The door creaked open as Haoren entered with hushed footsteps. There was only a little time left until dawn, so he sneaked in quietly, not wishing to disturb Li Feng, who was probably sleeping.

The idea of being out all night seemed a bit... wrong to him. He felt nervous at the thought of having to explain himself, not that he was going to... but still, it felt wrong. As he tiptoed inside his house, he found a certain someone sitting at the table near the entrance.

Haoren couldn't exactly see the person, but the shadows divulged it was Li Feng. From her relaxed demeanour, Haoren knew she was asleep. It seemed that she had fallen asleep while waiting for him. Just a few days ago, she would stay awake at night, but now here she was, sleeping more or less peacefully.

'She must be tired...'

A smile graced Haoren's face as he moved his hand to wipe the drool off Li Feng's face with his sleeve. "I'm back..."

...

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...

"Do you know if he has... uh... someone he likes?!"

Yesterday, after parting with Haoren, Li Feng was confronted by such a question from one of the older kids in the slum.

'They don't know I'm a girl.'

Li Feng had been wearing Haoren's clothes for a while now. She had been repeatedly borrowing his older clothes. He didn't really care, and Li Feng repeatedly forgot to buy her own, so they both ignored the clothes issue.

To begin with, in her past life, Li Feng wasn't someone all that interested in clothing and such. No matter how much she tried, she was never able to recall how her face looked. All that was left was a warped face affected by countless modifications. Moreover, that bastard of a teacher of hers couldn't even keep a single photograph from her childhood! To sum it up, she found such things pointless and had gotten used to ignoring them.

Since she kept changing her very self often, she wasn't someone who cared much about clothes, at least not as much as she cared about strength.

Li Feng soon realized that she had been silent for too long. "Uh..."

She pondered her response and decided to give a safe one. "I don't know for sure, but there's a great chance that there might be."

Li Feng did not want to give the girl false hope. After all, there was someone who liked Haoren, someone who entered his house without any of her entourage, and someone who almost caused Li Feng's second death just to give Haoren a gift.

"I-is that so... I guess that's to be expected." The girl lowered her gaze and attempted to hide her teary eyes behind her long bangs.

This sight was pitiful to behold, but Li Feng couldn't sympathize with the girl. The concept of romantic feelings or longing was foreign to Li Feng. Her ideology was based on being self-centred and living in the present, something that actively went against the concept of longing for another.

"Hm?" Forgetting about the sorrowful girl, Li Feng's gaze moved to something else as she noticed a commotion in the corner of her vision.

"Stop it!"

The voice belonged to the oldest girl, who was more or less the leader of the children. Her wrist was grasped by an unkempt man, seemingly in his middle ages, with a pot belly. Behind him were two more men, both similarly unkempt.

"Huh?! You bitch, shouting so loud!" The man, most definitely drunk, slurred his words as he yelled aloud, "Just fucking give me the mone-!"

However, his words were cut off mid-sentence as a sharp kick assaulted his knee, causing it to bend in a completely unnatural way.

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"Y-you!" The other man tried to speak but was punched in the stomach, and the third also suffered a similar fate.

"Huh..." Li Feng, who had just gotten rid of the 'trash,' sighed aloud. 'What a clichéd bunch.'

Li Feng, someone who had lived her life through killing, felt disappointed at her current abilities. Even though she had a strong body, her skills seemed rusty. But again, this was more or less just a way for her to release her stress, and Li Feng had no intention of killing the men.

"Are you alright?" Turning to the oldest girl in the group, Li Feng asked as gently as possible.

However, the girl seemed to panic even more. "A-ah! I'm fine! B-but this man's-!"

'Those guys must've been related to the group managing the slums. Then...'

It wasn't all that hard for Li Feng to guess what had happened. After all, with the system of collecting herbs to make drugs, beggar associations and "protection" fee gatherers, the slums had a well-defined structure. It was only natural for there to be people maintaining the system within the lawless slums.

"Don't worry about it, I'll do something about it." Li Feng smiled reassuringly and reached out to pat the girl's head. However, her hand stopped midway as she quickly took a stance, turning towards her back.

"That won't be necessary."

Li Feng glared at the newcomer, a man wearing shady-looking cloaks with a carefree playful voice that seemed to scream suspiciously.

"And who might you be?" In a rather haughty voice, Li Feng asked while still on guard.

The man remained quiet, but his lips, visible under his cloak, raised into an arc. "I can be considered the superior of 'that'." He pointed toward the now unconscious drunk men in a playful manner as if amused by the condition of the drunkards.

"And so?" Li Feng responded in kind, taunting the man with a disdainful grin. "Don't tell me you're here to do something as silly as avenging that thing?"

"Oh, not at all!" He continued in a nonchalant manner as if this was just a game to him. "It's an off day for me today, so I was just wandering around and saw this~"

"..." Despite the man's claims, Li Feng did not stop glaring at him.

"Haha! It seems like you do not trust me, but that's understandable. My name is Zhu Li. What about yours?"

"..." A few moments passed in silence as Li Feng did not respond. "...Li Feng."

"Li Feng..." Zhu Li muttered, pondering over it. "Li Feng? Li Feng?!" His body shook abruptly as he stared at Li Feng. "Um... Do you perchance happen to reside within the city lord's estate?"

"Yes?" Li Feng's answer came a bit unsure as she wondered how this guy knew. 'Is he someone related to an information-gathering group?'

"Ah...! I-is that so? Haha! W-well, I'll be having someone pick up those guys later! Well then!"

Saying this, Zhu Li soon left in a hurry as if escaping from his greatest horror. And to some degree, it was exactly that.

...

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...

"Does he have some relation with the slum's group?"

Li Feng muttered as she recalled the face of the annoyingly stoic guy who had earlier just left her at the slums without telling her where he was going.

"Haa..." She sighed as she stirred the food cooking in the pot with her ladle. "Damnit! Always so annoying!"

The movements of her ladle grew more rash as she cursed at her "employer" Haoren.

"...Is he like a boss or something?" Seeing how Zhu Li, who seemed to be a rather high-ranked guy within the slums, was so scared, it was likely that Haoren was to some degree in control of the slums or at least was known by those who controlled it.

"Hmm..." As she pondered this, an image of Haoren dressed as a mafia boss with a cigar in his mouth popped into Li Feng's head. "Haha! So stupid! It really doesn't suit him~"

"Rather than that, he's more like..." Memories passed by in her mind, from their first meeting to their bickerings, from his petty side to his surprisingly caring side. Someone who holds more than enough power to single-handedly kill her, yet she doesn't fear him in the slightest.

In the past, just the thought of someone stronger than her left her paranoid as she spread out her web, planning their demise and eventually succeeding in getting rid of such a person.

"Scary, a bit awkward, but secretly kind... he's more like a shoujo manga male lead..." Comparing an actual person to a fictional character wasn't something she enjoyed, but she found this quite amusing.

"It's kinda hilarious~" Putting Haoren in fictional scenarios created some rather hilarious images, as she couldn't help but find it odd for him of all people to be a "male lead" character.

"As for the heroine..." Her gaze fell towards her hands that held the ladle... "Yeah, definitely not me~" She continued cheerily, as she was simply the very opposite of a naive heroine. "Maybe one of those from the slum, but aren't they too young? Hm... How old is that guy, anyway?"

She didn't know much about Haoren. He wasn't one to talk much, and she didn't really inquire either.

...

"Tsk! How long is that fucker going to take?!"

Li Feng grumbled as she sat at the table somewhat close to the entrance.

'Damnit! I wanna throw boiling stew to his face!'

Yeah, she definitely wasn't a shoujo heroine...

As she waited for him, she slowly drifted to sleep. Perhaps it was because she was always on guard, perhaps because of her weak body, or perhaps it was because she was finally alone, but she fell asleep completely relaxed and off her guard.