The man handling the job handover had long grown accustomed to her demeanor. He flipped through a few pages, confirmed the target had been dealt with, and nodded. "There's another job here, specifically requested for you."
"What kind of job?"
Wen Ya took it and read through it carefully. "Huh, the police and the government are placing orders with us?"
"They trust us that much?"
Wen Ya was surprised.
The organization took on all sorts of jobs—personal grudges, business rivalries, family disputes, you name it.
But orders from government departments were rare.
"No, no, they trust you. Miss Deathbird." The man pushed up his glasses. "There might be people coming after you afterwards. We figured you could handle that?"
"I can," Wen Ya said. "Besides, even if they find out and want revenge, it doesn't matter. I don't have any family around anyway."
Not only did she have no family—
Even if they traced her hometown, it wouldn't matter.
Her family's village was nestled in a poverty-stricken mountain region.
A group of assassins and agents would have to fly in, transfer to high-speed rail, then switch to a long-distance bus. Then they'd have to climb their way through rugged terrain, searching for her remote hometown in the desolate, mountain-ringed area.
Just imagining that scene was hilarious.
"The commission for this one is really high," Wen Ya said, picking up the file from the desk and flipping through a few pages. The personal information column listed the number of accompanying personnel. She agreed lightly, "Leave it to me."
"Oh, by the way," Wen Ya added casually, "I'm planning to retire at twenty."
"Why?"
Wen Ya: "I'm going to find a partner."
Another assassin around her age was crouched in the corner polishing a dagger. He looked up at that. "...Miss Deathbird, a modern independent woman shouldn't walk into that grave so early. Get a grip."
Wen Ya: "But marriage won't be my grave."
"If he doesn't satisfy me, I'll just kill him. If one husband falls, I can have a thousand more."
Wen Ya loved shopping. After this job, she could afford a nice apartment in the city center, and she'd save the rest. Then she'd start picking out her ideal marriage candidate and bring him back to her hometown.
That was her current life plan.
"So what kind of marriage candidate are you looking for?" the other asked. "I thought you were a never-marrier like the rest of us."
Wen Ya brightened a little at the topic of romantic goals.
"In my mind, the future him—he has to be clever, funny, and interesting."
She thought for a moment. "Maybe with a touch of melancholy. The kind where you look at him and feel like he carries a lot on his mind, but he won't tell you."
"Men with secrets are the most fascinating."
"Most importantly, he has to listen to me in the future."
The other assassin was dumbfounded. "That sounds so abstract. Does someone like that even exist?"
Wen Ya smiled. "If I meet him, maybe those standards won't matter so much anymore."
She swept her hair to one side, glanced at her watch. "Alright, I'm off to meet with the intel department. They gave me the architectural blueprints of the club. I need to study the routes tonight."
...
Shen Sixing leaned back in his chair, idly flipping a black box over in his hand.
Shen Yi was disassembling an old pistol in the corner.
Shen Sixing hadn't noticed the brat was taking apart his gun.
The boy hunched over the table, placing the black box in his palm. He pried around the edge with a screwdriver, then ran his fingernail along the seam. He squinted, studied it for a long time, and finally pressed somewhere gently.
The box opened.
He instinctively glanced around with an exaggerated sense of guilt, like a thief caught in the act.
Confirming Shen Yi was still buried in dismantling the gun and hadn't noticed, Shen Sixing quietly grabbed the box and slipped into the bathroom.
He closed the door and leaned against it.
Then he started figuring out how this thing worked.
It took him quite a while to understand the mechanics.
It functioned something like a kind of intelligent software—except the technology level was clearly far beyond what this era could produce.
Shen Sixing frowned.
He broke through the password, and when the interface popped up, the glow of the screen lit up his face.
On the screen was a picture of a man holding a little girl.
The man's face was completely obscured. No matter how hard Shen Sixing looked, that face seemed shrouded in a layer of mist, features blurred into an indistinguishable mess.
But the girl—he recognized her.
Shen Yi.
She was a bit younger than now, around five or six, wearing a pink hoodie, with two crooked little pigtails. The man held her in his arms, her chin resting on his shoulder, her whole body limp and soft against him.
Shen Sixing stared at that image for a long time.
What the hell is this picture supposed to be?
Shen Yi's real father?
A happy little family?
How sappy...
He kept searching through the other contents of the program. The screen flickered a few times, and he found a text message.
[If you've opened this box and met a little girl—maybe a teenager, maybe five or six, maybe seven or eight, even a baby is possible—she is my daughter. Please take care of her. She won't be a bother for long. She's a very well-behaved child.]
Shen Sixing's first reaction to that line was a cold laugh.
He muttered to himself instinctively, "Are you threatening me? You're her father? If she's your daughter, then she's not my responsibility. If she dies here, it's just her bad luck..."
Anyone in the world could die—every day people died from faction infighting, armed robberies, attacks.
Why was it his duty to look after someone else's kid?
Maybe she was a spy from somewhere.
The black box itself was proof enough—what ordinary kid had some unexplained device like this?
Just as he was about to shut the box, the text on the screen disappeared.
In its place was a notification that an audio recording was about to play automatically.
As if the other person had anticipated he'd say exactly that.
"Threat? Of course not. I think this is just a humble request from a father."
Shen Sixing's breath hitched slightly.
The voice was one he recognized intimately—yet it sounded so warm it was almost alien.
"I love her very much. Over there—can you help take care of her for me?"
"In her eyes, I'm still a decent father at least," the voice let out a soft sigh. "Even if I can't score full marks, don't let my points with her run out completely."
The recording ended.
Shen Sixing stood there clutching the black box, frozen in place, not moving a muscle.
That voice.
It was his own.
