Chapter 222
by Need_More_SleepChapter 222: Typhoon
“Metropolis is experiencing a sudden temperature drop, with heavy rainfall in multiple areas. The following regions may be affected by an incoming typhoon. The luxury cruise ship ‘Golden Parrot’ has gone missing in Zone C after encountering the typhoon, and its current whereabouts remain unknown. Local residents are advised to stay indoors and keep warm…”
They’d known about the cold front, but this was extreme.
The weather had turned on a dime. Before coming, Okulet had checked the forecast—just chilly, nothing major. No rain here yet, but the sky was ominously overcast.
A typhoon complicated things. No flights for the next few days.
—
In the Morning.
“Misha, wake up~ If you don’t, I’ll tickle you!”
Mi Xiaoliu was roused by a girl who looked about her age. Her cousin—pink hair, red eyes. Though also thirteen, her personality was far gentler.
Not orange-eyed, so she’d had a peaceful childhood at home.
The pink hair made Mi Xiaoliu instinctively warm up to her.
Logically, Gloria should’ve been the one waking her.
Mi Xiaoliu sat up.
Okulet stood by her bed, scrolling through his phone.
Too wary of invading his daughter’s privacy and earning her dislike, he’d specifically fetched another girl to do the job.
On his screen: a chat with his wife.
Attached: A photo of Mi Xiaoliu sleeping.
No blanket on her—instead, she’d rolled it up in her sleep, hugging it between her legs.
[Blossoming Wealth]: 💗💗💗
[Blossoming Wealth]: Pat Misha’s head for me.
Okulet pulled Mi Xiaoliu close, recording a video as he ruffled her hair and sent it to his wife.
—
Last Night.
When the tracker went out of range, Okulet’s first move was to calmly check if Mi Xiaoliu was still in her room.
Only then would he decide whether to chase.
Finding her safe in bed, he’d let the thief go—but that didn’t mean he’d forgive her.
The Lasvedo estate was secure. But being secure didn’t mean Okulet would leave his daughter alone just to hunt down some petty criminal over a tracker.
He’d delegated to other family members. After all, factoring in civilian safety, his mobility was limited. The real issue? No replacement tracker.
They could easily make another, but one with auto-alerts at a set distance? That’d take a full day to recreate.
Let alone crafting it into something as delicate as a pendant.
—
Outside.
After leaving her room, Mi Xiaoliu found Gloria tied up and hanging from a tree, her own socks stuffed in her mouth.
The patriarch sat beneath it, unfazed, playing chess with his eldest son.
A group of kids gawked at Gloria.
Mi Xiaoliu cautiously approached and poked her.
Gloria swayed like a pendulum.
…Fun.
Seeing this, Gloria—who could’ve broken free—stopped struggling, letting her sister play.
—
After Breakfast.
The courtyard quieted. Kids off to school, adults to work—leaving only Okulet’s family and a few elderly men playing cards.
Not entirely idle, though.
After a day of doing nothing, Okulet escorted Defendant No. 2, Gloria to the patriarch’s room, watching as he twisted a vase.
A hidden door slid open, revealing stairs down.
The old man was weirdly possessive—no one touched his precious ceramics, and no one entered his room uninvited.
Deeper than Yiwen’s basement. Larger, too.
Dust-covered clutter filled the space, including a baby formula tin repurposed for sewing supplies.
At the center sat a one-cubic-meter sealed cube—so high-tech it was unclear how to open it.
Inside? The Star was inside.
Not a single mishap could be allowed—so aside from research samples, the rest had been entrusted to the great heroic families for safekeeping. In a sense, it was like the Imperial Seal, a symbol of authority.
Protecting it was the responsibility of each family head—and of every member of their households.
Yet the Lasvedo family had casually tossed it into a dusty corner, treating it with utter disregard.
“Take it if you want. It’s yours to protect anyway. Fry it in a pan for all I care. But if you lose it, that’s a disgrace to the entire family.”
“Misha, can you store it?” Okulet patted Mi Xiaoliu’s head.
She placed her hand on the cube.
Something felt… off.
Like the vacuum cleaner Heli used for chores—and that time Gloria had held Mi Xiaoliu down, pressing the nozzle against her while pretending it would “suck out her soul.”
Similar, yet different.
Mi Xiaoliu stored the entire container in her system space.
It was baffling.
If the Star could be transferred to another dimension so easily, why had the Federation only given them a box to store it?
Misha’s abilities had always been… unusual.
“She’d make a good family head.” The old man remarked.
“Family head” in the sense of leading the entire Lasvedo clan.
After retrieving the Star, Okulet wanted to rush it back to Heli for research—but the typhoon had other plans.
The patriarch, however, disagreed.
“Is there anywhere safer than the Lasvedo estate? If Easter dares show up, we’ll kill every last one of them. Leave the kid here—you take the Star back. Bring her home once you’ve developed a cure.”
But considering his past suggestion to send Gloria to the Fallen City, and the fact that Mi Xiaoliu barely knew this place, Okulet refused.
“The authorities are compromised. Focus on rooting out your own traitors first.”
The old man snorted but said no more.
—
Following Heli’s Instructions.
Since leaving Fanzui City, Mi Xiaoliu had strictly obeyed Heli’s orders.
– Extra blankets.
– Less spicy food.
– No cold drinks.
– Homework on time.
– Practice ability control.
No matter how much she trained, her system space stayed at eight slots. But she was getting better at separating objects—now able to extract water from a soda in under ten seconds.
She’d discovered that emptying more slots improved efficiency.
But her space was packed full of things she couldn’t take out.
So she gave up on clearing it.
Heli had also told her not to always practice on soda.
But Heli hadn’t said what else to use.
Then Mi Xiaoliu spotted it—a ten-year-old wine jar, fermented by her grandfather.
Something she hated.
Mi Xiaoliu was a good girl. She wouldn’t touch others’ belongings without permission.
But she didn’t dare ask her grandfather—he was scary.
So she tugged at her cousin’s sleeve instead.
“Hm?”
Her cousin, only three months older, patted her head.
Mi Xiaoliu’s androgynous style was oddly charming, and her soft personality made her even more endearing.
Such a cute little sister.
Mi Xiaoliu pointed at the wine jar and explained her idea.
Her cousin nodded. “Sure! Just blame it on Gloria later.”
Then the jar suddenly lightened—and the old man caught them red-handed.
Mi Xiaoliu hugged the jar. “Gloria did it.”
Still tied to the tree, Gloria spat out her socks. “Yep. My bad.”
The patriarch’s face darkened as he strung Xiao Liu up next to her.
—
Antique Market.
“Got scammed, didn’t you? This is just a handmade trinket. Look at these cracks – probably hollow inside. At most it’s worth thirty mira for the craftsmanship.”
The gold-toothed antique appraiser disdainfully tossed the pendant back to the girl without even glancing at it.
These days, gold teeth were considered tacky by most, but spotting them in the antique trade somehow made people think “expert.”
“No way! I got this from… this was a gift from a young mistress living in a courtyard mansion!”
Suspecting the dealer was trying to lowball her, the girl pocketed the pendant. “I’ll ask elsewhere.”
“Tch, you think I’d cheat you?” The gold-toothed merchant clicked his tongue and produced a magnet.
Clink.
The pendant stuck firmly to the magnet.
“……”
What kind of young mistress wears cheap iron junk like this?!
A mix of indignation and humiliation welled up in the girl’s chest.
She’d cut her foot for this, spent two hundred mira on medical bills, and all she got was… this?
Oh right, plus that ten-mira bargain-bin T-shirt.
She felt utterly duped.
Hell, she’d even lost money on that little rich girl yesterday afternoon.
What kind of mansion-dwelling miser was she?
In her entire career, she’d never suffered such humiliation. Tomorrow, she’d rob her again.
But stolen goods were stolen goods – no point throwing them away now.
“Whatever. Give me a nice box for it.”
Like certain pastries – mediocre ingredients, average taste, but slap on fancy packaging and the price jumps tenfold.
“Scamming outsiders again?”
“What scam? It’s a willing transaction!”
With the right sales pitch, even garbage could fetch a fortune. Six months in Metropolis had taught her one truth, this world never lacked fools with money to burn.
Maybe that pendant was some overpriced junk the little miss had splurged on.
“Warning you, the higher-ups are cracking down these days. Keep your hands clean.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The girl moved to a prime spot after paying the stall fee and laid out her wares, mostly worthless knickknacks.
Just as she finished setting up, a female officer dressed like Masked Rider Tsukuyomi approached, tracking a signal on her device, only to startle when someone tapped her shoulder.
She turned, then relaxed.
“What’s up, Uncle?”
“What are you skulking around for?” Nikita asked.
“My little cousin got robbed at home. Second Uncle told me to catch the thief.”
“Hmm… leave this to me. You handle something else.”
“Huh?”
The policewoman stared at him, unmoving.
They’d already traced the goods, and now her uncle was swooping in to steal credit? Even family could be this shameless?
“My team’s been watching this for a while,” Nikita said.
“Huh?!”
For a small-time thief who couldn’t even steal properly?
“That pendant’s pretty. How much?”
A mark appeared at her stall. Except the voice wasn’t human.
The girl looked up, and froze.
A strange figure wearing a mask identical to No-Face from Spirited Away, clad in an opaque red raincoat that draped all the way to the ground.
No Supernatural Police insignia could be seen on them. Not particularly tall, nor broad-shouldered.
Their voice was processed through a voice modulator, emitting Cybertronian speech.
What kind of psycho uses a Transformer sound effect for a voice changer?!
The creep lifted half of their mask and sniffed the pendant.
“A familiar scent. Can you tell me where you got this?”
“Huh?”
The distorted audio made it nearly impossible to understand.
No-Face repeated themselves. The girl still couldn’t decipher it.
“Fuck your mother, you damn—”
Ah. There it was. Now she understood.
“I asked you, who did you get this from?” No-Face enunciated each word slowly.
Eerie. Terrifying.
“It’s a family heirloom,” the girl lied, legs trembling.
No-Face said nothing, just stared, the pressure mounting.
“I’m not lying!” She was on the verge of tears, glancing around for help.
A crowd had gathered, phones raised to record—this time, she was the victim.
A few Supernatural Police officers rolled up their sleeves and stepped forward.
“What’s the deal, pal? Scaring people in broad daylight? Picking on a girl? Show us your ID.”
No-Face adjusted their mask, tweaking the voice modulator.
“Then… aside from you, who else has touched it?”
Still unsettling—like those viral clips with distorted vocals—but at least comprehensible now.
“No one! You’re my first customer!” The girl stood up, abandoning the pendant as she backed away.
The officers lost patience and moved to arrest the intruder.
No-Face ignored them, pressing a hand over the pendant in its box.
A gale-force wind suddenly tore through the street.
Lighter objects launched into the sky. Stalls overturned. Antiques shattered.
Not strong enough to lift people—but plenty terrifying when it came out of nowhere.
Above, the clouds swirled like a raging sea, darkening in seconds as thunder cracked.
No-Face’s earlier gesture? Just making sure the pendant didn’t blow away.
Realizing the danger, the girl bolted, scrambling onto rooftops despite her injured foot.
Too scary. In broad daylight—!
No-Face didn’t pursue. They simply picked up the pendant and tucked it into their sleeve.
A light drizzle began, quickly flooding the streets.
The crowd scattered, vendors frantically salvaging their goods.
The weather app? Still showed “overcast.”
“Freeze! Hands on your head!”
The officers lunged.
“Annoying.”
Electricity arced through the water at their feet. Their insulated suits did nothing. Bodies locked up mid-step.
—
Lasvedo Manor.
“Since when did it start raining?” Okulet frowned at the sky.
Mi Xiaoliu, who’d been swinging from the tree like a pendulum, stored the rope in her inventory and dashed inside with Gloria.
Then—a blur of motion.
The same thief from last night, sprinting across rooftops like a rabbit, hurtled straight into the courtyard.
Okulet’s eyes narrowed.
This little rat dared come back? But she wasn’t here to steal.
She crashed through the door, shattering the patriarch’s other prized wine jar.
His already-unpleasant face twisted into something truly monstrous.
Gasping for air, the girl locked eyes with Mi Xiaoliu who helped her last night.
“Did you piss someone off?!”
[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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