By the time Ming Jiao left the back door of Blood Sacrifice, the sky had already turned pitch black, and the bar was open for business. She had been entangled with Boss Cai for a long time. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say that Boss Cai had been unilaterally pestering her for a long time.
She knew Boss Cai wouldn’t easily let go of a cash cow like her, so she hadn’t expected to leave without a hitch in the first place. Besides, when she first arrived in Jincheng alone, Boss Cai really had helped her out, so there was no need for her to burn bridges.
After a long period of negotiation, the two finally reached a consensus: Solar would fight one last match at Blood Sacrifice, with the opponent personally chosen by Boss Cai. Regardless of whether she won or lost in the end, the name Solar would never appear in Blood Sacrifice again.
In a sense, this match was Solar’s “retirement match.”
While Boss Cai was busy thinking about how to maximize the profit from this final match, Ming Jiao was having a bit of a headache trying to figure out how she would find an excuse to slip out of Lin Wanshuang’s house when the time came.
After all, judging from her observations, this eldest young lady of the Lin family seemed to be going through a phase of severe separation anxiety. Her little guinea pig couldn’t step out of her sight for even a single second.
Sigh, forget it. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Stepping on her own shadow, Ming Jiao walked through the entrance of the alley and headed toward her residence. She crossed the old street and stepped into the tenement building, where two flickering, faulty streetlights stood at the entrance. The damp, moldy smell instantly assaulted her nose.
When it came to smelling her own pheromone scent, her nose acted completely dead, yet at this moment, it was incredibly sharp. She rubbed her slightly itchy nose and quickened her pace upstairs.
Boss Cai had helped her find this place as well. It was hidden, quiet, and undisturbed. Compared to those fancy apartments and residential complexes with good environments, this was its only advantage, but it was exactly what she needed.
The tenement building had no property management, and every household only looked after themselves. As a result, the lights in the corridor were hit or miss, with some working and others broken. The bulb right outside Ming Jiao’s door was one she had replaced herself, so it should have been lit.
Ming Jiao stood in the corridor, looking up at the empty socket. The bulb she had just changed last time was gone, leaving only a dark hole that seemed to stare straight back at her like an eye.
She let out an imperceptible sigh. Just as she took out her keys and prepared to open the door, she suddenly noticed a very inconspicuous scratch near the keyhole.
She paused for two seconds. Then, acting completely as normal, she inserted the key, turned the lock, entered the apartment, and locked the door behind her.
The living room was brightly lit. At a single glance, Ming Jiao spotted the figure sitting on the sofa. Once she recognized who it was, the vigilance in her heart gradually faded.
Tsk, an acquaintance.
“Teacher!” The girl on the sofa suddenly turned around, looking at the door with a face full of pleasant surprise. “You’re finally back! I’m so hungry.”
The girl sat cross-legged on the sofa, cradling a sack of snacks in her arms. The television in front of her was playing a recently popular, incredibly melodramatic soap opera. She possessed the total air of relaxation of someone who had already made herself completely at home.
Ming Jiao took a deep breath and rubbed the space between her eyebrows with a bit of a headache. “What are you doing at my house? How did you get in?”
The girl blinked, her light brown eyes darting around a couple of times as she tried to act cute. “I was afraid something happened to you, so I came to look for you.”
“Boss Cai said you were resting at home during your susceptibility period, but you weren’t home at all. Teacher, where did you go?” As for Ming Jiao’s second question, the girl ignored it completely, intending to gloss right over it.
“Xia Chan, I asked you how you got in.” Ming Jiao took off her jacket, hung it on a slightly rusty coat hook by the door, and walked into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of water.
Seeing that she couldn’t dodge the question, Xia Chan had no choice but to pull her lips into a placating smile. “Hehe, your door doesn’t have some kind of super anti-theft lock, so I just came in like that…”
Thud.
The bottom of the glass cup tapped lightly against the kitchen countertop, letting out a crisp sound. Xia Chan’s scalp tightened. She quickly put down the snacks in her arms, stood up properly from the sofa, and called out cautiously, “Teacher…”
Ming Jiao looked at her expressionlessly, leaning sideways against the edge of the stove with her arms crossed, showing no emotion whatsoever.
“What did you promise me back then? Repeat it.”
Xia Chan bit her lower lip, her heart trembling slightly, but she still opened her mouth to repeat, “I promised never to do any petty thievery again, and absolutely never to use those underhanded methods stealthily.”
Looking at the girl standing anxiously before her, Ming Jiao felt a bit troubled.
Xia Chan was also a fighter under Boss Cai. She was sixteen years old this year, an E-class Omega, orphaned with no relatives, and had grown up surviving on petty theft. After meeting Boss Cai, relying on her reckless streak of not fearing death, she had gradually made a name for herself in the boxing matches. Before Solar appeared, she was a highly watchable competitor in the tournaments.
After Ming Jiao arrived, she had fought Xia Chan once. Ever since, the girl had stuck to Ming Jiao like a piece of dog skin plaster that couldn’t be shaken off. Especially after finding out that Ming Jiao was also an E-class, she felt even more strongly that they were a master and disciple destined by fate, stubbornly calling Ming Jiao her teacher regardless of everything else.
As time went on, Ming Jiao conceded. She would occasionally teach Xia Chan some combat techniques, but the prerequisite was that she absolutely could not resort to petty thievery again.
But today, it was highly obvious that Xia Chan hadn’t used a key to open the lock and enter the house.
“Teacher, I’m sorry…” Xia Chan laced her hands together, unconsciously picking at the scabbed wounds on her fingers. “I was just worried that something would happen to you during your susceptibility period, so I came.”
Xia Chan had bumped into Ming Jiao during her susceptibility period once. Even now, she still clearly remembered the scene of her teacher being tortured by it. That was absolutely not a susceptibility period that an E-class Alpha should have. At that time, Xia Chan became convinced that Ming Jiao must have some kind of illness to be like that, which was why she had rushed over immediately after finding out from Boss Cai this time.
Ming Jiao: “Where is your phone? Why didn’t you contact me?”
Xia Chan snapped back to reality and hurriedly searched for it, patting her left pocket and rummaging through her bag on the right. “Uh, it seems I lost it…”
Ming Jiao frowned, truly feeling exasperated that the girl failed to meet expectations. “How many phones have you lost this month already? You don’t value the money you traded your life for at all, do you?”
The money Xia Chan earned from fighting wasn’t a small amount. Her style of fighting was the type that risked her life, after fighting once, she had to recuperate for a long time. However, she had the advantage of being young, and her body recovered quickly, so the money she earned was enough for her to live comfortably on her own.
But that money was earned by putting her life on the line. Ming Jiao didn’t want her to squander it so casually. Fighting underground boxing at a bar wasn’t a long-term, stable job either. Xia Chan was still a minor.
Ming Jiao wanted to lecture her a few more words, but a knock sounded from the front door.
Ming Jiao glared at her. “Stay put.” With that, she turned to open the door.
Xia Chan was the type of person who forgot the pain once the wound healed. She felt sad being lectured by Ming Jiao, but her curiosity was truly overwhelming. Her teacher didn’t like making friends, so someone shouldn’t be coming to find her this late at night.
The doors in the old tenement building weren’t equipped with peepholes, so Ming Jiao had no way of seeing who was knocking. Consequently, when she opened the door and saw Lin Wanshuang standing a step away outside, she was visibly stunned.
“You…” Ming Jiao held the doorknob blankly, her light brown eyes widening slightly. “Eldest Young Lady, why are you here?” As she spoke, something crossed her mind, and she discreetly glanced behind Lin Wanshuang. There was no one else. Lin Wanshuang was entirely alone.
Knowing what she was looking for, Lin Wanshuang curled her lips. “Don’t worry, the bodyguards are all waiting downstairs. I came upstairs by myself.”
Hearing this, Ming Jiao felt slightly relieved. She opened her mouth but before she could make a sound, a small head popped out from behind her, asking bluntly and abruptly, “Who are you?”
Lin Wanshuang froze at the doorway. She looked at the girl who had suddenly popped out, then raised her head to look at Ming Jiao. Gazing at those two pairs of light brown eyes that looked almost identical, she turned to look at Ming Jiao with a face full of disbelief. “You… You have a daughter?!”
Ming Jiao: “?”
Xia Chan blinked, straightening up and looking at Ming Jiao with a pitiful face. “Mother…”
Without even turning her head, Ming Jiao kicked her. “Get out.”
Even though she was kicked, Xia Chan wasn’t upset. Instead, she ran into the house cheerfully.
Ming Jiao didn’t know why Lin Wanshuang had come to find her so late, but keeping someone standing outside right now wasn’t proper either. “Eldest Young Lady, please come in first.”
Lin Wanshuang, unable to find anyone to ask about her stomach full of doubts, followed Ming Jiao into the apartment. Scanning the area, she nodded quietly to herself. Not bad, it’s packed neatly and tidily, not the messy type.
She was fairly satisfied with this “fiancée” she was about to move in with.
“This kid is named Xia Chan. She’s not my daughter. She’s my… student, I suppose,” Ming Jiao pulled Xia Chan over to introduce her to Lin Wanshuang.
Xia Chan: “Hello, Mistress~”
Ming Jiao frowned and barked a stop to it. “Don’t shout nonsense. Call her Sister.”
Xia Chan grinned and called out again, “Sister.”
Lin Wanshuang didn’t harbor any ill will toward this child, after all, it was just a title, so anything was fine.
Ming Jiao led Lin Wanshuang to sit on the sofa, poured her a glass of warm water, sat down, and asked, “Does the Eldest Young Lady have some business with me this late?”
Xia Chan sat on the single sofa next to them with her snacks in her arms. On the surface, her eyes were glued to the television without blinking, but in reality, her ears were practically straining toward the ceiling.
A pretty sister coming to find her teacher so late at night, she wouldn’t believe it if there wasn’t some kind of relationship between them.
Then, she heard the pretty sister reply like this: “Oh, it’s nothing major. I just came to see if you’ve finished handling your matters. If you’re done, you can move to my place ahead of schedule.”
Lin Wanshuang would never admit that she was just worried about Ming Jiao, her one-and-only guinea pig.
Ming Jiao: “…”
She just knew that Eldest Young Lady Lin was completely in a phase of separation anxiety!
However, the matters Ming Jiao needed to handle were really just Boss Cai’s side. Now that she had negotiated with Boss Cai, she could indeed move away at any time. She didn’t have any essential luggage either, needing to bring nothing more than a few pieces of clothing.
“Everything is handled. I’ll head back with you tonight.” Since the other party had already come all this way, Ming Jiao didn’t feel like making Lin Wanshuang make another trip next time. After all, the other party was the employer, and the one who spends the money is the boss.
Hearing this, Lin Wanshuang instantly cheered up, her eyebrows lifting with joy. “Alright, then go grab your things. Once you’ve got them, we’ll leave.”
Thus, Ming Jiao got up to pack her clothes in the bedroom, leaving only Lin Wanshuang and Xia Chan in the living room.
Xia Chan had overheard the entirety of their brief conversation. Right now, she was sneaking glances at Lin Wanshuang. She really couldn’t hold back and asked in a small voice, “Sister, is my teacher moving to live at your house?”
Lin Wanshuang nodded. She didn’t know how much Ming Jiao had told this student of hers, so it wasn’t good for her to explain carelessly.
Xia Chan nodded with a calm, understanding expression, but in reality, her brain was practically exploding! And she said she wasn’t the mistress! They’re already moving in together!
Ming Jiao finished packing her things very quickly. She didn’t have much stuff anyway; when she walked out of the room, she only brought a very ordinary backpack and nothing else.
Xia Chan watched with longing eyes as Ming Jiao walked to the door. Finally, unable to hold back any longer, she looked at her teacher with a pair of puppy dog eyes, looking exactly like a pitiful, abandoned child. “Teacher, will you still want me once you guys have a baby?”
Ming Jiao awarded her a pair of rolled eyes. Before leaving, she warned Xia Chan with a serious face, “Take the trash you made with you when you leave, and lock the door. What happened today will not happen again. As a punishment, I will contact Boss Cai to have someone add extra training for you. Train hard, and I will find time to check on your progress. If you fail to pass, just you wait and see.”
“Okay, Teacher!”
It wasn’t until she watched the two leave that Xia Chan tossed the snacks in her hand into the air, beginning to run around and shout at the top of her lungs in the living room like a monkey.
“Ahhh, I have a mistress!!!”
“I am the happiest kid, ahhh!!!”
The two people who had already walked downstairs paused in their tracks, turning their heads at the same time to look in the direction of Ming Jiao’s home.
Ming Jiao’s platinum blonde short hair was blown messy by the wind. After suppressing it for a long while, she managed to squeeze out a line: “Ignore her. She’s already gone crazy.”