Otto was so exhausted after a full day of bouncing between different modes of transportation that he couldn’t even eat dinner. After polishing off an impressive amount of ice cream, he collapsed onto the couch, snoring loud enough to shake the whole house—I’d never heard anything like it.

  I dug out the smallest hammer and a flathead screwdriver from a toolbox I’d never used before. They were the best tools I could find for carving.

  Of course, it turned out to be way harder than I thought. The first time, I punched a hole straight through the gold card. Gold was much softer than I’d expected—this was my first time working with it as a raw material, and not being familiar with its physical properties, I had to go through a trial-and-error phase. Besides, I wasn’t trying to make a beautiful carving, just distort the shape enough that it wouldn’t be convenient to engrave on. Gold can be melted and reshaped anyway—its value doesn’t lie in form.

  After completely ruining two cards, I finally figured out how not to gouge all the way through. I scratched out the word “healing” in crooked letters.

  For comparison, I cut a piece of paper to the same size and used a wooden splinter to make the same indentations, then activated it using roughly the same amount of Skill energy—about the upper limit of what I could currently control.

  Then came the step I least wanted to do—but also the most important one.

  I thought Rafe would tell me to get lost, especially after how angry he’d just been. But I’d barely knocked twice before he opened the door, not even a hint of irritation on his face.

  “Do me a favor.” I shoved the utility knife, wax seal, and hammer into his hands. “I need you to make two identical wounds on my body.”

  “What???”

  I repeated the request in both explanations, then showed him the two “healing” samples—one gold, one paper—emphasizing that this was a critical experiment for me. It would determine which direction I’d focus on with my Skill in the coming days.

  Rafe looked like he had a lot to say, but after staring at me for a solid thirty seconds, he quietly picked up a double-edged switchblade, set the other tools aside, laid a white towel over the dining table, mounted his phone on a tripod, and finally asked where I wanted the stab.

  “You’re being remarkably thorough. I must’ve rubbed off on you in a good way,” I said, patting his shoulder with an odd sense of pride. “Where do you think the wounds would be easiest to observe?”

  Classic Ainsworth upbringing. Rafe gave me a quick rundown on the pros and cons of puncture wounds versus incisions. After weighing the options, I chose a pair of two-millimeter-deep X-shaped cuts on my forearms. Honestly, I could never have made wounds that precise on my own.

  The camera was aimed at the towel-covered table. I laid my arms down, and Rafe, steady as a surgeon, made identical incisions with an extremely sharp scalpel. Then he placed the two cards—paper and gold—on my left and right arms, respectively, and moved his phone, with the stopwatch already running, into the frame.

  “The letters carved into the gold twisted slightly for a split second and then began to dissolve. Surface temperature rose to around seventy degrees Celsius. I didn’t feel any change in weight,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady through the pain. “The paper burned completely. My hand got scorched—not serious, about the same as an ash falling on skin.”

  “Please wipe the blood off the wound with a damp tissue.”

  Rafe dabbed a piece of kitchen paper with water and gently wiped my arm. The coolness eased the sting of the cuts.

  The left arm, where I’d used the gold, didn’t even have a scar. The carved word remained intact, and the Skill retained about eighty percent of its power. On the other hand, the paper-based wound had only stopped bleeding—the gash was still a vivid pink, and pressing on it made blood ooze out again.

  I ended the recording and jumped up in excitement. After weighing the gold card—96.5 grams—I was so overwhelmed I nearly cried.

  “Do you know what this means?”

  Rafe pressed the gold card against my right hand. “You’re planning to burn through your reserves like this?”

  “I can make even more complex things—as long as the medium for the words is valuable enough.” I tossed the gold card at Rafe. He caught it one-handed and lifted the hem of his polo shirt, pressing it to the skin above the bandages.

  “The more powerful a Collection is, the more valuable it tends to be. So I’m curious: if we reverse the causality—make the medium valuable first—would that boost the Collection’s strength? Since all of this is related to Nowhere, maybe my Skill can work that way too. That’s what this experiment was testing. You can keep the card—consider it payment for helping out.”

  Rafe hesitated, then slipped the card into his wallet. “Yeah, the effect’s impressive. But how exactly do you plan to use it?”

  “The real value here is that it raises the upper limit of my Skill—and the cost is entirely monetary, which is manageable.” I snatched Rafe’s wallet and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. Using the back of the knife, I scratched the same word into it and activated it with the same Skill. Then I handed him the knife and extended my arm.

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  With a sigh, Rafe re-angled the camera and reopened the same X-shaped wound on my newly healed forearm.

  Just as I expected, compared to the paper version, the healing was twice as fast—though still not as fast as with gold. Sparks flickered from the edges of the bill, and it singed just around the carved letters before extinguishing itself.

  That result further confirmed my theory—and gave me a whole new burst of inspiration.

  “Do you have any counterfeit bills?”

  Rafe shook his head firmly.

  “Can you get me some high-grade fakes? I’ll pay for them as if they’re real.”

  “That’s not about the money. The Ainsworths don’t deal in that kind of business. I’m no different from any regular person in this city when it comes to things like that—unless you want to delay our flight…”

  “No need.” I stuffed the charred remains of the bill back into his wallet. “But I do need to know what the clade’s position would be on something like this.”

  “This’ll make you the most popular captain in the entire Ainsworth clade,” Rafe said flatly, staring at me. “Hailey would invite you to dinner at one of those places where a single card like this is dessert. You’d dine with her husband and child. And the next morning, you’d find your doorstep piled with gold and cash—gift boxes stuffed with checks and jewelry—just so you’d finish their order faster. Or agree to meet them.”

  So that’s what this was about—Rafe was jealous. That explained everything. But as tempting as that bright future sounded, what I needed more right now was Rafe’s complete support.

  “Oh, come on. We both know I’ve got the captain title, but the position was meant for you. If you don’t help me deal with all the interpersonal crap, I’m not going into mass production.” I ruffled his hair and offered him the most valuable promise I could imagine. “As long as you’re alive, you’ll always get a share.”

  Rafe looked like I might twist his head off at any second. He just kept nodding.

  “I’m absolutely not threatening you.”

  His lips tightened. “I believe you.”

  It felt… weird. I created a shared album with Rafe and uploaded the video. “Send it to the supervisor after I get to China.”

  “Why?” His whole face tensed up.

  “You already know the answer. But I’ll say it anyway: this way, he doesn’t get the chance to keep me in Australia making money for him, and at the same time, he’ll see the project’s potential and want me alive. I’m planning to treat the Ainsworth clade as my insurance policy for this trip. Makes sense, right?”

  It was like the worst thing had just happened to him. Rafe collapsed onto the couch.

  “What are you really planning to do in China?”

  “I just need my stepfather to answer a few questions—ones he definitely knows the answers to. The rest is Tuesday’s business. It’s not like China would hold a Hunter responsible for what a Resident did.” I was about to reach out and pet Rafe’s head again, but Otto woke up. And when it came to choosing between a dog and a human, there was no hesitation.

  “What questions?”

  The look on Rafe’s face said he wouldn’t help me any further unless he got an answer. Might even sell me out completely. But like always, I figured I could talk him around.

  I opened my phone’s hidden folder, scrolled all the way to the bottom, and showed him the oldest photo.

  “What the fuck? Why are you showing me gay porn?” Rafe recoiled in disgust and slapped my hand away.

  “Look. This photo was taken with a phone on August 3rd, 2010.” I zoomed in and showed him the metadata. “The man leaning against the sink is my father, Dai Junmao. The one kneeling is my stepfather, Lu Yong—what do you think is in his mouth? Anything besides… that? Because I’ve been thinking about it for years, and I still haven’t come up with another explanation.”

  Rafe buried his face in his hands, shoulders trembling slightly.

  “You can laugh for three minutes,” I said sympathetically. “It is kind of funny.”

  He took a few deep breaths and looked up, the humor completely gone from his face. “So now you suddenly want to figure out what kind of relationship they had?”

  “No. That’s the least important question—my dad’s already dead. Whatever they were, it ended.”

  I showed Rafe the second video.

  “What… what the hell is that?”

  This time, he didn’t doubt it was real—but the contents left him breathing hard with fear.

  “That’s the second-most important question. I only have one that I absolutely need answered.” I gave him a comforting pat on the head. “The dead aren’t more important than the living.”

  “Ever since I left for university abroad, my mom’s been telling me to hurry up and graduate, come back to China, find a stable job, settle down. But two months ago, she suddenly started asking if I could work here instead. She hasn’t mentioned going back since. And every time we video call now, Uncle Lu appears in the background.” I couldn’t stop myself from sighing.

  “I don’t want my mom to end up like my dad. That’s why I’m really going back.”