"I..."

The moment Nana Toki’s words fell like a blade, silence pooled in the room like winter water.

Yiwei Yang, pinned by Nana’s gaze like a moth to glass, let his eyes skitter away like a startled sparrow and stammered.

Even he felt the weight of that promise like an iron chain dragging through mud.

And it wasn’t just Mengmeng Feng standing there; another thorny, hard-to-handle woman stood like a briar in the doorway.

"What? Say ‘responsible’ and you wilt like a cut flower? Your devotion to Miss Mengmeng is just adorable."

Nana Toki laughed cold as frost, biting down on “devotion” like a bitter seed. "I’ve seen plenty who talk honey and act poison. Do the world a favor, serial heartbreaker—stop tangling her up."

"Or say it to her face. Do you like her, or just her body?"

She tugged Mengmeng Feng forward like pulling a veil off a mirror, her words rubbing salt into raw skin as she fired each accusation at Yiwei Yang.

"Go on, say it. Tell her right here."

"I..."

Yiwei glanced at Mengmeng, her head bowed like a willow in rain, and grit his teeth as if chewing gravel, caught between speech and silence.

A long breath later, he squeezed out words with no spine, like steam fading in cold air.

"I... I like—"

"Like my ass!"

Before his voice hit the floor, the woman cut him off like a slammed door. "If you really liked her, would you chase other women? My lady from the Si Family! And Huaiyue Qin—didn’t you chase her too?"

"Should I call you broad-hearted or just lecherous?"

Right there, face to face, Nana Toki rattled off how Yiwei Yang had sniffed around Huaiyue Qin and harassed Qingyu Si with texts, each sin laid out like stones in a courtyard.

Yiwei’s face flushed green and purple like bruised fruit, shame burning him like midday sun in a market square.

Nothing stings like a public unmasking; it sears pride like fire on dry leaves.

"You came to find Mengmeng today because Huaiyue Qin wasn’t home, right?"

Nana Toki, who never feared a bigger flame, slid on a sweet smile like sugar hiding a knife and stepped in, teasing. "Didn’t expect me to show up? I wrecked your plan—are you mad or just choking?"

Yiwei Yang: "..." This woman’s got a screw loose, like a bent cog grinding sparks.

"Alright, stop glaring at me. It’s late, and I’ve gotta get back to the Si Family to make dinner for my lady."

"If you two manage to patch things up, have Mengmeng call me."

Seeing the air curdle like thick smoke, Nana Toki turned to slip out like a cat at dusk.

Truth be told, if Mengmeng could still forgive Yiwei and stay with him after this, Nana had no sermon left; the heavens tilt their scales like wind in tall grass.

Thankfully, Mengmeng Feng felt like a mind untouched by that Heaven’s Dao IQ-debuff, and after Nana left, she hemmed and hawed and finally sent Yiwei Yang away like a tide turning.

She didn’t say “break up,” but the mood lay there like a cracked cup, and Nana could taste the ending like salt on rain.

Give it time, grind down the Protagonist Lord’s luck like millstone on grain, and their red string—reinforced like rebar—would snap under her hand sooner or later.

...

With the Protagonist Lord’s mess swept aside like leaves off a step, Nana Toki turned her eyes back to news on Kunwu Si like a hawk scanning ridges.

After that call she and Qingyu Si made to Kongxiao Si, no word came from the Si Family’s main branch; the line went quiet like a pond that never ripples.

It felt as if nothing had happened at all, which pricked Nana’s mind like a thorn in silk.

She thought the Si Family just didn’t want Qingyu involved, keeping her out like rain kept off a lantern.

Only when Yu Lu returned from Xjing, dust on him like road ash, did Nana learn the deeper reason.

The Si Family’s headquarters had been wiped out, gone like a city swallowed by fog.

At first, Nana stared blank as stone; how does a headquarters vanish like dew at dawn?

Then the logic clicked like bamboo knocking: Kunwu Si and the Qin family must’ve swung the hammer.

Her lady had said the HQ hid deep like a burrow; no outsiders knew the spot unless they wore Si Family skin.

If it was suddenly smashed, the only hand that fit the glove was Kunwu Si, heavy as a mallet.

And Yu Lu had said Qin forces from Xjing were moving like ants in a line; turned out they hadn’t come for Nana—they’d struck the nest.

Nana herself felt nothing much, detached like a traveler watching rain on another city’s roof; she knew no one over there, and a destroyed HQ ticked off a hidden quest like chalk on slate.

Only pity was, if she got hauled into a station next time, no friendly hand would pull her back like a hook from the river.

The one taking the blow was Qingyu Si, whose tie to her father Kongxiao Si was frayed like old rope, but hearts still ache when the house falls like a tree in wind.

She asked Yu Lu why he hadn’t helped, but he’d been in the dark like a shuttered room; the moment he heard, he rushed back to X City like hooves on a road.

The Si Family dealt in dirty trade, and to the state their fall was rain washing dust; Xjing’s high-ups turned one eye closed like a watcher nodding off.

These days, squads kept going to reclaim Si assets like harvesters gleaning fields.

Luckily, the villa and liquid funds Kongxiao Si set aside for Qingyu in X City were clean like clear spring, drawn through proper channels.

Even with the headquarters gone, as long as Qingyu stayed in X City, she’d have food and shelter like a lamp and rice in a quiet home.

Now the Si Family’s bloodline was two straying branches: Qingyu in X City, and Kunwu somewhere like a shadow in reeds.

The HQ news sent tremors through the villa like wind rattling shutters; servants fretted about being dragged under like boats in a whirlpool.

So menservants and maids handed in resignations like falling leaves and drifted away from the villa’s gates.

In a blink, the place went cold and hollow, wind moving through empty rooms like a flute on a deserted stage.

Besides Nana Toki, only Yiyi Liu and Uncle Chen remained, two steady flames in a thinning hall.

Uncle Chen had served since youth, roots sunk deep like an old tree, and Nana understood that kind of bond like tea steeped long.

But Yiyi Liu—what was her story?

Nana recalled the girl had taken the job to ease her family’s burden, like shouldering grain to help the household.

In a storm like this, was she choosing silver over breath?

Curious as a cat, Nana went to ask her.

The girl, washing lunch dishes with bubbles popping like tiny moons, blinked at Nana with wide, guileless eyes.

"Eh? The Si Family in Xjing got wiped—what’s that got to do with the Si Family in X City?"

Nana Toki: "..."

In that instant, Nana swept away her doubts like dust off a table.

If you can ask that question, you’re remarkable in your own strange way, like a bird that sings off-beat but bright.

In Yiyi Liu, Nana glimpsed a shadow of her junior from another world, a soft-headed sweetness like cotton candy in sun.

Adorably clueless, jelly-soft, brain like fog over a morning pond.

"Mhm. Nothing much. Keep at it, and I’ll have Qingyu bump you up."

Nana gave Yiyi a head pat like a tap on a drum, then lifted her eyes to the villa’s ceiling like gauze and walked out, thoughtful.

Women this guilelessly foolish are rare these days, like fireflies in late autumn.

The fog didn’t last long. After steady work like ants crossing a log, Nana and company finally found Kunwu Si’s trail hiding in X City’s folds.

Several nearby ports kept seeing the same vessel in midnight hours, a black shape sliding like a fish under moonlight.

Nana judged fast, the way a blade finds its scabbard: it had to be the Qin family’s planned pickup route for Kunwu’s escape.

Zixia Chen and Yu Lu split their teams and rushed to lock the ports down like iron gates at dusk.

But when they finally reached the spot, the night had already taken its tithe like a thief in fog.

By the water lay only a puddle of not-yet-dry blood, dark as wine in a shattered cup, and no ship in sight.

Nana looked once and read the stain like a map; it was likely Kunwu Si’s lifeblood.

He’d been silenced by his Qin contacts, cut off like a rope snipped clean, and the remaining arms had fallen into Qin hands like fruit into a basket.

As police captain, Zixia Chen was near frantic, pulse running like a river after rain.

Yu Lu and Nana Toki stayed cool, their calm like stone under a stream.

They even felt a laugh tug at the corner, watching Chen’s anxious face flutter like a startled sparrow.

Why?

Because the Qin family had just stepped in a mud hole, luck turning like a wheel stuck in clay.

Yu Lu’s report from Xjing said only one piece of heavy ordnance hadn’t been recovered, a pebble that was actually a boulder.

Nana let Zixia Chen guess, and Chen threw guesses like darts that never stuck.

Yu Lu finally said it straight: a domestically made fighter jet, and Zixia’s mind jolted like thunder under the ribs.

Wait—what did he say?

A fighter jet?!

Damn—who smuggles that, a god or a madman?

Even with her thick military background, Zixia Chen stood stunned, brain ringing like a bell.

Even the nation wouldn’t smuggle jets overseas; what gave Kunwu Si that kind of death wish?

Was his head a cracked pot?

Only then did Zixia see why Er Mazi’s crew had fallen into her net; delivering this was like trying to carry a mountain in a wicker basket.

The jet had been dismantled, parts many as stars, shipments piled like bricks, every route a hazard.

That’s why Yu Lu kept seeing one vessel appear at several ports, the pattern like footprints in sand; Kunwu had split and stashed the parts.

The Qin family seized their chance, scooping pieces like shells, never knowing they’d grabbed a hot coal.

No one smuggles a jet past sea checks; it’s a thunderhead you can’t hide in a teacup.

Nana had thought split shipments across ports might blur the trail like rain washing chalk.

But now all they needed was to trace each outbound port like beads on a string, and finding the Qin transport would be as easy as netting fish in a narrow stream.