166: Chapter 166 The Guest from the Ninth Inning

"Husband!"

Frost Star immediately dropped the steamed bun in her hand and slid right next to Lin Ye.

Not caring if anyone was watching,

she squeezed herself directly into the spacious single armchair with Lin Ye.

...

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Fatty Wang, who was drinking soy milk, choked instantly and started coughing violently.

Soy milk sprayed out from his nostrils, covering the entire table.

Ayugu's face turned beet red as she quickly covered her eyes with her hands.

"Outrageous! Public morality is in decline! Boss, in broad daylight, can't you pay attention to the impression you're giving?!"

Lin Ye flicked Frost Star's nose with annoyance.

"Stop talking nonsense. With that appetite of yours, even with another few hundred years of training, don't dream of draining me."

Leng Yue picked up her teacup on the side and gently blew away the floating tea leaves.

"Exactly. You rolled around on the floor stuffed after drinking just a single drop of Pure Yang True Blood. Some girls may have grown tall, but their foundation is still far off."

The main wife's taunting skills had always been precision-guided.

Frost Star puffed out her cheeks in anger. Just as she was about to talk back, the crisp clinking of high heels suddenly echoed from outside the door.

"Yo, so early in the morning, Boss Lin's place is certainly bustling."

"With all these different beauties here, I think your Funeral Shop might as well be renamed Jiangzhou's Number One Cave of the Silken Web."

Accompanied by a cheerful, teasing voice, the glass door was pushed open.

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan walked in valiantly, wearing a sharp black business suit and high heels.

She wasn't wearing her Ninth Bureau Special Forces tactical vest today, clearly here on private business.

In her hand, she carried a silver briefcase equipped with a confidential fingerprint lock.

Lin Ye patted Frost Star's waist, signaling her to tone it down.

Only then did the little loli reluctantly slip out of Lin Ye's embrace, sit back in her chair, and continue munching on her bun.

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan walked up to the tea table and placed the silver briefcase onto it with a heavy thud.

Her eyes scanned the room. When she saw Leng Yue, she instinctively felt a trace of awe.

But when her gaze fell upon Frost Star, who was munching on a bun nearby, Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan froze.

"Wait."

She rubbed her eyes and pointed at Frost Star, her face looking like she had seen a ghost.

"Lin Ye, who is this?"

"My sister-in-law, just back from further studies abroad."

Lin Ye spouted nonsense without batting an eye.

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan's lips twitched.

Those silver-blue pigtails, those heterochromatic eyes—this was clearly the flat-chested little zombie who followed behind Lin Ye all day asking for snacks!

How many days had it been since they last met?

Did this girl eat some kind of hormone pesticide?

Transitioning seamlessly straight from an elementary schooler to the proud, voluptuous figure of a top-tier young woman?!

Before Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan could recover from her shock,

Helena emerged from the backyard kitchen with her head lowered, carrying a steaming pot of preserved egg and lean pork porridge.

"Boss, the porridge is heated."

Helena placed the casserole pot on the table and habitually bent over.

*Rippp—*

That cheap maid outfit, already stretched to its absolute limit, ultimately couldn't withstand this Western beauty's terrifying bust.

A button at her chest popped right off, tracing a graceful arc in midair before landing precisely into the vinegar dish on the table.

A large expanse of snow-white, deep cleavage was instantly exposed to the air.

Helena let out a gasp and clutched her chest tightly, her face turning crimson, so embarrassed she wished she could dig a hole and hide.

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan was completely numb.

She stared in dumbfounded shock at this Western woman whose figure was hot enough to cause nosebleeds, then looked at Leng Yue sitting quietly beside her, and then at Frost Star with her yandere expression.

"Manager Lin."

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan took a deep breath, her tone extraordinarily complex.

"You just wiped out Yellow Springs Market's lair in the Ten Thousand Mountains, and today you're playing Western nun roleplay in your shop? Isn't your scope of business expanding a bit too ridiculously?"

As a deputy captain of The Ninth Bureau, she could tell at a glance that Helena retained a very faint trace of Holy Light energy fluctuations.

This was definitely no ordinary foreign woman.

"A newly hired cleaning lady who signed a lifetime service contract. Completely legal and compliant."

Lin Ye picked up a spoon and ladled a bowl of porridge for himself, his tone as casual as discussing the weather.

"Captain Chu, coming to my door so early in the morning, surely you didn't just come to care about my employee benefits?"

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan rolled her eyes at him, too lazy to probe deeper.

After all, The Ninth Bureau had long gotten used to whatever crazy things this Living Yama did.

She reached out and pressed her finger on the fingerprint lock of the silver briefcase.

With a click, the briefcase opened.

Inside were neatly stacked wads of large-denomination black bearer cashier's checks.

"A voucher signed by the Director himself."

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan pushed the briefcase in front of Lin Ye.

"In Death Valley, you suppressed that giant bronze coffin, saving the lives of dozens of elite members from our Ninth Bureau. The fifty million promised earlier was paid on the spot, so what's in this box counts as a bonus."

Lin Ye didn't even cast a single glance at the money.

He merely jerked his chin toward Fatty Wang.

The fatty immediately understood, smiling so broadly his eyes narrowed into slits as he hugged the briefcase and ran straight for the safe behind the counter.

This was all cold, hard cash after all.

"Besides delivering the money, there's one more thing."

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan's face turned serious. She sat down in the empty chair opposite Lin Ye.

"In Death Valley, the old guy wearing the golden mask whom you slashed—his identity has been verified."

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan lowered her voice.

"He was the chief agent for the Western Truth Freemasonry in the southern part of Great Xia. The Yellow Springs Market was merely one of their money-making tools on the dark web."

Hearing the words "Truth Freemasonry,"

Helena, standing to the side and clutching her chest, visibly trembled.

A trace of deep fear flashed across her ice-blue eyes.

Lin Ye took a sip of porridge.

"Freemasonry? A bunch of old white men playing capital games dare to reach their hands into the Ten Thousand Mountains to dig up King Zhou's tomb?"

"They aren't ordinary capitalists."

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan shook her head, her tone solemn.

"The Ninth Bureau's intelligence network shows that the core of Truth Freemasonry controls nearly half of the supernatural resources in the Western Continent. They have been constantly trying to locate 'Spiritual Energy Source Nodes' connected to the earth veins worldwide."

She stared intently at Lin Ye.

"Satellites caught the spiritual energy tide that erupted deep within the underground palace. That was the aura of the Thousand-Year Nether Dragon Marrow. The Director sent me to ask you... did that item fall into your hands?"

Lin Ye set down his spoon.

Instead of answering directly, he pulled out a tissue and wiped his mouth.

"Captain Chu, we're both smart people."

Lin Ye's lips curled into his signature cold sneer.

"Underneath that cavern, besides a dried-up well, there was nothing. If The Ninth Bureau thinks I kept something for myself, feel free to send people to search my Funeral Shop."

Search?

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan cursed inwardly.

Even if you gave The Ninth Bureau ten times the courage, they wouldn't dare search this Cave of the Silken Web, guarded by two supreme terrifying beings.

That wouldn't be a search; that would be delivering takeout.

"Fine, if you say there isn't, then there isn't."

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan knew she couldn't pluck a single feather from a stingy iron rooster like Lin Ye, so she simply changed the subject.

"There's another piece of intelligence. Due to the death of that chief agent, the Western Continent is furious."

She glanced at Helena nearby.

"A joint enforcement team from the Inquisition and Freemasonry has already secretly crossed the border into Great Xia."

"Their objective is very clear... First, recover the Chief Adjudicator Nun who disappeared in Death Valley."

"Second, eliminate everyone standing in the way of unlocking the earth veins."

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan stood up.

"Lin Ye, these Westerners act without bottom lines. They don't play by Great Xia's Taoist rules; they rely entirely on highly destructive dark magic and alchemical weapons. Be careful."

"Thanks for the heads-up."

Lin Ye leaned back against his chair.

"Please pass a message back to your Director. If these foreign devils behave as honest tourists in Jiangzhou, I won't care."

"But if they dare step a single foot into Taiping Old Street..."

Lin Ye's eyes instantly turned bone-chillingly cold.

"I'll let them see how Great Xia charges for soul salvation services."

Looking at Lin Ye's confident and eager expression, Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan let out a helpless sigh.

She couldn't help but feel that the Western joint enforcement team wasn't coming for revenge, but rather to deliver international poverty-alleviation funds directly to Lin Ye.

"I've delivered the message. I'm leaving."

Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan acted with swift resolution, turning around and pushing open the door to leave.

Having sent off The Ninth Bureau's God of Wealth,

Lin Ye tapped the table, turning his gaze toward Bai Yu, who had been standing like a wooden statue on the side.

The wood fiend energy on Bai Yu's arm had been completely cleansed, though it was still wrapped in bandages.

For the past few days, he had been huddled inside the Funeral Shop, not daring to go anywhere, essentially minding the shop for Lin Ye.

"Bai Yu, I have a job for you."

"Boss Lin, at your command." Bai Yu immediately stood up straight.

"Go to the black market again and use your contacts to spread the word. Say that the Western agent who slaughtered the Ghost Market that night has already been sent to the afterlife by my Lins Funeral Shop, and that I have a batch of top-tier grave artifacts brought out from the Ten Thousand Mountains. I plan to host a special auction."

Bai Yu froze for a moment.

"An auction? Boss, where would we get grave artifacts belonging to Westerners?"

"What do you know? This is called a sting operation."

Fatty Wang smacked the back of Bai Yu's head from the side.

"Since those foreign devils have already snuck into Jiangzhou, they're definitely hiding in the shadows. If we make a huge fuss, they'll definitely take the bait to regain their face and retrieve the missing nun."

Lin Ye threw Fatty an appreciative glance.

"Exactly. Once these fat foreign sheep enter our venue, the prices won't be up to them anymore."

Right at that moment,

Helena, who had been hiding to the side clutching her chest, suddenly dropped to her knees in front of Lin Ye with a thud.

"Master... Boss."

Her voice trembled, her eyes filled with deep fear.

"In the joint enforcement team... there is a madman called the Blood High Priest. He possesses a sacred artifact fragment capable of suppressing all Eastern dark evil aura."

"If they really come... we..."

"Blood High Priest?"

Lin Ye snorted in contempt, as if he had just heard an unfunny joke.

He stood up, walked over to Helena, pinched her pointed chin with his hand, and forced her to lift her head and look directly at him.

"In this shop, as long as I don't nod my head,"

"even if Jesus Himself shows up, He'll still have to obediently leave behind His life-buying money."

Lin Ye released his grip and turned around to walk toward the backyard.

When he killed the boss of the Yellow Springs in the underground palace, the system rewarded him with a plane-grade containment facility named the nine nether purgatory tower.

Lin Ye had kept it tucked away in his system space without using it.

Now, the dark hand of Western forces had extended into Jiangzhou.

It was time to elevate the defensive foundation of the Funeral Shop by another notch.