Once the contract was signed, the cooperation between the two was officially set in stone. Lin Wanshuang had designed this apartment herself and had never anticipated living with anyone else. As a result, she had to temporarily arrange for a gaming room on the first floor to be converted into Ming Jiao’s bedroom.
“I’ll have people start changing out the soft furnishings inside over the next few days. Do you have any preferences?” As an attentive employer, Lin Wanshuang took the initiative to ask.
Ming Jiao thrust both hands into her coat pockets and shrugged to show she didn’t mind. She could sleep anywhere, it was just a place to rest her head. Truth be told, her current residence in Jincheng wasn’t even as nice as the restroom in Lin Wanshuang’s villa, yet she had still managed to live there for three months.
Seeing that she had no objections, Lin Wanshuang proceeded to arrange things according to her own ideas. Originally, she intended for Ming Jiao to start her duties that very night, making do with the living room sofa for one night. However, Ming Jiao declined.
Ming Jiao looked at Lin Wanshuang with a touch of helplessness. “My young lady, at least give me some time to handle matters at my previous job, and I also need to pack up some of my things at home.”
Lin Wanshuang pouted. “Fine, go then. I’ll give you one day to sort it out. Is that enough?”
Lin Wanshuang was satisfied only when she saw Ming Jiao nod.
Before Ming Jiao left, however, Lin Wanshuang still demanded her home address, informing her that she would personally come to pick her up in a day’s time.
Knowing she couldn’t refuse, Ming Jiao smiled and said, “Then remember not to drive when you’re fatigued, My Lady. I’m truly terrified of that.”
Ming Jiao’s reward was a sharp glare from Lin Wanshuang. Yes, she was swearing very foully in her mind.
Leaving Lin Wanshuang’s villa, Ming Jiao stood downstairs, tilting her head back to look up. The smile in her eyes gradually faded. The events of the past few days were simply surreal. The person she had tried every possible means to connect with since coming to Jincheng had unexpectedly fallen right out of the sky and appeared before her.
Her platinum-blonde short hair fluttered in the wind. A chilly gust rushed down her collar, making her shiver involuntarily. The weather in Jincheng was fickle, but it was still much better than Beijing.
She didn’t hail a taxi immediately. Instead, she walked a distance alone. The cold wind cleared her head significantly, making her thoughts much more lucid.
Moments later, she stopped in her tracks, pulled out her phone, and dialed a friend’s number.
“Hello? What’s up? How do you have time to call me right now?” A young woman’s voice answered quickly from the other end.
A smile tugged at the corners of Ming Jiao’s lips, her voice buoyant with unmistakable joy. “Nie’er, I think I’ve struck gold.”
“Don’t call me that!” Wu Nie rolled her eyes and snapped crossly, “What kind of gold could you strike? Did you pick up five million yuan?”
“Picking up five million is nothing compared to this luck,” Ming Jiao chuckled softly. She then recounted everything that had happened over the past few days in full detail to her friend.
After listening to the entire story, Wu Nie fell silent for a long time. For a moment, she didn’t even know where to begin being angry. Taking a deep breath, she picked the one point she absolutely couldn’t accept and questioned: “So at that time, you actually went to save someone while enduring your susceptibility period and its side effects?”
“Ming Jiao, how many damn lives do you have to squander like this?! Have you ever thought about what would happen if something really went wrong? If those Alphas had released even a tiny bit of pheromone suppression against you, do you think you’d still be on the phone talking to me right now?”
“Do you still think you’re incredibly formidable? Not only did you escape uninjured, but you also saved someone and the person you saved just happens to be someone who can treat your condition. Do you feel absolutely extraordinary right now?”
“The Ming family ancestors must have beaten their heads raw against the ground in the underworld just to ensure you, you little brat, came out unscathed, do you know that?!”
With that, Ming Jiao heard the sound of Wu Nie patching into an intercom on the other side, already instructing her secretary to buy her a plane ticket.
Ming Jiao was scolded to a pulp by her close friend, but she didn’t dare utter a single word of retort. She could only sheepishly try to persuade her: “Hey, hey, hey, Nie’er, calm down! I’m doing great. Why are you coming over? Don’t come.”
Wu Nie was like a powder keg at this moment, ready to explode at any spark. “If I don’t come, you’re going to get yourself killed in Jincheng!”
Ming Jiao offered a barrage of desperate explanations over the phone. Yet, before long, the person on the other end erupted again.
“Damn it!! Your mother restricted my credentials! I can fly anywhere else, but I just can’t fly to Jincheng!”
Hearing this, Ming Jiao froze for two seconds before quickly snapping out of it. “It’s for the best that you can’t come. I’m really fine. It’s a blessing in disguise. Lin Wanshuang holds a position at GBRI and happens to be in charge of biological gland science. You won’t have to pull strings frantically to find connections for me anymore. If even she can’t do anything about it, then I’ll just give up.”
Wu Nie opened her mouth but found herself unable to say anything in the end. Just as she was about to hang up, she couldn’t help but speak up: “I’ll transfer some money to you. Stop fighting in those underground matches. You get covered in injuries and don’t even make that much money.”
Ming Jiao chuckled softly. “It’s actually quite a lot. I fought five times and split a million yuan.”
“And you don’t mention a single thing about the injuries you sustained. Black and blue all over, no matter how good-looking that face of yours is, it won’t save you.”
Ming Jiao raised a hand to brush against her cheek. Inexplicably, Lin Wanshuang’s earlier “pretty boy” comment popped into her mind.
Is this face really that valuable?
“I’m talking to you. Are you even listening seriously?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m listening,” Ming Jiao responded perfunctorily, then gave her assurance, “Don’t worry, I’ve signed a contract with Lin Wanshuang now. I won’t be going back to fight in those matches.”
Hearing this, Wu Nie didn’t bother lecturing her further, only instructing: “You remember this, if anything else happens to you in Jincheng, I’ll take a long distance bus to Jincheng myself just to drag you back.”
“Yes, yes, yes, I will definitely protect my little life.”
Wu Nie gave several more reminders before they finally hung up, right as Ming Jiao stepped into a taxi.
The taxi sped along the road, eventually coming to a halt in Jincheng’s famous red-light district. The entire street was lined with bars, clubs, and KTVs that hadn’t opened for business yet, a complete contrast to the thriving neon-lit brilliance of the night.
Familiar with the route, Ming Jiao walked up to a bar named “Blood Sacrifice” and pushed the door straight open.
Inside the bar, only the most basic ambient lighting was turned on. A few waiters were scattered around the booths cleaning up, lacking even a fraction of the wild passion present during business hours.
“Sorry, we aren’t open for business yet,” a waiter prepping for the night shift said subconsciously.
The bartender behind the counter looked up, her eyebrows shooting up immediately in a smile. “Solar, what brings you here?” As she spoke, she threw down the towel in her hand and stepped out from behind the bar.
“I’m looking for Boss Cai. Is she awake yet?” Ming Jiao greeted her indifferently, looking at the bartender several times without managing to recognize who she was.
“She’s awake, up in the third floor office. I’ll take you up.”
“Ah, alright. Thanks.”
Ming Jiao followed the bartender toward the elevator. The other woman proactively struck up a conversation. “It’s only been a few days since you last came, and you’ve already forgotten us?”
This tone finally gave Ming Jiao a sense of familiarity. She asked tentatively, “Uh, Sister Xiao Pei?”
Xiao Pei turned to look at her in utter disbelief. “You really didn’t recognize me?”
Ming Jiao rubbed the tip of her nose. “Well, you aren’t wearing makeup right now.”
Xiao Pei: “…”
Although Xiao Pei was a Beta, she considered herself quite pretty. Plenty of customers usually hit on her in the bar. Hearing Ming Jiao’s words now, she began to doubt herself for the very first time.
But looking at Ming Jiao’s glamorous appearance, she felt the other party wasn’t exactly in the wrong either. After all, when someone looked in the mirror and saw a face like that all day long, it was only natural they wouldn’t remember other people’s looks.
Taking a deep breath, Xiao Pei warned, “Don’t you dare say that in front of an Omega in the future.”
Ming Jiao shrugged. “I don’t have any Omegas around me.”
Xiao Pei gave her a meaningful look. “Don’t worry. With a face like yours, you won’t be short of Omegas around you.”
“Sister, I’m an E-rank Alpha.”
The title of an impotent Alpha should be known to everyone.
“Oh, ignore that. Someone will definitely like your type!” Xiao Pei had been choked up by her words the whole way. Now that the elevator had reached the third floor, she couldn’t wait to lead Ming Jiao to the office door. “Go on, go on. I’m going back down.”
“Thank you, Sister Xiaopei.”
Inside the office, Boss Cai was looking over the accounts. Hearing a knock on the door, she assumed it was a staff member coming to find her for something. When she opened the door and saw Ming Jiao, she was quite surprised and hurriedly invited her to sit down.
“Solar? Come on in. How do you have time to come over today?” Boss Cai was wearing a black crewneck sweater. She looked to be around her late thirties or early forties, well-preserved, and appeared to be a very amiable woman.
“No need, Boss Cai. I came today just to let you know that I won’t be able to participate in any of the upcoming matches.”
Boss Cai’s movement pouring tea froze. She pondered for two seconds before putting down the things in her hand. “What’s wrong? Are you facing some difficulties?”
The underground boxing matches were Boss Cai’s true business empire. While underground matches were common, Blood Sacrifice’s matches were unique because they completely disregarded primary sex and secondary sex characteristics. Every fighter was strictly prohibited from using pheromone suppression. Whether you were male or female, Alpha, Omega, or Beta, as long as your fists were hard enough, you could take home the staggering prize money from the arena.
It was a combat purely between physical bodies.
Blood Sacrifice’s matches had always been the most captivating. Two months ago, an E-rank female Alpha under the codename “Solar” had propelled Blood Sacrifice’s reputation to its absolute peak. Solar had emerged out of nowhere, fighting her way up from the lowest match tier. Having fought only five matches, she instantly became the most sought-after rising star of the Blood Sacrifice ring.
Solar’s most explosive match was one that had ended not long ago, where she fought a long-established fighter named Black Tiger, a B-rank male Alpha. Unsurprisingly, Solar secured an overwhelming victory.
Ming Jiao, under the codename Solar, possessed unparalleled momentum, and challenge letters flooded in. However, because Ming Jiao’s susceptibility period was approaching at the time and she was in a hurry to get medication, Boss Cai had held back all the challenges, waiting for Solar’s return to select opponents one by one.
But now, Ming Jiao was saying she wouldn’t fight anymore. How could Boss Cai bear to let go of this cash cow? One had to know that ever since Ming Jiao arrived, the revenue over these two months had almost caught up to the entirety of last year’s.
“Nothing bad happened. I just found a proper job, so I won’t have time to keep fighting matches anymore. Besides, if I get injured, it won’t be easy to explain to my employer.”
Boss Cai was anxious to death inside, but on the surface, she still maintained a composed front. It was just that her hair, which draped over her back, had static or anxiety causing a few strands to stand on end.
“What kind of job did you find? Does it earn more than what you make here? If you’re short on money, Sister can give you some. We can negotiate anything.” Boss Cai knew that Solar had originally come to Blood Sacrifice to fight underground matches precisely because she needed money. As long as it could be solved with money, it wasn’t a problem.
The salary Lin Wanshuang offered Ming Jiao was two hundred thousand yuan a month. Strictly speaking, it really wasn’t as much as what she made from fighting. However, Ming Jiao didn’t want to drag things out with Boss Cai, so she spoke plainly.
“Aiya, I’ll just be blunt. I’m leaving to be a pretty boy for someone. They’re giving me two million yuan a month in allowance.”
Boss Cai: “?”
How the hell does that count as a proper job?!
If anyone else had said this to Boss Cai, she would only think they were being scammed. But if it was paired with Solar’s face, two million yuan a month actually made perfect sense.