The night air was slightly cool, and the gentle breeze blew slowly, parting the clouds to reveal a bewitching scarlet full moon.
Between the ink-black heaven and earth, the Tōtsuki Hua nation theme restaurant, with its architectural style filled with red and white pavilion aesthetics, stood quietly.
The Hua nation theme restaurant had a total of nine floors, corresponding to the extreme number of nine. Each floor was eight meters high, signifying 'reaching the peak but not the limit,' and also serving as an expression of respect towards the Hua nation culinary world. Although the number of floors did not compare to other theme restaurants, every guest who entered could feel the shock brought by the vast space and the decorative layout.
Dragons coiled around doors and pillars; phoenixes were carved on eaves and corners. Turtles were invariably present in the ponds, and Qilins were hidden within the greenery.
The arches, screens, calligraphy, paintings, and mountain rocks within the main hall were incomparable in their exquisite ingenuity.
The rich cultural atmosphere made one feel as if they had stepped into that vast and mysterious Eastern continent.
It truly echoed an ancient saying: The ocean accepts a hundred rivers; its vastness comes from its capacity to contain.
However, the guests tonight obviously had no intention of lingering.
The events occurring tonight might be sealed in the hearts of the Hua nation theme restaurant employees as the darkest history of their lives.
"Pa-ta."
Yet another innocent employee collapsed.
Luo Ziyan retracted her fair, small hand and nodded towards the two hiding in the corner. The three of them ran sneakily into the safety channel together.
After the three left, a beautiful silhouette drifted over.
"Tsk tsk, saying no with their mouths, but playing more happily than anyone now. As expected, they are still children." Bai Zishu shook her head, the corners of her mouth inadvertently hooking upwards, though she quickly composed herself again.
"It's one thing for Ziyan, who grew up in the Han School and is wholly dedicated to martial arts, to be ignorant of worldly affairs."
"But how can a former IGO Investigator not even know there are things called surveillance cameras?" Feeling like a nanny, Bai Zishu suddenly felt mentally exhausted. She pulled up the collar of the employee on the ground and delivered a slap right to the latter's face.
The latter's dazed gaze collided head-on with Bai Zishu's eyes.
"Pack your things, go back to your employee dormitory to sleep, and remember that nothing happened tonight." Bai Zishu's distinct black and white peach-blossom eyes flashed with a few hints of eerie brilliance.
"Pack things... return to room... nothing happened..." The employee mechanically repeated Bai Zishu's words, stepping forward with dull eyes and disappearing around the corner.
Shaking her wrist, which was a bit sore from the slapping, Bai Zishu observed a second of silence for those employees before walking into the safety channel.
The ninth floor of the Hua nation theme restaurant was separated from the first eight floors, possessing independent elevators and passages. In the enormous ninth floor, there were only three rooms. Each room was a Branch Hall, and the area and decoration of each Branch Hall were staggering.
Just like the Pine Crane Hall where Mo Bai was currently located.
Bypassing the silk-embroidered ink-wash painting screen of immortals and cranes, the entire Branch Hall, the size of a football field, was paved with spotless cyan stone slabs. In the center of the Branch Hall, an Eight Immortals Table was placed within a round pavilion, while strange rocks stood side by side and clear springs resounded around the circular courtyard.
Under the lights, the pools surrounding the circular courtyard released misty water vapor. Paired with the pine, cypress, and immortal crane crafts of various shapes on the mountain rocks, it made one feel as if entering a trance.
It truly gave the sensation of ascending a high peak, viewing all other mountains below, and floating like a flying immortal.
"Mommy, how much money is this, damn it?" Mo Bai was secretly startled.
He was especially amazed by the layout within the Branch Hall, which used numerous objects yet revealed a return to simplicity and truth, as well as the towering mountain rocks that one could tell at a glance were the work of famous masters.
To put it bluntly, even though he had a little money now, selling him wouldn't be enough to build a Branch Hall like this.
"Truly evil and corrupt capitalism." Mo Bai spat with disdain, his red eyes filled with envy, jealousy, and hate.
"You idiot, this Pine Crane Hall is under your name now, right?" Little Bai stabbed him with the truth in a timely manner.
"Oh, right." With the contract signed, this Pine Crane Hall had already been incorporated under Mo Bai's name, unless he voluntarily resigned.
"If I don't enter hell, who will!" acting on the great righteousness of preventing monetary power from eroding others, Mo Bai marched with high-spirited and vigorous steps into the embrace of capitalism.
Crossing the arch bridge over the pool's outlet channel, Mo Bai arrived at the location of the Pine Crane Hall's open kitchen—a simple and unsophisticated long pavilion leaning against a black pine, with the cooking station arranged within it.
Ingeniously hidden in the strange rocks with its back to the central round pavilion was the ingredient storage. The ingredients Mo Bai had requested in the evening were already classified and placed inside.
"This Pine Crane Hall is truly full of style." After touring the Pine Crane Hall once, Mo Bai sighed with emotion while taking out a cherry blossom branch.
"Shiki-san, are you there?"
Several points of flickering spiritual light emerged from the cherry blossom, and a figure lay prone on the Eight Immortals Table.
"Good morning." Ryougi Shiki's beautiful, jet-black hair covered half her face. When her eyes, brilliant as stars, opened and saw Mo Bai, the lazy smile that inadvertently outlined her thin lips made his breathing pause.
"G-Good morning."
"Do you want to eat breakfast?"
Ryougi Shiki's smile was better than wine; Mo Bai was drunk as a dog.
"It's a woman's voice!" The three listening to the wall outside the Branch Hall immediately got high.
"Eh, wait, what am I getting high for?" Luo Ziyan suddenly woke up from her excitement, but Yukikawa Yukie's voice rang in her ears.
"Everything is as I predicted." Yukikawa Yukie pushed the air glasses on the bridge of her nose. "Phone call, date, the stage after this is surely the confession!"
"C-Confession!" Luo Ziyan's tender little face, crystal clear as jade, turned completely crimson.
She was truly still just a fifteen-year-old child!
"Confession!?" Reaction even greater than Luo Ziyan was Miyamoto Yayako.
Just acknowledged a Lord and now comes a Mistress or something...
Alert!
"What are you doing? You are not allowed to disturb them." Miyamoto Yayako immediately thought of her own duties and blocked in front of Yukikawa Yukie, who intended to sneak forward.
"Are you not curious who the Mistress is?" Yukikawa Yukie's rhetorical question caused Miyamoto Yayako to fall into wavering.
What Mo Bai's date looked like, what her personality was—in her view, these were closely related to whether her career as a guard would be bumpy in the future. How could she not be curious?
"No, even if I am very curious, I cannot let you guys pass!"
"Protecting the stability of the Lord's date is also my responsibility as a retainer."
The two stared at each other, neither willing to yield, and the sound of sizzling electric current rang in the air.
The friendship boat that had just set sail instantly sank to the bottom of the sea.
"Heh, I was wondering what you guys ran out for in the middle of the night. So it was to catch an adulterer." Having understood the trio's intentions from the dialogue, Bai Zishu walked out from the shadows.
Concerning the girlfriend of that guy who had ignored her beauty time and again, she was also very curious.
"How did you get here?" Luo Ziyan stared with wide eyes.
"However you guys got here, that's how I got here." Completely disregarding Luo Ziyan's hostility, Bai Zishu turned her head to speak to Miyamoto Yayako.
"Miss Miyamoto, do you still want to stop us?"
"The vote count here is three to one."
"I'm not, I didn't, don't speak nonsense!" The bristling Luo Ziyan had her mouth hurriedly covered by Yukikawa Yukie, able only to emit sounds of despairing whimpers.
"..."
"Highness Mo Bai, it's not that I'm not trying hard, but three against one, I really can't do it." Miyamoto Yayako repented silently.
"I will monitor you guys." Speaking scene-setting words with awe-inspiring righteousness, Miyamoto Yayako was the first to turn around, carefully sticking to the wall and moving towards the Branch Hall entrance without making a sound.
"What exactly will the Mistress be like?" Harboring immoral shame and gossipy curiosity, Miyamoto Yayako became strangely excited.
Writer's block is painful, ah.
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