A foreigner's journey

It was already eight o'clock at night when we returned to Qifan Street Xiacheng District Station, and the street lights had already been turned on. Although it was night, there were many people chatting near the station.

When Tifa got out of the car, she attracted a lot of people's attention because of her pretty appearance. A few idle young men even pulled back their forehead hair and prepared to strike up a conversation. But then, an expressionless Heather appeared next to Tifa.

When they saw Tifa talking and laughing with Heather, the young men stopped abruptly at almost the same moment, turned around and ran away.

Not just a few of them, almost everyone on the station who noticed Tifa subconsciously looked elsewhere.

In the slums of Qifan Street, [Heather]'s reputation is much better than that of the vigilantes.

Just like a lion patrolling its territory, Heather looked around before taking Tifa towards the small market.

After Heather left, the surrounding crowd began to whisper:

"Why did Heather go out? And there was a beautiful girl with whom she had never seen before?"

"I saw that girl last night. She came with a strong old man. Maybe she is a relative of Heather? After all, both of them have black hair."

"This is the first time I've seen Heather treat someone so kindly. That girl just bumped his shoulder, and he didn't scold her!"

"Maybe it's his girlfriend? No... How could Heather have a girlfriend with her eccentric character, who avoids strangers... not even me!"

"That girl is so cute, haven't you noticed?"

"I found it useless. Heather is covering her. Who dares to flirt with her? Do you dare?"

"Uh...what are you going to eat tonight? Are you going to Dimo's restaurant?"

On the other side, Tifa also felt that something was wrong. While following Heather closely, she asked quietly: "Brother, why do these people feel so afraid of you?"

Naturally, it's because when I first came here a year ago, I cleaned up all the thorns in the Qifan Street slum, the kind that showed blood. But in front of the lovely junior sister, Heather changed her rhetoric: "Because they respect me very much. The slums respect strong people, that's it."

"That's it?" The girl's voice was filled with doubt.

"Well, that's it." Faced with doubts, Heather replied calmly.

The two asked and answered questions and soon walked to the small market.

The residents of the Qifan Street slums always eat dinner very late, mainly because many residents living in the slums work for Shinra Corporation. What time does the company get off work and what time can they go home for dinner. And Shinra Company has always been harsh on these low-level employees or non-establishment staff. It is already early to go home after eight o'clock.

The small market will open very late to take care of this situation. It is eight o'clock now, which is when the market is noisy and lively.

Heather walked around the market with Tifa, and would stop to have a verbal quarrel when encountering a vendor selling food ingredients.

Tifa found that although her senior brother was much richer than other people in the slums, he seemed to enjoy the feeling of going to the market and bargaining with vendors, and his bargaining skills were unexpectedly superb.

Soon, Heather had two bags full of ingredients in her hands, and even Tifa took advantage of Heather's influence and bought some ingredients while he was haggling to the bottom, which was far lower than her mental budget.

Facing the admiring gaze of her junior sister, Heather pretended to be natural: "These ingredients are quite fresh, good stuff from the uptown area."

"I'll do it when the time comes. I learned cooking from Aunt Claudia when I was in Nibelheim, and dad loves my cooking."

Tifa hadn't eaten properly in the past two days and was actually starving. This senior brother who had only been with him for a day seemed to be omnipotent. She, who was originally at a loss about the future, unconsciously felt at ease when she stayed with him. Maybe this was why the master insisted on asking him to take care of her? Senior brother is really awesome.

"But...brother, where should we prepare these ingredients?" Tifa asked the key question. The rental house in Tianwang Village does not seem to have such luxury facilities as a [kitchen].

Heather motioned for her to follow him closely, all the way to Tianwang Village.

Bang bang bang!

Heather knocked on the door on the first floor of Tianwangzhuang rhythmically. After a while, the door opened, and the landlord Marley came out with an angry face: "Heather! Listen to this rude knock on the door. I knew it was you... Huh? Tifa is here too."

Marley looked at Tifa who was holding a big bag and looking apologetic, and then looked at Heather who had a natural look on her face. She understood that Heather had taken over the responsibility of taking care of Tifa, and she couldn't help but change her mind towards him slightly, and her tone of voice He also became a little gentler: "Humph... I'm borrowing the kitchen, right? Wait a minute, I'll deal with Tifa's rent contract first."

She walked into the house and within half a minute she came out with a piece of paper and handed it to Tifa: "Little Tifa, this is the rental contract. Take a look at it and sign it if there is no problem. The rent for the first three months is fine. Wait until you find a stable job and then make up for it slowly.”

Tifa hurriedly put the big and small bags on the ground, took the rental contract with both hands and thanked her repeatedly. Heather, who was standing next to Tifa, looked down over her shoulder. She glanced at the contract for a few times before frowning and looking up at Mare: "Hey, old lady, are you going too far?"

"Huh?" Marley snorted indifferently.

"It's obviously the same house. If you rent it to me, it's 1,500 GIL per month. Why does it cost 600 GIL per month if you rent it to Tifa??"

Heather looked in disbelief: "There is also this, 'You can borrow the kitchen for free from 11:00 to 13:00 and 17:00 to 22:00 every day.' Why should I give you an extra 3GIL every time I want to borrow it? ah?"

"Hehehehe... Just think of this as a special treat for being a good boy."

Marley first blinked at Tifa, who was blushing, and then looked at Heather with disdain: "Well, if it weren't for the restrictions in the rent contract we signed before, I would want to increase your rent to 2,000 per month! Do you still want to borrow the kitchen?"

"...You're being cruel, I'll borrow it!"

"Shenghui 3GIL." Marei smiled and spread her palms.

Heather narrowed her eyes, looked at Tifa beside her, and suddenly stuffed two bags of ingredients into her arms: "Junior sister, didn't you say you wanted to book today's dinner? Let Marley and I see what you have to offer. Cooking."

Marley was instantly dumbfounded. As soon as she boasted that Haikou would waive Tifa's kitchen rental fee, she was immediately taken advantage of by Heather.

But Mare really had nothing to say to Tifa. Even if she didn't deal with Heather, she had to swallow her breath and let the two of them borrow the kitchen for free.

In fact, even Heather didn't know that Tifa's experience under her butterfly wings was already much better than in the original work.

In the original storyline that Heather didn't know, Tifa was too seriously injured in Nibelheim. In addition to sword wounds and broken ribs, she also had severe burns on the lower right side of her chest. After waking up in Midgar, Gan disappeared for some reasons. Alone, she was discharged from the hospital before treatment was complete, and then lived in a shipping container in the slums of Badan Street as a hawker to earn money to repay the high medical expenses. Later, after meeting Barrett and Marlene, she decided to save money and buy the abandoned bar Seventh Heaven.

After finally saving enough money, it was stolen by the doctor's son. At the same time, the doctor in charge of Tifa took out the before-and-after photos of Tifa's chest wound as a promotional case in order to persuade Ma Lei, who came from the Qifan Street slum, to accept a skin transplant. Mare was extremely angry after seeing it, feeling that the doctor had seriously trampled on Tifa's dignity.

From then on, Mare began to protect Tifa and took Tifa into Tianwang Manor, which was not open to the public. Tifa was also very moved to regard Mare as her own relative.

But everything changed because of Heather's appearance.

Fortunately, these are all good changes.

After Mare and Tifa walked into the house while laughing and holding the ingredients, Heather did not follow them in but looked at the darkness in the alley next to them, saying in a cold voice: "Come out."

"Don't be so cold, Brother Heather."

A figure slowly walked out of the darkness. It was a middle-aged man with brown hair pulled back. A short metal stick hung around his waist. The muscles of his exposed arms were obviously not good. He was ready to talk more nonsense, but when he saw Heather's emotionless eyes, he immediately raised his hands:

"I don't have any ill intentions. I just bumped into you accidentally when I came nearby. However, I do have something I want to discuss with you. I don't know..."

Heather raised her chin toward the alley and walked in first. The middle-aged man was obviously very afraid of Heather, but after touching the short metal stick on his waist, he gritted his teeth and followed him into the alley.

There were only a large number of wild cats and randomly piled industrial waste stones in the alley. Heather just stood in the alley with her hands in her pockets and watched the middle-aged man approach:

"Helmer, I should have told you before that I have no interest in joining your ridiculous [Avalanche] organization, and don't bother me. You...can't you understand human speech?"

"Heather! Wait, I..."

As a warrior, the middle-aged man named Helmer could feel Heather's rising murderous intent and hurriedly raised his hands to show that he was completely harmless:

"I'm not here to bother you, although I really hope you can join [Avalanche]. For this, I can even give up the position of leader... Okay, okay, I said, it's the owner of the abandoned bar, I have News about him.”

Heather was about to teach Helmer a profound lesson, but she paused after hearing this: "...continue."

"The owner of that abandoned bar is called Cos. He was originally a wealthy man from Bafan Street in the upper city. After being kicked out by his partner, he came to the slums of Qifan Street and opened this bar called [Wild Fire]."

Helmer remained motionless with his hands raised in the air and spoke the news he knew very quickly:

"He closed the bar a year ago. According to the fired waiter, he occasionally heard Cos muttering about 'beasts', 'revenge', 'making big money' and the like. Then Cos disappeared. No one knows where he went, there’s no trace of him anywhere, not at the Wildfire Bar here or by his friends and family.”

"This is all nonsense, let's get to the point." Heather said impatiently.

"In fact, I just got the news through reliable channels that Kos appeared in the Bafan Street slum two months ago."