An interstellar version of the real-and-fake young lord?
Sui Ning’s ears couldn’t help perking up.
Seeing this from the corner of his eye, Jun Lin couldn’t help squeezing her palm. He stepped forward to shield her behind him, bowed slightly to the newcomer, and said in a calm voice, “Young Lord!”
“How satisfying. In the past, it was always me groveling before you, watching you, Jun Lin, lower your noble head and call me Young Lord. Tsk, that feeling—it comes down to one word: exhilarating!
But this is your Wife-Lord? Truly ugly. I heard she’s a waste with only C-rank Mental Power? Then her Soothing is barely better than nothing, no?
Without a good status or standing, no matter how excellent your aptitude, you can only accept whatever random match the system assigns.
Unlike me—the clan has already lined up several S-rank Females for me to choose from, and there’s even an S+. I get to pick according to my preferences.
Tell me, all those Females with decent Mental Power who extended an olive branch to you before—you refused them all. Now you want to agree, but it depends on whether your status is worthy.
Regret it? Too late!”
The Male spoke with utter smugness.
Sui Ning gritted her teeth. How could he make personal attacks against her?
Though what he said was basically the truth, just a bit exaggerated. Her low Mental Power was a hard flaw…
But Jun Lin said firmly, “In answer to you, Young Lord: Lin has no regrets. Being matched to my Wife-Lord by the system means the bond between us must be deep.
And my Wife-Lord isn’t ugly. She’s petite and adorable—exactly to my taste.
I also believe she has her own unique qualities. She’s absolutely not as ordinary as she appears on the surface.
We have the Beast God’s blessing. Our days will only get better and better!”
Sui Ning almost believed it herself.
To receive his protection in front of outsiders, Sui Ning silently added two points to his score in her heart.
The Male glared at Jun Lin, unable to see a trace of regret or envy on his face, feeling the frustration of punching cotton.
“Fine. Very well!
I hope you keep being stubborn to the end. When you can’t afford Soothing agents and your Mental Power collapses, I hope you still won’t regret it.
Oh, right—to celebrate my return, the clan is holding a banquet for me.
Before that, I need to prove myself. So Jun Lin, I’ll trouble you to come on a mission with me tomorrow: hunt down the Crystal Core of a level-twelve strange beast, as my gift to my mother!”
Dream on!
Even with her crash course in common knowledge, Sui Ning knew that strange beasts, as villains of this world, came with the blessing of the world’s laws—level twelve was equivalent to a level thirteen or fourteen Beastman.
Jun Lin was only level ten. Would he go as fish bait?
Yet Jun Lin nodded and accepted!
The Male curled his lips. “Then you’d better hurry up and complete the mating bond with your Wife-Lord. Maybe if your Mental Irritability Value drops a bit, you’ll survive a few seconds longer while hunting strange beasts.”
After he left, Sui Ning raised her wrist, opened the marriage matching section, swiped to her Beast Husband Jun Lin, and tapped toward the unbind button.
Jun Lin grabbed her wrist, an expression of rare hurt on his face, his jaw tight and his eyes rimmed with red:
“Sui Sui, what are you doing?
Is it because I made you lose face and be humiliated, so you can’t wait to cut ties with me?”
Sui Ning shrugged. “You know exactly how dangerous this mission is, don’t you? Nine deaths for one chance of survival!
You may not care about your own life or death, but I have to care about my reputation. I can’t have word getting out right after my matching that I’m a Beast Husband-killing jinx.
Besides, if we dissolve the marriage, you can hurry up and find an S-rank Female to Soothe you and lower your Irritability Value.”
In the apocalypse, she had seen plenty of life-and-death partings—someone chatting and smiling with her one second, then pounced on and torn apart by zombies the next.
As for self-destructive behavior, she neither approved of it nor saw any need to stop it.
Jun Lin didn’t let go of her hand; instead, his fingers slid down to interlace with hers. He said in a low voice, “Suisui, didn’t you ask me before what I really want?
Well, now I can give you the answer.”
Sui Ning plugged one ear and glared at him warily. “Can I not listen?”
What she feared most was people pouring their hearts out to her—because when they later needed help, standing by and doing nothing would make her seem cold-hearted.
Jun Lin’s fox-like eyes gazed at her with a hint of grievance. “Suisui, when I found out I’d been matched to you by the Optical Brain, I was genuinely happy, and I truly wanted to serve and protect you, my Wife-Lord.
When I agreed to go on missions with Jun Qian, I was confident I’d come back alive—I would absolutely never become a burden to you!
After all, I’m one of the squad leaders of the Guard Corps. I do have some real skills.
And even if I didn’t come back, as my Wife-Lord, you’d inherit everything of mine—all my assets, Star Coins, connections, my job, and so on. It wouldn’t go to benefit anyone else.
The advantages definitely outweigh the disadvantages!”
As he spoke, afraid Sui Ning wouldn’t believe him, he held up his Optical Brain in front of her and pulled up his assets page—estates, mechas, chain stores, and even Star Coin balances with a long string of zeros.
Sui Ning hurriedly covered his Optical Brain. “Don’t test me with Star Coins and supplies—my willpower is very weak!”
“Suisui, it’s true that I’m not the young master of the Red Fox clan, yet I enjoyed their support for twenty-five years.
Even though my aptitude is decent, achieving what I have would have been quite difficult for an ordinary person, so I have to repay this debt of karma.
I agreed to temporarily become one of Jun Qian’s guards and go on ten missions with him. After that, I’ll have nothing more to do with them—only three missions remain now.
I never intended to throw my life away before, let alone after being matched with my Wife-Lord.
Now I only have you, Suisui. Don’t abandon me.” He was just talking, but his tone was so pitiful that even a pair of fox ears popped up from the top of his head—absolutely against the rules!
Sui Ning, who had come from the apocalypse, still couldn’t quite understand his obsession with her. It had only been three months, after all. She wanted to give them both a chance, and lowered her eyes slightly. “Weren’t you going to help me collect my compensation?”
Jun Lin’s face lit up with joy. He took her hand and led her first to the Finance Department, where he presented the agreement Mo Che had signed:
“An advance of ninety percent of my salary and bonuses from my first five years as a squad leader.
Mo Che has good aptitude and great prospects—this compensation is pocket change to him!”
The staff member’s mouth twitched. Everything followed procedure, but the problem was that Jun Lin, this Male, was simply too formidable—the haul from a single mission of his equaled what others earned in a year.
So the next second, Sui Ning’s Optical Brain received a notification: four and a half million Star Coins had been deposited.
Dazed, she was dragged off by Jun Lin to the Supplies Department.
Besides protecting the Temple Academy, the Interstellar Guard Corps also took turns going out on missions. Thirty percent of the resources obtained had to be turned in, while the rest went toward their own cultivation and supporting their families.
Once again using himself as the standard, Jun Lin calculated what Sui Ning would need and withdrew ninety percent of Mo Che’s resources for the next five years, storing them all in a Spatial Ring that he slipped onto her finger.
If all these supplies were converted into Star Coins, wouldn’t that be at least a nine-digit sum?
“Suì Suì, everything besides this is my dowry! I had to prepare it in a bit of a hurry—I’ll put together a better set for you later.”
The storage space on her Optical Brain was only the size of a two-car garage, while this Spatial Ring was as large as a basketball court—and it was stuffed full of all kinds of supplies!
Though the ring weighed nothing, it felt heavy in her hand.
They say that where a man’s money is, there his heart is too. Did the same hold true in the interstellar age?