"Dear Miss Vivian, how much longer do you intend to wait?"

Lu Yibei, eyes closed, heard a slightly high-pitched voice in the darkness. She had heard the girl's voice before. If nothing went wrong, this voice should belong to that urban legend that looked like a young leopard.

"That guy looks like she won't be waking up anytime soon, but we still have to live, right? If we don't hurry to the canal, those maggot-like guys won't even leave a dog's corpse for us."

"Got it!" Vivian said impatiently. "Hurry, hurry, that's all you know! I've told you so many times, corpse salvaging is 30% eyesight and 70% luck. Just because we go doesn't mean we'll get anything, you know?"

"Maybe if I go now, the moment I crouch by the river, I'll run into the Black Hand Mafia throwing some fat pig in a sack into the canal?"

Lu Yibei, "..." Is corpse salvaging a job? A Free City specialty industry?

"But you still have to go!" the cat said.

"I know, annoying! If it really doesn't work out, can't I just snatch it from them?"

"..."

One person and one cat bickered. After a series of small sounds and a "bang" of a door closing, only the distorted sound of the old TV echoed in the old apartment.

They seemed to have left... but Lu Yibei didn't open her eyes immediately.

Using the sound of a door closing to pretend to leave was something she had just done on the tiger whale, and there was no guarantee that the girl named Vivian wouldn't do the same.

She probed the surroundings with her spiritual sense, confirmed that Vivian and the cat had indeed left, and then opened her eyes.

Then, the Goddess Beiling Seal unfolded, and the special eye ability was activated.

Glancing around, the moment she found the figure of Nanling Yaohua lying on her side beside her, the corner of Lu Yibei's eye twitched violently.

Her damaged clothes had been stripped clean at some point, leaving only the boxer shorts made from her coat. Her upper body was exposed without reservation, and a small, delicate white hand, with slender fingertips, was shyly slithering along her muscle lines like a shy little snake flicking its tongue.

It gently brushed across her abdomen, all the way up, circled the collarbone, and then returned to her chest, playfully drawing little circles.

A silly smile hung on Nanling Yaohua's delicate side profile, her eyes shining, breathing rapid, and puffs of white mist spraying from her nose and mouth.

Lu Yibei, "..."

She clearly shouldn't be able to hear Nanling Yaohua's voice, but looking at that scene, it was as if she had auditory hallucinations, and a "hehehe" laughter rang in her ears.

After a brief silence, driven by a strange sense of mischief that inexplicably arose in her heart, Lu Yibei said expressionlessly, "Little Flower, what are you doing?"

Hearing Lu Yibei's voice, as if caught in the act of doing something bad, Nanling Yaohua's body trembled, and her cheeks turned from white to pink, and from pink to red, at a speed visible to the naked eye.

For a moment, she just wanted to find a crack in the ground to hide in, but there were no cracks, so she simply buried her head in Lu Yibei's arms... Her entire head disappeared inside, and at first glance, it looked like a girl's body had grown from the center of her chest, and then a pair of hands started moving.

The style was extraordinarily weird.

Lu Yibei, "..." Was she doing this on purpose, or was it an accident? If she had known it would be like this, she should have pretended not to see anything.

"Rustle, rustle!" After a light sound of a pen tip crossing paper, a crumpled piece of parchment with writing on it was handed to Lu Yibei.

【You nuisance! I'm angry! Next time before you look at me, you must notify me in advance. No more surprise attacks!】

Lu Yibei, "..." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Although... it was clearly her molesting her, why did it feel like she was the one who did something wrong?

After waiting for a while, Lu Yibei finally waited for Nanling Yaohua to emerge from her state of shame overload. She asked about what happened while she was unconscious, and then she discovered a serious problem—Nanling Yaohua didn't seem to have learned English.

Although she relied on remembering the pronunciation of some conversation fragments, after Lu Yibei analyzed them by guessing, she only got some fragmented information.

Judging from words like "South Avenue", "clinic", and "not dead", not only could she not see any malice from Vivian, she even felt that she was trying to send Lu Yibei to a clinic for treatment. As for why she didn't send her in the end...

Probably because she was strapped for cash?

Looking at her living environment, she should ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ be quite impoverished, and she had heard that medical expenses outside of insurance in the Free City were very high, so it was reasonable for her to be unable to afford it.

However, Lu Yibei would not relax her vigilance because of this suspected good deed. Before fleecing someone, she often did despicable things like feeding them some high-quality "fodder" to soothe the little sheep's emotions and coax it into willingly exposing its belly.

"Rustle, rustle..." While Lu Yibei was pondering, Nanling Yaohua lowered her head and wrote on the new notebook she had taken out from the God Kingdom Prototype.

【Sorry, Grandpa used to say that no matter where they come from, those who still speak that bird language after arriving at Yumen Pass are mostly ill-intentioned. Regardless of anything, just grab them, so there's no need to learn foreign languages...】

Nanling Yaohua lowered her head and held the newly acquired notebook up to Lu Yibei.

After reading what Nanling Yaohua wrote, Lu Yibei shook her head, "It's okay, the old man is right! In Z Country, one should speak Chinese. Chinese is also an international common language. If they don't understand, that's their problem. Why should we indulge them? However..."

"You just said she observed the tattoo on my back for a long time?"

Nanling Yaohua nodded, and then, as if thinking of something, quickly wrote a paragraph on the small notebook.

【Do you have any special relationship with the Eclipse Society? Why do you have that kind of tattoo?】

It's just a couple's tattoo with Miao Miao Jiang! Lu Yibei's mind flashed with a bit of trash talk, then she shrugged and explained, "That's a fake. I was attacked by a big shot from the Eclipse Society before, and I put it on to get by. It looks like the real thing, but it has no actual effect."

Hearing this, Nanling Yaohua breathed a sigh of relief, and her nervous expression relaxed.

【But she observed the tattoo for so long. She probably has some unspeakable relationship with the Eclipse Society.】

"I think so too." Lu Yibei nodded.

It's just... what kind of relationship could she have with the Eclipse Society? Is she an enemy, or is she a member of the Eclipse Society?

If she is a member of the Eclipse Society, would it be the Elder faction, the Chairman faction, or the so-called New Elder faction? It couldn't possibly be the Lan Yi Party, right! Lu Yibei thought.

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Shaking her head, she temporarily withdrew her thoughts and looked at Nanling Yaohua to continue asking, "By the way, Little Flower, what about the things that fell out of the tiger whale earlier? That strange-looking polyhedron... has Vivian taken it away?"

This was the most direct reason why she didn't trust Vivian.

Although Vivian seemed to be intentionally guarding against her faking unconsciousness to eavesdrop, she still caught terms like "broken ship" and "that thing" from the cat's mouth.

With a little thought, it was easy to think of the tiger whale and the mysterious polyhedron that fell out after the tiger whale disintegrated.

Lu Yibei even felt that the fact that the almost completely disintegrated tiger whale could miraculously reach the Free City might have something to do with Vivian.

Listening to Lu Yibei's question, Nanling Yaohua shook her head with a subtle expression, indicating that Vivian had not taken the polyhedron.

"Not taken by her?" Lu Yibei frowned slightly, "Could it have fallen into the sea on the way? That shouldn't be! I used my Alchemy prosthetic to grab that thing and locked the joints."

Hearing this, Nanling Yaohua shook her head again, and then her peripheral vision quietly drifted to Lu Yibei's Alchemy prosthetic.

Noticing Nanling Yaohua's gaze, Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment, and while shouting "No way, right?" in her heart, she raised her Alchemy prosthetic.

After a slight inspection, upon discovering the change in the palm of the Alchemy prosthetic, she instinctively cursed, "What the hell?!"

A ruby-like crystal was embedded in the palm of the Alchemy prosthetic at some point. Strands of lines resembling tiny blood vessels extended from the crystal, intertwining and stacking, spreading along the spiritual energy circuits on the Alchemy prosthetic, dyeing the originally pale gold lines a scarlet color.

There was no abnormal spiritual energy fluctuation, and it looked integrated. If Lu Yibei didn't know what the Alchemy prosthetic originally looked like, she would even think it was designed this way.

"Could it be... that strange polyhedron was absorbed by the Alchemy prosthetic?"

Nanling Yaohua nodded, and then hurriedly wrote a long string of text on the small notebook.

【After you passed out, the surface of the polyhedron suddenly disintegrated, emitting a weird light that made people feel uncomfortable. That light was like liquid, floating only under the sea, dyeing the nearby sea surface red... Then, when the light dissipated, that thing had disappeared. By the way, the urban legend that called itself "Calypso" also stopped chasing after that weird light appeared.】

Having received an affirmative answer from Nanling Yaohua, Lu Yibei felt terrified. She hurriedly drove her spiritual energy to trigger the mechanism for disconnecting the Alchemy prosthetic.

Even Calypso could be scared away; it showed how dangerous the weird light emitted by that polyhedron was...

As the release mechanism was triggered, the spiritual energy circuits on the Alchemy prosthetic suddenly shimmered, and the tiny incantations attached to the circuits seemed to be endowed with some weird vitality and started to jump.

The next moment, the scarlet crystal in the palm suddenly burst into strong light, greedily devouring Lu Yibei's spiritual energy.

In just a few seconds, Lu Yibei felt that she had consumed nearly one-fifth of her spiritual energy.

At the same time, pain comparable to the disintegration of the Hundred-Armed Giant Power extended from the connection between her severed arm and the Alchemy prosthetic, striking directly at her brain. Beads of sweat the size of beans instantly appeared on Lu Yibei's forehead.

The "fuzz" lining the Alchemy prosthetic, which had pierced into her body, seemed to have completely fused with her body under the influence of the polyhedron's power, becoming inseparable from her bones, muscles, nerves, and even cells.

The severe pain spreading across most of her body seemed to be reminding her that if she wanted to remove the Alchemy prosthetic now, she would have to divide her body in two.

"Hoo—hoo—!"

Lu Yibei, who had interrupted the removal process of the Alchemy prosthetic, collapsed on Vivian's pink single bed, staring blankly at the yellowing ceiling, panting continuously, her mood heavy.

No, what's going on? She thought she had picked up a bargain, how did it suddenly become "parasitized"?

If she had known this would happen, she should have hidden in the God Kingdom Prototype from the beginning. Lu Yibei thought aggrievedly.

She thought she had been very careful when contacting that mysterious polyhedron. She didn't use her intact left hand to touch it, but chose to use the Alchemy prosthetic, thinking that if any unexpected situation occurred, she could remove the Alchemy prosthetic and get away immediately.

But.

What's going on now? It's like Dr. Octopus's mechanical arms in the old Spider-Man movies.

It wouldn't turn around and control me, would it? Lu Yibei thought.

Just as she was thinking, Nanling Yaohua had finished writing new text and reached her.

【Sorry, I wanted to stop you, but...】

Seeing this, Lu Yibei shook her head expressionlessly and comforted her, "Don't be like that, I don't blame you. Strictly speaking, I should be the one apologizing to you. I've brought you out for so long, not only have I not helped you find a way back, but I've also always made you worry about me."

Hearing this, Nanling Yaohua turned her face away with a shy expression, and her small hand patted Lu Yibei, each hit passing through her body.

Lu Yibei, "..."

1:30 PM.

The rain had stopped after falling on and off all night, but the dark clouds in the sky had not dispersed, and perhaps they never would.

It should have been the brightest time of the day, but the Free City was shrouded in gloomy and oppressive daylight, and rainwater dripped from the eaves, statues, and neon signs on both sides of the street.

With the arrival of daylight, the homeless who had wandered the streets for a night scattered like ghosts that only appeared at night, leaving only a mess as proof of their existence.

The Free City was much livelier during the day than at night. There was traffic on the originally empty roads, and people came and went on the streets on both sides, making it a bit more bustling.

A street singer was playing and singing a song he had created.

A young girl in revealing clothes was smoking on the corner of the street, her eyes sleepy.

A group of gang members with tattooed arms brushed past a few well-dressed white-collar workers carrying briefcases, both sides looking at each other with disgust.

A ragged-looking missionary, holding a piece of cardboard that said "The world is about to end," stopped passers-by, muttering something.

Vivian walked past the missionary, took out a few coins, threw them into the cardboard box in front of him, and then skillfully bypassed him, avoiding his nagging.

"Horace, I always feel like something is wrong. Although I didn't find my thing, I vaguely felt a lingering aura on that guy... Why would that happen?"

The cat lying on her shoulder glanced at her profile, "Could it be that it was absorbed by that guy?"

"How is that possible!" Vivian rolled her eyes, "Do you think that kind of power is something anyone can withstand? If the compatibility is poor, let alone absorbing it, you would basically die upon touching it, okay!"

"That's also true." The cat said, "Then when we go back later, bring that guy something good to eat and drink, and see if we can get anything out of him!"

"That's all we can do." Vivian nodded.