The man looked at her expressionlessly, staring so intently that the female biker let out a huge sneeze, almost coughing up a lung.

The little boy, who had just stopped sobbing, was startled by this ferocious sneeze. Like a frightened bird, he plopped down on the ground and wailed again.

The man with the cigarette lowered his head, and the little boy met his gaze. After that one look, the boy’s sobs got stuck in his throat—he simply didn’t dare to cry anymore.

“Get a cop over here. Stop making a scene in line. Come in.” The man, whose mere glance could stop a child from crying at night, picked up the little boy with one arm, nodded at the bikers, and, catching sight of the disheveled girl in the corner, said to her as well, “You too.”

The bikers, as if granted amnesty, filed in one after another.

The girl got up, hesitated for a moment, but the warm air rushing out from the bar quickly melted her resolve. She rubbed the scratch on the back of her hand, picked up her luggage, and followed them inside.

The bar’s decor was very retro, with a kind of shabby chic. The air was tinged with the sweet scent of rum, and jazz music played on the bar counter. It should have been closed by now; the waiters and bartenders were gone, leaving only the man who had just opened the door—probably the owner.

“A guy running a little bar, acting all high and mighty?” the girl wondered. At that moment, she vaguely noticed something moving on the shelf by the table. At first, she thought it was just the flickering light, but on closer inspection, she met a pair of cold, beady eyes. She jerked back in surprise and finally saw it clearly—a large emerald-green lizard was lying there.

“It’s fine, that thing’s lazy, doesn’t bite,” the owner said casually, setting the little boy on a high stool across from the girl. Then he asked her, “What do you want to drink?”

The girl snapped back to her senses. “Beer.”

The owner glanced at her. “How old are you?”

At this moment, under the light, the girl got a good look at the owner’s face—he had black hair, and though his features were quite deep-set, you could still tell he had some Eastern ancestry. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, chest open, revealing a solid chest and sharply defined abs. Noticing the girl looking at him, he casually buttoned up two buttons.

There was an old scar on the man’s neck, running down from his Adam’s apple across to his shoulder, disappearing into his shirt, giving him an inexplicable air of danger. He held a cigarette in his mouth, eyes half-squinting through the smoke, with a bit of stubble on his chin—altogether quite unkempt. But even in this scruffy state, he didn’t seem frivolous; perhaps it was because of those deep gray eyes.

Those eyes were unusual, making one think of a canyon shrouded in thick fog—deep and cold.

When the girl’s gaze met his, she instinctively looked away and answered briefly, “Fifty.”

The owner raised an eyebrow. “Speak human.”

This girl was a little delinquent with no one to rein her in, usually fearless, but for some reason, she couldn’t quite lift her head in front of this bar owner. Those gray eyes made her nervous—not the kind of nervousness a woman feels around a handsome man, but the kind a truant kid feels facing the dean, or a rookie late to work feels facing their boss.

So she lowered her head and, knowing when to yield, cut herself down to size: “Twenty-five.”

Suddenly, a flash of white light appeared before her eyes. The girl reacted a beat late, belatedly covering her face. “What are you doing!”

A hidden personal terminal appeared on the owner’s wrist. He scanned the girl, and an identity file immediately floated in the air. He exhaled two streams of smoke from his nose, raised an eyebrow, and read out the girl’s name: “Emily Harris?”

The girl bristled. “What right do you have to look at my ID?”

The owner ignored her, giving a slight smirk. “Your name is Emily too? Not bad, same as the Alliance Secretary-General’s wife.”

“Alliance Secretary-General’s wife”—whatever that was, to a little delinquent from the Eighth Star System, it sounded about as relevant as “a scientist naming an extragalactic black hole ‘Pixiu Small Intestine’”—never heard of it, no idea what it meant.

But not just anyone could casually check someone else’s information—she knew at least that much. The girl glared warily at the man in front of her. “Did I run into a cop or something?”

The owner ignored her rudeness. “Born in New Star Calendar year 259, August. You little brat, just sixteen?”

The girl, who had been holding her head high, shrank under his gaze, inexplicably feeling three inches shorter.

The owner waved his hand, and the identity info on his wrist disappeared. A mechanical hand took a bottle of milk from the bar’s freezer, poured two glasses, and set them in front of the girl Emily Harris and the little boy across from her. He even thoughtfully patted the big lizard’s head. Unfortunately, the lizard was cold-blooded and didn’t care for another cold paw, so it shrank its head and slowly crawled away.

“A minor, and you’re out here making trouble?” the owner said. “It’s the middle of the night and you’re not home, wandering around with a painted face—where are your parents, doesn’t anyone look after you?”

“What’s wrong with being sixteen, how does that bother you? I’m with ‘Black Hole’,” the girl blustered, slapping the table. “Cut the crap, I want beer. I’ll pay, isn’t that enough?”