Chapter 7: Brave New World (Part Six)
After the scene of Bread's death, Crow, still dizzy from the lack of oxygen, forced himself to breathe again. Because Pearl was there, he temporarily refrained from touching the hand of the deceased.
In Pearl's eyes, Crow had simply spaced out for a few seconds, but it wasn't unusual for her foolish brother to zone out, so she didn't pay much attention, her eyes never leaving the can.
Pearl swallowed, offering a scheming concern to her dim-witted brother, "Are you thirsty just eating that? Do you want some water?"
Crow had to pull his attention back to the world of the living. The lively little girl was staring at him expectantly, and even someone as heartless as he couldn't help but sigh: "That's rough."
The breeding females had already eaten, and another large bowl of canned food was more than she could handle. Just then, the fat ones were also collecting their meals, so Crow thought of his other kid and expressed himself in simple terms fitting for a fool: "Find Little Six, together."
"Little Six?" Pearl was startled, "He left yesterday. Didn't you run into him on your way back? Miss Sophia took him away."
Crow was startled too—of course he remembered that Little Six and a few others had said goodbye to him when they left with the lady wearing the big hat.
So, those kids hadn't come back? Staying out all night?
Pearl misunderstood his confusion and raised her hands above her head to gesture, "So—phi—a, the one with the most beautiful big hat, the most beautiful and capable lady in the entire city, the big star of the Gray Mouse family, the great harmonica goddess. Remember?"
Crow leaned back, muttering, "Good heavens, that title's longer than the tuft of gray hair on her head!"
"Really, Miss Sophia has spoiled you for nothing." Pearl gave him a glare and began praising Miss Sophia's greatness.
Apparently, the hat of the mouse-headed lady had quite a background. It was a family heirloom of the great Gray Mouse family and could only be worn on the head of the most glorious fur. Because Sophia had earned her place by getting into a "ground" school, she became the "Capped Mouse" of this generation.
"She majored in 'animal care,' which is the major that studies how to take care of us... Oh, right, you were talking about Little Six." After her long speech, Pearl realized she had gone off on a tangent and casually added, "Miss Sophia took Little Six and the others out, big oaf Crow."
Crow's dull expression remained unchanged, but his pupils shrank slightly.
Pearl didn't notice and cheerfully continued, "Little Six's weight has always been insufficient, and he's getting older. Everyone thought he wouldn't make it. I was so worried back then—after all, we were all born by the caretaker, better than other berries. Thanks to fair Miss Sophia, who, after a thorough examination during her holiday visit home, said that Little Six was just born with a small bone structure and that his low weight was normal, his waist circumference already up to standard, Mr. Charles specially allowed him to be released."
She paused, then continued in the excited tone of a devoted fan, "Miss Sophia is the best Harbocrates in the world!"
Crow's head could barely contain his confusion: Was "being released" something he didn't know about? Was it a good thing?
This kid's tone was as if her brother had been admitted to a key primary school.
"You wouldn't get it, big oaf," Pearl said with a roll of her eyes, turning back to the can.
Fine, he didn't like sweets or meat, just the taste of sewer air. These two little brats were truly born from the same mother.
Without any temper, he handed the can over. The brown-haired girl cheered and pulled out a long-prepared spoon from her pocket.
But just as she dug in, a sharp rebuke erupted from behind them: "Pearl!"
Pearl flinched, dropping her spoon to the ground.
The Count stomped on Pearl's plastic spoon, scolding her furiously, "Don't you have your own food? Begging for others' scraps now?"
Crow was startled too—the last time he shared the can with Little Six at the hospital, the Count hadn't said anything.
"Get up, you shameless thing!" The Count kicked the trembling girl, "Go walk around the yard. If I hear you gossiping again, I'll cut out your tongue."
Two older women quickly came over to pull Pearl away.
"Hurry, listen to the caretaker."
"When you're that far along, you should eat less. We're different from those upstairs; we can't get too fat. Mother is doing this for your own good."
Crow didn’t understand what taboo might be involved, but as an accomplice, he obediently waited for his turn to be punished—he had already taken several rounds of whips that morning, so a couple more wouldn’t make a difference.
Unexpectedly, after chasing Pearl away, the Count didn’t spare him a glance and simply left.
Crow tilted his head and stared at her back for a long while. Then, he took a small, thoughtful sip of the meat can, tasted it, and quietly spat it out.
He placed the can aside and curled up in a corner, casually resting his forearm on his drawn-up knees.
In a place unseen by mortals, his fingers pierced through time and space, through life and death, and touched the bread.
The moment his hand touched the bread, he was overwhelmed by her chaotic, dazed thoughts.
This situation was actually quite common because human consciousness doesn’t operate in a single thread; every second, countless thoughts might flash by.
Usually, it’s easier to pick out what victims say last—apart from “Help,” it’s usually “I’ll haunt you even as a ghost,” deafening like a tidal wave, dozens of meters higher than random thoughts. Children who didn’t know any better had simpler thoughts, their minds resembling a stream as thin as a mouse’s tail, and their final thoughts like leaves floating on water, clear whether they sank or floated. Elderly people who passed away naturally had peaceful thoughts, like a calm river, and their last wishes were like small boats drifting back and forth.
The most troublesome were those like this bread, half-grown, knowing a little but not everything, having many thoughts but not fully understanding them.
Her final thoughts were like a badly tuned radio, full of static. You had to calm down and carefully filter through the noise to find the recurring “last wish.”
“I want to die.”
No, you’re already dead.
“I haven’t finished weaving my little flower basket…”
Is this it? Crow looked up at the little flower basket on the iron fence; someone had already finished weaving it for Bread. If this was the last wish, he wouldn’t have gotten this job.
But he waited, and the thought soon sank away without appearing again.
Crow wasn’t in a hurry; he waited patiently for the waters to settle. As the group of pregnant women circled the courtyard for the third time, his client finally stirred again.
“Sophia…”
A nearly inaudible call made Crow stop tapping his foot to the broadcast music.
“Miss Sophia…”
It appeared again, and Crow listened intently, his intuition telling him this was probably it—
“…did Miss Sophia love me?”
Ah?
It was as if he had suddenly gone deaf, missing the verb entirely…
At that moment, the dark contract appeared: “In… the last place Little Five went to, ask Miss Sophia… did she love… me?”
Crow: “What place?”
The dead woman didn’t answer, only repeating the last wish, likely because she hadn’t known what place it was when she was alive—it was probably somewhere beyond the berry circle.
To complete this task, Crow first needed to figure out who “Little Five” was and where her “last place”—the location she mentioned in her final thoughts—was.
Then he, an idiot who couldn't tell east from west, had to try to escape from Berry Circle—something even the mighty Earl hadn't accomplished.
Not to mention that after escaping, he would have to lead Miss Wide-Brimmed Hat there, risking a collapse of his persona, to ask the deceased that clichéd question on behalf of the dead.
"Is this the duty of a big idiot?" he thought incredulously, "This is ridiculous!"
Then Crow pressed the deceased's hand down, and the pitch-black contract plunged into his palm.
Damn it!
Stirring up a storm of trouble and drama, he couldn't not participate in this.
First, he had to get out and meet Miss Wide-Brimmed Hat. But neither climbing the wall nor digging a tunnel to escape was realistic—with the chip, and besides, this good-for-nothing couldn't manage it.
But where there's a problem, there's always a solution.
Crow felt a surge of energy, turned his neck a few times, as if trying to shake the fog out of his brain.
He took a deep breath, picked up the can of meat, and roughly estimated the weight he had measured on the scale used by the fat ones earlier that morning, eating a third of the can.
After finishing, he elegantly wiped his mouth with his clothes and sat back against the base of the wall calmly.
"I hope I got the lethal dose right."
Otherwise, he'd end up meeting the client before seeing Miss Sophia.
That way, he'd never know why his dear "Mom" had poisoned him.
He lost consciousness amidst a group of people's screams, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw the familiar crooked water pipe of the hospital.
This time, it seemed he hadn't dreamed, and he felt a bit wistful, but in the blink of an eye, he cheered up: not bad, the operation was a success.
Hearing the noise, a few rat heads gathered around, and Mr. Charles, spitting excitedly, splashed Crow's face: "Look, he's awake!"
Crow's gaze lingered for a moment on Miss Sophia's wide-brimmed hat, and he flashed a silly smile.
A good start is half the victory!
When the valuable stud animal malfunctioned, the most academically qualified "educated rat" in the family, whose expertise was relevant, certainly had to come and take a look.
Besides Miss Sophia, the gentleman had also spent a considerable amount to invite a few Berry veterinarians for a consultation.
With three rats and six eyes, these experts, having different academic approaches, held their own opinions and argued and bickered among themselves.
The expert from the field declared: "I knew at a glance that it must be the Berry Plague! Your stud animal is affected!"
The academically inclined Sophia argued: "We have the most advanced epidemic prevention management system installed in our Berry Circle, it's absolutely impossible. I wonder if it could be an issue with this batch of Berry feed..."
Expert A scoffed: "What system, it's all nonsense, I can tell just by looking."
Miss Sophia replied with sarcasm: "You can't even see the road, but you're sharp-eyed when it comes to diagnosing."
Expert B, muttering and pinching his claws for a long time, finally interjected slowly: "You're all wrong, I think the problem is with the location of your cage, the terrain is too low and gathering yin energy, so the stud animal was the first to be affected."
"That's ridiculous!"
"Uncle, where did you find this lunatic?"
"Stop arguing!"
"Ignorant fool..."
In the midst of the chaos, several rat-headed individuals carried a stretcher in, screaming, "What do we do with this one? He’s dying too!"
"What?" Mr. Charles spun around, cupping his face in horror, and let out a scream that could’ve been straight out of 'The Scream': "Oh my God!"
As the crow followed their gaze, he saw that the motionless figure on the stretcher was the stud.
The berry hospital had only one bed, so the stud was placed on the floor, motionless, as the rat-headed individuals "treated" him. His head tilted slightly towards the crow, his dark brown eyes meeting the crow's black ones.
For a moment, their eyes locked, and both sets of pupils began to change—one spreading like a dark flower blooming in silence, while the other distorted, silently witnessing the final moments of a voiceless life.
Despite the rat-headed workers screeching like a chainsaw gone wild, the rescue effort ended in failure.
Mr. Charles stood with his hands on his hips, panting and grimacing. "My berries! My babies! Isn't this adding insult to injury? Isn't this trying to take my life?"
"Mr. Charles, what should we do with the body?"
In desperation, Mr. Charles waved his paw. "Wash it clean, separate the meat from the skin, and sell it as regular meat."
Miss Sophia hesitated but finally said, "Uncle, his leg is broken, and the meat’s already starting to rot..."
"Cut away the rotten meat; it’s not all rotten! Just say he died from a fall." Mr. Charles glared at his niece. "You’re too rigid, all those books have made you soft—just take it away, it’s stinking up the place!"
The rat-headed individuals then realized something was wrong; the always obedient "model stud" crow seemed to have been triggered and was no longer cooperating with the treatment.
The sickly patient, who had seemed on the verge of death, suddenly leaped up, jumping and running, engaging in a chase with the rat-headed crowd in the narrow hospital.
The crow was incredibly agile, darting like a black shadow, weaving through the chaos with the precision of someone who had escaped countless times before. Unfortunately, before he could fully enjoy himself, a sharp pain pierced his chest. He stumbled, crashing into the wall, and was caught by Mr. Charles from behind.
The crow then stiffened his neck and began convulsing, putting on a performance that could’ve fooled anyone for at least ten years.
Startled, Mr. Charles immediately let go, and the crow seized the opportunity to duck away, half-kneeling and lunging forward to grab Miss Sophia's furry leg.
The crow wouldn’t let any rat touch him except Miss Sophia; if grabbed, he would dodge, and if he couldn’t dodge, he would struggle. This precious one couldn’t understand threats or persuasion, would topple over with a gust of wind, and couldn’t be handled roughly, leaving Mr. Charles scratching his head in frustration, his gray fur thinning even more.
"Enough!" Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Miss Sophia spoke up. "Then take him to my place for a few days."
The crow cautiously peeked out from between Miss Sophia’s thick fur, one eye glinting warily.
The rat-headed Miss Sophia sighed. "Anyway, I'm on vacation and have nothing to do. The bread stuff—the nest, the food bowl—are all ready. Let’s clean up and go."
A domestically raised stud like Bread, who had always stayed within Berry Circle until now, wouldn’t have any reason to know what lay beyond its walls. The owner of Berry Circle was clearly Mr. Charles, but Bread had never forgotten Miss Sophia. This reminded the crow of a situation: in the countryside, children of breeders, if they took a liking to a chick or lamb, would sometimes take it home as a pet. Such a pet was considered a "part-time job," while its "main job" was still that of livestock.
The moment he heard Bread’s final wish, the crow guessed that Bread had probably been a part-time pet for Miss Sophia.
So the rat-headed Miss Sophia would take the berry back to her own rat nest, as long as she didn’t care about shame.
The plan had worked—he had won again, just like he always did.