Chapter 232
by Golden DragonChapter 232: Snake Shield Bureau
“Along the riverbank, you can see creatures similar to groundhogs — those are beavers. They like to eat tree bark and grass roots. To avoid predators, they use their teeth to gnaw down trees to build dams. But their brains aren’t particularly bright, you’ll often see beavers crushed to death by trees they failed to dodge in time. If you’re lucky, you might even come across one that wasn’t killed but can’t move — truly a gift from nature…”
Mi Xiaoliu sat quietly on a small stool, listening to Gwen tell stories. But for some reason, she shrank her neck slightly.
Still dressed in casual clothes with a hair clip, she looked like a neutral-style pretty girl. If you didn’t look closely, you wouldn’t be able to tell she was the sickly, gentle Xiao Mi.
“Xiao Mi, suppose you and your companion are being chased by a bear, and you have a gun with only one bullet. What’s the best way to shoot to most likely escape from the bear?”
Mi Xiaoliu shook her head.
Gwen patted her on the head: “Of course, you shoot your companion in the knee.”
Mi Xiaoliu tilted her head up and looked at her.
“Haha.”
Gwen reached out and pinched the collagen in her face into a ball.
“She’ll take that seriously,” Okulet pulled her aside.
Good — the scar-faced girl seemed to have improved Misha’s mood quite a bit.
He handed Mi Xiaoliu a wind-up frog to let her tinker with and casually added, “Don’t put it in your mouth.” With that, Okulet successfully sent her off.
He had investigated Gwen — and to be honest, the information was really quite far-fetched.
A hunter from the Malgebaaz tropical rainforest — that was like ten thousand miles from here.
In places where people live close to nature, folks go missing from time to time, and no one really pays attention.
Maybe she had been avoiding Supreme Heaven’s pursuit. In the past six months, everywhere she passed had been shrouded in dark clouds. That typhoon had just been a byproduct of a battle with Easter’s pursuers — with her level of control, she could create storms, but not cancel them.
If we’re calling her a “good person,” she probably doesn’t qualify — Okulet even suspected she might be manic.
On the one hand, she insulted everyone equally except Mi Xiaoliu. On the other hand, her actions spoke volumes.
Her intentions were good — for example, a month ago in Uma City, she stopped a school bullying incident between girls.
A group of girls, along with a few boys, forced another girl to take off her clothes and filmed it with their phones.
Her method of stopping it was somewhat brutal, she grabbed the bullies by the hair and slammed their heads into the wall one by one until they were unrecognizable. She even scared off the girl who had been bullied.
Aside from that, during her activities, she had committed violent acts against non-Easter personnel 27 times — ranging from slapping to gouging out eyes.
She used violence to combat violence. According to her, she was enforcing justice. When Tian Xing Dao once tried to extend her an olive branch, she cursed them until they cried.
That middle-aged man she had kicked earlier had it even worse — the last few kicks were aimed right at his third leg, with no restraint whatsoever.
Hmm… her file says she also has LV2-level physical enhancement.
Also, four months ago, an air force commander was struck by lightning and killed — it’s unclear whether that was her assassinating someone from Easter.
Okulet handed her a bottle of mineral water but didn’t ask anything.
Gwen took it, but didn’t drink it — she only drank water she had boiled herself.
“Easter members weren’t all born into it or recruited from the outside. There were also experimental subjects like Xiao Mi who were later converted into full members.”
“To ensure loyalty, they had a department specifically for brainwashing. Emily belonged to that department.”
She stared at Mi Xiaoliu playing with the wind-up frog in the courtyard.
After winding it up, that silly kid actually went to the lake to release it back into the wild.
“Besides that, some of the more important but unstable test subjects would also be assigned brainwashers. I happened to be one of them. And unfortunately, I had a… very complicated relationship with my brainwasher.”
Truly complicated — who in real life could accept a yandere lesbian?
“Actually, I’ve always resented Xiao Mi. Because after what happened to her, letting go of the person who killed my sister is just… impossible.”
Resentment is part of human nature.
When a child plays outside with a friend, and that friend falls and hits their head and starts crying, the friend’s mom comes running. Even if it wasn’t your fault, you still feel a little guilty and avoid looking at her.
When a family member dies in surgery, even if you’re calm on the surface, deep down many people feel a weird, irrational resentment — that kind of feeling later grows into medical disputes.
“So I’ve always harbored thoughts like ‘pretend to be nice to her, and stab her in the back when she lets her guard down.’ I don’t even know why I think like that.”
Maybe holding such thoughts while approaching her made her feel like her sister in heaven wouldn’t blame her.
Gwen spun the plastic label on the water bottle.
“But she never recognizes me, and it’s really frustrating. So I keep telling her stories, trying to win her over with steamed buns.”
Suddenly, Mi Xiaoliu lay down by the lake, stuck her head into the water, and reached in to fish something out.
Gwen rushed over and yanked her back, then smacked her twice on the butt.
“Damn it… seriously? Are you asking for it? Trying to drown yourself? Haven’t died enough yet?”
Mi Xiaoliu opened her hand, revealing the wind-up frog.
After getting wet, the frog lost traction and couldn’t hop — it just flailed its back legs in the water until it lost all energy and stopped moving.
It looked just like…
“Drowned.”
Mi Xiaoliu pulled out a piece of apple and tried to feed it.
No response.
Mi Xiaoliu looked at Okulet, then lowered her head. Her toes, exposed by the sandals she wore, curled up as she stood there, at a loss for what to do.
Okulet took the frog and twisted the wind-up mechanism on it.
The frog began hopping again.
Okulet successfully gained his daughter’s respect.
She had always been a good child.
Just like her sister, both were good children.
Gwen recalled the first day after the experiment on her had ended.
The Fifth Fractal, the person in charge of her brainwashing, had pushed a food cart to the prison gate. That lunatic kept calling her “darling” and even asked if the surgery had felt good.
Like a last meal for a death-row prisoner, she lifted the cover on the tray.
Inside lay a pair of blue eyeballs—organs that had just undergone experimentation, which she had borrowed to show Gwen.
It was an act driven purely by jealousy. Jealous that Xiao Mi was getting too close to Gwen.
Perhaps the Easter surgery had strengthened her powers. She lost control—so much that even the suppression cuffs couldn’t hold her back.
And then came the experiment subjects’ revolt.
“All the information on Easter members is on this one phone. It can’t be imported into any other device. If you want to look someone up, I can help you check.”
In other words, she had no intention of handing it over.
If Nikita hadn’t spilled the intel, she wouldn’t have even told them what she had.
Okulet frowned, neither agreeing nor objecting.
“How deeply have they infiltrated?”
“I’m afraid it’s far beyond your imagination.”
So it’s like the Snake Shield Bureau, huh?
“Let me use it. First, I want to check all the Level 5s in the Federation.”
“I don’t know who they all are.”
“No problem—I do.”
Subtext: he didn’t trust Gwen either—he would do the search himself, without letting her see.
The only question was whether some people might not be listed at all.
“I’m not a cop anymore. I won’t arrest you this time. What are you planning to do from now on?”
“Keep killing Easter members, obviously. That’s pretty much the only value I’ve got left in life. As long as Xiao Mi can go home, I’ll be at peace.”
…
Because Gwen had low control over her powers, the typhoon continued out over the sea for another week after leaving Metropolis.
Besides cold and heavy rain, there wasn’t much else—plus, people got a holiday.
While others worried about the safety of Metropolis residents, all they cared about was how many days off they’d get.
Nikita went to prison. For the Lasvedo family, it was a major scandal. No one knew whether Easter would protect him or silence him—but either way, he was now under close surveillance.
Then there was the old man—every morning when he woke up, he’d often find Mi Xiaoliu standing in his room at some unknown hour, quietly staring at him without doing anything.
At first, the old man thought she might be curious about his beard or something. But she just stood there watching, and as soon as he woke up, she’d run away.
He figured his kids had sent her in to wake him, so he didn’t think much of it.
Until Mi Xiaoliu’s cousin, who had a big mouth, jokingly said, “Maybe Misha checks every morning to see whether you’re dead yet.”
The old man’s face darkened, and two more people ended up hanging from the newly chosen tree trunk in the yard.
Really, it was just that she had recently been through a funeral. A child would naturally be afraid of such things. And just a few days before, Okulet had said that when the old man died, he’d leave some inheritance to Mi Xiaoliu…
Finally, there was the thief girl.
“Miss, get up.”
Wearing a deadpan “Sima face,” she pushed Mi Xiaoliu awake.
She had now completely sold herself into the Lasvedo family—room and board included, occasional bonuses, no salary.
If she had known this family were the local tyrants of Metropolis, she never would’ve come to report in the first place.
[Translator’s Note: See the index page for this Novel if you want to see the Amazon Link for the eBooks.]
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