Chapter Eight: Liver Cancer

"Uncle Zhao, I'm here for my shift."

After school, Li Sheng parked his folding bike in the alley and stepped into the dessert shop. The shop was deserted, and the glass display cases, usually filled with pastries, were empty.

"Boss?"

He walked into the kitchen to find Uncle Zhao sitting alone in the corner, his face haggard and his eyes vacant, as if he had aged ten years in an instant. "Uncle Zhao, what happened?"

Seeing him, Uncle Zhao managed to summon a bit of strength. "Little Li, I'm afraid this shop can't stay open anymore."

Li Sheng looked stunned. "What? Why?"

"Urban renewal. The landlord is selling the property and is pressuring me to move out," Uncle Zhao said, sounding dazed. "Your aunt suddenly fainted on the bus today. The hospital ran tests and found liver cancer."

"..."

Li Sheng remained silent. Uncle Zhao’s family had come from out of town and struggled for years in Yin City to afford this shop; just as their lives were starting to improve, they were hit by this tragedy.

He spoke softly, his voice raspy. "Where's Dandan?"

Dandan was Uncle Zhao's daughter, a cute girl just starting primary school. During his shifts, Li Sheng would often help her with her homework when things were slow.

"Watching TV upstairs. I don't know how to tell her, and I'm afraid to. I have to take her to the hospital to see her mother later." Uncle Zhao leaned his forehead against his hand, his face hidden in the shadows, his voice nearly choking. "Your severance pay is in the drawer at the front counter. Take care of yourself from now on."

"I don't need the severance; I have other ways to get by." Li Sheng shook his head firmly, then paused. "Which hospital is my aunt at?"

"Deming Hospital. If you're not busy, come visit her sometime. Don't worry too much about us; the landlord breached the contract, so he has to pay three months' rent in penalties. With our old savings, we can still hold on."

Uncle Zhao forced a faint smile and called out, "Dandan! Brother Sheng is leaving, go see him off!"

Patting footsteps echoed from upstairs. Zhao Dandan, wearing pigtails and holding a corn cob with kernels still stuck to the corner of her mouth, ran down the stairs. She hugged Li Sheng’s leg and looked up with watery eyes. "Brother Sheng, you must come visit me later!"

"Mm, I will."

Looking at the innocent and lovely Dandan, Li Sheng stroked her hair with a heavy heart before saying goodbye to the family.

Back in the dimly lit alley, the boy pedaled his bike with rhythmic, jerky motions. Gazing at the tangled mess of overhead power lines, he felt a complex swirl of emotions.

The world is not fair, or rather, it has never been fair.

*Gurgle—*

His stomach growled. Li Sheng patted his belly and sighed, "Alright, let's find you something to eat."

He rode to a neighborhood supermarket and began browsing the near-expiration section—food close to its expiration date was much cheaper.

"Imported chocolate, 2,516 kilojoules per 100g; pork rinds, 2,810 kilojoules per 100g; potato chips, 916 kilojoules per 40g; Weilong spicy meat, 1,836 kilojoules per 100g..."

Li Sheng calculated the ratio of energy to price with his fingers, selecting only the cheap, calorie-dense snacks that provided the most sustenance for his money.

He bought two large bags before leaving the shop and sitting in a corner of the park to eat alone.

His "Genetic Hunger" state required him to consume massive amounts of calories every day, and they had to be nutritionally balanced—not just pure sugar or fat.

The most cost-effective way would be to eat at the school cafeteria—Zhuoyue High School made its money through high tuition and social donations, so it didn't need to skimp on student meals. Consequently, the food was quite affordable and delicious.

The problem was that the cafeteria had surveillance; he couldn't exactly eat a ten-person portion by himself.

Even the near-expiration food at the store cost money. Now that he had lost his job at the dessert shop, he couldn't just sit and burn through his savings; he had to find other ways to make money.

After some thought, Li Sheng took out his phone, opened WeChat, and found Cui Yi.

Cui Yi was a childhood friend who had lived in the same apartment complex, a few years older than him.

His family situation was even worse than Li Sheng’s—his parents had divorced long ago and neither wanted him, so he dropped out of high school and struggled to make a living on his own.

He had handed out flyers, delivered food, worked on construction sites, repaired cars, and done sales—he had done every job imaginable before becoming a talent agent, mingling in local Yin City groups.

A "talent agent" was essentially a recruiter for short-term labor.

For example, a new bubble tea shop might hire a crowd to stand in line to create the illusion of popularity. Real estate offices did the same.

"Hello? Brother Cui, it's me, Li Sheng."

"Oh, Little Sheng, what's up?" There was loud, chaotic noise on Cui Yi’s end; he sounded very busy.

"Do you have any short-term gigs you could introduce me to?" Li Sheng asked, feeling a bit sheepish.

"Ha, you asked the right person."

Cui Yi laughed. "Your Brother Cui is now a full-time employee at MS Company. I'm a big deal now."

"MS Company?"

"Meeseeks, or 'Mission Accomplished' in Chinese. You can look it up online," Cui Yi said. "This company has operations all over the world, serving the super-rich.

"For example, if someone is camping in the Alps and suddenly wants a feast, they call MS. An hour later, a helicopter flies in, sets up tables and tableware on the mountain, and a Michelin-starred chef prepares Alaskan snow crab, French Alsatian foie gras, and Japanese Kobe beef on the spot, served with a bottle of wine aged in a century-old shipwreck.

"It took me beating out hundreds of people to get this job."

Cui Yi’s tone was immensely proud. For an ordinary high school dropout to beat out a group of elite university graduates was indeed something to be proud of.

"Let me check the schedule... Hmm, the day after tomorrow, there's a birthday party for a wealthy family's child, and they need help setting up the venue. You in? The daily wage is 1,800."

"That much?" Li Sheng was startled. That was just for one day.

"The clients pay well, so we get a good cut. You can make it, right? Alright then, I'll call you when the time comes."

Cui Yi hung up the phone, adjusted his blue MS hat, and helped his coworkers move pieces of equipment into the luxury villa's garden.

A Blüthner piano, Zelaton speakers, a Poliform wardrobe, handmade Persian carpets...

Lines had already been drawn in chalk on the floor of the villa’s grand hall, and the MS staff placed the furniture and appliances into the chalk-drawn frames with absolute precision.

A worker in gloves carefully placed a white porcelain vase on a red sandalwood cabinet and whispered, "Brother Cui, this villa must be worth at least seventy or eighty million, right?"

"Don't talk nonsense. Forget the employee manual? We can't discuss clients in private."

Cui Yi cut him off, though he was wondering the same thing. In this neighborhood, with this floor plan? Seventy or eighty million? At least a hundred million!

Having been independent for a long time and experienced the cold reality of the world, Cui Yi had passed the age of bitterness. How rich others were had nothing to do with him.

He was just a bit confused—the owner of the villa had never appeared, and the butler handled all the coordination, demanding that all furniture be installed within a single day.

It felt like they were moving in on a whim. But what kind of billionaire would be so casual?

At that very moment, in a bedroom on the third floor of the villa, away from the noise of the living room, Shao Wangshu was lying on her bed in chicken-patterned pajamas, tapping her phone repeatedly.

She unlocked the screen, saw no QQ messages, locked it, unlocked it, saw no QQ messages, and locked it again. The cycle repeated.

In the corner of the room, the young female butler, standing with a straight back and a ponytail, couldn't help but remind her in a low voice, "Miss, it's time to do your homework."

"In a minute, in a minute," Shao Wangshu said absent-mindedly, her fingers unconsciously pinching the cat ears on her phone's silicone case.

"Your father said that the condition for moving to Yin City to live on your own is that your grades cannot slip. Otherwise, you'll have to go back to Jincheng."

"I know, I'll do it in a bit." Shao Wangshu rolled over, and her eyes suddenly lit up. She cheered, "Li Sheng accepted my friend request!"

"That's wonderful," the butler said insincerely. She picked up the schoolbag from the floor, took out the test papers, and laid them out on the table. "Can you do your homework now?"

"Quick, quick, help me think of how to say hello," Shao Wangshu waved her hand. "Should I send 'Good evening,' or 'Hello, desk mate,' or 'Do you really not remember me?'

"Is that last one too direct? It's been so long, it's normal that he wouldn't remember me..."

Listening to the girl's rambling, the butler rolled her eyes and stood in the corner like a wooden statue.

The Shao family, along with the Xue family—where Li Sheng’s uncle by marriage, Xue Jingming, worked—were among the eight great families that had signed contracts with the Special Affairs Bureau to explore the "Killing Fields."

The difference was that Xue Jingming was only a member of a branch of the Xue family, not an important one. But Shao Wangshu, along with her twin brother and sister, were the core of the current generation of the Shao family.

In her veins flowed the blood of a divine abomination.