Little Pink Starfish

“At 7:00 p.m. on May 17th, a parasitic-type monster invasion occurred at the Outer City Supply Station Plaza. It was a new type of parasitism. The Tribunal has added supplementary trial regulations for this new form. The danger within the base has been eliminated. Residents may travel freely.”

“To improve judgment accuracy and ensure the presence of Judges at all times, the city gate will now be open from 8:00 to 12:00 in the morning and 2:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon. Please be mindful of your return times.”

“According to the Lighthouse’s observations, arthropod and parasitic-type monsters have entered their breeding season early. To prevent airborne invasions, the base’s ultrasonic dispersal systems will now operate at Level III intensity. The Second Plain, Sixth Basin, and Southwestern Canyon are now updated to four-star danger level. Please remain vigilant in the wild and ensure full-body protection. The same notice has been dispatched to all field teams.”

“At 7:00 p.m. on May 17th, the Outer City Supply Station Plaza…”

These three announcements looped continuously. Boss Xiao lifted his hand and slapped the switch off with a pa, then lowered his head to continue polishing a mold.

An Zhe was still in the corner implanting eyebrows—but this time, it wasn’t a generic task. Boss Xiao had drawn specific shapes and directions on a blank-faced mannequin using a gray pen. He was practicing eyebrow grafting for the Judge’s mannequin.

Du Sai was dead, but the order she introduced still needed to be completed. Boss Xiao had already received half the payment—the agreed delivery time was one month later, directly to Room 13, Building 6. At that time, the client would pay the remaining half.

Lu Feng’s eyebrows, like his hair, were pure black—an intense color. The long brows arched slightly, forming sharp crests before tapering into narrow, sharp tails. Just sketching those brows had taken Boss Xiao a full hour. After receiving the mannequin head, An Zhe had to strictly follow the template to implant the eyebrows, occasionally looking up to the tablet set in front of him to compare against a profile photo of Lu Feng.

The tablet had been delivered at 7:00 a.m. that morning by the same young man in black who tried to sell An Zhe a phone. He said it was a gift from Mr. Hubbard to Boss Xiao.

After delivering it, he looked An Zhe up and down and said, “Whoa, you landed a sweet gig. Got money to buy that phone now?”

An Zhe felt a bit guilty—his wages only covered potato soup. He could only reply, “No.” The young man sighed in disappointment and left.

The tablet contained several close-up photos of Lu Feng—mostly taken during his patrol of the black market the day before. The angles were excellent. One of the photos even featured An Zhe, although the focus was on Lu Feng, and everything else was blurry. An Zhe appeared as a faint white blur in the corner of the frame, in front of a bowl of potato soup.

Boss Xiao gave a hey of amusement. “Hubbard’s got eyes and ears all over the black market. Getting a few photos of the Judge is nothing. Even without detailed data, these are good enough for a pretty close match.”

Then he swiped through the images a few more times and said, “That face really does drive women crazy. Do you like him?”

According to human biological sex, An Zhe wasn’t a woman, so he wasn’t crazy. He just felt extremely uncomfortable. He had a physiological fear of the Judge—Lu Feng was the only person in the human base who had ever suspected he wasn’t human. An Zhe thought, if he were ever to die in this base, it would be from a bullet fired by the Judge.

He said, “I don’t like him.”

“Then you must be in the opposition party,” Boss Xiao said. “I hate opposition parties. My last apprentice was one.”

An Zhe: “Why?”

Boss Xiao: “He took my wages and had the nerve to ask for half-days off every week to go to protest rallies.”

An Zhe: “…”

“I’m not in the opposition party,” he said.

“I don’t care if you’re pro- or anti-,” Boss Xiao said sincerely. “As long as you don’t take time off.”

“I… won’t take time off.” An Zhe promised.

Seeing the benevolent smile bloom on Boss Xiao’s face, An Zhe asked tentatively, “Can I live here?”

Over the past few days, he had observed that the shop wasn’t small. There were some unused shelves in the corner—enough space to house a person.

Boss Xiao asked, “What’s the matter?”

An Zhe knew that most people in the base didn’t move easily. Their housing was assigned when they were young. Of course, whether they lived there or not was a different matter—most mercenaries spent their lives in the wild, and people from the underground third floor rarely returned home.

But he really didn’t want to go back to Building 117. Josie’s pestering was exhausting.

“My neighbor,” he explained, “keeps…”

Before he could finish phrasing it politely, Boss Xiao raised his eyebrows knowingly. “He wants to sleep with you?”

An Zhe confirmed: Boss Xiao’s brain had only one setting.

“No,” he denied. “He just keeps trying to get close to me.”

Boss Xiao: “How’s that different from wanting to sleep with you?”

“There’s a difference.” An Zhe recalled Josie’s behavior. “We were good friends.”

Some things he couldn’t explain to Boss Xiao, so he used “I” instead of saying “An Ze.”

“We grew up together, neighbors. I used to write for the municipal newsletter and made some money that way. He was a mercenary. Sometimes when I didn’t have money—or he didn’t—we’d help each other out,” An Zhe said. “But later, I wanted to apply to the supply station. He didn’t want me to, said it was too hard, and told me to just go to the wild with him and do some easy work.”

At that, Boss Xiao snorted.

An Zhe looked at him, hoping for some kind of evaluation. He didn’t understand why Josie did that to An Ze. “Why would he do that?”

Boss Xiao was polishing a mannequin’s arm with a small rasp while he replied: “If you pass the supply station exam and rise out of the civilian class, what happens to him? He’ll just be a low-level mercenary forever. Would you still stay with him?”

He looked up at An Zhe: “What if you got in and hooked up with a supply station executive? Josie wouldn’t stand a chance.”

But An Ze wouldn’t do that.

“I wouldn’t,” An Zhe said.

“You might not, but he’d still think you would,” Boss Xiao replied, spraying clear varnish on a fingernail before moving to the next. “Who knows? People are just that petty.”

“So you—don’t get tangled up with losers like him.”

An Zhe looked down. He really thought Boss Xiao was a good person—a proper elder guiding a young human’s future. Even in the Abyss, some social monsters exhibited such behaviors.

But then Boss Xiao followed up with, “You stay alert down here on the third floor. Snag yourself a top merc leader—someone like Hubbard. If he sees you, he’ll steer clear. And if Josie dares to come back, have your man beat the hell out of him. Doesn’t even have to be a man. AR1104’s female captain would probably like you too—but she looks like a gorilla.”

An Zhe: “The Judge’s fingers are a bit longer than this.”

Boss Xiao jumped. “Shit!” He began reworking it, cursing, too busy to offer more life advice.

Watching him busily patch up the error, An Zhe smiled.

—And that’s how he came to live on the underground third floor.

Without Josie, the world was much quieter. An Zhe used his advance to buy a folding bed and lived between two empty shelves in the shop corner. At night, when the lights went out, mannequin limbs, eyes, and heads were his sleeping companions. When he went out, mercenaries sometimes tried to hit on him. But Boss Xiao had taught him a very effective phrase—“I already have someone.”

Those four words worked on almost every mercenary. According to Boss Xiao, it wasn’t because they were honorable.

With a cigarette dangling from his mouth, Boss Xiao said, “You’ve got the look, like you already have a strong man. Tsk, I better hurry and find one for you.”

An Zhe didn’t respond. Truthfully, the only person he had… was a not-yet-finished mannequin. And day by day, it was becoming more and more like Lu Feng.