"Why are you sitting so high?" Ku Yue stood in front of a bar called Butterfly Kisses, looking up at the person sitting on the roof of the bar.
The person loudly replied, "To bask in the sun!"
It was now half past five in the afternoon. It was summer, but the sky had already darkened, with only a thin line of twilight on the horizon. Moon City was indeed too remote; so remote that it had a time difference with the last city he lived in.
Whenever he arrived in a new city, the first place he looked for was a bar. He needed to relax; even if it was artificial, it had become a habit.
He followed the gaze of the person on the roof and only saw only chimneys belching black smoke into the air amidst the various factories, as well as some damaged and incomplete neon lights flickering continuously in the twilight. There were no gorgeous rows of skyscrapers here, nor clean and luxurious nights with perfume filling the air. All the buildings in this place appeared old-fashioned, and so did the passing vehicles and the people living here.
Every part of Moon City seemed as aged as an old photograph abandoned by time.
"Aren't you hot?" He became interested in the person who enjoyed basking in the sun on a rooftop in the midst of summer, gazing at such a view.
"Not at all!" The person responded excitedly.
In the distance, there were a few heavy and long chimes of a bell. Upon hearing the bell, the person on the rooftop moved, as if preparing to come down.
Just then, a stone whizzed through the air, shooting out from the alley diagonally opposite the bar, hitting the person's butt like a prank.
A shriek followed, and the person wobbled for a moment, actually falling from the rooftop.
As Ku Yue was about to make a move to rescue the unfortunate fool, the chap floated in mid-air less than a meter from the ground, arms outstretched like wings, and then descended slowly to the ground.
"Darned bunhead, you're playing with slingshots again! See if I don't beat you to death next time!" The person who safely landed on the ground shouted loudly at a little boy hiding in the alley, who was as plump as a steamed bun. As they yelled, they carefully stashed a glass bottle with a peculiar shimmering light into their shoulder bag.
"Big Sis Luoye[1], I won't dare do it next time!" The chubby boy, holding his slingshot, made a funny face in their direction and then swiftly ran away with a group of giggling friends.
Ku Yue sized up the girl in a washed-out T-shirt and jeans with frayed hems. She wore a baseball cap with a hole in it and looked to be around sixteen or seventeen years old. Other than her fair and delicate skin and her petite stature, she didn't seem like a woman at all.
He looked around and approached her, staring as he asked, "Excuse me, is this the Sword district?"
"Yes," she turned her head and looked directly in his direction.
The ambient light from the horizon mixed with the bar's entrance lights, casting a glow on her face. Ku Yue only just noticed that she had a pair of extraordinarily beautiful large eyes. However, those eyes that should have rivaled the stars were veiled by a dark gray layer.
He tentatively reached out his hand and waved it in front of her. No response. Her gaze seemed forever fixed in some distant reverie.
"Did you grow up here?" he asked, retracting his hand.
"It seems so," she nodded, then stepped back cautiously. "Are you from outside?"
"Yeah, I'm from outside." Ku Yue asked with curiosity, "How did you know? Do I have an accent or something?"
"You don't smell like the residents here," she took another step back.
"You don't have sight, so your sense of smell is so sharp?" he chuckled and sniffed his arm. Aside from a faint natural fragrance, there was nothing else.
"How did you enter Moon City?" As she continued to step back, her hands began searching for tools that could serve as weapons. Finally, she picked up an iron shovel used for shoveling garbage by a trash bin outside the bar and held it tightly. Her posture suggested that she might yell harsh words like "catch this pervert" at any moment.
"Miss, I came here only to visit an old friend. I don't have any ill intentions," her manner made Ku Yue want to laugh, "I was looking for directions when I approached you, nothing more."
She gripped her "weapon" even tighter, and her lifeless eyes accurately locked onto his position. In the next moment, her long, dense eyelashes quivered.
Thump! A hard, cold object hit Ku Yue hard on the back of his head, and amid several chaotic shaking figures, he fell to the ground with a groan.
[1] 落叶 (luò yè): dead/fallen leaves.
No comments:
Post a Comment