Meeting the Wolf Lady Again

A few days after the negotiations, the pharmacy opened smoothly. To avoid drawing attention, Zhuang Xiaolin deliberately changed "treating Oripathy" to "suppressing Oripathy."

There was only a slight difference between the two terms, but the prices they commanded were worlds apart.

Zhuang Xiaolin knew very well that if ill-intentioned people set their sights on this medicine, the trouble it would bring him would likely be even greater than that caused by the mafia.

"Come on, come on, time for boxed lunches." Rook set the armor pack on the table, glaring sharply around the room as though determined to catch anyone daring to eat at the table.

Zhuang Xiaolin calmly put on two layers of ballistic plates. As the number of times he had used Death Roulette increased, he increasingly felt as though he and the gun had become one. Wearing this outfit again gave him the feeling of being a gunslinger from the Wild West.

A sharpshooter—the strongest sharpshooter.

Perhaps it was that line in the description. Zhuang Xiaolin recalled how, in his youth, he too had dreamed of being a righteous hero.

Who wouldn't want to wear a stylish cowboy outfit, wield a cool revolver, and face off against all sorts of villains?

"I'll leave the pharmacy to you. I'm going out to see what's happening." Zhuang Xiaolin glanced at the clock hanging high in the center of the pharmacy, then prepared to take a stroll outside.

The agreement Wei Yenwu had signed had yet to take effect, and Zhuang Xiaolin had no intention of handing over such a world-shaking medicine so soon.

After putting on his black trench coat outfit, Zhuang Xiaolin took out a black hat wrapped with circles upon circles of cord.

"Arthur Morgan..." Staring at the hat, Zhuang Xiaolin recalled a scene.

On a dark night, atop a small hill, a dying gunslinger fought for something that mattered to someone he cared about.

"Get out of here. I'll hold them off."

"This means a lot to me."

"Get the hell out of this place and become someone worthy."

Perhaps he had not been a good man, but neither had he been a bad one. He certainly had not been a coward. At the end of his life, the gunslinger who had sent countless outlaws to their deaths beneath his gun came to his curtain call.

Zhuang Xiaolin touched the hat. It was Arthur Morgan's hat, available in the system shop. Together with the clothes he had bought, it had only cost him 40 points.

Including the 300 points he had earned from hunting Originium Slugs earlier, Zhuang Xiaolin still had 260 points left.

The only way to obtain points seemed to be through missions, though no one could say what might happen in the future. For now, points were clearly important and could not be wasted carelessly.

Many things flashed through Zhuang Xiaolin's mind—his past life.

He had grown from a youth with dreams of heroism into a crafty old fox in the workplace.

From being utterly worthless, he had climbed step by step to a position everyone admired and desired.

He could not relax, because the moment he did, countless hungry wolves coveting that position would charge forward and devour him whole.

He had truly lived a tiring life. Zhuang Xiaolin was truly exhausted.

But things were different now. This was a new world. Whether it was good or bad, Zhuang Xiaolin no longer had to spend his entire life struggling through the mediocrity of his past life. He possessed something no one else had, and he had the ambition to make it happen.

His leather boots scraped against the ground. Amid the filthy, chaotic slums, a slightly extravagant black trench coat flashed past.

Like a ghostly figure, he weaved through the tangled maze of roads.

Blood-red energy flickered from the grip of Death's Revolver.

When he looked up, Zhuang Xiaolin's black eyes met those of a wine-red-haired girl with a halo above her head in the distance.

Beside her, a pair of familiar wolf ears twitched. The wolf lady looked at Zhuang Xiaolin in surprise.

"Hi, we meet again, Miss Texas!" Zhuang Xiaolin's eyes darted around before he suddenly came up with a good idea, and a warm smile spread across his face.

"Texas, is this the mysterious man you mentioned last time?" Exusiai leaned close to Texas's ear and asked quietly. As for how she knew, Texas's expression said it all.

"Sigh, yes." Texas looked somewhat helpless. She took out the cigarette pack in her pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and was about to light it.

But halfway through the motion, Texas froze. Then she silently put the cigarette back into her pocket, thinking, I should quit smoking next time.

"Hello! You must be Mr. Zhuang Xiaolin, the one Texas mentioned, right? My codename is Exusiai. I work for Penguin Logistics, and I'm Texas's coworker." Exusiai readily gave her name and introduced herself.

"Oh, beautiful lady, you know so much about me. I'm currently running a pharmacy in the slums. If you're interested, you can come take a look." Zhuang Xiaolin raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Exusiai, we still have a mission." Seeing that the two were about to start chatting, Texas cut things off in time and whispered a reminder into Exusiai's ear.

"Oh, sorry, Zhuang Xiaolin. Let's talk next time. I'm at Penguin Logistics' base in central Lungmen. Here's my account." Exusiai scratched her head, the halo above her head glowing slightly brighter as she took out something resembling a cellphone and held it out to Zhuang Xiaolin.

"Sorry, I don't have a phone."

"Ah... right, that's fine. I'll come find you next time." Exusiai paused for a moment before recovering and quickly trying to reassure him.

"What mission are you doing? Can I come along and watch?" Zhuang Xiaolin did not particularly care about Exusiai's reassurance, since he had not been hurt by it in the first place. What he cared about more was the mission they were about to carry out.

As the saying went, anyone who skipped a spectacle was a fool. Chinese people loved watching excitement, and taking a few benefits for themselves while the excitement unfolded was not uncommon either.

As a proper Chinese man, Zhuang Xiaolin was deeply familiar with this custom.

"Texas, is that okay?" Exusiai asked Texas, but judging by her movements, she had already pulled Zhuang Xiaolin in. It sounded less like a question and more like a courtesy notice.

"Do as you like." Texas replied with two indifferent words before walking ahead.

"Yay, let's go." Exusiai cheered, calling Zhuang Xiaolin over as they followed Texas toward the other side of the slums, closer to central Lungmen.