"What do I mean? My mom had to keep that crone alive for ten years for nothing. And what did she get after she pa.s.sed away?"

The jarhead's eyes glowed with greed. "She loves you the most, Little Moon. It only makes sense that we recoup some of those costs from you, right, Little Yue? My mother is an honest woman who can't bring herself to ask something like this, so it falls on me, your older cousin, to say it. Ten years of food expenses, treatment cost and cremation fee have got to amount to at least a hundred thousand, right? You've your boss now, surely you can afford to pay this much, right?"

A shaking Chaos Moon pointed a furious finger at him. "Grandma wasn't a crone, you f.u.c.king animal!"

Annoyed, the jarhead roared back, "Pay me now, b.i.t.c.h! I don't care if it's a couple thousand or tens of thousands, I don't have time to waste on you! You may have a good time f.u.c.king around like the wh.o.r.e you are, but the rest of the family are still eating dirt!"

"You! You!"

Chaos Moon's shoulders shook with fury, but she still took out her small white handbag and tried to grab for her money.

I hurriedly stopped her and said, "Don't give him money."

"What did you say?"

The cousin turned his ire on me. "Who the f.u.c.k do you think you are? Lover or not, my family's business is none of your business, is it? You think you're her family just because you slept with her? Pooh! She had left the family for years, f.u.c.k knows how many men had slept with this b.i.t.c.h during this time! You really think you're something spe—"

I abruptly strode forward and threw an uppercut right at the bottom of his jaw. A b.l.o.o.d.y incisor actually flew out of his mouth as he fell down to the ground.

Chaos Moon was so angry that she was in tears. I could only imagine how aggrieved she was feeling right now.

The jarhead tried to get back up to his feet, but I kicked him on the shoulder and knocked him flat on his back. He struggled.

Thud!

This time, I stomped on his stomach and elicited a painful howl from him. I then slapped him right across his right cheek.

"You… you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, just you wait, I'm going to call my friends to get you right now—"

He tried to struggle back to his feet again, so I bent down and slapped him twice across the cheeks as hard as I could. Blood was starting to trickle down from the corner of his lips.

"Lu Chen, enough…" Chaos Moon pleaded while shedding tears, "No matter how deserving he is, he's still my older cousin and my aunt's only son…"

I glared at the jarhead angrily before saying, "A man can be poor, but they must never lose their integrity and ambition, much less curse their dead grandmother, you f.u.c.king animal! No, you're worse than an animal! If you're going to keep leeching off your parents like this, you might as well dig yourself a grave and bury yourself in it!"

"Enough, Lu Chen, let's go already…" Chaos Moon grabbed my hand and pleaded again.

I kicked the f.u.c.ker one last time, and this time he stayed down for good. It didn't look like he was climbing back to feet anytime soon. Before we left, I threatened him, "Little Yue is a good girl, and I've never touched her. A b.a.s.t.a.r.d like you probably can't understand that a man and a woman can have a platonic relations.h.i.+p with each other, can you? It doesn't matter. You want to take revenge, come find me at Suzhou. I promise I'll crush you like the f.u.c.king ant you are!"

I was speaking the truth. I was a major shareholder in Raincube Suzhou, and I had the power to mobilize the entire security department with a single call. A hooligan like him was literally nothing to me. Moreover, I had loyal brothers like Du Thirteen and Gui Guzi. Battle maniacs in both virtual reality and real life, they were only all too happy to get into a fight. The f.u.c.ker could bring his whole gang over, and we'd beat them to the ground all the same. And if that doesn't work, there's always our Li Chengfeng, a high-level police officer to settle the whole thing...

……

We broke into a brisk run. Still holding onto my arm, Chaos Moon asked, "We could've sent him away just by giving him some money. You didn't need to beat him black and blue."

I shook my head. "You think that because you don't understand uncontrolled greed and the nature of gamblers. You give him money once, he's only going to ask for more next time. People like him are like parasites who'll never find a way to create wealth for themselves. Do you really think your aunt will lead a good life if he stays like this? I may not have a way to cure him, but I know that giving him money is among the worst things you can do. You'll just be furthering his disease."

Chaos Moon fell into thought for a moment before saying, "Let's stop by my aunt's house for a bit. I want to give her some money."

"Mn!"

We ran all the way to her aunt's house, dropped 5000 RMB, and ran out again. We ran for almost 1.5 kilometers before we finally arrived at the center of the town where taxis usually waited around for customers.

Unfortunately, our luck wasn't doing so well today. We waited a while, but there was no taxi in sight.

My anxiety grew. "Come on, how can there be no taxis at the town center? I'm hungry as h.e.l.l, and what are we going to do if your older cousin chases us with a bunch of hooligans?"

Chaos Moon smiled. "I thought you're a good fighter?"

My mouth twitched. "So what? I'm not Ip Man. Your older cousin spends his days doing drugs, gambling and maybe even visiting brothels. Whatever strength he might've had was emptied a long time ago, so I knew from the start I could 1v10 a person like him. But it's a completely different story if he summons the local 'hero' to his aid…"

Chaos Moon giggled at my metaphor. "Don't worry, there are no heroes in this town, only pretty Uyghur ladies. Look over there…"

I followed her finger and saw a beautiful young lady wearing a mask pa.s.sing through. d.a.m.n, she was as s.e.xy as some foreign ladies for sure.

"Wanna take one home with you?" Chaos Moon suggested.

I rubbed my palms together and replied, "I want to, but I don't know if I'm up to her standards…"

"Just tell her that you're the Little Heavenly King Lu Chen. Uyghur ladies play games too, they'll flock to you like any gaming fan if they learned who you are."

It was tempting, but in the end I shook my head and said, "Nah, better not. Yiyi and Eve would annihilate me if they saw this…"

"Heehee, glad to know you haven't lost your mind!"

"Stop fooling around and flag a taxi already!"

"Er, there are no taxis here, only private vehicles!"

I stared at her for a bit before pulling up her skirt slightly. Then, I pushed her to the roadside and said, "Now stretch your leg a bit, yes, like that. I promise you we'll catch a car in five minutes tops!"

A blus.h.i.+ng Chaos Moon glared at me with killing intent. "You're dead if nothing happens after five minutes!"

"Hmph, just watch!"

To Chaos Moon's surprise, not only did the plan succeed, it only took less than three minutes. An instant after a speeding Toyota Camry pa.s.sed by us, the driver abruptly stepped down on the brakes and skidded to a stop. After he reversed the car up to us, he opened the door and said to Chaos Moon, "You wanna hop in, young lady? It's hard to catch a ride around here!"

Chaos Moon nodded and asked, "We would like to go to Tekes, uncle. Is that convenient?"

"Oh? I am heading to Bagua City to conduct some business, so sure, come on in!"

"Thank you very much, uncle!"

An overjoyed Chaos Moon dragged me into the car immediately, even though she didn't need to because I was pretty overjoyed myself. I never expected to be able to catch a ride in a Camry in this rural town, although anything was better than another G.o.dd.a.m.n tractor.

The experience was so bad that I was imagining something completely insane until the Camry showed. I imagined that Chaos Moon and I were stranded at the Gobi Desert and hugging each other for warmth. Thankfully, a kind-hearted uncle leading a pair of ostriches showed up and offered us a ride. Up and down we bounced atop the ostriches' back until finally, we reached Tekes County when it was dead of night. Besides Chaos Moon's messy hair and bouncing b.r.e.a.s.t.s, everything else about the journey was pure misery.

……

Back to the present. The uncle kept trying to engage Chaos Moon in a conversation, but unfortunately for him, she wasn't very interested. She leaned closely to me and stared at me with those big eyes of hers as if she was trying to say something.

"Growl…"

My stomach chose this moment to growl. Now that I think about it, we haven't eaten anything since the morning. It's almost noon now.

"Uncle!"

Chaos Moon said suddenly.

"What's wrong, young lady?" asked the uncle while looking to the back.

She pointed to a restaurant at the front and said, "I spot a lamb restaurant over there! Can we stop there for five minutes and buy something to eat? Neither of us have had lunch yet!"

"Oh, sure!"

I added, "Again, thank you so much for taking us with you, uncle. We'll definitely pay you the petrol fee once we reach Tekes!"

He smiled. "It's fine, it's fine!"

Chaos Moon got out of the car and ran into the lamb restaurant. A short while later, she reappeared with a few boxes of packed lunch. She opened one of them and showed the contents to me with a smile, "You wanted to try out the most authentic barbecued lamb meat of Xinjiang, right? This one's the barbecued lamb leg, and this one's the hand-grasped mutton of your dreams. It's been cut already, so you can eat it off your hands…"

I almost forgot to wipe the saliva trickling down my mouth as I inhaled the amazing scent of food. After I wiped my dirty hands on Chaos Moon's skirt, I picked up a piece of lamb meat and placed it in my mouth. Mm, delicious food was delicious, but hunger made it even better!

Still holding the box with both hands, Chaos Moon complained, "What about me? Feed me please…"

I rolled my eyes at her choice of words but pushed a piece of meat into her mouth as requested.

Looking at us through the rear view mirror, the uncle asked, "Are you two in a relations.h.i.+p?"

I was going to deny it, but Chaos Moon beamed at him and said, "Yes we are! We look very good together, right?"

The uncle laughed. "You definitely look good, young lady, but the young lad, well…"

My face turned green as Chaos Moon reveled in my misery.

……

The view on both sides of the road was extremely broad, featuring large plains or desert. It was the kind of view you wanted to see on a trip for sure.

This was even truer when you were the pa.s.senger and not the one burning the fuel of a Camry like crazy. We were going to pay the uncle his due of course, but point.

Du… du… du...

My phone suddenly came to life, and Chaos Moon shot me a glance. "Who is it?"

I took a look before answering, "It's Eve."

"Oh? This sounds serious."

"Yeah."

……

I connected the call and greeted Eve with a smile, "Good afternoon, Eve. Do you miss me?"

For some reason, He Yi sounded a little out of breath. "Yes, I really do. When can you come online?"

"What's wrong?"

"Almost everything. Just ten minutes ago, Floating Ice City was taken over by Purple Grape City!"

"WHAT?!"

I felt my eyes widening into saucers as I clenched my fist. "That's impossible! What the f.u.c.k are the players and the NPCs of Sky City doing!? Floating Ice City is Princess Karinshan's first home! Did White Rose Fortress surrender without a fight or something!?"