“Look what we’ve found.”
Ruan Tao was being held by one leg, upside down, her head pointing down and her feet up, dangling and swaying in someone’s hand.
…Right. She was currently a helpless little mouse.
The man holding little mouse Tao was nearly two meters tall. He had bronze-colored skin and well-developed muscles. His reddish-brown hair exploded outward like a lion’s mane. His snake-like golden vertical pupils stared straight ahead, and there was a distinct knife scar across his left eye. His entire figure looked powerful, majestic, and extremely imposing.
Ruan Tao did not even dare look at him, afraid that he might accidentally crush her to death.
The one speaking was someone else.
This person was not tall and had a slender figure. Long black hair flowed down his back. Most of his cheeks were covered by his hair, leaving a faint blush visible. His lips were naturally red and vibrant, and his crimson eyes were filled with amusement.
Ruan Tao recognized immediately that this person was the classic “clearly drawn as a woman but insisted to be a man” type from the original novel—one of Lu Yingzhu’s subordinates.
Lu Yingzhu had two subordinates who were just as formidable as he was. One was a frail-looking cross-dressing big shot named Ling Xing. The other was a man capable of crushing an ability user to death with his bare hands, named Gao Yang.
At this moment, Ling Xing tilted his head slightly. His long hair swayed with the movement, so smooth it looked like it could be used in a shampoo commercial.
But Ruan Tao’s attention was completely captured by the Lu Yingzhu standing in front of her.
She stared at Lu Yingzhu blankly, as if she had seen something unbelievable.
“A little mouse,” Ling Xing said with a smile. “I wonder what relationship it has with Miss Li?”
Lu Yingzhu tugged at the tie of his suit and glanced over impatiently.
His expression immediately froze. Then he curled his lips into a mocking smile. “Isn’t this Bo Yutong’s new pet?”
Lu Yingzhu bent down closer and stared at Ruan Tao’s face with clear disdain.
Ling Xing’s smile did not change. “Mr. Lu knows it’s Bo Yutong’s?”
“Of course,” Lu Yingzhu said. “Do you think you can just pick up this kind of hamster by the roadside? Would Bo Yutong spend two orange crystals to buy it otherwise?”
Ling Xing touched his bright red lips. “Two orange crystals… and that’s not expensive?”
Gao Yang, who had been standing as immovable as a mountain, finally turned his head to look at Ling Xing.
Outsiders often guessed that the two of them held positions of civil and military authority respectively. In reality, that guess was not far from the truth.
However, it was completely the opposite of what people assumed.
Ling Xing possessed extremely powerful abilities. Most acts like killing and looting were done by him. Meanwhile, Gao Yang—who looked rough and fierce—actually handled meticulous work like accounting.
All the financial matters within the Administrative District were managed by him.
He politely reminded Ling Xing, “Your salary is one orange crystal.”
After a pause, he added, “A year.”
Ling Xing: “…”
“Alright, alright,” Lu Yingzhu said as he took out a beast stone. “How about we negotiate a condition with Bo Yutong?”
Ruan Tao waved at Lu Yingzhu excitedly.
“Negotiate?” Ling Xing froze for a moment. “Use this little thing to exchange for Miss Li?”
Gao Yang glanced at him again, as if wanting to speak but holding back.
Lu Yingzhu said, “Am I sick? Do you think women are something you exchange for?”
Ling Xing: “…”
Lu Yingzhu continued, “Have you never heard of territorial concessions and reparations?”
His finger moved slightly, and Ruan Tao was instantly sucked into the beast stone.
The function of a beast stone was somewhat like the Poké Ball from Pokémon. It could capture wild magical beasts and also store some domesticated magical beasts.
Ruan Tao felt the world spin around her.
By the time she reacted, she found herself in a void.
In this place, the flow of time was extremely slow, and it was difficult to feel fatigue or hunger.
Ruan Tao felt a little dizzy and silently added another entry in her mental list of “terrible things Ruan Zhu had done.”
Lu Yingzhu.
Even though his name shared a character with her own brother’s name, Ruan Tao had never expected him to look exactly the same as her real older brother.
It might not even be just resemblance.
The expressions on his face were extremely familiar to her. If someone merely looked alike, it would not go so far as to replicate the exact details of those expressions.
Ruan Tao felt as if she had floated inside the beast stone for more than ten minutes when suddenly everything began to shake violently.
It felt like the world was collapsing in an apocalyptic disaster.
Ruan Tao jolted awake, and an ominous feeling suddenly rose within her. She instinctively used her two little paws to cover her chest.
She heard a strange sound, very similar to the sound effect of releasing a Pokémon from a Poké Ball.
Immediately afterward came another wave of dizzying disorientation.
She appeared again—completely naked.
Unexpectedly, while only ten minutes had passed inside the beast stone, twenty-four hours had already passed in the real world.
It was time for her to turn into a human again.
A beast stone was not meant to imprison people, so the moment she transformed, Ruan Tao was forcibly pushed out—
Standing naked on a soft carpet.
Ruan Tao reacted immediately and pulled out a large cloak from her portable storage space, wrapping it tightly around her body.
The cloak was only part of the set of clothes she had taken with her.
Different Residential Areas had different clothing styles. In the Residential Areas around Bo Yutong, the clothing style was extremely close to the era she originally lived in.
But Li Yudong, being a lower-class resident, had once pretended to be a tourist from many different Residential Areas.
This cloak set was in a Western cowboy style. Ruan Tao thought it looked cool, so she had chosen this set.
Wrapped in the cloak, she crouched down and looked around cautiously.
Then she saw another person hurriedly wrapping himself in a bath towel.
Ruan Tao: “…”
Who takes a shower at noon?
Ling Xing: “…”
Why had a woman suddenly appeared in his room?
Although Ling Xing was a cross-dressing big shot, he clearly had a man’s heart.
Because his instinctive reaction was to wrap the bath towel around his waist.
Ruan Tao clutched her cloak and whispered, “Can you not call someone to come capture me?”
Her appearance looked far too harmless and innocent.
Ling Xing almost instinctively wanted to listen to her.
In reality, Ruan Tao was not that naïve. Right now she was filled with the joyful feeling of bullying an honest person.
Lu Yingzhu had actually thrown her to Ling Xing.
This guy looked enchanting. Just looking at his face, his gender seemed ambiguous, and his eyes were alluring—he had the kind of looks that could charm both men and women and toy with all of humanity.
But in reality, he was a bit of an idiot.
If the three of them were ranked by intelligence, it would probably be Gao Yang, Lu Yingzhu, and then Ling Xing.
“Who are you?” Ling Xing actually stood there asking her. “How did you get in?”
The moment he saw Ruan Tao, he had probably already assumed she was a harmless, obedient little girl.
Judging people by appearance truly was a universal human weakness.
Ruan Tao blinked. “I’m Lu Yingzhu’s younger sister.”
Ling Xing narrowed his eyes. “Mr. Lu? I’ve never heard he had a sister.”
“You’ve only known him for a short time,” Ruan Tao immediately smeared his reputation. “I’m the kind of sister he secretly raised at home!”
Ling Xing was shocked. “Y-you’re that kind of sister??”
…What kind was that supposed to mean?
Ruan Tao instinctively felt it was not something nice, but she did not have time to think about it. She nodded firmly.
“No matter which kind, I’m still his sister.”
Ling Xing said, “Proof?”
His expression was also very deceptive. He looked far too shrewd, and an ordinary person might easily be intimidated.
Ruan Tao had nearly been frightened into confessing everything.
Fortunately, the cool sensation of not wearing pants kept her mind clear.
“I know a lot of Lu Yingzhu’s habits,” Ruan Tao said. “He likes drinking milk and eating little cakes. On the surface he seems gentle, but in private he talks a lot of nonsense and is very difficult to deal with. He spreads pheromones everywhere, loves flirting without commitment, and often says other people are sick—or that he himself is sick.”
Ling Xing: “…” That sounded way too accurate.
“He’s currently chasing Li Yudong. Li Yudong is over with Bo Yutong—” Ruan Tao suddenly changed the topic halfway through. “How is Bo Yutong now?”
Ling Xing said, “Looking for his little mouse. What else could he be doing?”
Ruan Tao grabbed the cloak with both hands and exclaimed seriously, “Why didn’t you say so earlier? When I came in just now, I saw an especially cute hamster!”
Ling Xing finally became suspicious. “Who are you fooling?”
He reached for the spatial ring he had left outside, took out a beast stone, and shook it in his hand.
His expression immediately changed drastically as he glared at Ruan Tao.
“Where did you see it!?”
Ruan Tao pointed randomly out the window. “On the way here.”
“How the hell did it escape!?” Ling Xing shouted as he threw away the beast stone. “I’ll come back to deal with you later!”
With a casual wave of his hand, a cage made of lightning appeared in the room out of thin air.
It instantly trapped Ruan Tao inside.
Ruan Tao: “…”
When she was a hamster, she was locked in a cage. When she became human, she was still locked in a cage. What kind of strange setting was this?
Ling Xing, whose brain was not exactly working well, threw on some clothes and rushed out in a hurry.
Not long after he left, Ruan Tao turned back into a hamster with a soft pop.
The lightning cage meant for imprisoning people had enormous gaps for a hamster, allowing her to come and go freely.
Ruan Tao finally had a chance to sneak out.
Having been baptized by the sewers before, the little mouse was especially skilled at crawling through ventilation shafts. She even took a full tour around Lu Yingzhu’s base.
Fortunately she had taken that tour. If she had just gone straight outside, she would never have found Bo Yutong.
She overheard Life Assistants in the base discussing that Lu Yingzhu was using a small pet to extort Bo Yutong. The asking price was five orange crystals and even included a small Residential Area.
Bo Yutong was currently “visiting” the base, and he had already loosened his stance. Territorial concessions and reparations were about to succeed.
Lu Yingzhu’s base was practically celebrating like it was the New Year, rejoicing that they had encountered such a fool.
Ruan Tao was so shocked that she stumbled and scrambled frantically to find Bo Yutong’s small room.
Meanwhile, while she was trekking over mountains and rivers to get there, Lu Yingzhu was scolding Ling Xing with a dark expression.
Ling Xing was sweating profusely with both hands raised, forming a formation.
He possessed an ability used for searching. Previously he had used this ability to discover hamster Ruan Tao in Li Yudong’s room.
This time, the search range was the entire base, including every corner and crevice, which made it quite difficult.
While searching, he explained that the hamster had really jumped out of the beast stone by itself.
“Are you sick or am I sick?” Lu Yingzhu sneered. “Even the strongest magical beasts can’t escape from a beast stone. That thing—a little mouse?”
Lu Yingzhu’s catchphrase suddenly reminded Ling Xing of a certain little girl.
“Mr. Lu,” he said. “There’s also a… a girl in my room. She—she wasn’t wearing clothes.”
He paused, suddenly feeling that he had become smarter.
“She must be the one who released the hamster!”
Lu Yingzhu said, “What girl? No—who cares what girl. Why didn’t you catch her?”
Ling Xing replied, “She said she was your… sister.”
When Lu Yingzhu heard that, his expression instantly changed.