Chapter 156

Chapter 156: I Know

“Ahem! Can you stop following us?” Gloria turned her head to glance at Mi Xiaoliu.  

The girl dressed in male clothing said nothing, maintaining a distance of five or six meters behind Gloria. If Gloria walked, she walked, if Gloria stopped, she stopped.  

Even though Heli hadn’t installed any surveillance on Mi Xiaoliu—even if she ran off to play somewhere else, Heli wouldn’t know—she still stubbornly followed as instructed.  

Gloria turned around and stomped her feet rapidly in place, successfully scaring Mi Xiaoliu into turning tail and running.  

But when she realized Gloria wasn’t actually chasing her, she circled back and continued trailing from afar.  

Gloria rolled her eyes.  

She didn’t want to show her bad side in front of Misha, or else she would’ve just scared Mi Xiaoliu off with intimidation.  

Due to the recent surge in infections, the streets were eerily empty, with many restaurants closed. In such an environment, even the sight of a small figure in a hazmat suit didn’t seem too out of place.  

Though she had sneaked Misha out, Gloria was still aware of the risks and deliberately chose less crowded routes.  

Now, the streets were practically deserted. Aside from those forced out by necessity, even healthy people were unwilling to venture outside at such a critical time.  

“Ahem! Misha, look at this.” Gloria picked up a stone-carved puppy from a roadside stall. “Doesn’t it look like our Nuomi when he was little?”  

The stall owner flinched at the sound of coughing, hurriedly pulling up his mask.  

These days, every cough carries who knows how many germs floating through the air. Even though some philanthropists had funded free hospital treatments, no one wanted to suffer through illness if they could avoid it.  

Especially when the coughing girl had a child in a hazmat suit standing beside her—didn’t that just prove how dangerous she was?  

“Mhm.” The girl inside the hazmat suit responded weakly.  

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?” Gloria crouched down in concern. “Don’t worry, Nuomi just hasn’t seen you in so long that he doesn’t remember you. Give him some time to adjust.”  

She thought Misha was upset about that.  

When Gloria reached out to hold her sister’s hand, the girl dodged.  

“I’m sorry, sis. It’s all my fault.” The hazmat-clad girl hung her head, guilt weighing heavily on her.  

“It’s fine. I should’ve been more careful.” Gloria patted the girl’s head.  

How could she bear to blame her little sister?  

“Sis… are you unhappy?” The little girl looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. “Do you not want to see me?”  

Gloria froze. “Of course not—ack! I’ve been so happy I can’t even sleep. Don’t overthink it.”  

She took her sister’s hand again and led her away.  

Behind them, the stall owner frantically sprayed disinfectant all around his area.  

“Why is that big brother following us?”  

“Ignore him. He’s got something wrong with his head.”  

“Oh…”  

Accompanied by the sound of coughing, the strange trio—a boy trailing two girls—headed toward the sparsely populated riverside. There were no entertainment facilities here, and fishing wasn’t allowed.  

The riverside sloped gently downward, leading to a man-made walking path.  

The space was too narrow for even toy vendors to set up stalls. Even in normal times, most locals rarely came here for walks. Despite the railings, the currents were dangerously fast, and waves occasionally crashed onto the path.  

Tourists sometimes ventured down to photograph the waves up close, while locals preferred to stay up above—photographing the tourists instead.  

Gloria’s coughing grew worse. With an average of two coughs for every three sentences, she could distinctly feel something lodged in her throat. Before leaving, the old lady had warned her to take her medicine soon, or else the tumor might rupture and ooze pus…  

Just the thought of it was disgusting.

“Misha, is there any drink you’d like… cough…? I’ll buy it for you.” Gloria crouched down to meet her at eye level.  

Back when Misha was still alive as a child, the two of them never needed to communicate in such an awkward posture.  

If Misha had lived, she would’ve grown quite tall by now.  

Before taking Misha out, Gloria had someone help change her hazmat suit. Only about half an hour had passed since they left, yet the transparent visor was already accumulating layers of discoloration—so much that it was nearly obstructing her vision.  

“Sweet Snow Joy!” The little girl raised her hands high.  

It was a juice drink extremely popular among children, known for its intense sweetness.  

“Alright, alright.” Gloria smiled and agreed, then turned around—her expression instantly shifting as she glared at Mi Xiaoliu. “Hey, brat… cough! Do you want anything to drink?”  

The favoritism was blatant.  

Mi Xiaoliu shook her head.  

She didn’t dare accept anything from Gloria.  

“Suit yourself. Wasn’t planning to buy you anything anyway… cough… Watch my sister for me. If even a single hair on her head is missing, I’ll boil you alive.” Gloria climbed the stairs back up the slope. She remembered there was a convenience store in a prefab shack right at the top.  

Mostly, she needed to buy bottled water to take her medicine. Hot water? She never bothered with that—human insides were already plenty warm, weren’t they?  

The reason she didn’t bring her sister along was that her appearance was too bizarre. Not because of the hazmat suit itself, but because of the microbial stains covering the visor.  

Mi Xiaoliu tried to follow her, but the girl in the hazmat suit blocked her path.  

“Big brother, don’t bother Sister. Can’t you tell she hates you?”  

Through the microbial-filmed visor, her expression was unreadable. But it was definitely nothing like the innocent face she showed Gloria—even her voice had lost its childish purity.  

“I hate her too.” Mi Xiaoliu took a step back.

This little girl made her deeply uncomfortable.  

A psychological revulsion.  

From afar, she hadn’t felt it, but up close, it was like a nauseating punch to the gut—as if struck full-force by a Humpback Whale.  

“Master, this feeling is called disgust—the highest degree of it… Master, she isn’t a little girl at all. She’s not even human. Just a counterfeit that deceives people’s emotions. Killing something like this wouldn’t matter… No, it’d be better to kill her. She must be eliminated.” Sasha’s voice carried unconcealed loathing.  

Mi Xiaoliu didn’t respond, keeping her eyes locked on the girl.  

She noticed—several faint tears had appeared on the pristine white hazmat suit, the edges warped as if corroded by acid.  

The suit was already being breached.  

The little girl tilted her head, studying Mi Xiaoliu with feigned confusion. “Don’t you know who Misha is?”  

The way she said “Misha” sounded like an anime character’s cutesy self-reference—yet carried an ominous undertone.  

“If you don’t know, then you can’t blame me.” The girl suddenly collapsed to the ground, wailing loudly. “Sister!!”  

Mi Xiaoliu looked down at her own hands, puzzled.  

She hadn’t done anything.  

“Mi Xia! Cough cough cough!” Gloria charged back at lightning speed, shoving Mi Xiaoliu aside and carefully lifting the girl from the ground.  

The little girl covered her visor, sobbing softly.  

“This shameless little b*tch??” Sasha was livid.  

And she wasn’t the only one. The other observers tracking the trio were equally furious.  

“Holy sh*t, you guys were right—this kid really is trouble.” Even Yiwen, who had never imagined real life could mimic the scheming antics of romance novels, was stunned—especially seeing it happen to Mi Xiaoliu.  

Those eyes really did resemble that little witch’s—no wonder they looked so detestable. Even her behavior was textbook manipulation.  

At the moment, most of their combat personnel were busy intercepting the Red Prince, so Yiwen—who hadn’t participated—was assigned to monitor the Lasvedo family’s “Misha.”  

“Actually, this kind of thing is pretty normal on its own,” the comms officer sighed. “I have two daughters at home—the younger one is always pulling this kind of stunt to frame her sister and get sympathy from us.”  

“My mom always favored my little brother too, but he never dared pull this crap,” Yiwen muttered resentfully.  

Her brother was, at worst, a bit Chuunibyou.  

If you slapped him, would he even survive?

“What happened, Misha? Did he hurt you?” Gloria glared at Mi Xiaoliu.  

“After you left, big brother suddenly got really scary… Did I make him angry?” The girl rubbed her head as if she’d just been struck.  

“Ugh.” Yiwen gagged.  

Poor Mi Xiaoliu. This “Misha” was truly vile.  

“Send me the mission logs later—I’ll show them to that senior.” Yiwen tapped the camera on her chest.  

“What’s the point? You saw it during the Amari Yota incident—most people will side with their family unconditionally, right or wrong.”  

In his eyes, Amari Yota had actually been a pretty ordinary person.  

Hearing Misha’s words, Gloria raised her drink as if to hurl it at Mi Xiaoliu, using the threat to drive her away.  

It worked—she flinched.  

“I can’t take this anymore. Why is Mi Xiaoliu acting like some bullied romance novel protagonist, just taking it silently? Do something!” Yiwen clutched her flat chest in frustration.  

This was infuriating.  

“Sister, my head hurts…” The little girl clutched her head and crouched down, then looked up pleadingly. “I’m scared… Can you chase the bad guy away?”  

“…”  

Gloria gently hugged her. “I’m sorry… Misha is such a kind child… cough.”  

“Sister?” The girl looked up, confused. “Didn’t you promise me anything?”  

Gloria’s arms loosened.  

The girl hung her head again. “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t ask for things. My sister is much more important than me.”  

“That’s not…”

Before Gloria could even voice her rebuttal, the girl’s body suddenly exploded before her eyes, shattering into pieces that scattered across the ground—the most crucial part, her head, even plunging straight into the rushing river.  

What should have been an extremely bloody scene only left Gloria drenched in a transparent, viscous fluid.  

The suddenness of it all left Yiwen momentarily stunned.  

And she wasn’t the only one—Gloria hadn’t reacted either.  

Wiping the liquid from her face with her sleeve, she stared blankly at the shattered remains of Misha, then turned her gaze to Mi Xiaoliu. Yiwen’s eyes followed hers, both now fixed on the girl.  

While Yiwen had hoped Mi Xiaoliu would fight back, this level of retaliation was beyond anything she’d expected.  

Mi Xiaoliu, too, looked down at her own hands in confusion.  

“Master, this feeling is called frustration,” Sasha supplied.  

“Mhm.”  

There was no misunderstanding—this really was Mi Xiaoliu’s doing.  

The moment Misha said, “My sister is much more important than me,” the revulsion inside Mi Xiaoliu had surged to its limit. Then, she opened her system inventory and selected an item she’d stored away days ago and forgotten to discard.  

[Materialized Shadow.] 

Now, she feels much better.  

The pungent stench, the toxic fumes wafting toward her, or the sheer psychological impact of what had just unfolded—Gloria’s black-stockinged legs buckled as she crouched, covering her nose and mouth.  

“Here, eat this.” Mi Xiaoliu held out the four-leaf clover Heli had returned to her.  

Gloria shoved her away without accepting it.  

She glanced at the mess of shattered remains on the ground—no anger, no grief.  

“It’s almost mealtime. You should head back first.” Gloria turned and walked in the opposite direction of Heli’s house. “I should go home for dinner too.”  

“That was a fake,” Mi Xiaoliu blurted out, repeating what Sasha had told her.  

“I know.” Gloria wiped her eyes with her back turned and tossed the unopened Sweet Snow Joy aside.  

That drink had only been released as a new product last year.  

“Still not leaving? I’m starving—want me to sandwich you between bread slices and eat you like a burger?” Gloria’s already distorted voice sounded even stranger now.  

Mi Xiaoliu shook her head and continued following her, maintaining a five-meter distance.  

“Cough! I gave you a chance to run!” Unable to hold back, Gloria snatched up the empty bottle and chased after Mi Xiaoliu, smacking it against her head in tearful frustration.  

Judging by the “thunk-thunk” sounds, she wasn’t holding back.  

Only after the two had left did Yiwen step forward, staring at the scattered remains. “Wh-what do we do about this? Did Mi Xiaoliu really do this?”  

This was way too sudden.  

Gritting her teeth against the disgust, she nudged a piece with her foot—no way to tell what kind of ability had caused this.  

Once shattered, it didn’t resemble a human at all, so at least it wasn’t as disturbing… The brutality was a bit much, but since Mi Xiaoliu seemed to have already known it was a fake, it was somewhat understandable.  

“If it wasn’t you, then it had to be her… Someone will clean this up later. For now, go retrieve that head—having something so toxic in the water is bad news.”  

Yiwen turned toward the river. The current was fierce—the head had long since vanished downstream.  

“Does it really matter? A river this big will dilute it in no time,” Yiwen groaned, already dreading the needle-in-a-haystack search.  

“Follow the flow. Don’t take chances. People use this water for washing clothes—some even drink it directly. Lab tests showed that fake Misha’s viral load was terrifying. The toxin secretion might even originate from her head.”  

“Can you at least send me some backup?” Yiwen took off flying, exasperated.  

She’d wanted to go save Mi Xiaoliu from getting whacked with a bottle.  

“We’re stretched thin as it is. You’re the only one free right now…”

After Yiwen left.  

Shen Qíng emerged from the shadows of the trees and made a call: “Chairwoman… the one who resembled the Second Young Miss is dead.”  

“I see.” The Chairwoman’s voice responded after a brief pause.  

“My condolences.”  

“It’s just… I hadn’t heard Misha’s voice in so long. It stirred some emotions… You’ve worked hard.”  

“It wasn’t me who did it.” Shen Qíng put on a gas mask and walked to the riverside, examining the scattered fragments on the ground.  

The police’s concerns weren’t unfounded—there was no toxin-converting structure in these remains. The real danger was likely hidden in the head that had drifted away to who-knows-where.  

But without a nutrient supply, that head would probably become inert after soaking in the water for a while.  

This river led to the sea. Even if the head couldn’t be found, the viral crisis could still be considered resolved.  

“It was Heli’s adopted child who did it. Seems he has an ability similar to mine.”  

“Hmm… Bring Gloria back. Be careful—she must be in a terrible mood.” The Chairwoman hung up.  

Her own mood wasn’t much better.  

If possible, she wanted to hold the real Misha in her arms and beg for her daughter’s forgiveness.  

And seriously—again with that brat Heli adopted? Hadn’t she warned Gloria to stay away from him?  

Only then did the Chairwoman call Heli.  

“What do you want?” Heli asked nervously.  

“Keep your son away from my daughter. I don’t want to see him near her ever again.”  

Hearing this, Heli let out a sigh of relief. “Gloria’s starting university after summer break anyway. Is that all?”  

“Yes. And you’d better teach him some manners. He’s utterly uncivilized.”  

“Of course, of course.”  

The Chairwoman found Heli’s behavior odd today but pressed on with business. “To resurrect someone, you need a soul. So, how do you guarantee the brain you create is an exact replica to house it?”  

The brain was the organ that stored memories.  

She didn’t want Heli cutting corners with her, too.  

“Hmm… Just a hand bone alone isn’t enough. But with supernatural abilities, it’s absolutely possible. Have you heard of the Black-Clothed One’s miracle herb? It’s real.” Heli continued spinning her grand promises.  

“Did I ever say I only found Misha’s hand bone?” the Chairwoman asked.  

Heli fell silent for two seconds. “Gloria told me. She was very upset about our experiments.”  

“I see.” The Chairwoman didn’t press further.

[Translator’s Note: See the index page for this Novel if you want to see the Amazon Link for the eBooks.]

[https://ko-fi.com/golden_dragon]