The surrounding air seemed to cool rapidly.
Luo Xi turned Qiqi around. The little girl was sobbing softly.
He was indeed playing the part of her brother, but he was mimicking the exact way he had died.
Luo Xi covered Qiqi's ears. She looked at Sean, a chill in her eyes.
Taking a deep breath, she forced down her turbulent emotions. She still had to visit this guy's darkroom. She still had to find her people. She couldn't afford to fall out with him. She couldn't...
Even so, the amused smile on Sean's face was grating.
"Having fun at the expense of a little girl—isn't that a bit pathetic for the second-in-command of the Gold Ghosts?" Luo Xi tried to keep her tone merely puzzled.
Sean's smile widened. He touched the corner of his mouth. "At the bottom of the Great Rift, those who die from severe poisoning should have purple saliva foaming at the corners of their mouths, and their eyes should bulge unnaturally."
"I'm still missing a few details," he said with regret.
Luo Xi felt a wave of dizziness. She finally realized just how inaccurate the rumors about Sean in Paradise City truly were.
He might not have committed that many atrocities, and he certainly wasn't incompetent... but he was far more vile than she had imagined.
Using the pain of others as a joke—it reminded her of her own people, still struggling bitterly at the peak.
For some reason, the dizziness intensified. A phantom image of the nether-velvet grass from her homeland seemed to appear before her eyes, its light, ethereal fragrance drifting into her nose.
'Wait... I've been poisoned...' Luo Xi jolted to her senses.
But she quickly realized she had no strength left to resist.
'Did he do this? When?'
Through her daze, she saw a vile, triumphant smile spread across Sean's face before he strode toward her.
"You..."
The world spun. The only sound left in her ears was the little girl beside her crying out in terror, "W-what are you going to do?"
...
When Luo Xi woke again, she instinctively tried to activate her Energy Warblade, only to hear Sean's voice.
"Don't forget, this is that monster's territory."
She scrambled to her feet. Though her body still felt weak and achy, she stared at the man a short distance away on high alert.
He was just standing up. In his hand, he held a metal spine slathered in purple saliva. A disgusting sac dangled from the bottom of the spine.
Pinching his nose, Sean nimbly wrapped the object in several thick layers. He then flashed a rueful smile at a slightly stunned Luo Xi.
"My apologies, Princess. You owe me another life now—didn't I tell you? This is Paradise City."
A familiar, faint fragrance drifted into her nose. Luo Xi's pupils contracted violently.
'It was Qiqi... That drawing Qiqi showed me. The paint was poisoned...'
She instinctively looked around, but there was no sign of the little girl.
Sean was whistling as he packed up his loot.
'An unexpected harvest...'
The spine in his hand could no longer be used as a prosthetic implant. Finding someone who could resist this kind of toxin was nearly impossible.
However, the stomach sac attached to the spine held a massive amount of mutated toxin. It was the perfect tool for murder and mayhem.
Even a top-tier rejector like Luo Xi could fall victim to it when caught off guard, losing consciousness for a full half hour. This alone proved the potency of the toxin.
"You... you killed her? Ripped out her prosthetic spine?" Luo Xi pursed her lips.
Sean whistled, his tone mocking. "Shouldn't I have? Luo Xi, if you want to save your people, you'd better abandon that useless sympathy of yours."
He walked over, dangling the wrapped spine and sac, and stepped right up to Luo Xi without a shred of fear.
The girl's ruby eyes trembled slightly. She tried to meet Sean's gaze bravely, but found she simply couldn't.
It wasn't until Luo Xi turned her head away that Sean chuckled and said, "Aren't you going to thank your savior?"
Luo Xi's body trembled faintly. "You could have warned me..."
"And then what?" Sean interrupted her roughly. "I'm your prize, so I'm supposed to protect you with everything I've got and shield you from the ugly truth of this world?"
"Luo Xi, don't forget, we still haven't discussed our partnership. I don't want my partner to be some naive, pretty girl. Naive and pretty are great, and I'm a fan of both, but strictly in my bed."
He wrapped an arm around her waist, his breath hot against her pale neck. "Or," he said, his tone teasing, "we could change the arrangement. You become my personal bodyguard, I still help you... and what happened today will never happen again."
Luo Xi's trembling abruptly stopped. She took a deep breath and pulled herself free from Sean's grip.
"Thank you for the lesson. I'm starting to understand how to survive in Paradise City... Thank you for saving me. I'll be more careful from now on."
Sean blinked. "Excellent. Come on, it's time to go."
Luo Xi straightened her clothes, gave a calm nod, and stepped forward to take the package from Sean's hands herself.
Climbing up Tiger Mountain, she looked back at a slightly panting Sean and suddenly asked, "While I was unconscious, did you do anything to me?"
Panting, Sean caught his breath for a moment, then sniffed his hand. "What do you think?"
Luo Xi's expression didn't waver. She merely nodded. "Fine. Consider it interest. But Mr. Sean, if you want to sleep with me, you are far too weak. As a partner, your shamelessness and cunning are excellent traits. But if you want to be my master, they aren't enough."
She leaned in, her warm breath washing over Sean's face. "This is Paradise City, isn't it?"
Sean was taken aback for a moment before he burst out laughing.
"That's right. Welcome to Paradise City."
'This girl adapts much faster than I thought...'
'I can't wait for the day she sheds the last of her boundaries...'
Back on Tiger Mountain, inside a cage originally built for tigers, the little girl named Qiqi lay collapsed, shivering violently.
"Where did you bury your brother's corpse? Take me there, or I'll kill you."
"But before that... your brother taught you very well about how to survive in this world."
"It seems your brother was a respectable man when he was alive. This set of prosthetics doesn't come cheap..."
"As the price for scheming against me, your brother's corpse belongs to me now. How about it? A pretty fair trade, wouldn't you say?"
"This... I'll help you install it. This way, you can be with your brother forever—and as for this, I'll leave the choice to you. Because I didn't find any other bones picked clean in your camp..."
Inside the cage, the abnormal little girl lay collapsed on the ground. The stump of her missing left leg was a bloody mess, and in its place was a prosthetic calf.
And the prosthetic had come from her brother.
Meanwhile, the cage was locked from the outside. The lock was shaped like a metal hand, its fingers tightly sealing the exit.
The key—shaped like a finger—had been tossed into a far corner of the cage.
Whenever she saw it, Qiqi would recall the words spoken by that demon-like man.
"I modified it a little. Just insert it, and then snap your brother's finger in half... Hahaha... The lock will open. When that time comes, come find me to avenge your brother. Or, you can just call me 'Brother.'"
She began to weep softly.