Closing the door behind me, I entered a thin hallway with claustrophobic walls. I saw everything in sharp and defined lines. The walls were close enough to suffocate. Expensive lamps protruded into the cramped space. The lights were too white and too bright. The spiraling decorations were repetitive and without a hint of a creative spirit. No amount of money or decoration could mask their artificial nature.

The girl behind me was dead.

Hui Ming stood in front of me. She must’ve followed me up. I struggled to meet her eyes, but when I did, I saw that she was looking at hands. My hands were trembling.

“What happened?” she asked.

I opened my mouth, but I didn’t answer.

Her small warm hand wrapped around mine. A gentle tug, and we flitted through the hall and back down the stairs. She led me in front of the sofa and pushed me with the force of a feather. I tipped over and fell into the mass of pillows and other stuffed cloth.

She poured me a cup of tea and placed it on the short table in front of the couch.

“Are you my caretaker now?” the last dredges of humor in me said sarcastically.

“Yes,” she said.

Oh, right. She’s my maid. She sat next to me, and the side of her thigh rubbed against mine, ignoring personal space. I shrunk away at first but then eased into it. Her presence shrunk the space again, but not in a bad way. Instead of choking hands, she was a warm blanket. “Tell me what happened,” she said.

I told her.

“That’s it?” she said after I finished.

“Yes?”

“Master, if you don’t mind me saying…” She stopped.

“I’ve already told you. You can say whatever you want.”

“I know you come from a different world, and I don’t how you treat people there, but what your friend did was normal. She shouldn’t have offended somebody as powerful as your friend. He’s powerful enough to be her judge, and she doesn’t have any right to complain. It doesn’t matter if she was innocent either.”

“It doesn’t matter if she’s innocent?”

“The strong ones, like people in this family, don’t need to care about those type of things. As philosopher Fang Tai says, ‘The stronger one becomes, the less any single feeble life matters.’”

I leaned onto Hui Ming, my cheek touching her hair, as I’d seen Jing do dozens of times. The couch faced the enormous window that displayed the garden outside. My garden was perfect. Lively green leaves fluttering over stalwart branches, not a single wilted or sickly piece of foliage in sight. “Brian told me something similar earlier.”

“Master, you already stand near the top of the world. You needn’t worry about events this small. I-” she paused for a solid five seconds before talking again. I heard her heart speed up. “I’ve personally killed dozens of innocent people. Jing kills too, although she does it indirectly. When she expands The Family further, more innocents won’t be able to avoid being caught up in the expansion. More will die.”

“I’m not mad at you,” I comforted her. I couldn’t see Hui Ming or Jing as bad people, no matter how I looked at them. They would always be my little angels.

“This is all my opinion,” she said, putting her hand under mine. “But I think this is something master will need to become accustomed to.”

I spread her hand open and laced my fingers with hers. I squeezed her hand. Jing was right. Hui Ming was the best stress ball. “Thank you. You’ve helped me a lot today,” I said.

Brian had killed that girl for no good reason, and that was wrong. Even he knew what he was doing was wrong. He was being led by his emotions, not morals or logic. Even after hearing Hui Ming, I couldn’t agree with Brian’s decision.

But.

I could turn a blind eye. And that’s what I would do.