In the corner of the restaurant, the television's broadcast sputtered intermittently, interspersed with static from a poor signal, dutifully looping its images.
["The Tourist" has struck again... The victim suffered multiple stab wounds... dogma... eyes... The cruelty is utterly heinous.]
[Police are conducting a full-scale... investigation. We remind the public to stay... vigilant, and strongly urge...]
The storage room door opened, letting in a wave of noisy clamor. The greasy fumes she inhaled filled every alveolus of her lungs, triggering a fierce urge to vomit.
Ladles and woks rose as flames suddenly flared upward with a crackling roar. A filthy, scrawny stray dog prowling the perimeter of the crowd was kicked aside.
The moment the person who had been out of sight for so long emerged, the boss began hurling curses.
"Sorry." Her voice was drowned out by the shouting.
The crisp, enunciated voice of the news anchor in the corner gradually faded away. Weaving past the crowd and haphazardly arranged plastic chairs, she brought the iron pot to table seven.
The scent of beer mingled with grease made her feel increasingly nauseated. Perhaps she hadn't been here long enough and simply wasn't used to it.
She had transmigrated to this world not long ago. Two months earlier, she was just a student who had walked into a shopping mall on an ordinary holiday. Then, the mall exploded.
She died... dying in such an abrupt manner.
In the blink of an eye, she found herself in an unfamiliar world, where she even witnessed other unidentified individuals being subdued by local law enforcement.
She realized she had no one to turn to for help here.
As a highly adaptable person, it did not matter that her past life was gone, that she was now an undocumented resident, could only find low-paying jobs, had lost the chance to study, and lived in a leaky apartment.
Still, she believed she was living an ordinary life.
Everything would get better with time. Her current predicament was only temporary; as long as one worked hard and strove forward, one could survive in any environment.
"Enjoy your meal." She wiped her hands, which were scalded red.
The man beside the table looked ferocious, with a broad face and folds of wrinkled flesh. If she had encountered him under normal circumstances, she would have subconsciously steered clear.
Tonight, he had drunk heavily. He raised his bottle, waving it erratically while bellowing incomprehensible slurs. His gaze darted toward her, his cloudy eyes bloodshot.
Lin Mo stood where she was, staring blankly down at the tabletop.
Her heart gave a jolt.
"Where the hell did you wander off to slack off?! You wanna die?!"
"Fucking waitress!!"
A beer bottle flew before his spit could even land. If she hadn't dodged in time, her skull would have been split open.
Glass shattered, and sharp complaints immediately erupted behind her.
Because the tables were crammed tightly together and most people sat on plastic chairs, the bottle Lin Mo dodged ended up striking the adjacent table.
The patrons at the next table were nowhere near as compliant as her. They stood up, foul language erupting like a burst sewer pipe.
Someone kicked a table and lumbered around from behind with a massive frame. Seizing the opportunity, Lin Mo hunched over, scurried through a gap in a panic, and jogged away with her back turned to them.
She was already used to scenes like this. This world was different from her old one; people harbored immense hostility, and the slightest friction would escalate into bloody brawls. Disputes like this happened almost twice a day.
Perhaps the man wasn't even hungry and simply took an unprovoked dislike to her...
Lin Mo's chest felt tight. Alongside dread and fear, a surge of resentment welled up from the bottom of her heart. Catching herself harboring such an emotion, she startled herself instead.
How could she think that way? Was she being assimilated by this world as well?
The back kitchen was hazy with smoke, oil crackling and splattering in the pans.
"Chewed out again?" The head chef caught sight of her scurrying into the kitchen out of the corner of his eye.
The girl glanced back repeatedly. No one was handling the chaos behind her, which had already escalated to overturning tables. Hiding in a corner, she observed the situation like a mouse.
Chewing betel nut, the head chef mumbled indistinctly, "Next time someone pisses you off, just spit in their food! If you have time to smoke a cigarette first, the phlegm gets thicker. Mix it all up and they won't notice a thing."
Lin Mo didn't catch his words clearly, merely nodding repeatedly as she wiped her apron—its printed lettering long faded—and walked toward the back.
The head chef tossed the dish in his wok, the rotten ingredients masked by a coating of dark soy sauce. Cracking an egg, he watched a foul-smelling black liquid ooze out and cursed under his breath.
To escape the scene, Lin Mo slipped back into the storage room to move supplies.
Late into the night, the commotion outside had finally died down. Rubbing the blisters on her hands, she took off the battered apron, stuffed it into a small cloth bag, and cautiously exited through the back door.
Before leaving, she turned her head uneasily. She wasn't sure if it was an illusion, but a tall silhouette seemed to loom beneath a streetlamp—or perhaps her eyes were playing tricks on her, and it was just the overlapping shadows of the trees and lamplight.
But when she focused her gaze, someone really did seem to be standing there.
Scrambling and stumbling, she fled that stretch of road. Lin Mo was convinced that the figure standing beneath the streetlamp was the man who had started the dispute with her.
The restaurant owner was not an easy man to deal with; he was far bulkier than the customer, and the guy had certainly ended up paying a steep compensation. With a person like that, regardless of the truth, he would definitely want to vent his rage and claw back his money from her.
The thought clung to her like a parasite, suffocating her.
Lin Mo sprinted down the alleyways, tearing through the narrow passages like a gust of wind. The stairwell had no railing, and a rusted security chain rattled loudly against the iron door.
Would that man follow her to the foot of the building? Would he barge into her home? Had she managed to lose him?
Returning home, misfortunes never came alone: the room was leaking again. Cracks crept along the worn walls as icy water dripped down, filling the entire room with a chilling dampness.
She had to deal with it quickly, or by tomorrow morning, things would be even worse.
Taking a deep breath, she tidied up her personal belongings, rummaged through the clutter for a flashlight and a few tools, then opened the door and headed downstairs.
A few thin drizzles of rain splattered against the flimsy window, which creaked and rattled in the wind. The temperature seemed to drop further, the chill cutting straight through her clothes.
Slipping her hand into her pocket, her palm touched a wooden handle, a somewhat blunt blade grazing against the fabric of her clothes.
She was still short on waterproofing materials to patch the leaking wall. The neighbors were likely all asleep by this hour, so she could only try her luck at a 24-hour convenience store.
The man had a limp; it had been obvious from the way he stood up. He couldn't have walked far.
If she went over now, would she run into him...?
Putting on a raincoat, she considered the route: the convenience store and her workplace formed an acute angle, separated by several buildings. The gap between them had once been wide, but a large plot of land had later been turned into a construction site, encircled by high perimeter walls that made it difficult to climb over.
Cutting through the construction site would be faster. The screws connecting the corrugated metal sheets were loose, and she was thin; with a bit of a squeeze, she might just make it through.
Stashing her less important belongings in an inconspicuous corner, she squeezed into the crack. Feeling as though her internal organs were momentarily compressed flat, she made it inside. The wall on the other side turned out to be much lower.
Climbing over to the other side, the cold enveloped her body, impossible to shake off—until, in the dark, she saw a figure lingering in the corner of the alley. Her hidden gaze swept over the outline of his silhouette inch by inch, and only then did her heart settle back into place.
Lin Mo couldn't help but feel a surge of joy.
He seemed to be lost. It was impossible to tell whether the wound on his head from the shattered bottle had stopped bleeding. Dragging an injured ankle, he was trying to climb a wall at the back of the alley.
She took a slow step forward. Her dark figure steadily drew nearer, her shadow melting into the darkness of the wall corner.
Raising the sharp tool from her pocket high into the air, she brought it smashing down.
...
Without sparing a single glance at the person on the ground, she only gasped in terror, fleeing back at top speed.
Rate on N.U.
