Chapter 8: Lin Ying and the Puzzling Situation (Contract Signed, Please Vote)

Ansheng slipped out through the windowsill and climbed over the wall into the street.

About six hundred meters diagonally across from the old Rain-Snow-Clear residence stood a truly magnificent mansion, complete with a garden, swimming pool, and a wine cellar in the basement.

The owner of this mansion was genuinely wealthy, not just someone who appeared affluent on the surface. Even the surrounding wall was topped with a coil of steel wire to prevent prying eyes and thieves.

Ansheng arrived at the main gate of the mansion, climbed up the intricately carved door pillars about four meters high, and peeked into the brightly lit interior. Then he descended along the pillar and slipped into the courtyard.

The mansion’s owner’s surname was Lin, and Ansheng had come to know her about a week ago.

Though not close, they were familiar enough, as Ansheng frequented one of the places in Changxi Town where he could scrounge meals.

Following the marble pathway, Ansheng reached the two sliding doors of the living room, lifted his hand with claw-like fingers, and pried the door open.

The lights inside were on, but no one was in the living room. The eerie silence felt unnatural; on the dining island, cold, untouched dishes lay forgotten.

The chill from the central air conditioning added a strange, ghostly draft to the room.

Ansheng glanced at the island but refrained from diving straight in. Instead, he ran up the marble stairs to the second floor of the mansion.

The entire second floor, aside from a sunroom of about fifty square meters, contained only one luxurious master bedroom of nearly 120 square meters.

“Lin, are you home? I came to mooch a meal...” Ansheng called out as he jostled the door lock open and stepped into the master bedroom.

He first entered the walk-in closet set before a long bench, then passed the bathroom and study before finally arriving at the grand bed.

Looking up, Ansheng saw a haggard woman lying on the bed, her whole being radiating a somber aura.

The woman was in her early thirties, her long black hair naturally spread across the pillow. Her face, which should have been delicately maintained like a young girl’s, instead revealed an indescribable frailty and exhaustion.

Upon noticing Ansheng’s arrival, she didn’t seem surprised. She merely turned over and curled back into herself, pulling a white sheet to cover her.

“Get up, it’s time to eat!”

Ansheng jumped onto the bed, bouncing and nudging the woman beside him.

In truth, Ansheng and the woman in bed were not very close; he only knew her name from a wish list he had seen.

Her name was Lin Ying.

Her wish was for her entire family to come back together.

[If only that day she had declined the business meeting... perhaps the family would have remained whole.] Lin Ying had thought despairingly just before jumping into the pool, upon learning that her husband, daughter, and parents had died in a bus accident during their journey.

[Wish fulfilled: Time Reversal (Lin Ying can’t overcome this hurdle. If you could persuade her, perhaps the ‘pants’ could turn into something as precious as a Cullinan.)]

Back then, while Ansheng was out causing mischief with Laifu in the grass, he heard the heavy splash of something falling into the water. Following the sound, he arrived at the Lin family’s mansion.

Peering through a crack in the door, Ansheng saw Lin Ying in a daze driving her car into the swimming pool.

Startled, Ansheng acted without hesitation and pulled the sinking Lin Ying out of the water.

If not for the numerous physical enhancements he had undergone, Ansheng might not have been strong enough to break the window and drag her out.

“Get up and eat! Both Ah Qing’s and my future Cullinans are counting on you—”

Ansheng hopped onto the bed and pushed on Lin Ying’s waist, pulling her out from under the covers. Gripping the collar of his pajama top, he dragged her toward the door of the master bedroom.

Lin Ying’s gaze was vacant, as if completely drunk and heavy like a wasted drunkard.

Ansheng dragged her to the elevator, jumped up to press the button, and with some effort brought her down to the open-plan kitchen on the first floor, placing her in front of the island counter.

He then stood and hoisted the microwave onto the island, rushed to the living room to fetch a power strip, and plugged in the microwave to warm the food.

“Phew—” Ansheng exhaled deeply, crouching beside the island and looking at Lin Ying, who was staring back at him.

He said softly, “Having a dignified second-fox of our country take care of your daily needs and even heat your meals overnight—all that comes at a cost.”

“But my ID hasn’t been issued yet, so I can’t activate WeChat or Blue Treasure.”

“Remember to write me a check... no, better to just give me cash.”

“Without an ID, I can’t even get a queue number at the bank. I don’t want to have to change my nationality because I can’t cash a check and become a North American red fox instead.”

“Why a North American red fox? Naturally, because they’re usually utterly clueless, their brains and scalp are practically hanging on the fireplace BBQ.”

Ansheng fancied himself funny, telling fox jokes, but Lin Ying didn’t have the ability to communicate with animals like Yu Xueqing.

She could only hear the rhythmic, almost melodic whining of the fox.

Ansheng didn’t particularly care whether Lin Ying understood him.

After all, the reason he saved her was purely to do a good deed and accumulate merit.

The bonus of getting free meals was just something he discovered later.

After heating the food, Ansheng force-fed several large bites to the nearly fainting Lin Ying and then wandered to the mansion’s surveillance room to check the cameras, confirming the system was powered down.

Before leaving, Ansheng greeted Lin Ying once more.

And just before stepping out, he turned up the temperature on the central air conditioning a little.

After eating some carbohydrates, Lin Ying’s pale complexion gradually gained some color.

She watched the white fox open the door, close the sliding doors, wag its tail, and disappear into the courtyard.

Enduring dizziness, Lin Ying sat up from the floor, shook her head, and headed upstairs.

“If I tell anyone about this, they’ll probably think I’m crazy...”

“A fox that can shatter car windows with a punch, knows how to disable surveillance and remove hard drives, and even cooks me a five-dish meal overnight...”

“After five days of continuous medication, I’m certain I’m not crazy, but the world I live in surely is.”

Lin Ying sat on the bed, looking at the antidepressants on the bedside table, then at the moonlight outside the window. Reluctantly, she swallowed the pills and lay back down.

She knew she had a mental illness, and lately, her mood had been deeply suppressed.

After her near-death experience in the water, she had actually resumed medication.

Yet, her condition showed no signs of improvement.

That white fox had even borrowed her phone, ordered KFC, pointed to the “Crazy Thursday” promotion, and gave a thumbs-up.

But Lin Ying didn’t find it tasty; the egg tarts were too sweet, the chicken dry, and the cola diluted by ice cubes.

If the fox ordered again using her phone, she would recommend her daughter’s favorite McDonald’s instead.

Lin Ying didn’t want to admit she was sick—or rather, no sane person wants to admit they are ill.

Her choice to take medication was actually driven by a desire to understand one thing:

Among herself, the world, and the fox, which one had truly gone wrong?

But the more pills she took, the more she doubted whether the medicine was anything but fungi.

...

Unaware that Lin Ying, who had originally resisted treatment, had quietly resumed medication, Ansheng left the mansion.

Instead of going home, he headed into the mountains.

He planned to take advantage of his free time today to take charge of the mountain tea plantation at Yu Xueqing’s home and investigate the origin of the rodent infestation.

Until the rodent problem was solved, the mountain land contracted by Ah Qing’s family would remain wasteland, unable to grow anything, especially the delicate tea trees that required meticulous care.

For Ansheng, he had a formula that suited the moment perfectly.

The formula was: If Ah Qing can’t make money = then I can’t eat = and I’m worse off than a rooster.

Before heading up the mountain, Ansheng deliberately detoured to a nearby recycling station.

“Fff—”

From the shadows within the recycling station, a creature sensing danger let out a warning hiss as it slithered out.

A fat, nearly four-meter-long king cobra weighing over twenty jin stared warily at Ansheng.