The next day, a new beggar appeared in the dark underbelly of the seemingly glamorous Feather City.
The beggar looked utterly ordinary and fairly sturdy, with all his limbs intact, making it hard to imagine why he had been reduced to begging for a living. But anyone who briefly encountered him understood from his halting speech, like that of an infant who had yet to develop understanding, that the poor fellow was mentally impaired.
He wore a fraying hemp shirt, ragged trousers, and a little floral hat woven from maple leaves, ginkgo leaves, and violets. It added a contradictory touch of vitality and absurdity, as though such an accessory belonged not on a beggar's unkempt head, but in a flower girl's lovely hair.
Beside this beggar stood another small beggar, less than a meter and a half tall. He was not particularly handsome, either, and there was not a trace of green in his eyes, meaning he had no blood of the Fulin Taiyou People in him. This inevitably raised questions about his height.
During their long conversation the previous night, Zeng Mu had learned why Milger was so short.
He was an orphan whose family had once been prosperous. His parents had owned more than a hundred mu of land, along with a horse ranch, a tavern, a manor...
Wealth sometimes invited disaster, and that was precisely the case in this war-torn country. His parents had died in an "accidental fire," and less than ten days later, all the family's property had been confiscated, leaving Milger without a single penny. He had been only five at the time.
He had begun wandering at five, competing with stray dogs each morning for half a fresh loaf that some passerby had left unfinished and tossed into a rubbish bin. At noon,