My Sister Became the Most Loyal Fan

Early the next morning.

Su Bai opened his eyes, and a sharp wave of hunger made his vision go dark for a moment.

He dragged his limp footsteps to the kitchen and opened the fridge.

Inside, there was only half a bottle of expired milk that should have been thrown out long ago and two shrivelled ham sausages.

He peeled a sausage with a blank expression and swallowed it down in two bites.

He picked up the milk and sniffed it; a pungent, sour odor went straight to his head.

Forget it, this taste was still better than a Monster's blood, he tilted his head back and chugged it straight down.

With something in his stomach, his physical strength finally managed to recover a bit.

He headed toward the entryway to get ready to work out.

Su Xiaoxiao's bedroom door was still tightly shut, and there was not the slightest sound from inside.

Right where he usually changed his shoes, a pair of washed old slippers sat neatly.

That was the pair he had brought back covered in mud after transforming last night.

Su Bai lowered his gaze and looked at them for a few seconds.

He didn't say anything, pushed the door open, and walked out.

Su Bai headed to the CBD in the center of Xinghai City.

Inside a deserted, cheap bubble tea shop downstairs at Xinghai Tower.

Su Bai sat in a corner seat with a four-yuan iced fresh lemonade placed in front of him.

Sitting opposite him was a teenage girl wearing an oversized anime hoodie.

The girl sported messy short hair and was biting down hard on a straw.

Her hands were flying fast across her phone screen, executing combo moves.

She was Su Bai's most trusted lackey and part-time typist, Lin Guoguo.

"Dead, dead, stop feeding, hurry up and defend the high ground!"

The miserable sound effect of the base exploding came from the screen, and Lin Guoguo irritably slammed her phone face-down on the table.

Su Bai pushed a tightly wrapped kraft paper bag across to her.

Inside was the high-value Blood Curse Species Abyssal Core.

"Go to the 55th floor and find a man named Black Crow."

Su Bai took a sip of the teeth-achingly sour lemonade. "The bottom line is forty-five thousand, and I'll give you five thousand as an errand fee when it's done."

Hearing the number five thousand, Lin Guoguo's bloodshot eyes instantly lit up.

She snatched the paper bag from the table and hugged it to her chest.

"Yes sir! Leave it to me, I am absolutely top-notch at negotiating prices!"

Su Bai leaned back against the plastic chair.

"Say everything according to the script I taught you. I'll wait right here and won't interfere at all."

The 55th floor of Xinghai Tower.

The shops here outwardly hung signs for various kinds of investment consulting.

Lin Guoguo walked into a secluded, dimly lit shop.

A man wearing an old-style bandit hood sat behind the counter.

He was precisely the intelligence broker and scalper, Black Crow.

Lin Guoguo dumped the paper bag upside down, and the glowing crystal rolled onto a mottled old-fashioned scale.

Black Crow picked up a magnifying glass, leaned in, and scrutinized it for a moment.

The man's originally casual tone abruptly changed.

The shrewd flavor of a professional merchant leaked through.

"An F-rank Tier 2 Blood Curse Species crystal, exceptional quality, ninety-eight percent integrity. Little girl, the provenance of this thing isn't clean, is it?"

Lin Guoguo pressed her hands against the tall glass counter.

Without blinking or blushing, she parried, "Whether the provenance is clean or not doesn't matter, you only need to see how much it's worth."

Black Crow let out a dry, cold laugh.

"Thirty thousand, take it or leave it. I've already factored in the channel fees and hush money."

Black Crow leaned back into his swivel chair.

"If you think it's too low, you can also take it to the Monster Hunting Bureau's official exchange channels. Of course, the authorities will definitely press you on where a commoner like you managed to get a high-tier Abyssal Core."

Lin Guoguo didn't hesitate for even half a second.

She pulled out her phone directly and opened the internal market page of the Monster Hunter Mutual Aid App.

She shoved the glowing screen right against the eyeholes of Black Crow's hood.

"A complete Tier 2 F-rank Abyssal Core has an official listed recycling price of fifty thousand, and the average anonymous online consignment price is forty-eight thousand."

"What?!" Lin Guoguo widened her eyes. "You're offering thirty thousand? Are you slaughtering me like a freshman who's never seen money?"

Black Crow stared at the screen, and the air inside the counter went quiet for a moment.

He let out another low, deep chuckle.

"Interesting. Fine, let's make friends today."

Black Crow tapped the desktop. "Forty-five thousand is the highest price I can give. But there's a condition: bring good merchandise to me first in the future."

Lin Guoguo put away her phone.

"Deal. But I only want strictly safe cash, not a single penny less."

Black Crow bent down.

He dragged a black iron box out from the bottom of the counter and pushed it open.

Inside, stacks of bundled Federal Coins were neatly arranged.

He counted out forty-five thousand and pushed it across.

Lin Guoguo skillfully loaded it into her large canvas bag and zipped it up.

Just as she turned to leave.

"Little girl, one last warning for you."

Black Crow's voice carried a hint of a warning. "There was a huge mess over in the West District last night, and the Monster Hunting Bureau is investigating like crazy."

Black Crow tapped the glass counter with his knuckles.

"They re-checked all recoverable surveillance footage overnight. You'd better pray this Abyssal Core has nothing to do with what happened over there, and keep a low profile lately."

Lin Guoguo paused in her tracks.

She had no idea where Su Bai went last night, and she acted extremely natural.

Besides, she was just an internet-addicted gaming booster, so how could she have the ability to touch a major case like that?

Lin Guoguo walked out the door without looking back.

Only Black Crow was left in the storefront, letting out an extremely faint, soft hum from behind his hood.

Lin Guoguo threw the bag of money onto the table of the milk tea shop.

The two of them split the money with extreme satisfaction.

Su Bai took forty thousand to the nearby ATM to deposit it.

His first action was to open the student loan software backend on his phone.

He entered the repayment amount and clicked confirm payment without a shred of reluctance.

His phone vibrated briefly, and a green prompt box popped up on the screen.

"Repayment successful. Remaining amount due for this period: 0.00 yuan."

Su Bai stood in the cold wind of the bustling commercial street.

He gripped his burning phone tightly and inhaled a deep breath of the polluted vehicle exhaust from the city center.

The heavy bills that had weighed down his back for over two months were finally cleared.

Yet he knew he had no extra time to celebrate this brief freedom.

The brief ecstasy lasted all of five seconds.

He quickly exited that page, his fingers expertly tapping open the delivery platform's order-grabbing backend.

His living expenses were still unsettled.

The upcoming semester's miscellaneous fees that his sister had to pay were still a gap.

He certainly couldn't expect to run into lone high-tier Monsters every single day.

The mechanical female voice broadcasted new nearby delivery orders, and life had to go on.

Returning to Xingfuli Apartment.

The moment Su Bai opened the security door, the living room television was playing a boring variety show.

Su Xiaoxiao was curled up entirely in the worn fabric sofa.

The girl lowered her head to furiously scroll through her phone, not even lifting her eyelids when she heard the door open.

"Hajige! Did you actually look at today's trending news searches!"

Su Xiaoxiao bounced up abruptly from the sofa, gesturing wildly.

"A super powerful mysterious person appeared in the West District last night! The elites of the Monster Hunting Bureau were all beaten flat!"

Her cheeks were flushed with excitement and her speaking speed was lightning-fast.

"And then she suddenly dropped out of the sky, cleaving the Monster into symmetrical halves using just a single move! The whole internet is going crazy sharing it!"