Chapter 163 - 162: It’s Really Obvious Whether It’s Love or Not

Watching his metaphorical tail wag so fast it was a blur, Yvonne Lowell raised an eyebrow. "Satisfied now?"

"Satisfied! Very satisfied!" Leo Grant nodded enthusiastically, his deep eyes sparkling with joy.

Nolan Crawford couldn’t watch anymore and cut in, "So, what are we doing with this guy? He’s still lying at your feet. Don’t want to step on him."

After speaking, he sucked his teeth. ’I knew it. These two definitely have some weird, secret kinks! They just love getting all romantic in a pile of garbage!’

"Do I really need to teach you how to dispose of non-recyclable waste?" Leo Grant shot him a sidelong glance and continued, "Have someone leak this to Moonshadow. Falcon’s people have never been the type to take an insult lying down."

"But we’ve never had any contact with Moonshadow. Will they even believe us?" Nolan Crawford asked, hesitating.

"Whether they believe it is their problem. Getting the message to them is all upside and no downside for us."

A sharp glint flashed in Leo Grant’s eyes. Though he looked down on most other underworld organizations, Moonshadow was different. He was extremely interested in Falcon.

This might be a chance to connect with Moonshadow. And if he wasn’t mistaken, Falcon was probably a young man around his age. A man with such an iron fist was worth building a relationship with.

Nolan Crawford howled with excitement. "In that case, why don’t I go in person? Posting it on the dark web is so insincere! We should deliver the news personally!"

A teasing glint appeared in Yvonne Lowell’s eyes. She gave him a half-smile and said, "Anyone who didn’t know better would think you were defecting to Moonshadow!"

"Ahem, no way! My loyalty to Brother Grant is as plain as day, alright?!" Nolan Crawford snuck a glance at Leo Grant, then muttered under his breath, "Though, if Falcon actually thought I was good enough, I wouldn’t be against jumping ship."

’Thanks for your interest,’ Yvonne thought. ’But I’m not hiring.’

"We’re heading back now," Yvonne Lowell said softly, giving his fingertips a little squeeze.

Leo Grant’s brow furrowed. "You can’t stay a little longer? I’ll take you home later."

"No, it’s fine. You focus on your work. My mom is nagging me to come home." Yvonne Lowell stood on her tiptoes, patted his head, and left with Nina Jennings and Zachary Jacobs.

...

「In the car.」

Yvonne Lowell suddenly spoke. "When did the X Alliance approach us? I have no memory of it whatsoever."

’She was confident in her own superpower, so the man’s words were likely true. But why hadn’t anyone mentioned it to her?’

"It was right after you came back to Kingsland. That big she-ape came to us talking about some ’win-win partnership’ where we do all the work and only get a forty percent cut. It was hilarious. I turned that moron down flat, then had someone ambush him, throw a sack over his head, and beat him up. I can’t believe that piece of garbage is now trying to frame us!"

As she spoke, Nina Jennings whipped her head around to face her. "Holy shit! Wait, I definitely told you about this! You even replied with a ’1’! And now you’re telling me you don’t remember?!"

Yvonne Lowell felt an inexplicable twinge of guilt and cleared her throat. "It was a long time ago. I forgot."

’Nina Jennings had a habit of spamming her with emoji stickers, so Yvonne had her on mute. If she ever opened the chat and saw that Nina had actually sent text, she would just tap out a ’1’ in response. Besides, Nina never discussed serious business over text anyway...’

"Sigh. The love is gone, isn’t it? The passion has faded. It’s so obvious when someone doesn’t love you anymore. Now, my words are nothing but farts in the wind, vanishing into thin air. The promises of yesterday are now daggers in my heart! Boo hoo hoo... The tears fall before I can even speak of my sorrow..."

Nina Jennings began to "cry" into her hands again, putting on a real show.

Yvonne ignored her and continued, "Once The Shadow Pavilion comes looking for them, we’ll step in openly. Until then, let’s give the X Alliance something to do. Keep that Lawrence from getting bored shitless."

’The X Alliance never played by any rules, always chasing the fastest dirty money. She’d only met that big she-ape—er, Lawrence—one time.’

’He’d brought his boy toy to an underground fight club, where he’d nestled all cute and cuddly in the other man’s arms. A brawny giant nearly two meters tall, and he was the bottom. No wonder the guy was bored shitless...’

「No discrimination intended!! I’m purely talking about this specific character in the book!! Don’t come for me!!」

’Moonshadow isn’t the type to just take a loss quietly. If every piece of garbage out there could try to frame us, wouldn’t I be worked to death?’

’Haha, do you even hear yourself?!’ Alan Knight thought. ’Does your conscience not hurt?! You, busy?! Have you ever managed a single thing?! HUH!!’

Hearing this, Nina Jennings wailed even louder. "When *I* told you about it, I didn’t see you rushing to make trouble for Lawrence! But now that it involves that Grant fellow, you do a complete 180! I, your old love, just can’t compete with your first love and new flame! He’s your one true partner, isn’t he?! A broken heart... is like shards of glass..."

Zachary Jacobs’s hands trembled on the steering wheel. ’Maybe I belong in the trunk,’ he thought, ’not in the car with them.’

"Alright, that’s enough. Didn’t you already have him ambushed in a sack?" Yvonne Lowell massaged her temples, which were throbbing from the noise. "Besides, with that mouth of yours, could he really have gotten the upper hand? I’ll add another 300 million to the lab’s funding for the year."

She hadn’t forgotten how Nina had dealt with a local who’d made a racist gesture at her back when they were students in Country M.

The five-thousand-year cultural heritage of Aurelia was truly vast and profound.

This extended to its rich and colorful vocabulary of insults. You could curse someone’s entire family tree for days on end without repeating a single thing.

You could insult a person from the hair on their head to the soles of their feet, then move on to their next-door neighbor’s dog, and make the whole thing rhyme.

Although they hadn’t lived in Aurelia for more than a few years, they had diligently studied its culture back in Apeiron. Something like a ’bloodline awakening’ was a mysterious and powerful thing.

So, when that foreigner made the gesture at her, Nina didn’t even spare him a glance. She simply said with utter calm, "An orphan born to a mother who never bothered to raise him," and it completely broke the man’s spirit.

The man just stood there shouting "Sh*t!", "F*ck!", "A*shole!", and "Oh my god!" for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he burst into tears right then and there, sobbing like a two-hundred-twenty-pound toddler.

Afterward, he insisted on dragging Nina to his house to meet his parents, just to prove that he not only had a mother who had birthed and raised him, but a father too—that he was definitely not the orphan she claimed he was.

Having been placated, Nina Jennings knew when to quit and dropped her act. "You know it! I got him so worked up with a single sentence he was practically hopping mad. He ended up slinking away in complete disgrace."

...

Aside from that little episode, the rest of the New Year holiday passed without any other unpleasant incidents. It was both cheerful and peaceful.

Yvonne Lowell found herself growing more and more fond of this kind of life—so comfortable and simple.

But happy days are always fleeting. It wasn’t that any major disaster struck, but Yvonne Lowell was suddenly struck by a pang of conscience and decided it was time to head back to Continent N and check on her assets.