Back at the church.
Li Andy saw Sophia sitting alone on the steps of the side door, counting on her fingers and muttering to herself, her slender, light brows furrowing from time to time, a look of distress on her face.
“Slacking off?” Li Andy asked abruptly from behind her.
Sophia was startled and jumped up. Seeing it was Li Andy, she angrily flung her headscarf at him.
Li Andy took off the headscarf, which smelled of hair, and asked with a smile:
“What are you doing? Why the long face?”
At this question, Sophia’s mouth immediately drooped, and she continued to count on her fingers, saying:
“Working in the church, it’s only 7 pence a day, 8 pence on Sundays. A week… that’s only 50 pence! If I spend it all on bread, it will only last 3 days at most…”
So it was about income… The struggles of the lower class are indeed the same in every era.
“Want to make big money?” Li Andy raised an eyebrow and sat down on the steps.
Sophia frowned:
“I won’t do anything bad!”
“What if it’s 500 pence a day?”
“…” Sophia fell silent instantly.
“What if it’s 1000 pence a day?”
Sophia’s breath hitched, but seeing Li Andy’s mischievous grin, she immediately realized he was teasing her. She let out a “Hmph!” and reached out to snatch back her headscarf.
Li Andy leaned back to dodge, and quickly said:
“I’m planning to open an agency. I’ll pay you 50 pence a day. Are you in?”
Sophia’s movement stopped. She leaned over Li Andy, asking in confusion:
“What kind of agency?”
“Similar to a private detective, but I’ll mostly take on commissions related to the mysterious.”
“Are you crazy?!”
Sophia suddenly became agitated,
“We finally returned to a normal life! Did you not listen to Sister Anna’s warning at all?”
“But this makes money fast,” Li Andy said.
Sophia was stunned.
“Besides, isn’t poverty scarier than ghosts?” Li Andy added.
Sophia’s gaze was somewhat unfocused.
She understood this truth better than anyone.
Sometimes, poverty can even turn people into something inhuman.
She wavered.
Li Andy struck while the iron was hot, wrapping an arm around Sophia’s waist, pulling her closer, and coaxing her:
“At the orphanage, didn’t we all survive? Those things aren’t as scary as we imagine.”
“That… that was luck.”
“No, it wasn’t luck!” Li Andy corrected, “That was the result of our combined efforts, a destiny changed by choice!
You must have interacted with the other sisters in the church. Have they truly returned to a normal life?
You have to know, once a person deeply touches the mysterious, they forever live in its shadow. We… can’t escape.”
Sophia bit her lower lip, her expression struggling.
Li Andy continued to press:
“With money, we won’t have to worry about our livelihood. We can go wherever we want and experience different lives. And, I’ll definitely assess the difficulty of commissions I take. Sophia, you really don’t have to be that scared.”
Sophia gritted her teeth:
“60 pence!”
“Deal!” Li Andy smiled.
Sophia opened her mouth, feeling like she might have asked for too little.
Just then, a cough interrupted the two of them.
“Cough, cough!”
Sister Aya walked out, shaking her golden hair, leaning against the doorframe and looking at the two on the stairs, teasing:
“While I know you two aren’t sincere believers, this is a monastery, so please show some respect. At the very least, don’t make a scene here.”
Sophia’s face immediately turned crimson. She snatched the headscarf from Andy’s arms, put it on, and stood up in a panic:
“I… I’m going to water the flowers!”
With that, she lowered her head and scurried away.
“Heh, how pure.”
Sister Aya smiled, took out a cigarette, and lifted her chin at Li Andy,
“Want one? Brought from Victoria Harbor.”
“No, thank you.”
Li Andy refused very directly; he didn’t smoke.
Sister Aya shook her head, lit one for herself, and said leisurely:
“You three, and us three, are quite similar.”
“Are we?”
“Yes…”
Aya took a deep drag, and smoke slowly flowed out of her nostrils,
“But you are luckier than us. Get along well, maybe you’ll end up in the grave together, heh, or in the same bed.”
“…”
Why did a crude joke have a hint of sadness?
Seeing that Aya stopped talking, Li Andy also quietly left the place.
In the corridor, he found his younger sister, Youxi, who was cleaning, and told her about his idea of opening an agency.
But what Li Andy didn’t expect was that the girl agreed very readily, not even discussing the salary.
Youxi said with downcast eyes,
“Brother, I know, there’s no escaping it.”
Li Andy sighed slightly and gently hugged his sister.
He felt that in the game, if she hadn’t been poor early on, she might have started planning much sooner. Her parents’ situation, coupled with her aunt’s disappearance, she knew she had to face these things.
Youxi put down the broom and leaned comfortably against her brother.
She thought for a few seconds, then looked up and asked:
“Brother, do you have the money to open an agency? Weren’t all the things from the orphanage burned?”
Li Andy held up a finger and shook it:
“Sister, you don’t necessarily need money first to do things. Also, you need to learn how to develop connections.”
“Develop connections?”
“Exactly! Society is a stinky and complicated machine, and the rules of the world are endless outsourcing! We need to understand the upstream and downstream, learn to hook up with the upstream of the upstream, care for the downstream of the downstream, and not be cheated too much money by those damned middlemen…”
Li Andy spoke animatedly, educating his sister about the harsh realities of society.
The latter nodded vaguely, sometimes understanding, sometimes not.
Not far away, Sister Anna, the blindfolded nun by the second-floor window, smiled when she saw them.
“Anna, what are you smiling about?” Sister Emi asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Nothing, I just feel that the church isn’t as desolate anymore.”
… …
… …
After a peaceful day at the church.
Li Andy went to Black Alley again.
After just one day, Old Du Lin’s height had surged, now reaching one and a half meters!
But he looked distressed about it, seemingly not happy.
“Not satisfied with the medicine’s effect?” Li Andy asked.
Old Du Lin shook his head:
“The medicine works very well, but my dear doesn’t like it. Next month, I’ll have to start paying rent again.”
“Ha…” Li Andy laughed impolitely, then comforted him: “This is a good thing. A real man should have no women in his heart.”
“Heh, no women in your heart?”
Old Du Lin sneered, “Then why do you have two different women’s scents on you? Don’t tell me you produced them yourself.”
Can he really smell that?
Li Andy was very surprised, then argued:
“No women in my heart doesn’t mean no women around me. And these two scents are from my beloved sisters.”
Old Du Lin shook his head, took a stack of documents from behind him, and threw them on the table:
“Commissions I left for you. Take a look.”