“Of course it’s not lost, Detective, you can’t just accuse people without cause. But that damned cat…”
The man inside the door gritted his teeth, as if the cat had eaten all his possessions, his expression distorted:
“Get that cat out of here, I’m never going to help look after another orange cat again.”
“Alright, where is the cat?”
Xia De asked. He didn't particularly like cats, but for the generous commission, he wouldn't object to carrying a cat through streets and alleys.
“On the roof.”
The man pointed upwards, his gritted-teeth expression intensifying:
“Ever since that Detective boarded it here, this cat hasn’t let anyone touch it easily. It’s scratched my wife and Miss Cindy twice, it doesn’t eat cheap cat food, and it constantly bullies the other pets here. I’ve run this place for so many years, and I’ve never seen such a belligerent six-month-old kitten… At this time, it must be sunbathing up there! Get it out of here, I can’t take it anymore.”
Xia De pretended not to hear the man’s complaints, stepped back slightly from the doorway, then looked up at the three-story building:
“How do you want me to get to the roof?”
“In the yard of this house, there’s a ladder that goes from the first floor to the roof. I’m not going up there, I don’t want to see that cat ever again!”
Xia De certainly didn't want to climb so high; he valued safety. Just as he was about to persuade the middle-aged man with the big nose, the latter directly handed him a 1 shilling banknote:
“Hamilton Detective gave me 1 shilling and 10 pence to look after it for two months. Now, here’s this shilling back to you, just get it out of here! Never let that cat appear in this lane again!”
The voice was almost hysterical, so much so that the children playing in the street and the woman leaning out of the building across the street to hang clothes all looked over.
It was truly hard to imagine how much psychological damage that orange cat had caused him.
Following the middle-aged man through the house, Xia De arrived at the backyard, which was filled with empty pet cages. The middle-aged man held the long metal ladder while Xia De carefully used it to climb onto the roof.
The roof was piled high with all sorts of trash and debris, and it was unclear how these items were transported up there, given that the only way up was via a ladder. In the southeast corner of the roof, the only relatively clean spot, Xia De saw the cat lazily sprawled on a metal bar, basking in the Summer morning sun.
It was indeed a young kitten, its body soft, like a puddle of water slumped on the pipe. Its build was not large, even somewhat thin. The color of its fur shimmered slightly in the sunlight piercing through the mist, a sign of good health.
However, rather than an orange cat, it looked more like a white cat draped in a warm orange blanket. Only when the cat stood up did Xia De realize that the layer of even dazzling orange-yellow was truly the color of its fur.
The cat stood on a metal pipe discarded on the roof, with one end of the pipe propped on a worn sofa cushion, placing the cat slightly higher than other surrounding objects.
It stood up with its back to the morning sun, its amber eyes looking at Xia De, cautiously sizing up the stranger. Xia De had no experience dealing with such animals, and due to the words of the big-nosed middle-aged man, he was somewhat worried that this orange cat might pounce.
But this orange cat, which, like its owner, was named “Mia,” didn’t look very fierce. It was observing Xia De, and Xia De knew he was being observed, so he tried to appear friendly, constantly reminding himself of the cat’s value:
“I’ll take you to your owner, Miss Mia Gold.”
He found a foothold among the discarded items, crouched down slightly, clapped his hands, and put on a deliberate smile. As expected, this suspicious demeanor received no response from the cat.
“Miss Mia Gold.”
The previous sentence was in the most standard “Common Language of the Northern Kingdom,” which is delarion. This time, it was a sentence with a local Tobesk accent, a skill Xia De had learned in the past two days:
“I’ll take you to your owner, Miss Mia Gold.”
The small ears of the orange cat twitched. It raised its right front paw to lick it, then put it down and continued to stare intently at Xia De.
Xia De pursed his lips, looked around, confirmed there were no taller buildings nearby, and then extended his right index finger:
“Look.”
Silver light glowed on his index finger, and the amber eyes of the orange cat immediately widened. It slightly opened its mouth, standing on the rusty metal pipe, its whiskers trembling as it subtly stretched its head to look at the light:
“Miss Mia Gold.”
Xia De continued, then slowly approached the orange cat. He slowly extended his left hand, suppressing his apprehension about “wild animals,” and gently picked it up with one hand.
The orange cat was not heavy, at least not at the moment.
The cat still tilted its head, looking at Xia De’s right index finger, but after the light on the finger extinguished, it did not try to escape from Xia De’s embrace. It leaned against Xia De’s chest, appropriately wiggling its two small paws, batting at Xia De’s recently glowing finger, seemingly very interested in its “new toy.”
“Very good.”
Only then did the Detective let out a long sigh of relief, standing up to leave. The young orange cat, Mia, merely squirmed uneasily but did not struggle excessively.
“Not fierce at all, even very well-behaved. It seems I’m also someone who can make other animals fond of me.”
Xia De thought happily, then noticed something lying beneath the pipe where the orange cat had been resting. So, holding the cat with one hand, he bent down and used his right hand to pick up the object, realizing it was a somewhat old box of rhode cards.
When using rhode cards, a complete set of 54 cards is required. If there are special cards, they can be replaced according to suit and card number, because the back patterns of all rhode cards are the same.
This box in front of him was not a special set of rhode cards; it was similar to the set used by the three men Xia De had seen in the tavern. The card faces had extremely simple patterns, and a box probably cost only a few tens of pence.
Seeing that it was nothing important, he casually put it in his pocket. Then, holding the cat with one hand, he carefully climbed back down the ladder into the yard.
When the big-nosed middle-aged man saw that Xia De was really taking the cat away, he almost cried in front of Xia De.
Leaving Violet Iris Lane, Xia De did not wander around with someone else’s cat but headed straight for Miss Gaode’s house. During this time, the orange cat, Mia, aside from initially making a “purring” sound, only continuously pawed at Xia De’s sleeve and the clothes on his chest, but did not try to escape from his embrace.
Since Miss Gaode was willing to pay such a high price to find her cat, she certainly wasn’t poor. She lived in a quiet residential area in the south of the city called “Sandrew Avenue,” where every household had its own small garden, and their names were marked on the fence gates.
