Where Had She Offended the Boss?

"Damn, Chips, I think I discovered something incredible."

After returning from her mission, Jiu De Mayi immediately delivered shocking intelligence to Su Enxi. "Would you believe it? That Chen Motong from the Chen Family is actually a clone."

"Oh."

"Hey, Chip Girl, why are you so calm? When did you find out?"

Without even looking up, Su Enxi clicked her tongue. She was hammering furiously at her keyboard. Billions passed through her hands every minute; bookkeeping kept her extremely busy. Jiu De Mayi, meanwhile, had finished her mission and insisted on chatting with her while work had turned her brain to mush.

"It's just cloning technology. What's so surprising about that? Aren't the Chen Family's other children all artificially inseminated babies? I ran the numbers. With the medical resources the Chen Family controls, I wouldn't believe they lacked the nerve to clone someone."

"Look, they even used electric torture. The poor girl screamed so loudly. After interrogating her and getting no answers, they wiped her memories and sent her back. Yet they still honored her as the Chen Family Eldest Miss. How ironic!"

Jiu De Mayi shook her head. During her training under her ninja master, she had endured pain training far more brutal than Nono's. But how could anyone expect an inexperienced, delicate eldest miss to be that tough?

"What's so surprising about that? The Chen Family probably thinks clones don't have human rights!"

"Come to think of it, wasn't it the boss who deliberately arranged for that girl to go there, which got her tortured? Hey, Chips, do you think this Chen Motong offended the boss somewhere?... Wait, can you not answer with 'what's so surprising about that' again?"

Japanese ninja master Jiu De Mayi admitted that she did not quite get the humor of that classic crosstalk routine.

"..." Su Enxi finally shifted her gaze away from the screen, her lips moving twice. "How about you ask the boss yourself next time what exactly is going on between him and Chen Motong?"

"Do I look like someone who enjoys courting death? Come on, we're not the boss's darling little helpers... Just like you, I've always been very self-aware about being a tool."

"Just like me? Well then, thank heaven and earth, thank fate for letting us meet..."

Su Enxi nodded and casually hummed a couple of lines before continuing, "Oh, right. I've already investigated the evidence of the Chen Family researching Death Servants—the Boar Neo you mentioned..."

"That fast? Aren't you busy handling business?"

Su Enxi half-reclined in her office chair, spread her arms, and leaned back in a tactical retreat. Her eyes, sore from staring at the monitor for so long, slowly closed as she rested them. In a relaxed tone, she concluded:

"There was barely anything to investigate! That Boar Neo was a student expelled from Cassell College in 1999 as a 'scum of the Secret Party.' My people asked around Rio de Janeiro a little, and they learned that this guy had made a fortune trafficking drugs and people there. He's already become a major boss of several gangs in Rio!"

"Ooh, he made it big in just a few years? Pretty arrogant, huh? The Secret Party can tolerate that? The Executive Department isn't sending anyone to deal with him?"

"Heh heh, what would sending people accomplish? For that kid to climb so fast, he must be working under some big shot. There's a huge tree above him acting as his umbrella! Only when the tree falls will the monkeys scatter. If the people above haven't been brought down, who has time to worry about a small fry like him?"

The two chatted about all sorts of things, but neither put any more effort into investigating Boar Neo's protector. After all, they worked for the boss, not the Secret Party. How many parasites the Secret Party had, whether its great dragon-slaying cause would ultimately succeed or fail—none of that had the slightest thing to do with them.

Right now, the boss had told them to help his major client head east to deal with the Chen Family, so they would never go west.

The major clients were still in a meeting.

Zhou Yuxuan stood silently at attention in a corner of the main hall. Faint sounds of argument drifted over from afar. Wa Lord was meeting with the invited head of the Bai Family.

Zhou Yuxuan's current place was originally a guard post. In the past, he would usually wait beside Wa Lord in the center of the hall, but that position had now been taken by Emiya.

Zhou Yuxuan had nothing to complain about. The capable rose and the mediocre fell; this was the unspoken rule Wa Lord had established after reforming the family.

Zhou Yuxuan had not originally followed Wa Lord because he was capable. On the contrary, when he had been selected, he had possessed only one virtue: he followed the rules rigidly. That met the family elders' highest-priority screening criteria.

Zhou Yuxuan still remembered Wa Lord's first time entering the main hall for a family meeting. Having just inherited the position of family head, she had been surrounded by a group of family elders whom he considered utterly untouchable.

Back then, the meeting procedures in the main hall were complicated. During the first two hours, attendants had to be arranged to clean the hall, lay carpets, burn incense to ward off evil, and then Wa Lord and the family elders would enter in sedan chairs amid the faint fragrance of incense, accompanied by two orchestras playing wind and string instruments.

After the higher-ups came all the other family members, lined up in rows and guided forward in orderly sequence by the ceremonial heralds before the hall gates. Everyone stood or sat beneath the morning's cold wind and the golden radiance spilling from the sunlight, each with different appearances and bearing.

Zhou Yuxuan, now a mature young man, had been a fifteen-year-old boy standing among them at the time.

Wa Lord was now an exquisitely carved porcelain doll, and back then... she had still been a porcelain doll.

The first time Wa Lord sat regally in that magnificent hall, she maintained a solemn expression with the bearing of someone long trained by admonishment. Every movement she made was watched and corrected by the family elders beside her.

Fifteen-year-old Zhou Yuxuan likewise only dared to strictly observe "Zhou rites" in the hall—keeping his eyes lowered without looking around, standing and saluting with rigid precision... Since childhood, he had been taught that the Nuwa Clan held an exalted position within the Zhou Family and were the hybrid Sect Masters of the Jingchu region, and so on.

When family matters were presented for review, he saw Wa Lord often consult the family elders with a sidelong glance. The elders would remain silent in tacit approval, and Wa Lord would nod one by one, as if she were deciding the great affairs of the world with a wave of her hand. Back then, if Zhou Yuxuan had not looked carefully, he would have thought she truly resembled a porcelain doll seated in the family head's position, yet not to be underestimated.

Only after confirming that the family head was familiar with her duties would the family elders gradually "let go" and return to retire in the underground palace. Wa Lord appeared to hold great power, but whenever major matters arose, the family elders' stance remained unavoidable.

Only after Zhou Yuxuan began working under Wa Lord did he gradually understand her difficult situation. Under the elders' close suppression, she had put on an inherently seamless mask of intimidation. It was the product of the clan's closed training, allowing Wa Lord to project an aura beyond her apparent age.

Perhaps beneath that mask, Wa Lord was merely a cute and clever little girl. But having occupied a high position for so long, her authority had taken shape. The mask had fused tightly with Wa Lord's genius performance and could not be removed, forming an iron-shell barrier around her personality.

Zhou Yuxuan did not understand how Emiya had managed it. Perhaps when Wa Lord first met Emiya, she had realized that she could finally use this chance to break that invisible barrier?

Just like the day Wa Lord clearly asked to go out for the first time in her life, and Emiya truly arranged everything properly. When Zhou Yuxuan saw Wa Lord touring the streets, she had genuinely laughed and beamed with delight, shedding her mask after so long and returning to her true self, her little face overflowing with sunlight.

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