The next day, He Yi and Murong Mingyue were already waiting in their cars at the bottom floor of the apartment building before the sun had even risen yet.

I suggested that we should dress ourselves formally, so all the guys wore black suits with ties. Gui Guzi’s tie was too tight, so when he asked me a question he looked as red as a tomato. “Boss, why the heck are we dressing up like we’re going on an interview?”

“Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls have dozens of professional players already, and since we’re the ‘standing army’ it stands to reason that we look the part. You don’t want them to think that you’re part of the cleanup crew, do you?”

Gui Guzi pointed at Beiming Xue. “Even so, it doesn’t make sense for Lil Beiming to dress up like a hostess…”

I turned around and looked at Beiming Xue. The girl was wearing a one-piece dress that stopped short just above the knees and an office uniform that clung tightly to her chest and abdomen. They outlined her growing body perfectly, her round, shapely butt especially so.

I kept calm and said, “She looks more formal this way. Plus, doesn’t it look great on her? Do you like them, Beiming?”

Beiming Xue nodded. “I do! But boss, the bra is seriously too small. It’s a bit suffocating to be honest.”

“Endure it. I heard that a financial crisis is coming our way, so any cloth we can save will contribute to the construction of our country!”

“...”

…...

He Yi was still driving her sports car, but Murong Mingyue had driven over a minivan. It was the perfect vehicle to tow our luggages, although it gave her the appearance of a worker of a moving company.

Gui Guzi, Du Thirteen, and Yamete were unscrupulous men, so their belongings weighed less than 5 kg, including gaming helmet, that alone weighed 2.5 kg. My luggage was a little more normal and weighed around 10 kg. But our luggage was nothing compared to Beiming Xue’s... Hers weighed 100 kg in total.

Down the stairs, Murong Mingyue’s mouth fell open in astonishment as she loaded our belongings into the minivan.

“Beiming Xue, you have so much stuff~”

“Yes, sister Mingyue~~”

“What is this? An aeroplane chess? A nylon divine beast? Even a frying pan? Whoa, why are carrying these with you…” Murong Mingyue felt like vomiting blood just looking at the random assortment of items.

Beiming Xue explained, “The aeroplane chess is for brother Gui Guzi, it’ll do wonders for his IQ. The divine beast Caonima is for brother Du Thirteen, and the frying pan is for boss so he can cook noodles during the night…”

Murong Mingyue nearly fainted from the incredible explanation. Hoping to find someone with a more normal luggage, she picked up a small bag that belonged to Yamete and poured out its contents. It turned out that the bag was filled with erotic CDs; the complete works of Sora Aoi, Kaede Matsushima and more!

Murong Mingyue gritted her teeth and scolded me, “Lu Chen, I thought you said that everyone in Bloody Mercenaries is an upstanding person? You even told me that Yamete works in the IT industry, the same field as me! Are you kidding me?”

I picked up a couple of CDs and nodded seriously. “But he does work in the IT industry. He’s a salesman of the IT industry to be exact…”

“You call selling pornographic CDs working in the IT industry?”

“Of course. By the way, you can buy 0.5 kg worth of porn for just 5 RMB. Would you like to round up that number and buy a kilogram off my hands?”

Murong Mingyue looked absolutely livid. She was about to give me a piece of her mind when He Yi walked in on us and saw the CDs. At first she was surprised, but she quickly recovered and smiled at me. “Is there anything here that you would like to recommend me, Lu Chen?”

Yamete, Gui Guzi and Du Thirteen pretended to vomit blood in unison.

After all the luggages were loaded into the minivan, Murong Mingyue took off with my subordinates. I was the only one who received the emperor’s treatment and had my boss drive me to our new accommodation herself.

As the car moved slowly toward our destination, I watched the bustling streets outside the window and smiled a little. “Boss, do you still remember the first time I became your passenger?”

He Yi nodded. “Yeah, that was a close one. Thank goodness no lives were lost that day.”

Her wording caught me off-guard. Did He Yi not know that I was dead at the time, and that I was alive now only because the virus had resurrected my cells? Well, that’s fine too. I would prefer that she never learned about this.

“That car was totaled, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was…” He Yi said regretfully before pressing her lips together. “Ten million RMB gone just like that. After that, I applied for a new car from the company and got this…”

I shouted “WTF!” inside my head before turning to look at her shoulder. “How are your injuries? Do you want me to drive?”

He Yi tilted her head to the side and smiled. “Is that okay?”

“Of course!”

“Alright then.”

He Yi parked the car beside the road before unfastened her seat belt. She got out of the car and walked to the front passenger seat while I climbed over to the driver’s seat.

The car hummed steadily and strongly as I drove it back on the road once more. I easily caught up with Murong Mingyue’s minivan. “Damn! What an amazing car. I’ve got to buy one after I earn some cash…”

He Yi giggled. “You want it? I can give it to you as a gift~~”

I side-eyed her and turned down the offer. “No way, I don’t want to be called a gigolo!”

“Don’t worry, you look nothing like a gigolo at all…”

“...”

“...Why am I not happy to hear that?”

He Yi let out a snort before leaning into the passenger seat and sighing. “It feels good to have someone to rely on…”

“Someone to rely on?” I asked in confusion.

“Mn.” He Yi nodded and stared at the sky outside the window. She started explaining, but it almost sounded like she was talking to herself. “When everyone treats you with artificial affection, when everyone wants something from you, it’s hard to pass a day without worrying about something. That feeling only gets worse when you realize that there isn’t anyone around you that you can trust. It’s such an exhausting way of life…”

He Yi tilted her head again and smiled at me. “Lu Chen, we were separated for a whole month before we saw each other again. It’s been a bumpy ride, hasn’t it?”

I smiled back. “A bumpy ride? More like a relentless storm.”

He Yi snorted before straightening herself. “The future of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls is looking much brighter with Xu Yang, Mingyue and now you and your Bloody Mercenaries. Do you have any plans about developing our guild?”

I thought for a moment before starting, “Right now, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls has two key advantages. One, my brain delay is gone, and Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand is among the best of the best in Floating Ice City. In fact, I’m practically invincible in a one-on-one fight. What this means is that my account has become a symbol that everyone will think of when they think of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. Two, Bloody Mercenaries currently have two irreplaceable generals, the Undead Knight Gui Guzi and the Dark Archer Beiming Xue. if we nurture them well, they will become the swords that carve out the future of our guild!”

“Yeah, yeah~”

He Yi stared at me intently before smiling. “You will always be my one and only Divine General though!”

I felt like my cheeks were burning. In a sense, it was unbearable to receive praise straight to the face.

“Boss, if you praise me again I just might crash into something…”

“...”

…...

He Yi pointed at an office building when we arrived at the edge of Suzhou New District Science & Technology Industrial Park. “Here, our base is on the tenth floor of this building!”

A bit of emotion welled inside of me. After so many years, I’m finally a proud occupant of an office building!

As we carried our luggages up the building, the security guard recognized He Yi and greeted her respectfully, “President!”

He Yi gave him a nod and dragged me by the sleeve. She was injured, so I didn’t make her carry anything. Unfortunately, that meant that I was covered in items from head to toe, my lovely frying pan literally hanging in front of my chest like a mirror armor.

The elevator door opened when we reached the tenth floor. We were immediately greeted by the sight of a powerful-looking man wearing a suit and a pair of sunglasses!

Murong Mingyue walked right up to the man and let out a cold snort. “Move your butt and carry the luggages, Xu Yang!”

WTF? How is he Xu Yang? The guy I remembered was a northern lad with a big body and an even bigger heart. Since when was acting cool his thing?

Before I could think anything else, Xu Yang walked up to me and gave me a big hug. He laughed heartily and said, “You sure took your time, Lu Chen. Have you finally decided to come back to us?”

He Yi and Murong Mingyue smiled softly at our reunion, but I was too busy being choked alive and turning red for all the wrong reasons to care. Behind me, Du Thirteen was being sandwiched by the elevator door repeatedly because I was standing at the entrance. “Ah! Ah! Ah!”

…...

“Here, take this pan for me!” I threw the frying pan into Xu Yang’s arms, and the big man gasped. “Out of the fire and into the frying pan? Is this how you treat your friends?”

Murong Mingyue scolded him, “Enough. We can talk after we get them all settled in!”

“Got it!”

Our rooms were lined up nicely next to each other. There were 50 rooms facing toward the sun on this floor, and they had all been renovated into living spaces. Normally, 2 or 3 people were meant to stay in one room, but since everyone in my Bloody Mercenaries was a commander we all got a room to ourselves. It was a nice arrangement.

I entered my room. With 40 square meters of space, it was bright, spacious and renovated pretty well. It almost looked like a hotel room.

He Yi walked in and opened the curtains. She then turned around to smile at me. “So? Do you like it?”

I nodded repeatedly as a matter of course. “Absolutely~”

After I was done setting down my belongings and arranging everything, He Yi led me out of the room and pointed at the two empty rooms next to me. “This is Mingyue’s room, and this is my room. We haven’t moved our stuff over yet, but everything should be done around late afternoon. We can eat dinner together later!”

Emotions welled inside me as I watched He Yi. I felt like I was in a dream, to be honest. Right now, she looked so beautiful that it was almost unreal.

“Boss, you were always busy back then. How did you find the time to do all this?” I asked.

He Yi looked away as if she was searching for a reason. A few seconds later, she answered, “I’ve been working for many, many years, and I felt like taking a moment to rest and spending the next few months playing games, that’s all. Is that a good enough reason for you?”

Surprised, I nodded. “Well, of course…”

Suddenly, Murong Mingyue walked up to us and complained, “The people at the head company aren’t going to like this, you know. You’re no different from a freeloader right now!”

He Yi puffed up her chest proudly. “So what? They can fire me if they dare~~”

Murong Mingyue’s lips curled. “You win…”

And so, Bloody Mercenaries officially joined the base of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls.

He Yi acted as our guide and took us everywhere. Besides the living area, there was a buffet area, an outdoors and indoors activity area, and even a private bar. Surely the money would flow like a fountain if they just hired just a couple of pretty waitresses. We’re all shut-in gamers, it’s only natural to enjoy a couple of drinks and good music at a bar after a good day of grinding.

…...

When we turned a corner, we suddenly saw a couple of familiar faces. Gui Guzi, Du Thirteen and I immediately turned serious.

The three heads of the Ego workshop, Spring Mud, Night Sorrow, and Moon Shadow had finally shown themselves!