Little Rick—snap—half of it was gone!
But hey, short can be cute too.
Rita raised her voice, panic leaking out: "How could a family like ours possibly piss off someone with a gun?!"
That one sentence jolted the others awake. Even the dazed and half-conscious Rick furrowed his brow slightly, as if about to wake from a dream.
Scarlett froze for a moment, then her eyes widened as realization hit. She turned to Samuel and whispered urgently, "Could it be the Lopez family?!"
Samuel shook his head and finally took a drag from his cigarette. "Hard to say."
Seeing that Rick was already waking up, Rita suggested, "Let's talk outside. Don't want to disturb him."
Samuel and Scarlett got up and followed her out of the hospital room. Just before the door shut, Rita clearly saw Rick's hand clench into a fist.
Once they were outside, Rita asked again, "Do we have any enemies?"
Samuel frowned. "Why are you asking?"
"I just feel like the way this happened... it's like someone hates our whole family. Like they want the Wilsons to die out. Of course, we're not finished yet. As long as he's alive, there's still hope. What did the doctor say?"
"He can still have kids," Samuel replied, voice heavy as he exhaled smoke. "I'll look into this. You focus on keeping yourself safe. Best you come back to the Wilson house for now."
He sounded like a caring father. But Rita couldn't help suspecting he just wanted another body around in case the attackers came back. She didn't agree. "Isn't my brother supposed to marry into the Lopez family?" This old fox had rushed Rick off to a shady clinic to hide everything—clearly trying to cover it up. "If I go back now, it'll look suspicious and Zoey might get suspicious."
It was a good excuse, and Samuel took the easy way out and stopped trying to convince her.
Rita stayed a little longer before using the excuse of going home to make soup and left.
She knew Rick was awake, but she had no interest in putting on a performance. She was worried she might accidentally burst out laughing if she stayed longer.
Samuel and Rick were definitely cut from the same cloth. The first thing both did after the incident was to try and cover it up, rather than think about what would happen if the Lopez family found out after the marriage.
Once Rick was fully awake, Samuel had Scarlett step out, leaving just father and son to talk.
Rita, who had taken invisibility potion and sneaked back in, wasn't surprised by their behavior.
Honestly, she'd never doubted her biological relationship with Samuel—well, not after she secretly got a DNA test done after being reborn. She really was his daughter.
But both Samuel and Rick had one thing in common—they didn't see women as people to trust. No matter how gentle they acted, they looked down on women.
Scarlett might have had slightly higher status, but not by much. Mostly, she was just a tool in Samuel's eyes.
Samuel looked at Rick. "Got any guesses?"
Rick stared blankly at the ceiling. "Could it be someone holding a grudge against Rita? Maybe she got herself into trouble out there."
Samuel sighed. "How many times have I told you? Keep calm when things go south. Don't lash out. That's what women do. If someone had it out for her, why go after you instead?"
Rick started to suspect another woman in the family. "Maybe it was Mom. Her temper could've caused trouble?"
Samuel shook his head. "I keep tabs on everything she does."
Rick shut his eyes, chest rising and falling rapidly. After a while, he muttered hoarsely, "The Lopez family... maybe they didn't want me joining them?"
"Hard to say. But they wouldn't need to pull something like this. If they wanted to reject us, they could've just said so. We wouldn't have pushed it." Samuel paused. "Have you pissed off any women lately? Don't you meet all kinds of people at work?"
Rick thought hard. He was sure he hadn't offended anyone. He always kept a polite distance from everyone. He only got close to Zoey after confirming her family background. He shook his head.
Samuel patted his hand in reassurance. "That vase is already sold. Before the engagement, I'll help you settle the villa."
Rick asked again, "Rita really has no money?"
Samuel replied, "Seems so. I found out there was a murder at her company. Her agent got caught up in it. And you know how much she trusts that Liu guy. Probably in a bad place right now. Once she's in a better headspace, I'll figure out a way to get her back to work. You just focus on healing. Don't stress about this stuff."
Rick spoke with little hope, "With me like this..."
Samuel said, "Doctor said you can still have kids. Doesn't matter if it's short. What matters is technique!"
Rita almost laughed out loud.
Hearing nothing more of value, she slipped out of the room, a little disappointed.
...
After learning that Rick had lost part of his manhood, Rita suddenly felt like everything had clicked.
Yes—this was the true path to revenge!
She wanted Rick to live every second in fear and pain.
Marry into the Lopez family? Hah! He's not even a complete man anymore, and he still dares go after Zoey?
She wanted to see what he'd try next…
As for pissing off the Lopez family—she didn't care at all. She had already turned the male lead's luck stat down to 1. He was just an ordinary guy now, yet a top-10 ranked assassin in the underworld had to fire seven shots and still couldn't blow off Little Rick. It wasn't until he backed off and went for a half-cut that he finally succeeded.
Lopez family trying to hurt the male lead? They might as well prepare for bankruptcy.
Wait… then didn't that mean she was even more badass in her past life? She was hunted for seven days before they caught her—with just 1 point in luck.
Maybe she was actually the real protagonist?
Rita hummed a little tune on her way back to the villa. In the game, there were indeed high-level healing spells that could restore severed limbs. Zoey had learned one of them in the third year of the game's invasion, which made her famous. Back then, the highest player level had reached 25, and Zoey stood out because she was the only one on Blue Star who could cast that spell.
But it didn't matter. Rita had plenty of ways to make sure Zoey would never even come close to that level in this life.
As for Rick—he had two long, painful years ahead of him.
What if he tried to fake it with some prosthetic to fool Zoey? Ha!
With Little Rick handled, Rita turned her attention to preparing for the second closed beta of the game.
Now that she had a backpack inventory, she wanted to test if real-world items could be brought into the game and sold for gold.
Even if something worth ten thousand dollars only sold for one gold coin, she'd still be making a profit!
Within six months of the invasion, real-world currency became worthless. Even exchanging it for gold was better than watching it turn into scrap paper. Gold and game currency weren't exactly the same—coins had a trace of magic and couldn't be faked—but some of the less noble non-human merchants who just wanted to make money did accept gold.
Especially goblins. They cared only about money. Life and death meant nothing to them. They'd trade anything, and you could even use gold to exchange for game coins with them. One coin weighed less than 100g, but you'd need around 300g of gold to get one coin from them.
They claimed doing business on Blue Star was costly. They listed a bunch of fees—battlefield tax, business travel expenses, even funeral costs, and the magical cost of minting game coins…
At today's gold prices, around $500 per gram, you'd need about $15,0000 to buy one coin. And that's before the currency collapsed.
By the time goblin merchants appeared, paper money was already worthless. All transactions used game currency. Forget about using money to buy gold. After goblins started accepting gold in exchange for coins, gold itself became rare and almost impossible to trade.
But that was all post-invasion stuff. For now, Rita was preparing ahead. She planned to convert all her money into gold.