Yue Liuyi balanced a tray of fruit, the slices glistening like dew on jade, and headed to bring it to LittleSnow.
“LittleSnow, want some fruit… huh?”
She pushed open the storage room door. A man’s groans seeped out like wind through a cracked tomb, raw and endless.
“Ah, ah, ah!!!!”
“Whoa! Xiao Yue, how did you get in here!”
Sensing Yue Liuyi step in, Dixue cut off her spell in a snap. Her cheeks bloomed red like peach petals after rain as she turned.
“Wow! LittleSnow… what are you doing?”
“Mm… interrogating a live one. Didn’t think this guy was this tough. He still won’t talk.”
Dixue shot a nettled look at the black-clad man tied to a chair, ropes biting like ivy. She’d tried every kind of magic strike, yet he kept his mouth shut.
“I won’t talk… won’t…”
Foam flecked his lips as he trembled, mind drifting like mist over marshland. Even so, he kept muttering, and gave up nothing.
“He’s a small fry, so why’s he so hard to crack!”
In the room, Little Rose sat in a scarlet dress, a fearsome tool of torment in her small hands. Cruelty and cuteness clashed like ice on flame.
“LittleSnow… if it’s thorny, I can find Luyao and have him bring those captives back?”
“No need. Someone’s put a threat on him worse than death. The others too. They won’t talk.”
“Worse than death… eh!”
Yue Liuyi glanced at the man’s black coat. An idea flared like a lantern in a dark alley.
“What is it, Xiao Yue?”
“I just thought of a way. It might make him spill.”
“Xiao Yue’s plan… mm… all right, all right~ my Xiao Yue is too adorable. You don’t need to mess with this.”
Like soothing a child, Dixue ruffled Yue Liuyi’s hair, her touch light as willow leaves.
“If you don’t believe me, LittleSnow, then watch.”
A little huffy, Yue Liuyi snatched up LittleSnow’s clawed gauntlet, its tips gleaming like talons, and dashed out of the storage room.
…
…
After a short while, Yue Liuyi dragged in a ruined black-clad woman, limp as a rain-soaked kite.
The woman wore the same garb as the man. Pale makeup masked her face; vermilion lipstick cut like a blade—at a glance, a cold-blooded femme fatale.
But now, that “femme fatale” had lost all venom. Her eyes stared blankly into air, her hands hung weak as broken reeds, and drool threaded from her lip.
“Hmph! This is what you get for defying me.”
Yue Liuyi “heavily” flung the woman to the floorboards, then folded her arms, chin lifted like a little general.
“Master, I was wrong… please don’t… don’t punish me anymore…”
The black-clad woman curled on the ground like a frightened hare. The eyes she raised to Yue Liuyi were filled with marrow-deep fear.
“Eh! Th-this is… Big Sis Serpent Siren!?”
The black-clad man clawed back a sliver of sense. His eyes bulged, disbelieving, as he stared at the woman on the floor—he couldn’t fathom that even the Serpent Siren from their so-called Civilization Division had been reduced to this.
“Oh? So you two know each other. Good. That makes this easy.”
A sly smile unfurled on Yue Liuyi’s lips. She stepped in, small frame bristling like a hedgehog. “When I captured her days ago, her lips were sealed tighter than yours. Want to hear what she went through in the end?”
“Master! I was wrong! Please don’t… don’t…”
The woman clung to Yue Liuyi’s calf like a drowning soul grabbing driftwood, begging for the smallest scrap of mercy.
“Waaah!!! I was wrong!!! Whatever about Lingzi!!! I don’t care anymore!!!”
With Yin Mu’s hands-on performance as a cautionary tale, the black-clad man spilled everything he could, like a slit wineskin.
…
…
Turns out, under Fu Pi’s banner, a terrifying enforcer had arrived recently.
No one knew their origin. No one knew their face. Most in the gang didn’t even know if they were a man or a woman. They only knew the codename: Lingzi—and that the codename cut like thunder.
Once Lingzi reached Dreamwood Star, they took jobs without pause, then seized control of two crews: the Yokoyama Crew and the Ice Wolf Crew.
The original bosses, of course, didn’t like taking orders. Hired by Fu Pi or not, each leader had some spine. On day one, a lieutenant stepped up to make trouble.
His end…
With one move, that big man of the underworld was like certain web authors—he’d never “update” again.
By thunderbolt methods, Lingzi cowed the gang. Anyone who dared defy their orders met the same fate—never updated again.
Before missions, Lingzi gave a death order too.
“If you dare leak information, then be ready…”
As they spoke, Lingzi crushed an egg between their fingers. That petty, vicious snap made every blackcoat’s guts turn to ice.
Then the black-clad members were knocked out. When they woke, they were already at the ambush site.
As for battle intel, the black-clad man knew little. The target was a blue-haired girl. Her strength and background? He knew nothing.
…
…
After hearing the intel, the girls gathered on the bookstore’s sofa, cushions stacked like clouds, and started their meeting.
Present were Xiao Yue, LittleSnow, Teng Ying, Little Rose, and Yin Mu.
Yin Mu, of course, hadn’t been bullied by Yue Liuyi. That earlier panic, that trembling—pure theater, light as stage smoke.
“So it’s true. I used to be with the gang…”
Head bowed, Yin Mu’s mood dipped like a leaf into dusk water. Even without memories, guilt pricked.
“Yin Mu, don’t blame yourself. You’re the one they hurt.”
“Mm… I know.”
The black-haired girl nodded, and brightness returned like sun through thinning fog. “A transmigrator should answer for what she’s done, but the mindset has to stay sunny and sound. Only then can life get a fresh start.”
“Haha… can’t argue with that.”
Yue Liuyi smiled. To pep-talk herself with a novel protagonist’s voice—Yin Mu really was a curious girl.
“Yin Mu, do you know that black-clad woman? Did seeing her bring anything back?”
“Sorry, Your Majesty… I have no memory of her, and nothing about Lingzi. As for Fu Pi… I have a blurry impression—a very fat, very hateful man. I hated him.”
“So it seems… the gang’s pillar is Lingzi. Miss Teng Ying, do you know anything about Lingzi?”
Since the talk was serious, Lidashi stayed in the other room playing with Kaka, peals of laughter drifting like wind chimes, and didn’t join.
“Lingzi? I haven’t heard. But the one who attacked us yesterday should be Lingzi.”
Teng Ying tried to look untouched, but a bead of sweat broke on her brow like dew on stone.
“Huh?”
“That one’s got real bite. I can’t beat them. If you’re scared, run now.”
“I’m not afraid of this Lingzi… but…”
Yue Liuyi’s confidence sat steady as a mountain. Yet one thing gnawed like a cold draft at the back of her neck.
How did those black-clad people get into the Winterwood District?
