"Hmm..." Yan Huan drew out the sound, his gaze sweeping slowly over the three of them as though he were choosing lambs for slaughter:
"Looks like you all know a thing or two about Toilet Management Studies."
He tilted his head. His smile was dazzling, but it sent a chill through the three below him:
"But the little girl's needs matter too. How about this..."
His voice rang clear through the Doomsday Horn's drone:
"Let's handle the approval process for the Art Test and the emergency humanitarian rescue to find this little girl's mother at the same time. You three..."
He extended a finger, pointing in turn at the chubby man, the bespectacled man, and the female executive.
"Which of you will bring the mother 'trapped in the toilet' to her daughter, immediately, without a scratch?"
"The first one to do it..." His smile turned wicked.
"I'll take it as sincere support for my art, and I might... consider where to put them and their Family branch on the safe-house list."
His words struck the three of them like thunder.
They were no longer passing the buck. This was a frantic race for their own survival and that of their entire Family branches!
"I'll go! Your Majesty, I'll go!" The chubby man from the Clover Family reacted first, launching himself forward like a cannonball as he hammered at his Family communicator and shrieked:
"Quick! Locate the third stall in the women's restroom in Area B of the Reality Hotel! Send the fastest, most luxurious—no! Use the Dream-Recalling Sleep Aid Drink! Bring that lady here without a scratch! Now! This instant! If you waste even one second, I'll skin you alive!"
"The drink's banned? Who cares about that now? Move, move, move!"
"Your Majesty! The Oak Family has a private VIP