killed me, how would you escape afterward?"

"Huh? Who said I was going to kill you? I'm very interested in you, in every way."

Lin noticed the girl's alluring gaze, so captivating it seemed to stretch into silken threads, and he shuddered. "Hey, wait, you don't mean to—"

"Bang!"

She covered his mouth with her hand, pressed him firmly onto the bed, and then plunged a dagger into the bed frame less than a centimeter from his face.

A sharp, cold aura seemed to emanate from the dagger.

A cold sweat broke out all over my face.

The girl whispered in his ear, her voice a mix of gentleness and threat. "From now on, you'll lick whatever I tell you to lick, and eat whatever I tell you to eat."

Lin gritted his teeth and stared at her slender, white nape. "Once you put it in my mouth, you can forget about taking it back."

"Then you'll have to consider whether you can still stare at me like this when a knife is churning your brains inside your skull." She tilted her head and chuckled. "I know you're afraid of death."

"..."

"How about this? If you can last longer than me, I'll let you go and surrender. What do you say?"

Lin's teeth chattered, he closed his eyes, and tears of humiliation streamed down his face.

"I... um, I'm so sorry that this happened..."

The red-haired woman didn't know how to comfort the man wrapped in a blanket in the cold wind. When they found him, he was convulsing as if he had been electrocuted, and the scene looked rather... unseemly.

Although I don't know what happened, Lin lost, in every way.

Is the other person very ugly?

"... She's a stunning beauty."

"This is your first time? Well, it's true, it's my first time being forced..."

"It's her first time too."

"..."

The red-haired woman's eyes were strange, and Lin knew what she was thinking—it was only natural.

"You said she worked at the police station. I sent Hua with you back then, do you remember?"

"Magnificent?"

The red-haired woman raised her hand and beckoned, and a person walked over. Lin's eyes widened when he saw the person's face.

Under the blinding light, she appeared before me, looking somewhat bewildered.

"It's her!"

"How could that be? Hua has been with me for three or four years." The red-haired woman frowned and asked Hua, "Hua, I told you to follow him back then, right?"

"Follow him? But I'm escorting prisoners."

"..."

"Wait a minute." Lin frowned, looking at Hua's face. "Do you have any sisters?"

"I have a younger sister, but she ran away from home a long time ago."

His voice was hoarse from shouting, and he couldn't tell if the saliva in his mouth was his own or the girl's. His whole body was filled with a tingling sensation that made his brain numb. He lay on the bed, delirious, while the girl wiped her body with a towel and laughed arrogantly.

"Next time, if you win, I'll let you be on top."

The teasing words pierced my mind.

Lin's eyes hardened. He took a deep breath, stood up, and threw away the blanket.

"Miss Hua, would you be willing to help me catch a super criminal?" He resolutely extended his hand to the stunned Hua. "She is your sister. We must settle this between ourselves, as detective and criminal."

"Oh, well... I don't mind, but could you put your pants on first?"

"Don't worry about the details, Watson."

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Cat's Treasure

The sickle is a weapon that looks good but is not very practical. Most of the time, it is used by people to harvest wheat. The source of humanity's excessive obsession with using it to behead people is still unknown, but its way of exerting force and the configuration of its inward-curved blade are indeed not suitable for combat.

If we're talking about a scythe as a weapon for showing off skills, then Rita is probably the coolest one she uses.

"Bass!"

Lin narrowly dodged the blade by tilting his head back, then swung his spear at Rita's hand holding the scythe.

Rita decisively let go, her supple waist extending backward, her hands bracing on the ground, kicking the long handle of the sickle, clamping the sickle between her legs, and changing from a vertical slash to a horizontal one, aiming for Lin's waist.

So elegant and gorgeous, it's like dancing.

The evening gown was like rose petals, the girl's long hair danced, and her alluring cheeks flushed slightly with movement.

"Oh--"

Lin's spear slammed down, blocking the sickle handle at his side, but the curved blade of the sickle still left a shallow cut on his waist.

Lin's hand jerked, and he threw a punch at Rita's face. She dodged it by turning her head, and only a strand of her hair brushed against Lin's palm.

Spinning her scythe as she retreated, Rita smiled politely and asked, "Shall we continue?"

Lin took a deep breath, his eyes calm. "Come on."

That night, Lin sat in front of a flashlight that served as a powerful light source, his upper body bare, while Rita stood behind him, stitching up his wounds with thread in her mouth.

She saw Lin's many wounds and her eyes held an indescribable emotion, but Lin had his back to her, so she didn't see it.

"You seem to have held back." The girl's shadow lingered in the corners of the room as she carefully healed Lin's wounds, speaking to him in a nonchalant tone.

"... This isn't training you, so there's no need for it."

"That's true."

"Besides..."

"Besides?"

Lin raised her head calmly and said slowly, "Someone told me that it's better to be gentle with girls."

"..."

Suddenly Rita fell silent. Lin turned around with some confusion, but was pressed back down by a pair of exquisitely crafted hands.

"Mr. Lin, I would be happier if it weren't for those words 'someone told me'." Rita threaded the needle and began stitching up the last wound. Her bangs fell gently, covering her remaining eye as well.

"I'll be more careful next time."

"Which girl are you planning to tell next?"

"..."

"I'm sorry, I seem to have lost my tongue." Rita cut the thread, tidied up the needle and thread, and smiled at Lin, who turned around. "You look a bit like someone I knew before, so I couldn't help but say something inappropriate. Please forgive me."

This phrase seems familiar.

She turned and quickly left the treehouse, leaving Lin sitting on the bed, the moonlight illuminating half of his face, allowing him to lift his head and bathe in the flawless moonlight.

Moonlight is actually a reflection of sunlight. Moonlight itself does not emit light, so when people praise moonlight, they are actually praising sunlight. It is able to be noticed and seen entirely thanks to the sun; it is like the sun's light...

Shadow.

"Pardo? Pardo!"

"Ughhhhh!"

The girl with heterochromia was startled and almost dropped the fork she was holding.

Her companion, a phoenix, was startled by the sight of her mother, who was now trembling with fear. She looked at him with a mixture of emotions, her eyes wide with disbelief, and her voice trembling with amusement. She seemed to be saying, "!"

"Really, Viel, don't scare us like that." Pardo had just come back to her memories. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her companion. "A cat's fur can get shaved off from fright."

"You're not a real cat."

"If we were real cats, we could just bask in the sun all day and that would be it."

Pardo smoothed the fur on her head that had stood up in fright.

After she finished combing, she looked at the tail on her back.

She underwent Hypervariable Surgery.

After returning from the Mu Continent, Pardo felt that the world had become unfamiliar.

She used to sleep and eat all day, and under Brother Lin's pressure, she would lose weight. She would find a place to slack off during training with the other team members, and the day would pass by in no time. Although there were occasional missions to fight against Honkai zombie or Honkai Beast, she didn't feel any real connection to them because her teammates, Brother Lin, and Elysia could easily handle them. She just had to act as a cheerleader and pretend that she was doing the work.

At that time, she felt that the Honkai would end sooner or later, just like the major disasters, wars, and plagues in human history, or like the epidemics that come with spring, and would pass by without her noticing.

She only heard the news of Lin's death after returning to headquarters.

And also, Henri, Erwin, Einstein...

This includes one-sixth of the world's population.

Overnight, so many people she knew and didn't know died.

Without any warning, it felt like a pencil drawing; I picked up an eraser and casually erased it—

Such a casual remark, not even a final farewell.

Although the idea of saving the world had nothing to do with ordinary people like her, and she never even thought about it, she still underwent the Hypervariable Surgery.

The reason was a letter.

After Lin's name was engraved in the cemetery, Pardo visited him. She found it hard to describe how she felt when she saw that inconspicuous and unremarkable name among so many others.

No one expected anything from her, not even herself.

But... she meant but... wouldn't it have been better if she had been able to stand by Brother Lin's side when he died?

Even if nothing can be changed...

"Pardofelis?"

Are you looking for us?

"For you."

As she stood alone in the cemetery, a cold-faced man walked in and handed her a letter.

That was his suicide note. Lin wrote his only suicide note and left it to his troublesome younger sister.

Everyone in the Moth of Flames was prepared to die. Lin also knew that he might die at any time, but he had never written a will before. He had nothing to say and no one to say anything to.

But after Pardo arrived at the Moth of Fire, he seriously considered what would happen to Pardo after his death.