Chapter 14: Commemorating a Bank Balance Surpassing One Hundred Million

It was Xiao Qing who knocked out the two wobble monsters.

She was humming a little tune, happily opening her sack, getting ready to drag the two wobble monsters inside.

“What are you doing with them?”

“And why do you always like knocking people out?”

Li Changluo didn’t appreciate Xiao Qing’s violent methods. He stopped her, reprimanding her with righteous indignation, “One must have integrity, whether human or monster. Since I promised to protect them, my word is my bond. Let them go.”

Hei Wa had never seen Li Changluo act so upright before. He almost wanted to give him a thumbs up.

Xiao Qing, perhaps realizing her mistake, paused as Li Changluo’s words sank in.

And yet…

As soon as Li Changluo finished, he began searching the two wobble monsters’ pockets.

Xiao Qing: “…”

Hei Wa sighed with relief. This was just Li Changluo being himself after all.

Li Changluo found a good number of coins and stuffed them into his own pocket, sighing with satisfaction, “So, let’s collect your protection fee first. It’s a matter of principle.”

After all, he’d gone to the trouble of dragging these two monsters here—how could he walk away empty-handed? That wouldn’t be his style.

While Li Changluo rifled through their belongings, Xiao Qing stuffed the two monsters into the sack.

“What a perfect pair,” Hei Wa muttered enviously, watching their seamless teamwork.

Xiao Qing bundled the two monsters tightly in the sack, then hoisted it onto her shoulder with ease.

“They’re not fox demons,” Li Changluo remarked, looking at Xiao Qing in confusion. “This isn’t part of the mission, is there any reward?”

“No, that’s Mother’s suspicion,” Hei Wa replied firmly.

“Mother’s suspicion? Did you ask Father? If Father’s certain, then there’s no doubt. Don’t make me teach you idioms again, please?”

Trying to teach idioms to a foreign monster was a headache.

Xiao Qing looked disappointed. After all her busywork, it seemed she’d done it for nothing. Still, she glanced at the tightly bound sack with a hint of sympathy. “Look at them, just an old man and an old woman. So pitiful. Since we can’t turn them in for a reward, maybe we should just…”

“Throw them in the trash!” Li Changluo and Xiao Qing said in unison.

They exchanged a quiet, knowing smile, like an old married couple, everything understood without words.

Hei Wa was dumbfounded.

Just then, the sour stench wafted over from a nearby trash bin.

Xiao Qing smiled sweetly, brushed back her hair, lifted the sack, and tossed it perfectly into the garbage heap.

Li Changluo nodded approvingly, about to embrace Xiao Qing in camaraderie.

“Get lost!”

With a gentle shove, Xiao Qing sent him sprawling to the ground, a pitiful mess.

But he realized he’d landed on another large sack, with a small green bag beside him and chicken feathers scattered on the ground.

“What’s going on here?” Li Changluo asked Xiao Qing sternly.

“I… I knocked someone out here while waiting for you. But now… now they’re gone,” Xiao Qing stammered, nervous at Li Changluo’s seriousness.

Had she done something wrong? Grabbed the wrong person? Used the wrong technique to knock them out?

“I’m talking about this sack.” Li Changluo carefully picked up the bag, wiped his eyes, and inspected it. There, written on it—

“In commemoration of deposits exceeding one hundred million…”

His eyes lit up. For a moment, he was speechless. He couldn’t believe his luck.

Finally, fortune had smiled on him.

At long last, he’d stumbled upon a wealthy person in distress.

He was ready to draw his sword in aid.

He’d inherit their fortune—no one could stop him.

His sense of justice suddenly surged, almost explosively.

“Quick, where is this person?” Li Changluo leapt up in excitement.

“They… they ran away…”

“They ran away? And you didn’t catch them? Go get them, knock them out again! I must rescue them from your clutches!” Li Changluo wore a righteously sincere smile.

Xiao Qing was stunned. “But… she’s a monster.”

“A monster? How could you let a monster go? Catch her! I’ll deal with her myself!” His smile froze, and with gritted teeth, he flung the little green bag to the ground.

On the back of the bag, in small letters—

“Children’s Bank…”

Neither Hei Wa nor Xiao Qing expected Li Changluo to change his tune so quickly, and they stood there, bewildered by his shifting intentions.

Li Changluo, however, noticed chicken feathers stuck to the bag.

A monster? Chicken feathers?

He suddenly recalled the clue the wobble monsters had given him, the one about the fox demon, Zi.

At the same time, a woman buying chickens at the market, a woman with demonic power…

“So it was a woman monster?”

“Mhm!” Xiao Qing nodded.

“We screwed up. She got away,” Li Changluo said, shaking his head. So close to completing the task.

“Do you think that woman was Zi?” Xiao Qing asked, barely believing she’d already caught the monster.

Hei Wa explained the clues from the wobble monsters to Xiao Qing in detail.

Li Changluo was frustrated. He’d nearly wrapped up the matter, but now it had slipped through his fingers. There was nothing for it but to lie in wait at the poultry shop in the market.

But the problem was, now she’d be on guard—unless she was an utter fool, or…

She was so captivated by his handsome looks that she’d come back just to be caught?

With this fiasco, their lead had all but vanished.

Unwilling to give up, Li Changluo stamped on the commemorative green bag a few times.

As he stomped, he seemed to hear a faint yapping, like a little dog.

A woman in a purple jacket tiptoed up, bent down, picked up the green bag, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

It happened so quickly that Li Changluo didn’t even get a good look at her face.

But—

Could it be any more obvious?

The fox demon Zi, dressed in purple?

Well, at least she really had been drawn back by his handsome face.

Li Changluo was delighted. Happiness struck so abruptly that he almost called out to her.

“Hey, wait! Want me to show you the goldfish?”

But the woman in purple darted into a nearby path by the parking lot.

Opportunities like this were rare and fleeting. Having missed one, he couldn’t let another slip by.

Li Changluo and the others took off after her with all their might.

The area around the parking lot was an overgrown wasteland. Li Changluo thought, this woman really wasn’t cut out for running away… at least, not as a monster. She had no clue how to escape. If it were him, he’d dive right into the busiest crowds.

But as they chased the woman in purple along the muddy path to its end, they found themselves in a dead-end alley.

Heaven was on his side, Li Changluo thought gleefully. He was about to catch the fox demon Zi. Was this E-rank task really so easy?

He was already thinking about how to split the reward.

The lunchbox for Hei Wa.

The shaved ice for Xiao Qing.

As for himself, he’d settle for the hidden bonus.

After all, he wasn’t a greedy man.

Or so he told himself.

But fate had other plans.

The woman in purple nimbly scrambled up the red brick wall at the end of the alley and was over it in a flash.