"Hand out flyers?"
Zhao Xing'er blinked at the thick stack of flyers.
She had thought working at a cultivation office meant slaying demons and protecting the community. Instead, the moment she walked through the door that morning, Yue Wen had greeted her with a beaming smile and assigned her first task: go outside and hand out all these flyers.
Several large, eye-catching lines read, "New team, great service at low prices! Yue Family Cultivation Office-the office for River City's own!"
Just looking at it was a little embarrassing.
"Aren't I an exorcism assistant?" she asked quietly.
"That's right." Yue Wen smiled. "To perform exorcisms, we need clients first. But the biggest problem our office has right now is that we don't have any. If we want to grow bigger and stronger, we have to get our name out there first. Go get them, Xing'er. I've got high hopes for you."
"All right." Zhao Xing'er could only nod, gather up the flyers, and head outside.
This girl was pretty good, Yue Wen thought. She seemed quiet and gentle, with a nice temperament. Silently, he gave her the highest praise a boss could bestow on an employee.
Easy to boss around.
Originally, he would have had to do all these odd jobs himself. Now that he had an assistant, he could safely dump all the flyers on Zhao Xing'er and save himself plenty of time.
He would check how Zhao Xing'er was doing in a little while. If she proved reliable, he planned to head out, get that half of a black-and-gold skull appraised, and ask around about the materials needed to cultivate the Chaos Dragon Aura.
Meanwhile, after leaving the office, Zhao Xing'er went to a nearby street corner where there was more foot traffic.
She stood there holding the flyers, looking distinctly reluctant.
Although she was too embarrassed to stop people, she was so pretty that she naturally attracted the attention of those around her. Many passersby approached her to strike up a conversation and see what the flyers said without her needing to offer them one.
After she had spent a while waiting for passersby to take flyers, the roar of an engine suddenly approached at speed. A little blue sports car pulled up right in front of her.
The window rolled down, and a young man with dyed red hair leaned out, grinning at her. "Hey, beautiful. You're really pretty. Can I get your contact info?"
"No, thanks." Zhao Xing'er shook her head coolly.
"Handing out flyers?" The redhead looked her over again. "What for?"
"A cultivation office," Zhao Xing'er replied.
"Haha, perfect." The redhead pulled out his phone. "Let me add you, then. I'll get in touch if I have any work for you."
"Just add the number on here." Zhao Xing'er handed him a flyer. "It's our boss's number."
"Aw, come on. I want your personal contact info." The redhead gave her a cheeky grin.
"There's really no need." Zhao Xing'er remained firm.
The redhead's face suddenly darkened. "Are you trying to disrespect me? Do you know who I-"
Zhao Xing'er looked back at him expressionlessly. "Go get your car fixed first. Whatever you want to say can wait until afterward."
"Get my car fixed?" The redhead froze. "I just bought it. What needs fixing?"
"Hah!" Before he had finished speaking, Zhao Xing'er's brows suddenly drew tight. Red light erupted from her eyes, and her features twisted fiercely for an instant. She stepped into a lunge, twisted her waist, drew back her right shoulder, gathered her strength, and threw a punch!
BOOM-!
A blast of force shot from her fist, streaked with red light. In an instant, it swallowed the rear half of the sports car with a thunderous explosion.
The redhead felt a chill against the back of his head. His eyes twitched, and when he looked up at the rearview mirror, he saw the crosswalk on the ground directly behind him.
That single punch had blasted away the entire rear half of his car!
Only the two front seats remained. Sports car seats were low to begin with, so now he looked as though he were sitting on a sofa with a steering wheel attached.
"Y-you, you..." He stared at Zhao Xing'er in terror, unable to form a coherent sentence.
He had seen her handing out flyers on the street, looking so delicate and frail, and assumed she would be easy to push around.
Who could have known this woman was inhumanly fierce?
She had turned his sports car straight into a chaise longue.
"Don't want to get your car fixed?" Zhao Xing'er shifted her gaze slightly again. "Then we can talk after you get back from the hospital."
"Mommy-!"
His voice broke into a sob of terror. Clutching the steering wheel, the redhead scrambled out and fled down the road as though his feet had wings, even faster than he had been driving.
Only after watching that tuft of red hair disappear into the distance did Zhao Xing'er let out a deep breath. She composed herself, took out her phone, and sent a message. "Girl, I messed up. I lost control again and hit a car."
"Haha, what's the big deal about taking a cab? Don't worry about the cost. How much was it? I'll reimburse you." The reply came quickly.
"Can you afford that?" Zhao Xing'er glanced at the car. "It looks like the latest Blue Tiger SUV. Probably a million or so."
The reply: "?"
Yue Wen stayed in the office for a while, then prepared to check on Zhao Xing'er outside and head out to run his errands.
He had just stood up when Zhao Xing'er led a dejected-looking middle-aged man inside. "Boss, we've got a client."
"Oh?" Yue Wen's eyes lit up. "You've already got results?"
Zhao Xing'er smiled gently. "He said he had something he wanted to consult us about, so I brought him straight back."
"Please, have a seat." Yue Wen hurried to welcome him as well.
The man looked around forty and was somewhat thin. He wore a light gray jacket, its right sleeve hanging empty; he was missing an arm. Stubble covered his face, dark circles ringed his eyes, and his gaze was filled with anxiety.
"Um..." The man sat down tentatively. His first question was, "This young lady told me your fees are very low, right?"
"That's right." Yue Wen nodded at once. "Our office specializes in affordable service for ordinary people."
"I... I really can't afford much. I recently lost an arm in an accident, and I lost my job too..." The man's voice was quiet. "Would five hundred for the job be all right?"
"Of course." Yue Wen agreed without hesitation. "Solving your problem is what matters most. Tell us what happened first."
Listening nearby, Zhao Xing'er looked at Yue Wen with a subtle change in her eyes.
Five hundred for a job, split fifty-fifty, meant two hundred and fifty each. Never mind hiring a cultivator to take action-that might not even cover the gas if they had to drive very far.
The fact that Yue Wen had agreed to this showed that money wasn't what mattered to him.
The only possible reason was that he possessed a chivalrous heart, something very rare in this day and age.
Otherwise, would he really have a hobby of beating up evil spirits?
At that moment, Yue Wen's humanity shone a little brighter in her heart.
"My son is missing," the man began. "Over the past few days, he's been acting a little
strange. He kept shutting himself in his room and refusing to come out, saying some children had invited him to play games. I've had a lot going on lately, so I didn't notice at first. But this morning, I kept calling him to breakfast and got no response. When I went into his room, I found he was gone."
"Was there anything unusual in the room?" Yue Wen asked.
"No. Everything was fine the night before, and then he disappeared this morning. The doors and windows at home were all untouched. I don't know what happened..." He lowered his head in self-reproach. "I haven't been paying enough attention to him."
"Please don't be too upset. We'll do our best to find him," Zhao Xing'er reassured him.
"If it was an evil spirit, sneaking into someone's home to steal a child was certainly bold." Yue Wen considered it. "You don't hear about that sort of thing very often."
"Actually... it might not have been an evil spirit." The man paused, then added, "There's someone I suspect."
"Hmm?" Yue Wen looked at him. "Who?"
"The owner of the factory where I worked." Anger crept into the man's expression as he brought it up. "A while ago, I lost my arm at work because a machine malfunctioned. With enough money for the surgery, I could hire a cultivator to reattach it. But he keeps dragging his feet and refusing to pay my compensation."
"I don't dare sue him. He has underworld connections, and he's often used underhanded methods against his competitors before. I thought that if I begged him enough, he might pay me the compensation he owes me. Today was supposed to be our final negotiation, and my son disappeared last night."
"I suspect he might have hired someone to abduct my son somehow, so he could use him to threaten me."
"That's possible," Yue Wen said with a nod.
Evil spirits that dared break into homes within the city to steal children were exceedingly rare.
In the city, demons hid in the shadows, terrified of being discovered, while nightmare spirits followed their own patterns of behavior rather than acting at random.
Their methods might be undetectable to ordinary people, but once a disappearance was determined to be the work of an evil spirit, the Supernatural Affairs Bureau would intervene. At that point, the situation would become far more serious. Whether or not the child could be recovered, the evil spirit responsible would certainly be destroyed.
So in cases like this, human involvement was often more likely.
"We agreed to negotiate tonight. Could you come with me and keep me safe? If he really does have my son, I can give up the compensation, but I have to get my child back," the man said.
"Of course," Zhao Xing'er reassured him gently. "Don't worry. If they kidnapped your child to threaten you, they probably won't hurt him."
"Who knows what he's capable of?" The man frowned. "When have any of these bosses ever been decent people?"
Zhao Xing'er nodded. "Fair point."
Yue Wen: "?"
Before you continue