Chapter 26: Sun, Cat, and Light

"Of course it's not lost, Detective, you can't casually suspect others. But that damn cat..."

The man in the door said through gritted teeth, as if that cat had eaten all his family property. His expression was twisting:

"Get that cat away quickly, I will never help take care of any orange cat again."

"Okay, where is that cat?"

Xia De asked. He didn't like cats much, but for the sake of that generous commission, even if he had to carry the cat through the streets and alleys, he wouldn't object.

"On the roof."

The man pointed upward, and his gritted-teeth expression became more intense:

"From the time that detective came to board it, this cat hasn't let anyone touch it easily. At least it scratched my wife and Miss Cindy twice. It doesn't eat cheap cat food and keeps bullying other pets here. I have operated here for so many years and have never seen such a combative half-year-old kitten... At this time, it must be sunbathing on it! Get it away quickly, I can't stand it anymore."

Xia De pretended not to hear the man's complaints, stepped back slightly from the door, and then looked up at this three-story small building:

"How do you want me to climb to the roof?"

"In the courtyard of this house, there is a ladder that can climb from the first floor to the roof. I won't go! I never want to see that cat again!"

Xia De certainly didn't want to climb so high, and he valued his safety very much. Just as he was about to persuade the big-nosed middle-aged man, the latter directly stuffed him with a 1-shilling banknote:

"Detective Hamilton gave me 1 shilling and 10 pennies to take care of it for two months. Now this 1 shilling is returned to you, get it away! Never let that cat appear in this alley again!"

That voice was almost hysterical, so much so that the children chasing and playing on the street, and the woman leaning out of the opposite building to hang clothes, all looked over.

It was really hard to imagine how much psychological trauma that orange cat had caused him.

Following the middle-aged man through the house, they came to the backyard filled with empty pet cages. The middle-aged man was holding the metal long ladder, and Xia De carefully climbed onto the roof with it.

The roof was piled with all kinds of garbage and debris, and he didn't know how these things were transported up when it could only be reached by a ladder. And in the southeast corner of the roof, the only piece of ground that could be considered clean, Xia De saw the cat lying lazily on the metal pipe facing the summer morning sun.

It was indeed a kitten that looked young. Its body was as soft as a pool of water, lying on the pipe. Its size was not large, and it could even be said to be a bit thin. The color of its fur was slightly shining in the sunlight passing through the thin fog, which was a sign of health.

It's just that, rather than saying it was an orange cat, it was more like a white cat draped in a warm orange blanket. Only when the cat stood up did Xia De realize that the layer of orange-yellow that was even a bit dazzling was really the color of the cat's fur.

The cat stood on the metal pipe discarded on the roof, and the pipe was padded on a broken sofa cushion at one end, making the cat's position slightly higher than the surrounding items.

It stood up with its back to the morning sun, and its amber eyes looked at Xia De, vigilantly sizing up this stranger. Xia De had no experience dealing with such animals, and because of the big-nosed middle-aged man's words, he was a bit worried that this orange cat would pounce on him.

But this orange cat, which was named "Mia" like its owner, didn't look very fierce. It was observing Xia De, and Xia De also knew that he was being observed, so he tried his best to show friendliness, constantly reminding himself of the value of this cat in his heart:

"I'll take you to see your owner, Miss Mia San Gao De."

He found a foothold in the waste, squatted down slightly, patted his hands, and a deliberate smile appeared on his face, and then, as expected, this suspicious appearance did not get a response from the cat.

"Miss Mia Gao De."

Just now it was the most standard "Northern Kingdom Human Common Language," which is Draerion language. This time it was a sentence with a Tobesk local accent, which was a skill Xia De learned in the past two days:

"I'll take you to find your owner, Miss Mia Gao De."

The orange cat's small ears shook, it licked its right front paw, put it down, and continued to look at Xia De with bright eyes.

Xia De pursed his lips, looked around, confirmed that there were no buildings higher than this nearby, and then stretched out his right index finger:

"Look."

Silver light lit up on his index finger, and the orange cat's amber eyes widened immediately. It opened its mouth slightly, stood on the rusty metal pipe, its whiskers trembling slightly, and stretched its head to look at the light:

"Miss Mia Gao De."

Xia De continued to say, and then slowly approached the orange cat. He slowly stretched out his left hand, suppressed his worry about "wild animals," and gently picked it up with one hand.

The orange cat was not heavy, at least not heavy now.

The cat was still tilting its head and looking at Xia De's right index finger, but after the light on the finger went out, it didn't escape from Xia De's arms. It leaned against Xia De's chest, waving its two small paws with appropriate force, fiddling with Xia De's finger that had just glowed, and seemed to be very interested in the "new toy."

"Very good."

The detective then let out a long breath, stood up, and prepared to leave here. And the young orange cat Mia just squirmed uneasily, but didn't struggle excessively.

"Not fierce at all, and even very obedient. It seems that I am also a person who can make other animals have a good impression."

Xia De thought with a pleasant mood. At this time, he saw something lying under the pipe the orange cat was lying on just now. So he held the cat with one hand, bent down and picked up the thing with his right hand, only then did he see it was a box of old Luo De cards.

When using Luo De cards, you must gather a full set of 54 cards to use. If there are special cards, you can replace them according to the suit and card number, because the patterns on the back of all Luo De cards are the same.

This box in front of him was not any special Luo De card. The patterns on the card face were extremely simple, similar to the set used by the three men Xia De saw in the tavern. It probably cost a few dozen pennies to buy a box.

Seeing that it was not an important thing, he put it into his pocket. Afterward, he held the cat with one hand and carefully climbed back to the courtyard along the ladder.

"I took a set of old Luo De cards on the roof, how much money do I need to give you?"

That set of old cards looked like garbage, but Xia De didn't forget to say it. This kind of old card was not worth money, and Xia De put it into his pocket, just because he wanted to make up a full set with that 【Founding · Silver Moon】.

And the big-nosed middle-aged man saw that Xia De really wanted to take the cat away, and almost cried in front of Xia De. As for the garbage on the roof, he didn't care at all.

Afterward, he left Purple Iris Alley, but Xia De didn't walk around holding someone else's cat, but went straight to Miss Gao De's house. During this period, the orange cat Mia, except for a burst of "purring" sounds at the beginning, only kept fiddling with Xia De's sleeves and the clothes on his chest with its paws, but didn't try to escape from his arms.

Miss Gao De, who was willing to pay such a high price to find her cat, was definitely not a poor person. She lived in a quiet residential neighborhood "Sandru Street" in the south of the city, where every household had an independent small garden, and the fence door was marked with their own nameplates. ===== CHAPTER 27 =====