Perhaps the joke and sense of humor had slightly eased the false seriousness Tita had worked so hard to maintain. When the Artificial Human's lips curled upward, Natasha Romanoff also let out a small sigh of relief. Tita was wary of her because of her former identity as a spy, so Natasha would not openly lay out the questions she wanted answered. She would not even bring up related topics and smoothly steer the conversation toward them, lest Tita tense up again.
She was satisfied with her life now. There was no need to let the life she had dreamed of slip through her fingers.
Although cloned organ cultivation technology was already highly mature in the City of Immortals, the relatively strict surgical requirements and the still-developing transplantation techniques could create complications during surgery. Even autologous transplants could produce unexpected problems. Natasha believed she was prepared to endure the endless pain and side effects after the operation. That was her resolve, and she had even turned down some work for it.
Her former friends—though she no longer knew whether she should call them friends—had not made things difficult for her or forced her to take jobs. Instead, they had wished her the life of her dreams. Natasha was glad the matter had ended there, but some work was impossible for her to refuse, because neither her sense of justice nor her conscience could refuse it.
She needed to know whether the Emperor's cause was always right and just, whether anyone was scheming in the shadows cast by glorious ideals and doing things no different from the past—there would always be shadows beneath the sunlight, and one of the jobs she had accepted was ensuring that mold would not grow within them. But she was a spy, and a woman besides.