"Of course it's not lost, Detective, you can't be suspicious of others for no reason. But that damn cat..."
The man inside the door gnashed his teeth and said, as if the cat had eaten all his belongings. His expression was distorted:
"Get rid of that cat now. I will never help take care of any more orange cats again."
"Okay, where's the cat?"
Shad asked. He didn't like cats very much, but for the generous commission fee, he would not object even if he had to carry the cat through the streets.
"On the roof."
The man pointed upwards, his gnashing teeth expression becoming even more intense:
"Since the detective came to foster the cat, it has not allowed anyone to touch it easily. It has scratched my wife and Miss Cindy at least twice. It refuses to eat cheap cat food and keeps bullying other pets here. I have been running this place for so many years and have never seen such an aggressive six-month-old kitten... At this time, it must be basking in the sun! Get it away quickly, I can't stand it anymore."
Xia De pretended not to hear the man's complaint, stepped back from the door, and then looked up at the three-story building:
"How are you going to get me to the roof?"
"There is an escalator in the yard of this house that can climb from the first floor to the roof. I won't go there. I never want to see that cat again!"
Of course, Shade didn't want to climb so high. He took safety very seriously. Just as he was trying to persuade the big-nosed middle-aged man, the latter directly handed him a 1-shilling note:
"Detective Hamilton gave me 1 shilling and 10 pence to look after it for two months. Now I give it back to you and get rid of it! Don't let that cat appear in this alley again!"
The sound was almost hysterical, so much so that the children playing and chasing each other in the street and the woman leaning out of the building opposite to hang clothes to dry all looked over.
It is really hard to imagine how much psychological damage the orange cat has 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 a long metal ladder, and Shade carefully climbed to the roof.
The roof was full of garbage and debris, and no one knew how these things were transported up when the only way to get up was by ladder. In the southeast corner of the roof, the only clean area, Shade saw a cat lying lazily on a metal bar facing the summer morning sun.
It was indeed a kitten that looked young, its body as soft as a puddle of water, lying on the pipe. It was not big, and could even be said to be a little skinny. The color of its fur was slightly shiny in the sunlight that penetrated the mist, which was a sign of health.
However, rather than being an orange cat, it looked more like a white cat covered in a warm orange blanket. Only when the cat stood up did Shade realize that the bright orange color was actually the color of the cat's fur.
The cat was standing on a metal pipe discarded on the roof, with one end of the pipe resting on a broken sofa cushion, making the cat slightly higher than other objects around it.
It stood up with its back to the morning sun, and looked at Shade with its amber eyes, sizing up the stranger with caution. Shade had no experience dealing with such animals, and because of the words of the big-nosed middle-aged man, he was a little worried that the orange cat would pounce on him.
But this orange cat, named "Mia" like her owner, doesn't look very fierce. She is observing Shad, and Shad knows that he is being observed, so he tries to be friendly and constantly reminds himself of the value of this cat:
"I will take you to see your master, Miss Mia San Gold."
He found a place to stay among the waste, squatted down slightly, clapped his hands, and put a deliberate smile on his face. But as expected, this suspicious look did not get a response from the cat.
"Ms. Mia Gold."
Just now, he used the most standard "common language of the human beings in the Northern Kingdom", which is the Dlarion language. This time, he used a sentence with a local accent of Tobesk. This is a skill that Shade has learned in the past two days:
"I will take you to your master, Miss Mia Gold."
The orange cat twitched its small ears, raised its right front paw and licked it, then put it down and continued to look at Shade with its sharp eyes.
Xia De pursed his lips, looked around, confirmed that there were no taller buildings nearby, and then extended the index finger of his right hand:
"Look."
A silver light flashed on the index finger, and the orange cat's amber eyes widened immediately. It opened its mouth slightly, stood on the rusty metal pipe, and stretched its head slightly to look at the light with its whiskers trembling:
"Ms. Mia Gold."
Xia De continued, then slowly approached the orange cat, slowly stretched out his left hand, suppressed his worry about "wild animals", and gently picked it up with one hand.
Orange cats are not heavy, at least not now.
The cat still tilted its head to look at Shade's right finger, but after the light on the finger went out, it did not escape from Shade's arms. It leaned its back against Shade's chest, waving its two small paws with appropriate strength, scratching Shade's glowing finger, and seemed to be very interested in the "new toy".
"very good."
The detective heaved a sigh of relief and stood up to leave. The young orange cat Mia just squirmed a little, but did not struggle too much.
"Not at all fierce, even very well behaved. It seems that I am also a person that other animals can like."
Xia De thought happily, and then he saw something lying under the pipe where the orange cat was lying. So he held the cat in one hand, bent down and picked up the thing with his right hand, and then he saw that it was a box of old Rhodes cards.
When using Rhodes cards, you must collect a full set of 54 cards before you can use them. If you have special cards, you can replace them according to the suit and brand number, because the patterns on the back of all Rhodes cards are the same.
The box of Rhodes cards in front of him was not any special one. It was similar to the one used by the three men that Shad saw in the tavern. The patterns on the cards were extremely simple, and a box could be bought for a few dozen pence.
Seeing that it was not an important thing, he put it in his pocket. Then he held the cat in one hand and carefully climbed back to the yard along the ladder.
When the middle-aged man with the big nose saw that Xia De was really going to take the cat away, he almost cried in front of Xia De.
After leaving Purple Iris Lane, Shade did not walk around with other people's cats, but went straight to Miss Gold's house. During this time, the orange cat Mia, apart from making a "purring" sound at the beginning, only kept scratching Shade's sleeves and clothes on his chest with her claws, but did not try to escape from his arms.
Since Miss Gold was willing to pay such a high price to find her cat, she must not be poor. She lived in a quiet residential area in the south of the city, "Sandro Street", where every household had an independent small garden and their nameplates were marked on the fence gates.