"Handing out flyers?"
Zhao Xing'er blinked at the thick stack of leaflets.
She had assumed that joining a cultivation agency meant slaying demons, vanquishing evil, and guarding the district. Instead, the moment she walked in that morning, Yue Wen had beamed at her and handed her the first assignment: go out and distribute every one of these flyers.
The flyers carried several lines of bold print: "A startup team — quality goods at low prices! Yue Cultivation Agency: Jiangcheng's very own agency!"
Looking at it made her cringe a little.
"Aren't I an exorcism assistant?" she asked quietly.
"That's right." Yue Wen smiled. "But to exorcise anything, we first need business, and the biggest problem our agency has right now is that we have no business. If we want to grow big and strong, we have to make our name known first. Keep it up, Little Zhao. I have high hopes for you."
"All right." Zhao Xing'er could only nod, gather up the flyers, and turn to walk out the door.
This girl was a good one: quiet and refined, with a nice temper—that was Yue Wen's assessment. In his mind he awarded her the highest praise a leader can give an employee.
Easy to give orders to.
Normally he would have had to do all these odd jobs himself. This time, with an assistant on hand, he could safely dump the whole stack of flyers on Zhao Xing'er and save himself a great deal of time.
Later he would check how Zhao Xing'er was doing out there. If she proved reliable, he planned to go out himself—to have that half of a black-gold skull appraised, and to ask around about the materials needed to cultivate the Chaos Dragon Gang.
Out on the street, Zhao Xing'er had made her way to a corner not far off, where more pedestrians passed by.
She stood there holding the flyers, clearly somewhat reluctant.
She couldn't bring herself to accost strangers, but fortunately she was genuinely beautiful, and she drew the eyes around her without trying. Many passersby came over of their own accord to strike up a conversation with her, wanting to see what the flyers said.
After she had handed flyers out to people for a while, the roar of an engine suddenly swept closer, and a small blue sports car hummed to a stop right in front of her.
The car window rolled down, and a young man with dyed red hair stuck his head out, grinning at her. "Hey beautiful, I think you're gorgeous. How about we exchange contacts?"
"I'd rather not." Zhao Xing'er shook her head mildly.
"You're handing out flyers?" The redhead looked her over more carefully. "What line of work is it?"
"A cultivation agency," Zhao Xing'er answered.
"Haha, perfect then." The redhead pulled out his phone. "Let me add you, and I'll bring you business later."
"Just add the number on this." Zhao Xing'er held out a flyer. "That's our boss's number."
"Aw, come on, I want your personal one." The redhead's grin turned sly.
"Really, there's no need," Zhao Xing'er said, refusing firmly.
The redhead's face suddenly turned stern. "What, you're refusing to show me any respect? Do you even know who I—"
Zhao Xing'er looked back at him without expression. "Go get your car fixed first. Whatever it is, we can talk after that."
"Get my car fixed?" The redhead blinked. "I just picked up this new car — what's there to fix?"
"Hah!" Before the words were out, Zhao Xing'er's brows snapped together, red light bursting from her eyes, her features twisting for an instant. Bow stance, waist torqued, right shoulder drawn back—power gathered—and a thunderous punch!
Boom—
A mass of qi wrapped in red light erupted from her fist and swallowed the rear half of the sports car in a heartbeat, with a deafening blast.
All the redhead felt was a chill at the back of his head. His eyes trembled, and when he looked up into the rearview mirror, he saw the crosswalk painted on the ground below.
That one punch had blasted away the entire back half of his car!
Only the two front seats were left, and sports car seats sit low to begin with. He might as well have been sitting on a sofa with a steering wheel attached.
"You—you—you—" He stared at Zhao Xing'er in horror, unable to form a sentence.
He had seen her handing out flyers in the street, pretty and soft-looking, the sort of girl who ought to be easy to push around.
Who would have thought this woman was fierce beyond anything human!
She had beaten a sports car into a chaise lounge.
"Don't want to go get it fixed?" Zhao Xing'er's eyes slid over him lightly. "Then we'll talk after you're back from the hospital."
"Mommy—"
The redhead was so frightened he was nearly crying. He hoisted the steering wheel and bolted away along the road like the wind, faster than he had been driving a moment before.
Only after that tuft of red hair had vanished into the distance did Zhao Xing'er let out a long breath and steady herself. She took out her phone and sent a message: "Oh no, bestie. I lost my temper again just now and hailed a car."
"Haha, so what if you hailed a car? Don't feel bad about it. How much was it? I'll reimburse you," came the quick reply.
"Can you afford that?" Zhao Xing'er took a look. "It should be the new Blue Tiger Qu. Probably over a million."
The other side: "?"
……
Yue Wen had been in the agency for a while. He was just about to go check on how Zhao Xing'er was doing outside and take care of his own errand at the same time.
He had barely stood up when he saw Zhao Xing'er walking in, leading a middle-aged man with a dejected air. "Boss, we have a customer!"
"Oh?" Yue Wen's eyes lit up. "That was fast. You got results already?"
Zhao Xing'er smiled gently. "This gentleman said he had something he wanted to ask about, so I brought him straight back."
"Please, sit down." Yue Wen hurried to welcome him.
The man who came in was around forty, somewhat gaunt, wearing a thin gray jacket. His right sleeve hung empty—he was disabled. Stubble ringed his jaw, his eyes were ringed with dark circles, and his gaze was full of anxiety.
"Um…" The man perched forward on the edge of his seat, and his first question was, "I heard from this young lady that your fees here are very low?"
"That's right." Yue Wen nodded at once. "Our agency's whole selling point is fair prices for the common folk."
"I… I really can't come up with much money. I recently had an accident that left me disabled, and I lost my job too…" The man's voice was low. "Would five hundred yuan per case be acceptable?"
"That's fine." Yue Wen agreed without hesitation. "Solving your problem is what matters most. Go ahead and tell us what happened to you."
Zhao Xing'er listened from the side, and her eyes shifted faintly as she looked at Yue Wen.
Five hundred a case, split fifty-fifty — two hundred fifty apiece. Forget hiring a cultivator with that—it might not even cover the gas to drive somewhere far. Yue Wen was still willing to agree, which meant money wasn't what he cared about.
The only explanation was that he had a chivalrous heart, a rare thing in this era.
Otherwise, could he really have a hobby of going after evil entities?
At that moment, Yue Wen's humanity gave off a bit of light in her heart.
"My son has gone missing," the man explained. "The last few days he'd been strange. He kept shutting himself up in his room and wouldn't come out, saying some little kid kept asking him to come play games. I've had a lot on my plate lately, and at first I didn't pay it much mind. But this morning I called him for breakfast and got no answer. I went into his room and he was simply gone."
"Was there anything unusual in the room?" Yue Wen asked.
"No. He was perfectly fine the night before, and this morning he was gone. The doors and windows at home were all intact. I don't know what happened…" He lowered his head, blaming himself. "I suppose I haven't paid him enough attention."
"Don't be sad, sir. We'll do our best to help you find him," Zhao Xing'er said to comfort him.
"If an evil entity was bold enough to slip into a home and steal a child, that's quite some nerve," Yue Wen mused. "I've rarely heard of such a thing."
"Actually… it might not be an evil entity." The man paused, then went on. "I have someone in mind."
"Oh?" Yue Wen looked at him. "Who?"
"My boss at the factory." Anger crept into the man's face as he brought it up. "A while back, while I was working at the factory, a machine malfunctioned and took my arm. If I had enough for the surgery, I could hire a cultivator to reattach it—but he's been dragging his feet and refusing to pay my compensation."
"I don't dare sue him. He has underworld connections behind him, and he's often used shady methods to ruin his competitors. I kept begging him, hoping he'd just pay what he owes, and today was the day we'd agreed to a final negotiation. Then last night my son disappeared."
"I suspect he's the one who had people pull some trick and kidnap my son to threaten me."
"It's possible," Yue Wen said with a nod.
Evil entities willing to break into a home inside the city limits and steal a child were exceedingly rare.
In cities, demons hid in dark corners, terrified of being discovered, while wraiths followed their own patterns of behavior and did not act at random.
Their methods might go completely unnoticed by ordinary people, but once a disappearance was attributed to an evil entity, the Supernatural Management Bureau would step in, and the seriousness of the matter would change entirely. Never mind whether the child was recovered—that evil entity would have to be destroyed.
So in cases like this, human involvement was generally the likelier explanation.
"We've arranged to negotiate tonight. Would you two come with me and protect me? If my son really is in his hands, I'll give up the compensation entirely if I have to—I just need to get my boy back," the man said.
"Of course," Zhao Xing'er comforted him gently. "Don't worry. If the other side kidnapped your son in order to threaten you, they shouldn't hurt him."
"Who knows what a man like that might do?" The man knitted his brows. "Not one of these bosses is any good!"
Zhao Xing'er nodded. "True enough."
Yue Wen: "?"
Chapter 15