The person you spoke of is none other than myself.

In the silence, Mo Bai swallowed all the golden french fries before him. A few tiny grains of salt clung to the corner of his mouth, which were wiped away by a pure white napkin.

"Tsk," Mo Bai let out an annoyed sound. "Why is everyone targeting me? Am I Monk Tang? Does everyone want to take a bite out of me?"

"Even if I am handsome, they shouldn't be this desperate, right?"

"Who knows?" Mu Sheng shrugged, beginning to clear away the last bits of debris on his dinner plate. "Judging by the fact that she directly sent an assassin after you..."

"She really is quite desperate."

"Now that the assassin has been killed by the two of us, next..."

Mu Sheng pronounced every word with utmost seriousness, "She might come to find you in person."

A deep chill, a profound chill surged from Mo Bai's toes all the way to the top of his head. Compared to Lu Yuan's type of sudden confrontation where you just finish the job and move on, Qi Lin, hiding in the shadows and constantly watching you like a creep, was far more terrifying.

She was just like a spider. Before you even knew it, her web had already ensnared your entire body. You couldn't struggle; you could only watch in silence as those venomous fangs drew closer and closer, and then...

"Ugh!" Goosebumps broke out all over Mo Bai's skin. "That terrifying? No way, Mu Sheng, you shouldn't live outside anymore. I'll offer you 250 soft yuan—from now on, you're my personal hound!"

"What the hell kind of personal hound is that, and what the hell is 250 soft yuan? At that price, let alone me, you couldn't even hire a single leg hair of an assassin at Cao Chen's level!"

Mu Sheng looked up, chugging an entire glass of ice water to wash away the curry flavor in his mouth. "However, even if you didn't ask, I'd still watch over you."

"As it happens, my boss entrusted me with an errand here. You're much more familiar with recent events than I am, so the two of us can investigate together."

"An errand?" Mo Bai blinked. "What kind of errand?"

"It's also related to the moon."

Mu Sheng rubbed his hands together like a fly. "Only, it's not the green Moon of Propagation, but the red Moon of Desire."

Mo Bai: "?"

At the mention of the red moon, his heart suddenly skipped a beat, and an ominous premonition washed over him.

"No way..."

Mu Sheng did not notice Mo Bai's abnormality and continued talking to himself, "The red moon is considered one of the more well-behaved among the four moons, and its hazards vary from person to person."

"Just recently, my boss received word that the red moon of desire actually poured all its moonlight onto a single person. Such an act of favoritism is simply unheard of."

"But the Control Bureau has locked down the information tightly, so nobody knows specifically who it is. She just sent me here to investigate, and grandly told me it was a chance to return home in glory."

At this, Mu Sheng wore a sorrowful expression. "With an empty wallet, what kind of returning home in glory is that? That guy was clearly mocking me."

"Sigh, working for others is never easy. I'd better hurry up and solve this mission."

Mu Sheng raised his head, looking at Mo Bai with clear eyes. "Old Mo, since your sister is with the Control Bureau, you must know..."

"Who on earth is the bastard favored by the red moon?"

Mo Bai: "..."

With a deadpan expression, he said, "Let me ask you this first: once you find this person, what do you plan to do?"

"Do I even need to ask?"

Mu Sheng wore an expression of absolute certainty. "Naturally, I'll see if I can poach him over."

"I'm currently short on people on my side."

Mo Bai: "..."

Right in front of Mu Sheng, Mo Bai silently picked up his phone and made a call. "Hello? Sis? Yeah, I've got a three-million job over here..."

Mu Sheng: "!"

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?! Didn't we agree you wouldn't leak this?!"

Mo Bai rolled his deadpan eyes and let out a lingering sigh. "Old Mu, is there any possibility that the bastard favored by the red moon..."

"Is actually me?"

Mu Sheng: "?"

His panicked expression quickly turned into one of utter bewilderment. His hands froze in mid-air, looking just like a husky whose dog food had been eaten right in front of him by its owner.

After a long while, he let out a thoroughly baffled sound.

"Huh???"

...

In Mo Mo's office at the Control Bureau.

Although they had successfully burned away the lurking [Embryo], after clearing the scene, they failed to find any traces related to [Butterfly of Naraku] Qi Lin.

Clearly, she was not dead.

Naturally, knowing who was pulling the strings in the dark, no one except Shen Qiqi would believe that Qi Lin could die under the divine punishment of a missile.

Among the familiars of the four moons, the familiars of the blue moon excelled at slaughter, the familiars of the purple moon excelled at deception and folly, the familiars of the red moon excelled at madness, and the familiars of the green moon excelled at staying alive.

Yes, they were exceptionally good at surviving.

Forget missiles; even if they were dropped from a height of ten thousand meters while sitting in a helicopter, the familiars of propagation had a hundred ways to stay alive.

Children, I am fine.

Xiao Zhang from the intelligence department delivered Qi Lin's dossier. Mo Mo opened it, and as she looked at the deeds recorded within—each more atrocious than the last—she couldn't help but frown delicately.

"Truly insane," she said.

She had borrowed the power of the fog lord in the foggy capital to cultivate variants, causing thirty thousand people to get lost in the mist; she had established an unfindable secret base in the Amazon rainforest and executed the infamous [Three Months] plan; she had used the Moon of Propagation to irradiate a flesh-and-blood brain in the American Union, twisting flesh that enveloped an entire city...

Her crimes were already too numerous to record.

Of course, that wasn't even the most terrifying part. In the recorded reports, Qi Lin had died a total of 432 times.

She had been reborn more than four hundred times.

Even the Blue King had personally taken action, and in a frozen instant, had killed Qi Lin fifty times, forcibly knocking her down from the Soul Covenant level of familiars all the way to the Star-Conjunction tier.

Yet, in the end, Qi Lin still managed to escape.

A tribute to the legendary survivor.

After being demoted by the Blue King, Qi Lin had kept a low profile for a very long time. This was her latest activity record, and judging by the situation, she didn't seem to have fully recovered to her prime state yet.

No wonder she was carrying out her horrifying plan with such caution and slowness.

Still, she remained a formidable and terrifying enemy.

Mo Mo closed the dossier.

Perhaps her expression was a bit too serious, causing Shen Qiqi—who was sitting aside memorizing the *Trans-Realm Covenant* and the *Treaty of the Seven Kings*—to ask anxiously, "Is that Qi Lin really that powerful?"

"How does she compare to Lu Yuan?"

Mo Mo exchanged a glance with Ji Yue. In the end, Ji Yue was the one who answered, "Well... if we really have to compare, it's the difference between a Siberian tiger and Megatron."

"Of course, Lu Yuan is the Siberian tiger."

"If he successfully merges with the Hundred-Phase Omen, he might be able to contend with Qi Lin. But, just by himself..."

Ji Yue tilted her head. "He'd probably be slapped into an idiot by Qi Lin in a single blow."

Shen Qiqi: "!"

As everyone knew, she had nearly been slapped into an idiot by Lu Yuan a few days ago. Facing Qi Lin, who could kill Lu Yuan with a single slap, wouldn't she be slapped all the way back into her mother's womb?

Eep! How perverted, meow!

"It's not that exaggerated." Seeing the shivering Shen Qiqi, Mo Mo offered a rare word of comfort. "Qi Lin is not in her prime right now either."

"If it comes to a direct confrontation, Bureau Chief Chu will hold the line. For now, our only job is to track her down."

Shen Qiqi let out a breath of relief. "That's good, then that's fine..."

Mo Mo lowered her gaze. There was one thing she hadn't said aloud: even finding her would not provide a permanent solution. Not even the Blue King could completely kill Qi Lin, let alone them.

At best, they could only force her to leave this city, to leave Dongxia.

Shen Qiqi was still a newcomer after all, and such a young sapling still needed to be bathed in sunlight.

Only after growing strong and sturdy could she face the approaching storm.

Lost in thought, Mo Mo's phone rang. Glancing at the screen, she saw it was a call from her dear older brother.

At this hour, what could Mo Bai possibly want with her?

Mo Mo answered the call, and as she listened to the words coming through, her expression suddenly turned serious. "Brother, is what you're saying true?"

"Alright, I get it."

Mo Mo clenched her fists, trying her best to make her voice sound natural.

"I'll be right back."