The promised third collapse, where is it?!!

"Mei, you always say I'm too loose-lipped. Look at Kiana, that little girl's sharp tongue can really get under your skin, can't it?"

He then whispered to Mei, trying to lure a third party into the fray.

Sensing A Li's mischievous intentions, Miss Mei smiled without a word, while Kiana snorted, "Such a big person, and you're still tattling to the adults!"

Her tone was filled with unconcealed pride.

She had been suppressed by this guy for so long, and now she had finally managed to turn the tables.

This was a great victory for the Kaslana spirit!

Facing the adorable Kiana, whose tail was practically wagging in the air, Fu Li's eyes darted around.

"So soft."

"What's soft?"

"I mean, the back feels quite soft."

The great Ms. Kaslana froze for a moment, her pretty face suddenly flushing crimson.

She scrambled off Fu Li using her hands and feet, then put a hand on her hip and blurted out, "You pervert! Hmph! You're a pervert!"

"A real pervert wouldn't point that out. They'd be thrilled to have a woman crawling all over them," Fu Li said, looking at her. "Correction, they'd be thrilled to have a super beautiful girl with white hair and blue eyes crawling all over them."

Kiana, flustered and embarrassed, fumbled for her bat.

"Hey! The Fourth-Dimensional Skirt and the Galaxy Bat are both my things. It's not right for you to use them to fight me!"

"Not right? What's not right about it? If you ask me, using them to teach you, a smooth-talking pervert, a lesson is exactly 'fighting fire with fire'! — Take this, Great Sage Kiana!"

"Rhyme jokes cost extra!"

Seeing that Fu Li and Kiana were about to get into another physical altercation within a few sentences, Mei thought, 'Birds of a feather flock together.'

She stepped forward to separate the brawling teenagers and thought, 'This family will fall apart without me.' She then comforted them, "Alright, alright, we've walked so far, and I'm starving. Why don't we go see what everyone else is looking at? Maybe there's a new store opening with a 20% discount."

"Hmph! For Mei's sake, I won't argue with you, you pervert!"

Kiana would always give Mei face.

"You guys go ahead. I need to take care of an urgent matter."

Fu Li announced he needed to relieve himself, said "call me if anything comes up," and then hurried towards the public restrooms in the distance.

"You promised you'd treat us, so no running away!"

Kiana, looking displeased, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted loudly. Then, she took Mei's hand and plunged into the dense crowd like a sharp sword.

Those who had been standing there earlier were quite displeased, but upon seeing that the ones pushing past them were two exceptionally beautiful young ladies who could make the moon and flowers hide their beauty, they magnanimously (though not explicitly) decided not to mind.

Soon, the girls reached the front of the crowd.

They then discovered that the object of so much attention was not a newly opened store, but a woman dressed in mourning clothes.

She knelt by the side of the road, bathed in the shadow cast by a building, with her hands clasped. Her almond-shaped eyes were downcast, and half of her face was covered by a black veil, obscuring her features. The entire person exuded a melancholic and tragically beautiful aura.

Mei raised her eyebrows, which resembled shooting stars hanging from the moon, and took out her delicate phone to check the time.

— March 27, 2014, A.M. 11:35

She put her phone away, thinking, 'I haven't time-traveled, have I? Why would such a bizarre scene appear on the sidewalk of a developed country in the 21st century?'

Kiana, however, was staring intently at the enormous object encased in black, translucent silk fabric on the woman's chest.

Conservative estimate, this has to be a D cup!

If I buried my face in there...

The strawberry-flavored pervert swallowed hard, then was smacked on the back of the head.

Slap!

Chapter 43: "Victim"

Slap!

"Ouch! What are you doing?!"

Rubbing the spot where she was hit, Kiana glared at the newcomer, shaking her small fists as if to say, "If you don't give me an explanation, I'll give you one!"

Doesn't she know how much psychological trauma such a forceful slap can inflict on a minor?

"Your eyes are practically glued to it. There are so many people here, aren't you embarrassed?"

Her ice-clear, silver-gray hair cascaded down like a silken fringe, and her jewel-like, light-colored eyes shimmered with a heart-stopping beauty.

The culprit who ambushed Kiana possessed an artistic level of unparalleled beauty. Her extremely well-proportioned curves strained the white shirt beneath her tailored suit, while her slender, elegant legs were encased in 30D black pantyhose, leading up to a tantalizing OL hip skirt.

Kiana's eyes widened again, and she almost forgot that she had come to confront the person.

Fortunately, Miss Mei, sitting next to her, wasn't like some certain "grass bug" who constantly spouted nonsensical things like, "What is marriage? Both characters have the 'woman' radical, which means marriage is a ceremony to bring two women together!"

She spoke up, "Excuse me, miss."

"Blair," Bronya said indifferently, disguised as an adult. "You can call me that."

"Alright, Miss Blair."

Mei offered a flawless, practiced smile, clearly having no intention of introducing herself. "I admit, my family's idiot was a bit rude just now. I'll discipline her afterward to prevent similar mistakes... However, considering none of us have met before, and you're scolding her alone in public, doesn't that seem a bit like picking on the weak?"

As she spoke, her gaze swept across their surroundings.

It was as if she were saying, 'So many ill-intentioned people are leering at this poor, widowed woman. Since you're so brave, why not beat them all up?'

As the saying goes, to look good, dress in filial piety.

Putting aside the half of her face hidden by a black veil, the young woman kneeling there had a figure that could certainly turn heads.

Coupled with a Western-style mourning dress that clung to her form, many men were drawn to her for this reason, approaching with lewd and wicked eyes, seemingly intending to "take a slice of the pie."

Such scenarios were commonplace here. In Far East society, there was a special group known as "God-Waiting Girls." These girls, for various reasons, left their homes and ended up on the streets. If someone could provide free lodging and food, they would be seen as a "god" in their eyes, and they would follow the person home with their luggage.

As for what happened after they got home... well, it's none of our business, don't worry, I guarantee it's fine!

Therefore, in the eyes of many onlookers, the reason this person was making such a spectacle of herself was merely to gain some leverage for the upcoming negotiation.

In short, it was price gouging.

"These guys are quite the entertainers, aren't they? That's what you're thinking right now, isn't it?"

Blair crossed her arms, her silver-gray hair tied in a ponytail falling naturally, splitting into two Roman curls at the ends.

"I never said that."

After the initial shock, Miss Mei, who had realized the unique situation in the Far East, smiled faintly.

"Unfortunately, you guessed wrong," Blair snapped her fingers. "Kiyono isn't the kind of dirty woman who would sell herself so easily. Being forced to hawk herself on the street like this is simply because she has no other options."

"What do you mean?"

Kiana, having snapped out of her daze, scratched the back of her head. The moment she heard that the woman was forced into such a predicament, her clear, crystalline eyes immediately ignited with the blue flames of justice and righteousness.

"The Raiden Ryoma corruption case, do you know about it?" Blair answered herself. "You should know; in Changkong City, where ME Inc. has deep roots, this matter is practically common knowledge."

Kiana froze and instinctively glanced at Mei beside her.

The girl's face suddenly turned pale.

Four months ago, on November 16, 2013, ME Inc. president Raiden Ryoma was arrested by the police on charges of "fraudulently obtaining approximately 3.4 billion US dollars under the guise of financing the development of ultra-high frequency electromagnetic field confinement."

3.4 billion US dollars, what kind of sum is that?

To put it bluntly, if a medium-sized country like Cambodia were to suddenly take such a hit, there's a high probability its government would go bankrupt.

And since it was fraud, there must have been a large number of victims.

"Kiyono's husband was involved in that project. Because he had too much faith in the business myth Raiden Ryoma had built over the past decade, he not only mortgaged his house deeds and savings but also borrowed more than one loan at exorbitant interest rates."

Looking at Kiyono kneeling there, Blair couldn't help but sigh softly. "When the financial bubble burst and Raiden Ryoma was arrested and imprisoned, her husband was utterly devastated and, under immense pressure, hanged himself."

Kiana instinctively wanted to applaud the death of the scumbag gambler, but a glance at Mei's pale and guilt-ridden face made her swallow it back.

She comforted her, "Miss Kiyono is so beautiful, she can definitely find another good man to marry!"

"Oh, you," Blair put her hand to her forehead, utterly speechless at the girl's slow reaction time. "Didn't you hear me just now? That deadbeat borrowed more than one sky-high interest loan before he died?"

Kiana suddenly understood. "So that's why the desperate Miss Kiyono came to the street for help?"

"Precisely."

"This won't do," Kiana frowned and muttered to herself. "We have to help her."

"Mm," Mei nodded softly.

She couldn't just ignore the debt her father had incurred.

Bronya, disguised as Blair and having transformed her body into an adult form, raised an eyebrow at this. She gave a look to the portly man on her right who had spoken so flippantly.

The man grinned and withdrew the foot he was about to step forward.

According to the plan they had devised earlier, his role as a "wealthy" mine boss was to step in and lavish money to "take" Kiyono, thereby disrupting the girls' thought process and prompting them to draw their swords without thinking.

Now, it seemed, this white-haired girl's sense of justice was so overflowing that she didn't need any extra provocation from a passerby actor like him.

However, upon closer inspection, it was precisely because this girl bore the Kaslana name that the cautious Bronya, wary of her opponent's formidable strength, chose to resort to diplomacy before force. Instead of directly arresting Raiden Mei, she used the other's guilt and sympathy to manipulate her, luring her into a trap they had laid.

In a sense, this was an inevitable development.

Chapter 44: "Experience Count Glasses"

Bronya liked people like Kiana. Not only did her righteous words save her a lot of trouble, but she also genuinely admired those who possessed justice and righteousness.

Bronya also disliked people like her. At the very least, she absolutely did not want an idiot who could be easily manipulated with just a few words and blindly follow the thoughts of a third party.

But thanks to her, the operation to capture Raiden Mei could proceed without a hitch, rather than devolving into a massive brawl in a busy district that would attract a horde of unnecessary trouble.

Now, all she needed to do was to guide the two of them to follow Kiyono into the trap they had already set, and it would be like Qin Shi Huang touching a live wire – they'd win big—

"But before that."

Kiana reached into her Fourth-Dimensional Skirt, fumbling around, and pulled out a pair of unremarkable, plain glasses.

She mumbled, "I need to verify if they're telling the truth first."

Bronya/Kiyono/Anti-Entropy employee disguised as a nouveau riche: !!!

Danger!

Yes, the Kaslana Family prides itself on being the shield of the people, and every Kaslana has carried this creed throughout their lives.

This was true for Kallen Kaslana five hundred years ago, as well as for Sigfried Kaslana during the Second Honkai.

However, this absolutely does not mean they are easily manipulated.

Moreover, Kiana had been wandering outside for four full years. Between the ages of 12 and 16, she had experienced more setbacks than many people had meals. Even she had her limits when it came to learning from her mistakes.

She put on the glasses and looked closely again—

At that very moment, an Arabic numeral slowly appeared above everyone in the girl's eyes.

For example, Mei was a 0;

Kiana herself in the mirror reflection was also a 0;

Bronya, who had used the alias Blair, was also a 0.

Everyone else besides them had a variety of numbers, from single digits to double digits. Kiana even saw a three-digit number.

'Wow! This person has done it that many times?!'

She was quite shocked, then her gaze fell on Kiyono, who was dressed in mourning attire.

"You're lying!!!"

The "Experience Count Glasses" were one of the many (useless) Curios Kiana possessed.

As the name suggested, the device allowed the wearer to see the number of sexual experiences people had.

At this moment, the number displayed above Kiyono's head was zero.