A silent haze of gunpowder quietly spread through the room. Everyone felt their throats go dry, barely daring to breathe too hard.

Qiu Fa stared down at Bai Xinran for several seconds before saying dangerously, “Very good.”

The tension at the corners of Bai Xinran’s lips had just begun to ease when Qiu Fa’s enforcement baton suddenly lashed across Mu Wenxing’s face.

His glasses flew off. Blood instantly spilled from the corner of his mouth.

Mu Wenyue screamed on the spot. “Brother! What are you doing?!”

Bai Xinran’s face drained of color in shock.

Why had things developed like this?

“Bang!”

The baton struck again from the opposite direction. Amid Mu Wenyue’s screams, Mu Wenxing’s head snapped violently to the other side.

“No!” Bai Xinran screamed.

Expressionless, Qiu Fa looked at her and asked, “Who told you about the Green Ribbon?”

“Xinran!” the Bai family head shouted anxiously, frantically signaling at her with his eyes.

What was she doing?

Director Qiu of the Tribunal Division was a man who could not be threatened. Moreover, he possessed almost zero tolerance for crime. Otherwise, he would never have allowed them to hand over the Mu siblings without resistance in the first place.

Trying to play tricks on him without absolute certainty would only backfire horribly.

Bai Xinran was terrified.

Because she had never awakened as an atavist, she had been carefully protected all her life. In thirty years, the greatest hardship she had ever faced was discovering that her husband had approached her with ulterior motives.

She wasn’t stupid—otherwise she wouldn’t have reacted so quickly and thought of shifting the disaster elsewhere.

But she had underestimated the man standing before her.

Jing Pei leaned against her headboard with a preserved plum tucked into her cheek, humming as she tapped away at her keyboard, modifying her little program.

She hadn’t lied at all.

She was a genuine businesswoman—fair and honest in all dealings. She truly had provided information capable of dealing a fatal blow to Qiu Fa.

But whether someone could actually use that information to achieve their desired outcome depended entirely on how they used it.

And clearly, Bai Xinran had recklessly used the information before understanding what it really meant. Worse still, she didn’t understand what kind of man Qiu Fa was.

First, this man did not accept threats.

Second, this man despised crime. Even if the criminal were merely an infant, he would never show mercy.

Still, she was only an intelligence broker, not some strategist or life coach. Naturally, she was only responsible for selling information—not teaching people how to use it.

Of course, if Bai Xinran hadn’t been so frantic to save Mu Wenxing that she hung up the moment she got the information, Jing Pei wouldn’t have minded showing a little human warmth and giving her some advice.

But Bai Xinran hadn’t given her the chance.

Bai Xinran looked at her husband, blood dripping steadily from his lowered face onto the floor. Then she looked at Qiu Fa, her eyes now filled with nothing but fear.

She no longer dared scheme against him.

She was terrified that if Qiu Fa struck again, he might directly beat Mu Wenxing—who was only an ordinary person—to death.

“I don’t know what the Green Ribbon is. I bought that information from someone else. If you want more information, you can buy it from the Puzzle Intelligence Agency yourself,” Bai Xinran said hurriedly.

Afraid Qiu Fa wouldn’t believe her, she quickly added, “The reason our two families stopped fighting last night was also because of this intelligence agency.”

“You think you can toy with me?” Qiu Fa said coldly. “You think introducing another player into the situation will distract me?”

Bai Xinran’s face, already pale as paper, looked almost transparent now.

“I’m telling the truth! I don’t know what the Green Ribbon means! The price they asked for the full explanation was too high—I couldn’t afford it! So I could only buy the three words ‘Green Ribbon’! If you don’t believe me, I can give you the number. Call them yourself and ask!”

At this point, Bai Xinran also realized her mistake.

She had thought learning the actual meaning of “Green Ribbon” was too expensive and unnecessary. Her plan had been to trick Qiu Fa into letting the Mu siblings go first, then shift the disaster onto the intelligence agency afterward.

She had dreamed too beautifully.

Perhaps the agency had already seen through her intentions. That was why, when she chose not to buy the full story and only wanted the cheapest useful clue possible, the person on the other side had responded with that strange little laugh.

Bai Xinran handed over the number.

Qiu Fa’s secretary efficiently dialed it on a phone and turned on speaker mode. At the same time, another staff member opened a miniature computer, preparing to trace the call.

“Beep… beep… beep…”

Inside the suffocatingly tense living room, the sound struck against everyone’s hearts like hammer blows.

Click.

The call connected.

Everyone instinctively leaned in, ears straining.

Bai Xinran’s heart tightened nervously.

This person knew about her little scheme—would they now pretend not to be an intelligence broker at all?

“The Puzzle Intelligence Agency. How may I help you?” came the familiar male voice from the other side, casual and playful, like a mischievous teenage boy pulling a prank.

But whether the person on the other side was truly male or female, no one could tell. Who knew whether the voice had been altered?

Qiu Fa took the phone, expressionless.

“I want to buy the full cause and effect behind the Green Ribbon. How much?”

“Please hold.”

The person on the other side pretended to shuffle through files and records before replying:

“Ah, the full cause and effect… that’ll be ten billion.”

Qiu Fa’s expression darkened slightly.

“And if I only want the list of people connected to the incident?”

“That’ll be five billion.”

At a price like that, even if the Bai family emptied their coffers to pay for it, they still wouldn’t dare.

What level of secret could possibly cost this much?

That was why Bai Xinran had immediately chosen to shift the disaster elsewhere instead of buying the information herself.

Yet merely obtaining the three words “Green Ribbon” had already cost eighty million.

And now, it seemed that eighty‑million‑worth opportunity had been completely wasted through her own misuse.

A faint, bloodthirsty smile slowly spread across Qiu Fa’s usually expressionless face, like that of a predator.

“Lowly thief.”

Jing Pei, suddenly insulted for no reason: ???

Jing Pei sucked the preserved plum that had nearly fallen from her mouth back in, blinked, and curled her lips into a smile.

“Your voice sounds so good when you insult people. Could you say it again?”

Qiu Fa’s expression instantly turned terrifying.

The secretary and the other Tribunal Division officers nearby all revealed shocked expressions.

Wait—was that flirting?!

The secretary looked toward the officer tracing the call’s origin, only to see his fingers flying rapidly across the keyboard, brows tightly furrowed. Apparently, there was still no result.

“Seems like you don’t intend to buy anything after all, dear customer,” Jing Pei continued. “How’s my client Miss Bai doing?”

Bai Xinran bit her lip, trembling all over.

For the first time in front of a man, she felt like she was absolutely nothing.

Not a great beauty.

Not a noble family’s daughter.

Not even a citizen.

She probably wasn’t worth as much as a slab of pork.

Qiu Fa withdrew his gaze indifferently. Since he still needed to wait for his subordinates to locate her, he didn’t hang up. Instead, he continued circling around with her.

“How she’s doing… wouldn’t you know?”

“Considering she’s my first customer and has already brought me quite a bit of business, I’d like to maintain a good relationship with my clients. Director Qiu, if you’re willing to hand the Huang and Bai families’ case over to Deputy Director An, I can give you a piece of information worth ten million for free.”

Although the Tribunal Division’s deputy director, An Zui, had a name that sounded like he specialized in pinning crimes on people, he was actually an extremely smooth and flexible law enforcer. If the Mu siblings remained in Qiu Fa’s hands, they might very well be sentenced to death. In An Zui’s hands, at the very least, things could probably be maneuvered into a prison sentence instead.

Her condition was different from Bai Xinran’s in two ways.

First, she wasn’t trying to get the Mu siblings completely acquitted.

Second, there was no trace of threat in her tone.

After all, she had no connection to Bai Xinran or the others. If Qiu Fa wanted the free information, he could take it. If not, she lost nothing.

As expected, a trace of hesitation appeared in Qiu Fa’s expression.

The “Green Ribbon” was extremely important to him. He would spend his entire life pursuing the answer behind it. If the lowly thief on the other side of the call could immediately provide him with any relevant information, then handing the siblings over to An Zui wasn’t impossible.

Bai Xinran looked at Qiu Fa expectantly.

Qiu Fa turned toward his secretary.

“Hand them over to An Zui.”

The secretary froze for a moment. “Y-Yes!”

Two crisp claps came from the other side of the line.

“Director Qiu truly keeps his word. Then, as agreed, I’ll tell you this piece of information worth ten million.”

Qiu Fa switched off the speaker and lifted the phone to his ear.

“Speak.”

“That is—I’m super pretty.”

The phone in Qiu Fa’s hand shattered instantly.

“Hm? You hung up already? I wasn’t finished talking yet.” Looking at the disconnected call, Jing Pei appeared rather reluctant to let it end.

Qiu Fa was one of the most important characters in this fantasy novel of hers, and also one of her favorite characters.

Perhaps because she loved him too much, it naturally warped into wanting to bully him a little.

She was genuinely curious what he looked like in three-dimensional reality. Only at moments like this did she truly feel the strange, vivid sensation that she had transmigrated into her own novel.

After all, she hadn’t really interacted with Long Ling yet. Everyone else so far had merely been cannon fodder, background characters, or minor supporting roles.

But once she entered Twelve Zodiac Academy, she’d meet many protagonists and major supporting characters.

How exciting.

…

Back at the Bai family estate, the air had frozen solid.

Even breathing felt difficult.

Everyone was wondering whether Qiu Fa might change his mind. After all, it looked very much like the Puzzle Intelligence Agency had thoroughly toyed with him.

So when Bai Xinran’s phone suddenly rang, the sharp sound made everyone’s hearts jolt.

With trembling hands, Bai Xinran pulled out her phone, glanced at the number, and hurriedly answered it.

“Give the phone to Mr. Qiu.”

Like someone clutching at a lifeline, Bai Xinran immediately handed the phone over.

“It’s… it’s the Puzzle Intelligence Agency.”

Qiu Fa accepted the phone with a dark expression.

The secretary was still mourning his destroyed phone and quickly blurted out, “Be gentler this time! That phone cost over ten thousand! We still have to reimburse—”

Before he could finish, a glare shut him up instantly.

“Director Qiu, don’t be so irritable. I was only joking with you,” the smiling voice on the other end said.

Then suddenly, the tone became serious.

“You should go find a woman named Yuan Qing. That’s the ten‑million‑worth piece of information. Our transaction is now complete. Goodbye, Director Qiu.”