Happy Birthday

[You were not a child to be easily fooled, never believing your parents would embezzle disaster relief funds, let alone that so-called suicide out of guilt.]

[After you explained your intention to go to the Oasis District to the leader of the merchant caravan, he remembered your five years together and created fake identification for you in Scrap Mountain, smuggling you into the Oasis District of Punklorde. He had already gone above and beyond. Everything else would be up to you.]

[On your first visit to this neon city, you were shocked by its prosperity. The vibrancy of this city and the desolation of the Great Wilderness were like two different worlds. But after getting to know it better, you realized that this was just a facade.]

[In the Oasis District, the city flickered with neon lights, and the rich indulged in sensual pleasures in skyscrapers, reveling in the convenience brought by technology. But in the dark corners, there were gangs, hooligans, and robbers everywhere. The poor seemed to have completely pinned their emotions on virtual games that provided emotional value. And the developers behind these video games were the "Company" that issued Aetherium Chips. Of course, this "Company" could also be considered the government of Punklorde.]

[You carried Brownie, walking on the crowded streets of the city. After personally walking into the dark corners of this city, you completely dispelled the last trace of illusion about it.]

[You only had 3000 Credits on you, but in Punklorde, a bottle of water in a store cost 200 Credits. But playing an arcade game on the street only cost 50 Credits. The distorted prices put a lot of pressure on your survival. In the merchant caravan, at least you could barely manage to eat your fill, and the narrow space in the carriage could give you a bit of warmth.]

[But now, as an unregistered resident, your activities were restricted, and you had to avoid being caught by the inspectors who managed the city at all times. Because of your age and status, you couldn't find a job at all, and you could only rely on the relief meals distributed by the church every day.]

[As for a place to live, when you were lucky, you could grab a bench in the church. You and Brownie squeezed together. The little girl was afraid of the cold and liked to stuff her little white feet into your clothes. Sometimes, when you were unlucky, the church would not be open to the public, or the benches would be full of homeless people, so you would hide in the deep alleys of the slums.]

[Fortunately, such days did not last long. After wandering for a while, you met a kind-hearted fast-food restaurant owner. She didn't mind your unregistered status and made you employees of the fast-food restaurant, arranging for you to live in the arcade hall converted from the basement.]

[Because you didn't have legal identification numbers or legal names, the owner named you after two characters from a game she used to like very much.]

[Silver Wolf and White Fox.]

[At eleven years old, you gradually adapted to life in the fast-food restaurant. Because Silver Wolf was still young, she took on simple tasks such as serving tea and water to customers. And you, under the guidance of the owner, learned how to make fried fast food in the kitchen. You were very nimble, and after about half a month, you were already able to adapt to the work in the fast-food restaurant.]

[Although Silver Wolf was not good at communicating with strangers, and her interactions with customers were also very awkward, she completely lacked the enthusiasm of a waiter. But it was precisely after this girl with a silver single-turbine ponytail became a waiter that the number of customers in the store increased a lot.]

[Those customers still had tired faces when they walked on the road, like office workers who had just gotten off work, their bodies hollowed out by work. But when they walked into the fast-food restaurant and saw this cute little girl with a single-turbine ponytail, their faces immediately rippled with a fatherly smile.]

[The owner looked at these men with contempt and even put up a slogan at the door: "The fast-food restaurant is for eating, not for you to admire lolis" "Lolicons, get out of here."]

[Of course, because you were still too young, the boss would basically only let you work four hours a day. In the remaining time, you and Silver Wolf would manipulate the joysticks together in the basement, using those old game consoles to pass the time. Sometimes, when there were too many customers and not enough machines to spare, Silver Wolf would lie on your shoulder and browse the Aetherium Chip programming tutorial with you.]

[At night, after the customers left, you would play games with Silver Wolf. In the field of games, you were the type with excellent talent but no interest. But Silver Wolf was the type who loved to play even though she was bad at it. After losing too many times, she would "wow" and become a tearful little crybaby.]

[At twelve years old, you were already proficient in the work in the back kitchen of the fast-food restaurant. During this year, you also searched through various channels for details about the corruption case of the executive officer of District 86 of the Great Wilderness seven years ago. Unfortunately, almost all the information was blocked, and you only found a report about that incident in a used bookstore.]

[It just so happened that Silver Wolf turned 7 years old this year, reaching the legal school age in Punklorde. In the past two years, the fast-food restaurant owner had already processed your and Silver Wolf's identity certificates, and now she asked you if you wanted to apply for school. You declined her kindness because your purpose in coming here was to investigate the incident of that year, so you naturally had no intention of studying. Silver Wolf didn't want to go if you didn't go, but you didn't agree because you wanted her to live a normal life in Punklorde.]

[Like an older brother to a father, Silver Wolf had always been particularly dependent on you and listened to you, so she finally agreed to go to school.]

[At thirteen years old, school life was monotonous and boring. Waiting for class to end, waiting for school to end, this was the norm in their lives, and Silver Wolf was naturally the same. Every day, she looked forward to coming home from school and then pulling you to play games together. You wanted her to share interesting things about school, but she always replied, "It's boring." Then she would ask you to hurry up and play games with her. But even though she was so lazy about her studies, she never missed the scholarship every year.]

[She liked games like Bourne, War Wheel 32, Geometry Wars, Odysseus, Interstellar Cheetah, etc., but unfortunately, the score records for these games were full of astronomical numbers left by you.]

[At fourteen years old, when you heard that a boy in school had confessed to Silver Wolf, you spat out a mouthful of tea. Confessed? Nine years old? These two words left you unable to react for a long time. Fortunately, Silver Wolf told you that she had ignored that boy. But to be on the safe side, you seriously told Silver Wolf about the matter of early love, reminding her that it was best not to fall in love before the age of eighteen. Even if she found someone she liked, it was best to let you, the older brother, check them out.]

[At fifteen years old, after five years of investigation, you learned about the information about that incident from various channels. You were already able to roughly judge that the case of that year was related to a certain political figure in the Oasis District government's inspection department. But all the spearheads of this matter pointed to an organization called the "Slag Gang" in Scrap Mountain.]

[You felt it was time to leave this place, to leave the Oasis District. But you also made another decision, which was to leave Silver Wolf behind and go to Scrap Mountain alone.]

[After all, she was already living a normal life. Leaving her to the fast-food restaurant owner would also put your mind at ease. There was no need for her to follow you anymore...]

[So, on the night before her tenth birthday, you prepared her birthday gift in advance—the Aetherium Chip that she had been dreaming of for a long time, and left her tenth birthday wishes on the table, plus the nine you had written before and the eight you would write in the future, a total of eighteen stacked on the table. Originally, you planned to give it to her on her eighteenth birthday, but after thinking about it, you decided to give it to her now, after all, you didn't know if you would have the chance in the future.]

[You had actually told the owner about this, but you didn't tell Silver Wolf.]

[Before leaving, you folded the school uniform she was going to wear tomorrow and placed it on her pillow, otherwise she wouldn't be able to find it when she went to school tomorrow. You also charged all the game consoles that had run out of power, so she wouldn't cry when she came back from school. You warmed up the milk and breakfast and put them in the incubator, leaving a note telling her not to always forget to eat breakfast. Finally, you gently closed the door and said:]

"Good night, and happy birthday."

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