"Host, pardon the pop-up—you're just a normal human right now! Bullets aren’t confetti; they punch holes."

Smoke uncoiled like snakes from the blasted car, and the System’s voice rang in her head.

I know, obviously.

Nana Toki whipped a silver pistol from beneath her skirt, moonlight catching on steel, and fired at the second van knifing around the corner.

Three vans hunted her like wolves. One ate a grenade—two still snapped at her heels.

"So I’m going for a live-fire thrill ride."

System: "..." Where did you even pull that pistol from?

And you said grenade, right?

You did say grenade, right?

Bang!

The round punched the tire clean; the van screeched in a spray of sparks and carved a massive arc right before Nana.

Men half-hanging from windows were flung like rag dolls; the unlucky ones got their skulls ground under the careening van. Gasoline stung the air like bitter perfume.

Good thing the crowd had been cleared. Otherwise, it’d smell like a terror attack.

Rat-tat-tat!

Rat-tat-tat!

No time to breathe—the third wave closed in.

Lesson learned from the first two, they braked at the corner and came on foot, shadows peeling off the wall.

Nana slid behind cover, pulse neat as a drum. But their muzzles ignored her and fanned to encircle the black vintage car holding Qingyu Si.

"Move! Kill the Si Family’s young miss!"

The rifleman’s order barely left his lips.

Nana’s shot bit into the back of his calf—clean, cold, precise.

From inside the car, Qingyu Si saw her maid blur forward, a gust of wind with teeth, toward the masked man closest to the door.

Crack.

Bone slid out of place with a crisp, ugly click.

Before the scream rose, Nana’s right leg snapped up.

The nearest mask-man sailed off his feet like a kicked sandbag.

"Open fire! What are you standing there for?!" The man with his right arm ruined felt ice trickle down his spine.

Is she even a woman?

How is she this ruthless?

Bang!

Another gunman dropped; Nana’s left hand tightened like an iron clamp.

The man she’d seized howled, voice thin as torn paper.

Rat-tat-tat!

Rat-tat-tat!

The rest finally woke up and poured fire, brass raining like hot hail.

"Cheaters." Heat flashed in Nana’s chest; she jerked her captive up, a meat shield hammered by their own bullets.

"Big… big bro!" Their fingers trembled; muzzles sagged, guilt pricking like thorns.

"As villains, you’re soft as tofu. This year’s crop is hopeless."

She shoved the riddled body aside and stitched the rest with short, ice-calm bursts. They toppled like wheat under a scythe.

You shoot, but don’t consider who you’ll hit?

She eyed the ones still twitching and tapped insurance rounds, methodical as rain, until her magazine clicked dry. Only then did she stop.

"You alright, my lady?"

She planted a heel on the fallen leader’s back, turned with a blade-straight posture, and asked the girl in the car—violence painted in lines that somehow held a strange grace.

[Ding! Main Quest, Phase One: Wind and Thunder—Complete!]

[Main Quest, Phase Two unlocked: God-tier Self-Cultivation of the Perfect Maid (II).]

"I… I’m fine…"

Qingyu Si sank against the backseat, eyes caught on the blood-specked pleats of her maid’s skirt. Was this the Shutong An who’d served her sixteen, seventeen years?

Why did she feel like a stranger carved from another story?

Di-di-di…

Di-di-di…

Sirens wailed from every direction, blue-red lights washing the street like storm-tossed tide. Five, six cruisers swarmed in.

"Hands on your head! Squat!"

Nana tilted her chin, ready to signal Uncle Chen to ghost—but too late.

A policewoman vaulted from a car, sleek as a black cat, and seized Nana’s gun arm.

"Don’t move!"

"Tsk…" Frost-cool face, sun-hot curves—Nana didn’t need a hint. This had to be the cop-heroine the male lead bags later.

Great timing, as always.

When I was getting hunted, not a shadow. When I finish the job, they pop up like bamboo after rain.

Peak urban-novel energy.

"Captain Chen, they’re all dead."

A bespectacled male cop strode up, face set. "No survivors."

"Did you kill them?" Zixia Chen clamped Nana’s arm, voice flat as steel.

"Are you blind? If it wasn’t me, was it you?" Nana rolled her eyes, dry as a drought. "Do cops just love asking the obvious?"

"Less lip."

Zixia Chen bore down to teach a lesson—and felt her force slide off, like pressing a mountain.

"Aren’t you tired holding me like this?" Nana side-eyed her. "By procedure, shouldn’t you take me in for tea? Oh, right, I skipped breakfast. You got food? If not, can I go home, eat, then swing by?"

"…"

"Bring her in." Face dark, Zixia snapped on cuffs, sealed the scene, then hauled Nana, Qingyu Si, and Chen Yi to the station.

"I said it—hate police stations."

Cuffed behind the chair, Nana slouched, eyelids half-mast at Zixia Chen. "Don’t tell me the station’s this broke. No breakfast, and not even a guest cup of tea?"

"Shut up."

Sorting files, Zixia threw her a knife-edged glare. "Watch it. You’re in a police station."

"…"

"Name."

By the time the paperwork stopped rustling—long enough for drowsiness to lap at Nana—Zixia finally started the morning’s script.

"Shutong An."

"Gender."

"Can’t you tell?" Nana blinked, speechless. Is every interrogation in urban novels copy-pasted like this?

Endless, right?

"Want me to drop my pants for inspection?" She rolled her eyes. "Female."

"Ethnicity."

"…You serious?"

Is this face dense, or is the heroine ill? Sure, be thorough—but can’t your system pull basics? Is the author padding word count?

"Same as you. Han. Clear?"

Nana leaned back, impatience plain as thunderheads. "Ask the point. I need to go tidy my lady’s room." Her stomach guttered like an empty drum. Hunger—so rare lately—gnawed and sandpapered her mood.

…Arrogant, for a mere suspect, Zixia thought, cheeks tight.

"Captain Chen."

The bespectacled cop reentered with a few sheets, his look toward Nana oddly tangled. "Scene report’s out."

"Speak."

"Fragmentation grenade traces on-site. And the casings don’t match market ammo—looks custom." He flicked a glance at Nana. "Forensics says most died to precision headshots. One shows joint dislocation. Like techniques from guwu—old martial arts."

"Captain, something’s off." His voice turned heavy. "From the footage, Shutong An likely has illegal military hardware. And her skillset doesn’t fit a normal… uh, maid."

"The other two identities?" Zixia scanned the pages, eyes like rain over steel.

"Confirmed. Si Family’s young miss, Qingyu Si, and her driver, Chen Yi. Shutong An is their maid. They were ambushed on the way to school." He offered his phone. "Captain, the footage."

Silence pooled in the room like deep water.

Then—

"That? You call that a maid?!"

After the video, Zixia pointed at Nana, stunned. "Tell me she served in special forces, I’d buy it. Does an average woman move like that?"

Even I might not pull that off, she thought. With reactions like using a man as a shield? If it were me, I’d be dead.

"How rude. I’m absolutely a maid."

Cuffed, Nana answered without a shred of shame. "I have a maid certification. Don’t look down on maids. It’s a sacred profession."

…Why is she so domineering, Zixia wondered, a headache blooming.

…No clue, thought the male cop, glasses fogging with confusion.

"By the way, I’m a little thirsty. Could one of you pour me some tea?"