Tòumíng stretched on his bed, his broken bones protesting slightly but the painkillers Sasha had given him doing their job. He looked at the ceiling and said aloud, "It's about time I actually relaxed. Like, properly relaxed."
He pushed himself up and limped to the kitchen, his stomach growling. When was the last time he'd eaten? This morning? Yesterday? Time had become a blur of kidnappings and explosions and near-death experiences.
He opened the cabinet and pulled out two packets of instant noodles—the cheap kind, the ones that cost maybe three yuan for a five-pack. The staple food of broke people everywhere.
He boiled water, dumped the noodles in, added the seasoning packets, and then—the crucial moment, opened the tiny packet of spicy sauce that came with it.
Two drops. He squeezed exactly two drops into the pot.
"You're such a pussy," Cupid's voice cut through immediately.
"Two drops? TWO? That sauce is barely spicy to begin with and you're using TWO DROPS?"
"SHUT UP! I have a sensitive palate!"
"You have a WHITE GIRL palate! You probably think black pepper is spicy!"
"It CAN be if there's too much!"
"Oh my god."
Tòumíng ignored him and continued cooking. He let the noodles soften, stirred them occasionally, then transferred everything to a bowl. He cracked an egg directly into the hot broth—watching it cook slightly from the residual heat—and sprinkled green onions on top for "aesthetic purposes."
Then he pulled out his new ridiculously overpowered phone and tried taking aesthetic food photos.
The first attempt: blurry, bad angle, the lighting made the noodles look gray.
The second attempt: too close, just a pile of unidentifiable yellow-brown mush.
The third attempt: passable, but the green onions looked wilted and sad.
"You're like a basic white girl," Cupid observed. "Skinny. Shitty humor. Can't stop referencing movies and memes. Bad at flirting. Can't cook for shit. AND you take food pics for absolutely no reason. You're checking every single box."
Tòumíng took a bite of his noodles, chewed deliberately, then said, "You're just jealous."
"JEALOUS?! Of WHAT?! I'm a divine entity stuck in your chest! What would I be jealous of?!"
"I don't know, but you sound jealous."
"I'm NOT jealous! Nuh-uh! Not even a little bit!"
"Sure, buddy. Sure."
Tòumíng ate his noodles in relative peace, scrolling through his phone with his free hand, checking the news, seeing if anything interesting was happening in the world outside his bubble of organized crime and supernatural abilities.
Nothing. Just normal stuff. Politics. Sports. Celebrity gossip. The mundane world that had nothing to do with gangs or gemstones or immortality.
It was almost relaxing.
Yu Lin's Apartment - Upscale District
Yu Lin arrived at his apartment building—a modern high-rise in one of the nicer parts of the city, the kind of place that required key card access and had a doorman who nodded politely as he entered.
The moment he stepped through his apartment door and closed it behind him, his entire demeanor shifted.
His voice pitched up—not quite as high as his Nekko Nyan Café persona, but higher than his "professional tracker" voice. This was his comfortable voice. The one he used when he was alone or with people he actually liked.
"Yu-chan is hoooome~!" he announced to the empty apartment in a sing-song tone.
Nine cats immediately materialized from various hiding spots, under furniture, on top of cabinets, inside boxes—drawn by the sound of their owner's voice.
"Yu-chan will feed her cute kitties~! Nya~!" He dropped his bag and immediately went to the kitchen, humming a cute Japanese pop song under his breath.
He pulled out fresh fish from the refrigerator, actual good quality fish, not cheap scraps—and started cutting it up on a cutting board with practiced efficiency. He mixed it with premium cat food, the kind that cost more per kilogram than Tòumíng's entire weekly food budget.
"Zizi~! Yinny~! Mao~! Lulu~! Lana~! Chozi~! Mochi~! Hudo~! Omi~! Come get your yummy food, nya~!"
The cats swarmed him—a mass of fur and purring and meowing. He distributed the food into nine separate bowls, each cat having their own designated spot.
Once they were all eating, Yu Lin sat on the floor and let the cats climb on him. He rolled around with them, giving them raspberries on their bellies, talking to them in that high-pitched voice, completely relaxed and genuinely happy.
"Who's a good kitty? Zizi is! Yes you are! Yes you are!"
He grabbed Mochi—a fat orange tabby—and held him up like Simba. "You're getting chubby, Mochi-chan! Yu-chan needs to put you on a diet!"
Mochi meowed in protest.
Then Yu Lin realized what he was doing, playing with cats when he had work to complete—and his expression shifted back to professional focus.
He stood up, walked to his desk where his personal computer setup was located—multiple monitors, expensive equipment, the kind of tech that definitely wasn't purchased on a catboy café salary—and sat down.
When he'd bumped into Tòumíng earlier, during that brief contact when he'd grabbed Tòumíng's hand to stand up, he'd slipped a tiny tracker into the fabric of Tòumíng's borrowed clothes. Military-grade. Smaller than a button. Completely undetectable without specialized equipment.
Yu Lin typed rapidly, accessing the tracker's signal through encrypted channels.
The map loaded. The GPS coordinates triangulated.
Guanlan Lake. Villa district. Specific address: Villa #221.
Yu Lin's eyebrows raised. He pulled up property records for that address.
Estimated value: 8.5 million yuan. One of the luxury villas overlooking the lake. Gated community. High-end neighborhood.
He smirked, leaning back in his chair. "Ooooh... and he's rich too."
This changed the approach slightly. Rich targets required different tactics than poor targets. Rich people had resources, connections, security systems. But they also had vulnerabilities that came with wealth—expectations of service, assumptions about access, the kind of complacency that came from always being comfortable.
Yu Lin pulled up Tòumíng's file again, cross-referencing the new information.
Listed occupation: Miner. Listed income: poverty-level.
But living in an 8.5 million yuan villa?
That didn't add up. Which meant either the file was incomplete, or Tòumíng had hidden income sources, or—most likely—he was living there through some arrangement that wasn't reflected in official records.
Yu Lin started a new search, digging deeper. Property ownership records. Utility bills. Resident registration.
The villa was registered to... Háo Héng. The same Háo Héng who'd just been kidnapped alongside Xuān Láng.
Interesting.
So Tòumíng was living in someone else's villa. Someone he'd apparently just risked his life to rescue.
Yu Lin's mind worked through the implications. Debt? Payment for services? Blackmail? Friendship?
He'd need to investigate further before making his approach. Understand the relationship dynamics. Figure out who else might be living there—the file mentioned a "femboy associate/lover" named Měi Nán, but no confirmation of cohabitation.
He opened a new document and started planning his infiltration strategy.
PHASE 1: Surveillance
Monitor target's routine for 2-3 days Identify regular locations (work, shopping, social) Map out associates and relationships Determine best approach vector
PHASE 2: "Accidental" Contact
Stage believable encounter at location target frequents Establish initial rapport Deploy persona (cute, vulnerable, interesting enough to pursue) Exchange contact information
PHASE 3: Relationship Building
Regular communication (texts, calls) Escalate to meetings (coffee, meals, activities) Establish emotional connection Identify weaknesses and pressure points
PHASE 4: Seduction
Physical escalation when appropriate Secure trust and vulnerability Obtain target's schedule and location patterns Prepare extraction
PHASE 5: Extraction
Lure target to isolated location Signal Black Hawk for pickup Ensure target captured alive and unharmed Collect payment (80,000 yuan)
Yu Lin saved the document and leaned back, Mochi jumping into his lap and purring loudly.
"Yu-chan has work to do, Mochi," he said in his high-pitched voice, scratching behind the cat's ears. "Gonna seduce a cute boy and get paid lots of money~!"
Mochi purred louder, completely unconcerned with the moral implications of his owner's profession.
Yu Lin smiled, already looking forward to the challenge. This was what he was good at. What he'd been trained for. What made him Black Hawk's best tracker.
And Tòumíng—young, inexperienced, apparently attracted to femboys based on his search history, would be the easiest target he'd handled in months.