Chapter 129: White Dove

She froze, then immediately scrambled to her feet.

"Stinking slave! Get out here!"

"I can take back your deed of sale, but if you defy my orders, I will make you wish you were dead."

As she raved frantically, she crawled out of the massive bunker; the place was strange, with a vast interior but a tiny door.

Upon seeing the light of day again, she was stunned. Before her was the familiar exterior of the castle, and on the corridor ahead stood the woman she hated to the bone.

"You..."

Tian Nuan stared with wide, disbelieving eyes, watching Fuerdi standing behind Su Mian, while Su Mian stared at her expressionlessly, though a hint of mocking amusement hid in the depths of her eyes.

"How does it feel to be played, Melissa?"

Su Mian spoke nonchalantly, pinching the skill card between two fingers.

Tian Nuan's lips trembled, her mouth agape, her fingers sinking into the dirt.

It was the card she had given that slave; he hadn't used it, not once, from beginning to end.

She had been deceived.

Realizing this, Tian Nuan felt as if struck by a blunt object; she lost all her strength, her mind going blank.

The girl watched the distraught Tian Nuan coldly, lifting her finger slightly to bring the card to her lips.

She bit down on a corner with her teeth, slowly tearing it in two, and tossed it onto the ground casually, not even sparing it a glance.

"If you hate me and want revenge, you must be prepared for a counterattack."

"Hmph..."

Tian Nuan let out a cold snort and looked up at her.

"So what if you weren't bewitched? Without that DM, you are nothing! How can you counterattack me now?"

She laughed maniacally, her voice hoarse and piercing to the eardrums.

"I am your Mother Empress! By what right do you lay a hand on me!"

She stood up, swaying unsteadily, yet her tone was full of confidence.

Without Si Shi, without absolute power, how could a lowly new player kill her! How could she?!!!

Su Mian shook her head, her gaze full of pity.

"Mm... I truly cannot lay a hand on you, my dear Mother Empress."

She tugged at the corner of her mouth, smiling somewhat eerily.

"But you have trespassed into my pet's territory. It saw you, and it will be very angry."

Tian Nuan's body stiffened. She felt the ground tremble, and her intuition told her that the shadow behind her belonged to something massive.

She turned her head slowly, her legs trembling. Upon seeing the behemoth, her face turned deathly pale; she could hardly believe her eyes.

Behind her, a giant calico cat was licking its paws and flicking its tail, looking at her as if she were a delicious meal.

And she was all too familiar with this cat; it was the same calico cat she had pushed down on the fourth floor using makeup remover oil.

Yet now, it had appeared in the Infinite Flow instance and was about to eat her.

She must be dreaming.

Tian Nuan's legs shook like a sieve; before the scream could even spill from her throat, her consciousness acted a step faster, bracing her limbs to scramble and crawl away from the calico cat's territory.

Xiao Baige let out a "meow," opened its blood-red maw, and dragged her back; the scream suddenly rose in pitch.

A large palm covered Su Mian's eyes.

Su Mian froze; the hand only moved away after the screaming had ceased.

Xiao Baige ate its fill, licked its paws, and then ran happily toward Su Mian, its size growing larger, its "purring" sound alarmingly loud.

Her original intention had been to let Tian Nuan taste the bitterness of being too clever for her own good, to throw her into the pile of slaves and let her "enjoy" it properly.

But when passing by here, she had mistakenly thought to take a look, and then, she had cried again.

Xiao Baige hadn't died; it had turned into an alien and been contained within the Script Murder world.

When she saw it this morning, Su Mian had cried until she was out of breath and immediately changed her mind.

Since it was Tian Nuan who had killed Xiao Baige, it was only right to let Xiao Baige eat Tian Nuan.

After all, an eye for an eye; it could be considered Xiao Baige getting its revenge, settling her own inner knot.

Although she wouldn't need to feed it freeze-dried treats or cat food anymore, and couldn't see it again, knowing Xiao Baige wasn't dead was enough for her.

The giant Xiao Baige rubbed against Su Mian's hand, sending cat fur flying everywhere, then collapsed to the ground with a "Thump—," shaking the lawn.

It purred, wanting Su Mian to rub its belly.

Just as Su Mian was about to reach out, Si Shi pulled a bell from somewhere and threw it into the distance.

Xiao Baige immediately leaped along the parabolic arc, kicking up a patch of weeds, a few of which landed on Su Mian's head.

The girl looked up at Si Shi, speechless, but Si Shi just smiled softly.

"There really is a big difference between cats and cats."

Before Su Mian could react, he had already changed the subject.

"Speaking of which, I still have to thank you. If you hadn't chosen me in the basement, I'm afraid I would have been thrown out and tortured until I was a wreck."

Suddenly being thanked, Su Mian was a bit at a loss; she had only been trying to perfect her character setting at the time, so this could be considered a happy accident.

She didn't know how to respond to the gratitude, especially to someone like Si Shi whose boundaries were so blurred, so she simply followed his lead and changed the subject.

"You were overhauled?"

Si Shi paused; he neither nodded nor shook his head, but Su Mian knew that was an admission.

"So..." She knew she shouldn't ask for the reason; as a player, as someone from another world, she had no right to ask, but she asked anyway.

"Why were you overhauled?"

Was it because of me?

Su Mian didn't say the second half of the sentence; she lowered her head in self-mockery. Saying such things was too arrogant, and at the same time, she didn't understand why she was so indecisive.

She even... didn't know why she wanted to ask.

A gentle breeze blew, carrying the scent of tulips from the flower garden, and long-tailed butterflies emerged from the flower clusters one after another.

The morning light shone on all things, and all things revived.

"The old man cares about his face and can't stand others defying him."

The old man in Si Shi's words was also the Head of the Arbitration Group, that culprit Zi Shi who had almost choked Su Mian to death; he meant that he had provoked Zi Shi and thus met such an end.

This sentence made Su Mian's pounding heart slow down a bit; she seemed to let out a sigh of relief, but the breath remained stuck in her chest, neither up nor down.

"Oh, I see."

She replied dully, and there was no follow-up.

That hand suddenly landed on the top of Su Mian's head again, startling her; she blinked and looked up at him.

"It seems you can survive without me, can't you?"

Su Mian froze, not knowing why he suddenly said that, but after thinking about it carefully, it seemed... that was really the case.

In this instance, she could survive even without Si Shi; perhaps after a few more instances, she would have enough points that even death couldn't threaten her.

Was the absurd contract coming to an end here?

It was true; he had saved her, and she had saved him; everything... was settled.