“Stop staring at me with those wide eyes!” Juxi raised his voice.

“And don’t waste my time. I’m not staying here until midnight. Don’t you understand? Wait for me a moment, and we can leave right away. What happens to them after that has nothing to do with us.”

Even after figuring out what to do, Juxi didn’t move. He didn’t want Yu Nai to know just how awful he was feeling.

Luckily, it grew dark soon. Even the dim twilight was too bright for his dilated pupils.

“Phew… We should get some rest soon. I… I’m so tired…” he asked, trying to slowly sound out each word.

“Is that so? Then I’ll help you up to the third floor so you can rest.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Yu Nai stepped forward and took Juxi by the shoulders. She helped him up to the third floor, one step at a time, even stepping over Yuanhui’s body along the way. But Yuanhui was fast asleep and didn’t notice a thing.

“That guy…” Juxi lifted his chin proudly. “He has no sense of danger at all!”

“What are you even talking about? Aren’t you the one who needs to rest more right now?”

Yu Nai kept pushing Juxi along. With most of his strength gone, he was no match for her and could only give in.

“Get some proper rest. The weather in Hailan is a little cold. We locals can handle it, so it’s no big deal for us, but you…”

As she spoke, a pair of delicate little hands emerged from beneath her cloak and pulled a thick quilt over Juxi.

Juxi’s pale face quickly regained some color, and his mind cleared a little.

Yu Nai was standing guard in front of Juxi, fully armed.

“Heh heh heh. You’ve been pretending not to understand me this whole time. What if I told you I already know everything about your situation?” Juxi had only just lain down and couldn’t even get a moment’s rest before deliberately making trouble for Yu Nai.

“Know what?”

Yu Nai had been about to go downstairs on patrol, but now she turned back the way she’d come, her expression growing more serious.

“Is that so?” Yu Nai tossed Juxi a damp towel. “I’ll leave it all to you, then. It’s not like I can do anything to help you if you come to me now, right?”

“I see. If my actions have no choice but to endanger the people of Hailan—if that’s the only way to save this country, of course—then so be it, right? At this rate, one day everyone in the country, from ordinary citizens to high-ranking officials, will have had enough of Hailan’s tyranny. On the way here, people said the queen was the real ruler of this country. But… Ms. Yu Nai, you’re not interested in politics. You don’t care who inherits the throne, and you care even less about the royal family’s power struggles!” Juxi’s words carried a hidden meaning, and his gaze began to grow strange.

“Then just do your job properly. I’ll pay you the usual amount of gold, okay?”

“I came here to do a job. I don’t know about the other Heavenly Dao Masters, but I’m not someone who’s never heard of responsibility, integrity, or professional ethics.”

“Watch who you’re talking to, you vagrant!” Yu Nai roared, her hand on the hilt of her sword.

Juxi had never been able to make sense of Yu Nai’s attitude toward him, but this time he was genuinely angry. She shouted so loudly that Yuanhui woke up on the second floor.

“Oh, God, that crazy woman’s trying to kill us!!!”

Yuanhui jolted awake from his dream, roused by Yu Nai’s pig-slaughter shriek. But that wasn’t what had him furious. What made him angry was…

Woooo…

The mutants outside seemed to have noticed Juxi and the others. In that case, the corpse powder was useless too. Quite a few mutants dragged their heavy steps toward the front door.

Even with danger closing in, Juxi was growing weaker by the moment and could no longer bring himself to speak.

Yu Nai spoke so quickly that several times Juxi tried to say something, only to be cut off before he could get a word out.

“I’ve had enough! I don’t make a habit of arguing with scoundrels! Look at you—morals, rules, conscience? What right do you have to talk about any of that, you murderer who killed someone not long after arriving here? You grovel to some bastards, then haggle with the Heavenly Dao Institute behind their backs like a professional assassin! And you still have the nerve to hold your head high, you idiot!!! Still pretending to be some great do-gooder?! You lowlife from the East—get out before I make you!”