Chapter 75

74 Origins of Doubt and a Promise

No matter what happens, am I still your sister?

Watching Leon, who leaned comfortably against her shoulder, his breathing growing lighter as if already asleep, Anna, having received his promise, did not feel relieved—instead, she unconsciously bit her lip until it turned pale.

What if… I’m not your sister at all, and all the happiness I have now is stolen? When you find out everything I’ve done to you, will you still think of me this way?

…

Amid the anxious fears of the frail girl, the carriage carrying the family of four raced through the streets of the Capital; Leon, who had only dozed for less than thirty minutes, was jolted awake by the carriage’s arrival horn.

Is this carriage really that fast?

Rubbing his bleary eyes and yawning again, Leon first smoothed out the wrinkles on Anna’s shoulder, then gave each of his sleeping younger siblings a firm pat on the buttocks.

“Wake up! Our new home’s here!”

“Already?!”

Hearing Leon, William rubbed his eyes and sat up, carefully tidying his disheveled clothes as Leon had done, then mercilessly jabbed his sister in the ribs.

Anna, who had visited the Happiness Apartment twice before, was already familiar with this stern-looking manager; after politely greeting him, she picked up all the luggage she could carry, urged her siblings to take some as well, then bowed apologetically:

Shall we go upstairs…?

But perhaps he had arrived too early—the sun hadn’t fully risen, and the red-haired director, either still half-asleep or simply not at work, gave no response.

“Huh? Why not…?”

Just six hundred more live-fire shots, and the Shooter Badge would advance—but before that, he needed to find the director, use her connections to investigate Anna’s background, and find out what was troubling her…

“I’m here.”

Seeing that Anna and the others had truly been accepted into the Happiness Apartment, Leon finally relaxed, then frowned and strode quickly toward the Cleanup Bureau.

“Sorry, big brother can’t carry you up today.”

If Anna’s secret is trivial, I can pretend I never knew it for the rest of my life—but if it’s something dangerously serious, shouldn’t I investigate now and resolve it early, rather than wait for her to do something foolish?

Smiling as he pinched her pouting cheek, Leon carried Anna and William off the carriage, then turned to glance toward the Happiness Apartment.

“Wake up quickly! Our new home’s on the sixth floor—how are you going to get up if you don’t get up?”

Looking at the explosive black muscles beneath the old man’s thin vest, then at his own thighs, thinner than the man’s forearm, Leon—who feared becoming “Big Brother” in the worst way—refused to stay a moment longer; he struggled to carry the luggage to the apartment door, then fled without hesitation.

Phew… looks like everything’s finally settled.

After confirming with Senior Emma, I learned that what she told me, though rare—perhaps once every few years—was absolutely true, so…

“You’re looking for me? Then come up.”

As expected, the so-called “sickly” old man stood in the small garden out front, glaring at him with a menacing gaze, holding a garden shears over a meter long, snipping away at shrubs as thick as a bowl—snip-snip, like trimming green onions…

“Don’t make noise…”

I said I wouldn’t ask, but I never said I wouldn’t investigate! As the director put it: not asking and investigating are two separate things.

“I’ll sleep in big brother’s arms—he can carry me up!”

“Thank you, Mr. John.”

Seeing the “devil’s brat” wisely stay away, the old man grunted, shoved the garden shears straight into the ground, then limped over to the door and stared at the new residents of the Happiness Apartment.

Pinching Melanie’s arm with distaste, William wiped the chair’s saliva off with her sleeve, then patted her face:

Could this one be real too? Is the person talking to me now really the director’s anomaly?

“Mr. John?!”

After waiting a moment without response, Leon knocked again, raising his voice slightly:

What? Didn’t you just promise me half an hour ago that if Anna didn’t want to say something, I could choose not to ask?

Also, didn’t the director mention that the upstairs is filled with her anomalies?

“Mmm… don’t pat…”

Although her tone back then sounded like she was joking, I remember when I asked about the Cleanup Bureau’s duties, she described them in the same playful tone.

Stop cutting, stop cutting—I won’t go over, okay?

Anna, startled, snapped back to reality and hurried after him with her siblings, trying to help carry some luggage—but seeing the mountain of bags piled on the old man’s back, she had no way to help, so she simply trailed behind, repeatedly thanking him…

Groaning as she climbed off the chair, Melanie saw Leon’s exasperated face across from her and immediately brightened, reaching out her arms toward him.

“Director, are you there?”

“Director, it’s Leon! Are you there?”

Disrupted in her dream, Melanie grumbled twice, kicked her tiny leather-shod feet uselessly in the air, then curled like a maggot toward the far end of the seat, away from William, leaving a trail of saliva over ten centimeters long.

“Yes, I’m upstairs.”

Or, as Senior Emma would say: never rely on luck—only by gathering sufficient intelligence beforehand can you remain calm and in control at all times!

Leon’s raised voice seemed to have an effect; the red-haired director finally answered him—but the voice didn’t come from inside the office; it seemed to seep directly through the floorboards.

“Because big brother works to support the family, so he can buy you pretty little dresses~”

After adjusting his stance slightly to ensure he could carry the nearly three hundred pounds of luggage securely, the old man snatched the bags from Anna’s hands without a word and slung them onto his back, then turned and walked off without uttering a sound.

“Eww… so disgusting!”

In Anna’s stunned gaze, the burly manager, who looked like a bear, grinned with a ferocious expression, then, like a circus performer, tossed six or seven large bags into the air and caught them all on his back with a series of thuds.

“Wake up! We’re here!”

Armed with the steadiness learned from Senior Emma and the thick skin learned from the red-haired director, Leon arrived early at the Cleanup Bureau and pounded hard on the director’s office door.

In a calm, almost indifferent tone, the red-haired director answered the question, then spoke with a muffled voice:

…

“My brother is busy with work, so he doesn’t have time to help us move—could you please… ah!”

Hearing the red-haired director’s words, Leon froze slightly, instinctively sensing something was off.

“Director, are you upstairs?”

“Let me sleep a little longer…”

Although… the Sixth Cleanup Bureau has no rule forbidding upstairs access, based on his observations, no one in the bureau had ever gone up—the staircase had not a single shoe print, and was covered in thick dust, likely untouched for at least half a year—so why would the director suddenly call me up today?