“Boss! Is that gear pure gold?!”
Vivian’s voice echoed through the empty street, startling the stray cats flirting on top of the trash can.
Cicero walked briskly. One of his strides was worth two of Vivian’s. Paired with that billowing black trench coat, he looked like an enormous bat.
“That’s brass alloy. Don’t even think about using company funds to trade for bread, Detective.”
“Tch.”
Vivian panted heavily, feeling like, aside from having a pretty face, she was useless in every other respect.
Oh wait, not quite—she could eat. Especially well.
The dim yellow glow of the gas lamps stretched their shadows long. This was the boundary between District Thirteen and District Fourteen, at the entrance to the Slums’ sewers.
A scent beyond description filled the air.
“The place we’re going… is it actually in a cesspit?” She pinched her nose, tears almost squeezed out from the stench.
Cicero stood before the giant maintenance manhole cover, lightly tapping the ground with his cane.
“Open it.”
“Huh?” Vivian pointed at her own nose, “Me? This thing weighs at least fifty kilos! I’m a delicate—”
“Fifty Francs.”
“Up!” Vivian gripped the edge of the manhole with both hands, steadied her breath, and with a loud shout—
“Creak—boom!”
The cast iron cover flew up like a pizza box and slammed onto the concrete, shaking the ground with three tremors.
“It seems hunger truly can awaken a Chimera’s potential.”
Cicero raised his brows, then jumped into the pitch-black hole.
Vivian stared into that bottomless darkness, took a deep breath, pinched her nose, and jumped down.
She regretted it instantly, inhaling a lungful of foul air.
There was no splash when she landed, as she’d imagined.
Beneath her feet were dry stone bricks—this was a wide underground corridor.
Oil lamps along the walls lit the way ahead. And at the corridor’s end, there was a long line.
Up front, a fat man in a silk suit held an Ivory Folding Fan.
Behind him was a thin man wrapped tightly in cloth, clutching a squirming bag.
“What is this? Sewer Fashion Week?” Vivian muttered under her breath.
“This is the entrance to Miracle Alley.” Cicero straightened his collar.
“The largest Black Market in all of Paris. As long as you have Louis d’Or, you can buy anything here.”
The line moved at a snail’s pace.
At the entrance stood a bizarre doorkeeper.
He wore a tattered black tailcoat and a Crow Mask.
The beak bobbed with each movement, and two red points glimmered in the eye sockets.
“That’s Mister Crow,” Cicero murmured, “If you don’t want to end up in the cesspit, be polite. He’s… a traditional sort.”
“Traditional?” Vivian eyed the masked man. “Like, using bloodletting for a cold?”
As she spoke, the fat man ahead was stopped.
“This is the third time already, dear nouveau riche sir.”
Mister Crow’s voice was hoarse and grating, like fingernails scraping a blackboard, “Your posture entering here is like an upright-walking gorilla.”
“How dare you insult me!” The fat man’s face turned red as he waved his Louis d’Or, “I’m rich! I have plenty of money!”
“Money?”
Mister Crow let out a strange laugh, “Caw, caw—money’s the least valuable thing here.”
Without seeming to exert any effort, he picked up the two-hundred-pound man like a ball.
“Whoosh—”
The fat man was hurled into a side passage, vanishing into the darkness amidst screams and splashing water.
Vivian swallowed hard.
“That’s part of the tradition too?” she asked Cicero.
“Crow believes,” Cicero replied coolly, “only those with old-world manners are fit to trade here.”
“So, I have to act like a noble?” Vivian felt a sense of doom.
She looked down at herself.
A linen dress washed so many times it barely had shape, cuffs fraying. On her feet, a pair of ill-fitting old leather shoes.
The most valuable thing on her was probably the necklace in her pocket—oh wait, it had already blackened; even a pawn shop wouldn’t want it now.
“This is why I brought you along.” Cicero suddenly grinned, his expression positively schadenfreude.
One by one, people passed through or got tossed out.
At last, it was their turn.
Mister Crow turned, red eyes fixed on Cicero.
“Ah, the revolting stench of theology.” Crow tilted his head.
Cicero said nothing.
He merely lifted his chin, left hand behind his back, right hand elegantly raised, making an imaginary support in the air.
Then, he bowed his head and executed a perfect air kiss just above that invisible hand.
“Versailles Palace court etiquette—not bad.” Crow let out an admiring sigh.
The iron door creaked open a sliver.
Cicero straightened and glanced back at Vivian. His eyes seemed to say: Now it’s your turn, circus child laborer.
Damn it.
The only etiquette knowledge she had from her previous life was that, when toasting the boss at KTV, the rim of your glass had to be two centimeters lower!
“As for this one…” Mister Crow leaned toward Vivian.
A strange perfume wafted over.
“Rough fabric, cheap shoes.” Crow sniffed, “Which Slums rat hole did you crawl from?”
Cicero stood just inside the door, making no move to help.
He was enjoying the show! That bastard boss was definitely enjoying the show!
Vivian’s mind whirred.
If she didn’t get in, there’d be no clues. No clues, no reward. No reward, no food.
Starving was minor—being humiliated was major.
No, starving was major! Pride is worth nothing!
If this lunatic cared so much about “old-world manners,” what was at its core?
Ornate? Hypocritical? Contempt for others?
In a flash, Vivian remembered all those old court dramas and Mary Sue novels from her previous life.
Screw it!
Vivian took a sudden deep breath; her gaze turned one-third cold, one-third mocking, and four-tenths nonchalant.
She bypassed Crow, and shouted at Cicero inside:
“Is it just because my skirt’s too long and I walk a little slow that you’d leave me behind like this?!”
Her voice rang with haughty petulance and command.
Even Cicero was stunned for a moment, his “enjoying the show” look frozen on his face.
Vivian gave him no chance to react. She charged forward, pointed at Cicero’s nose, and turned to Mister Crow with a plaintive wail:
“Can you judge this for me, Miracle Alley Doorkeeper!”
Her eyes reddened instantly, looking so pitiful under the dim light.
“Ever since my family fell into ruin, this Butler has shown me less and less respect!”
Vivian stretched out her dusty hand, trembling as she pointed at Cicero.
“Look at him! He even forgot to prepare new gloves for me! For a lady’s hands to be exposed to the air—what a crime!”
“He’s bullying me just because I’m broke now! He wants to see me humiliated!”
Vivian grew more into her role, even adding a sob at the end, her sense of “wronged Princess bullied by a wicked servant” practically radiating from her.
“Servants these days… have no manners at all!”
She finished with a stomp, glaring at Cicero with all the arrogance she could muster.
“What are you waiting for? Are you going to help me inside or do I have to open the door myself?!”
The air froze; Cicero’s lips twitched twice.
He had probably never been called “servant” and scolded to his face in his whole life.
“I…” Cicero began.
“Brilliant.” A raspy applause interrupted him.
“Baseless accusations, blaming all your shortcomings squarely on the servant with utter confidence…”
“Your clothes may be tattered, Marquis.” Mister Crow bowed deeply to Vivian. “But your soul is prouder than the Versailles Hall of Mirrors.”
“Bang—”
The iron gate swung wide.
Mister Crow made a “please” gesture, even more respectful than to Cicero.
“Please, fallen Marquis. Miracle Alley welcomes your visit.”
Vivian raised her head high, strutting in like a proud peacock.
As she passed Cicero, she deliberately snorted.
The tunnel was pitch-black, bizarre graffiti scrawled all along the walls.
“That was your plan?”
“Pure improvisation, Boss.” Vivian was in high spirits.
“A woman with both beauty and brains like me—having a sharp-tongued, icy Butler is standard, isn’t it?”
Cicero halted, using the faint wall light to stare at her face.
Vivian felt a little unnerved, instinctively covering her pocket. “What? I don’t have any money for you. Try something and you’ll have to kill me.”
“Your acting is terrible.” Cicero looked away, moving forward again.
“But it didn’t stop the Crow Mask from buying it.” Vivian retorted. “That’s called hitting the user’s weak point precisely.”
“No.”
Cicero’s voice sounded a little ethereal in the dim passage.
“He didn’t believe your acting.”
“Then what did he believe?”
“Your eyes.”
“My eyes?” Vivian touched her own eyes.
Cicero didn’t answer.
He thought back to that moment.
When Vivian scolded him, her gaze radiated such indifference and contempt—it looked just like a certain person who died at the guillotine.
“We’re here.” Cicero stopped before a giant tattered curtain, lifting it aside.
The cramped tunnel suddenly opened up.
Noise, shouts, the clatter of gears flooded their ears.
This was a city built inside a hollow underground.
Countless buildings made of scrap metal, broken boards, and colored glass piled up in layers. Steam pipes crisscrossed above, occasionally spewing out white mist.
“Welcome to Paris’s Appendix.” Cicero tucked his handkerchief back in his pocket. “Hold onto your purse, Detective. There are lots of pickpockets here.”
As they stepped into the crowd—
Mister Crow still stood in the shadows by the door.
He watched Vivian’s retreating figure, raised his withered hand, and lightly tapped his mask.
“Those eyes…”
He murmured, his voice so soft even passing rats couldn’t hear.
“So much like that one… the madwoman who laughed in the Fire and tossed the Crown into the Furnace…”