Half-step Purgatory

Durin stroked the black cat on the armrest of his chair, sitting on the black leather sofa. Through the glasses perched on his nose, his gaze passed over the long table in front of him and settled on the man kneeling on the carpet:
"I understand, you've made money in Naples, your business has been very successful, and you've led a happy life. You've had those secret police, friends in both the law and the underground, and even the Royal Family speaking on your behalf."
"You don't need a friend like me, I know that. You're afraid of owing me a favor, and you don't want to get involved in troubles."
"But now you come to me and say, 'I beg you, Mr. Durin of the Corleon family, please help me seek justice, so that my life and my family will not suffer and sink into despair.'
Yet, in your eyes, I was nothing more than a second-rate artist involved in movies and music. Even at the brink of death, you still show me such disrespect, not even willing to call me by my title... Keeper of Secrets."

Durin's Diary

The next morning, Durin was awakened by Anta shaking him from his bed.


The small room in the High Tower contained only a single bed and as Durin woke up and saw Anta, he foolishly grinned and reached out, wanting to pull the girl from his dreams into his embrace.


Then, he was disciplined by her using the Ninth Level Divine Art of the Romanticist — "Positive and Negative Waist Meat Spiral Kill."


"Why are you here, did Lan En say something to you again?" Durin thought the girl had noticed something and had overnight invited Anta, this living Buddha, from the West Sky.


"This time it's truly not her, the young girl kept insisting that you were fine, yet you always act like a gentleman in front of other girls, but you drool the moment you see me," Anta now quoted Chang Tang proverbs with ease.


Then she handed a newspaper to Durin, who had sat up: "Take a look at this."


Durin took the newspaper and glanced at it — ah, it was the 'Paris Daily.'


Chapter 57: That Vast Land