People Are Surprisingly Nice

A little after four, Ming Jiu returned home carrying dinner for the two sisters. More than a dozen storage boxes had been neatly arranged in the living room, each bearing a cat-head-shaped sticky note covered in Ming Rong's neat elementary-school handwriting.

When Ming Jiu entered, Ming Rong had just come out of the art studio with her arms full of unopened paints. The moment she saw her sister, her eyes lit up.

Ming Jiu quickly set down the food and went over to help, placing the paints into the storage box labeled "Art Studio."

With Ming Jiu's help, in less than half an hour, everything in the art studio that could fit into storage boxes had been cleared out.

Ming Rong had already finished packing her own room. All that remained was the kitchen, dance studio, and living room.

At five sharp, Ming Jiu urged Ming Rong to eat dinner with her. Afterward, the sisters continued packing, and Ming Rong did not complain in the slightest.

Ming Jiu's flight was at four in the morning. She had already selected their seats online, and they had no checked luggage, so they only needed to arrive at the airport an hour before takeoff.

By rights, they still had plenty of time, but Ming Jiu wanted to make a "supply run" in the neighboring city before boarding. She did not dare waste a single minute.

Ming Jiu did not spare the pots, pans, dishes, small appliances, or even the oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and leftover ingredients in the refrigerator. She picked out some bread, biscuits, and snacks to stuff into a travel backpack, then put everything else into storage boxes.

Just then, the doorbell rang, and Ming Jiu strode quickly toward the front door.

Looking at the middle-aged woman on the video doorbell screen, she frowned.

It was none other than her family's housekeeper—Aunt Liu.

Behind Aunt Liu stood a slightly pudgy man in his twenties. He was short, no more than five foot five, with faint eyebrows and small eyes, and he looked somewhat sleazy.

The man had the sort of face that would disappear into a crowd and never be found again, but Ming Jiu remembered him vividly. She did not know his name, only that he was Aunt Liu's son.

The owner of that camera.

Around this time in her previous life, Aunt Liu had set her sights on Ming Jiu: young, suddenly bereaved of both parents, wealthy, with no relatives and only a younger sister to depend on each other. Without giving any warning, she had brought her son straight to Ming Jiu's door.

In Aunt Liu's eyes, Ming Jiu was now an orphan without her parents' support, and she even had a mute "burden" to drag along. Her son was the one getting the short end of the stick.

Back then, Ming Jiu had called the police without a word and had the mother and son thrown out. Aunt Liu was dismissed on the spot. After that, she and Xiao Rong only hired hourly workers and never again employed a live-in housekeeper.

She had thought that would be the end of it, but a week after the snow disaster began, Aunt Liu and her son came knocking again.

The mother and son lived in an urban village, and their self-built house had been crushed by accumulated snow. Instead of seeking out relatives, they came to the Ming family home and cried and made a scene outside Ming Jiu's door.

Ming Jiu had not understood it in her previous life, but now she did—because of that camera.

Just days after the blizzard, she had sensed that something was wrong. Before most people had realized it, she had gone out to buy a great deal of supplies and secretly transported them home. Naturally, none of that had escaped the camera's surveillance. The mother and son knew she had supplies.

At the time, the apocalypse was only beginning to show itself. Snow disasters had struck the entire country, but the south was in an even worse state than the north. The authorities had not responded as swiftly, panic was spreading through the residential complex, and signs of disorder had already begun to emerge.

Ming Jiu had hesitated for a long time before finally letting them in. She had no choice. The mother and son were shameless pests; either she dealt with them, or she endured their repeated harassment.

That had been the first time Ming Jiu killed someone, even though it had been an accident.

She had hidden her sister first, then let the mother and son inside with obedient, aggrieved reluctance. She gave them warm clothes and food, then grabbed a golf club and knocked them down while they were eating and drinking.

How could she have dared kill anyone back then? She had only wanted to tie them up and keep them under control, then hand them over to the rescue team when the authorities came to distribute supplies to the residents.

Ming Jiu bound the mother and son's hands and feet with zip ties, gagged them with golf balls, and dragged them into the dance studio.

But man proposed and heaven disposed. That night, the temperature plummeted again, and the mother and son froze to death in the dance studio converted from the balcony. She had been on edge over it for a long time.

Now, Ming Jiu looked at the mother and son smiling merrily on the video doorbell, and her heart did not stir in the slightest.

She could not be bothered to waste time dealing with them, nor did she intend to call the police as she had in her previous life. She still had plenty to do afterward, and she wanted to avoid the police at all costs.

Ming Jiu did not hold much hatred for the mother and son. In her previous life, they had been killed by her before they could really start anything—basically delivering themselves to her doorstep as practice, laying the foundation for her survival style for a long time afterward: meek in the open, slaughtering everyone she could in the shadows.

They were surprisingly nice people.

Ming Jiu pressed the intercom button. "You're dismissed as of today. What kind of housekeeper takes so many days off in a row and brings strangers to her employer's home? You don't need to come back anymore."

After saying that, Ming Jiu did not wait to see how the mother and son outside would react. She turned off the doorbell, deadbolted the door, then found the housekeeping company's number in her contacts and called to explain the situation before continuing to pack with Ming Rong.

The doorbell began ringing, followed by hard pounding on the door. Ming Jiu called the property manager, and in less than five minutes, the mother and son making a scene outside were driven away by security. Their temporary elevator pass was forcibly confiscated as well.

The sisters hurried as fast as they could and finally had everything in the house that could be packed into storage boxes by seven thirty, leaving only one travel bag.

Ming Jiu stuffed the car keys into Ming Rong's hands and told her to go down to the underground parking garage first. The moment Ming Rong left the apartment, she stored all the boxes in the system's backpack slots.

Before leaving, Ming Jiu shut off the gas and water valves and flipped the main breaker. By the light outside the window, she took one last look at the familiar home.

If nothing unexpected happened, she and Xiao Rong would probably never return.

When Ming Jiu reached the underground parking garage, Ming Rong was waiting for her in the passenger seat.

"If you feel unwell, make sure to tell me, okay?"

After the car accident, Ming Rong had taken a long time to overcome her fear of riding in cars. But tonight, Ming Jiu had to drive back and forth between City G and the neighboring city, a trip that would take at least four hours. She was a little worried about Ming Rong's condition.

Ming Rong nodded vigorously and signed to Ming Jiu that she was no longer afraid.

"If you get sleepy, just sleep. We won't get to City B until tomorrow morning."

Ming Jiu started the car and opened the navigation on her phone. Their destination was a famous local specialty store in the neighboring city.

She needed a specific reason to go to the neighboring city. If the authorities noticed her stockpiling supplies later, she had to leave them some room to investigate.

There were no secrets in the age of big data. Thanks again to the great system.

Ming Jiu did not stay idle while driving. She kept pestering the system in her mind.

[Sweetie, does the monthly subscription only provide surveillance services?]

A full half minute passed before the system's electronic voice finally sounded in Ming Jiu's mind.

[Yes. If the host requests other services, corresponding gold coins must be paid.]

The 150-gold-coin monthly service had not earned the system a single copper coin. It was purely at cost.

Ming Jiu breathed a sigh of relief. Gold coins were precious and could not be spent carelessly. Every last one had to count.

[Sis System, can you investigate a person's detailed information for me? I want everything, especially what he did over the past six months, where he went, who he made do what, who he contacted and interacted with—every last detail.]

System: [Certainly. The host must pay 50 gold coins.]

This time, Ming Jiu did not haggle. She selected [Confirm] in the payment window that popped up.

Payment successful. There were 6,320 gold coins remaining in the account.

[The host's payment has been received. Whose information does the host require?]

Ming Jiu: [Zuo Junhao. The man who killed me.]