Your Body Is Mine! A Thirty-Year Debt!

W-What happened?

What was going on?

Skye listened to the sound of porcelain shattering,

her mind filled with questions.

Instinctively sensing danger, she prepared to steady herself and retreat,

but then something even more maddening happened.

The girl suddenly felt the support behind her give way,

and the pillar supporting her body actually fell backward?????

Pillars could fall too????

What???

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

In the darkness,

the girl vaguely heard a series of collisions behind her,

followed by all kinds of crackling sounds as objects hit the ground and shattered.

Everything that had happened in that short span of time instantly made the girl's mind crash,

and though she instinctively wanted to run, she found her feet frozen helplessly in place.

Suddenly,

Click.

A light switched on,

and the entire hall lit up. The blinding light forced Skye to squint.

Once she adjusted to the light,

the sight before her left Skye utterly dumbfounded.

What she had thought was some mysterious space was actually a huge tent.

What she had thought were stone pillars standing throughout the space were actually round wooden display stands over two meters tall.

What made her heart pound even harder was that every stand had held exquisite porcelain,

the kind that was obviously worth a fortune.

Her mood slowly sank to rock bottom.

Skye turned her vacant gaze behind her,

and sure enough, behind her lay a row of toppled display stands and porcelain shards scattered all over the floor.

"Who... who's there?"

A young man's voice rang in Skye's ears.

She pursed her lips,

her face on the verge of tears as she looked at the three figures approaching her.

Skye understood that she seemed to have gotten herself into trouble!

Yu Xian walked past the squatting Skye,

picked up a porcelain shard in front of her, and said with a pained expression and a trembling voice,

"Th-This is Ming Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain I painstakingly bought at a British royal auction!"

"N-Nooo~"

He picked up another shard with gold trim, pain flashing through his eyes.

"This is William Hogarth's Royal Delft porcelain, an unparalleled treasure from the seventeenth-century Tulip Duchy."

"And this—"

Yu Xian trembled as he picked up a dark green shard, his expression becoming even more grief-stricken.

"This is celadon from the Yue Kiln of the Tang Dynasty, a treasure from a thousand years ago! Its market value is at least eight figures!"

"Uh, Captain...

Oh no, Captain, even your favorite Adriatic Republic 'Moon Goddess's Tears' crystal goblet

has shattered too!"

Carter watched Yu Xian's reaction, a beat too slow,

then pointed at a pale blue crystal goblet that had broken in half on the floor, her face full of shock.

Ignoring Catalina's terrible acting, Yu Xian paced around Skye, occasionally picking up another shard,

while continuously muttering, "This one is worth ten thousand dollars!"

"This one is worth fifty thousand dollars!"

"And this one is worth seventy thousand dollars!"

"..."

Skye watched this bizarre scene.

Given her years of scraping by at the bottom of society, if she still could not tell that she had been set up,

then she would have wasted all those years.

Thinking of this,

Skye recalled the strange feeling she had experienced these past few days while gathering information on the "Winter Lord."

Whenever she was about to become lost and confused, it seemed as though some force was always quietly helping her,

allowing her to uncover more clues about the Winter Lord.

Then she remembered the scrap of paper in her pocket, burned down to almost nothing and containing only an address.

How could she not realize that she had been thoroughly manipulated?

But,

what she could not understand was,

how exactly had she offended them?

Why had they gone to such lengths to trap her?

These shattered items were all priceless treasures.

They had actually used them just to deal with her?

And there were hidden cameras all around, leaving her absolutely no way out!

Was it only because she had investigated the Winter Lord?

Did those upper-class people refuse to allow someone like her to touch their taboos?

Thinking of this, Skye fell silent.

The clues she had painstakingly found had actually been deliberately fed to her.

Thinking of the inhuman abuse she might suffer next,

and that there might no longer be a girl named Skye in this world after today,

sorrow welled up within her.

Why was all of this happening?

Why did the world have to treat her so cruelly?

Her biological parents had abandoned her.

The children at the orphanage had despised her.

She had struggled so hard to grow up and had seen far too much ugly scheming in life,

seen far too many injustices and resentments.

She only wanted to survive.

She only wanted to know something about her biological parents.

She only wanted to know the truth hidden away in this world.

What had she done wrong?

God, what would become of her?

As for resisting?

The vicious skeletal soldiers flashed through her mind,

and she had no desire to escape.

Forget it.

Let it be.

How much worse could things get?

At worst, she would merely jump from one hell into another.

Seeing that the mood had been built up enough, Yu Xian gathered the porcelain shards

and placed them in front of the silent, downcast Skye.

"Hey, who are you?

How did you get in here?

Don't you know this is private property?

And this time, you've committed a serious offense, understand?"

As expected, upon hearing the voice opposite her,

Skye, whose excitement before coming here and fear upon seeing the vicious Dragon Tooth Warriors had both vanished,

raised her head to look at Yu Xian's grief-stricken face and said lifelessly,

"What do you want?"

"My life?"

"Did I touch some taboo in this world that I wasn't supposed to touch?"

"..."

Yu Xian watched Skye ramble nonsense and secretly wondered,

Hiss, did I go too far?

But it was not a big problem.

The girl was just too surprised right now.

I'll compensate you later, poor Skye.

"Ahem, well, nameless young lady!

You damaged quite a lot of things!

I made a rough calculation, and altogether it should come to 1.1 million dollars.

You'll have to pay for that!"

"Of course, you don't look particularly wealthy,

so I'll reluctantly help ease your burden a little.

Let's call it one million dollars!"

Skye's lips twitched, her face completely drained of color. "I don't have that much money!"

"No money?"

"No money is simply wonderful!"

Yu Xian instantly produced a contract from nowhere and placed it before her.

"Then, come on!"

"Sign this thirty-year contract and work to pay off your debt! From now on, your body is mine."

That's right. My team of useful pawns has gained another member.

I'm one step closer to my glorious path of slacking off.

And besides,

Y Squad now had four people—Yu Xian, Catalina, Medea, and Skye—just enough to make up a mahjong table.

Hehe, one of the goals I've been longing for has finally been achieved.

Hah, men. He only has his eye on my looks, doesn't he?

Skye looked at him with lifeless eyes,

at the clear black pupils in his gaze.

She had a feeling that she had no secrets at all before this man.

There were now two paths before her.

One was to sign the contract and become this guy's dog.

The other was to refuse to sign. He had not explicitly stated what would happen if she refused,

but Skye could roughly guess. It would not end well either way—prison or death?

But she could not be trapped, and she could not die.

There were still too many, too many things she wanted to do.

Her biological parents, the world's secrets, and the anomaly within her body...

Skye bit her lip. In that instant,

it felt as though she recalled her entire life.

Tears glimmered in Skye's eyes as she stretched out her hands,

trembling as she accepted the contract Yu Xian had placed before her.

Without reading it closely, she scribbled her name across it.

Once she had signed,

Skye summoned the last of her courage and spoke to him,

"You, you can't force me when I don't want to!!!"

"Otherwise, I'd rather die!"

This was the girl's final stubbornness.

At the same time, Yu Xian's voice and the girl's voice rang out together, indistinguishable as they blended into one.

"Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Y Squad. I'm the captain—Yu Xian!"

Skye stared blankly at the hand Yu Xian held out before her,

then at the smiling Yu Xian, Catalina, Medea, Fatty...

For some reason,

all she wanted to do now was cry!

PS:

Let's take stock of this book's biggest flaws and most boring plotlines so far!

Any big shots willing to take it over?