"You've done great this time; I'm pleased."

"R-Really?" Vivian stuttered, not expecting to be complimented by her master. "In that case... Master, may I be presumptuous enough to ask that you grant me one request?"

"Oh? What is it?—" he was in the midst of speaking when he felt a pair of luscious lips brush against his cheek. Before he could say a word, Vivian stood up from her seat and hurried off.

'What just happened...' Su Ping's right hand lightly rubbed against his cheek where that soft sensation had happened just now.

He sensed someone watching him and glanced at the counter, only for the barwoman to stiffen before hurriedly glancing away, as if she hadn't been watching just moments ago.

"Sigh..." Su Ping let out a breath before using a finger to wipe off the lipstick mark on his cheek.

'This time I'll forgive her, since I was the one who gave her the opportunity to do so in the first place.' Luckily for Vivian, Su Ping didn't pursue the matter, but instead got up and left the bar.

Now outside, underneath the evening sky, a thought then came to mind—one regarding the contracts he'd handed out.

'I clearly remember stating to offer protection as well as taking a percentage profit.'

"That makes me wonder how that white mutt has been doing up till now." He pondered for a moment before continuing his gait through the streets.

---

"That should be the last of them." In Machete's office, Ranger stood by the wall, staring at the Wolf King, who was in front of Machete's newest desk—or in this case, possibly his last.

His office, on the other hand, looked like the sight of a brutal carnage, with large splatters of blood, pools of blood, entrails, and dead corpses littered all over the place.

And at the epicenter of this bloodbath was the Wolf King, whose hands were drenched in blood, yet her entire body—except her hands—was completely spotless. Among the corpses below her were those of Machete himself and Nicholas.

Machete's skull had been sliced into clean parts, while Nicholas, once praised for his amazing intellect, died by having his head squished into a bloody mess.

"At least these two weren't as boring as the rest," the Wolf King commented without any signs of empathy. Her words were no different from a factual assessment—nothing more, nothing less.

"We better get going before that jerk starts complaining that I've been gone for too long," said the Wolf King. Of course, such a thing would never happen, since Su Ping would be more than happy to have her away from him for a while, to be honest; her only reason for saying such was basically to comfort herself.

"Alright," Ranger nodded his head. True to what his master had said, all he had to do was stand back and watch the ensuing bloodbath.

'Just where on earth did master find such a horrendous beast of a woman...' Unbeknownst to him, his clothes had long been drenched in perspiration while watching the entire ordeal.

The both of them left Machete's office and made their way out of their headquarters. With each step they took, Ranger could see corpses littered about all over the place. In a sense, the entire place was now the perfect picture of one's own nightmare.

To be exact, the headquarters wasn't the only place the both of them had been to; the only way they were even able to find the southern gang's headquarters was after she'd brutally eliminated every single one of the lesser gangs under them.

---

"So, how was your visit to her ladyship's home?" Melinda asked the moment her husband walked into the house.

Su Ping recalled the encounter, not knowing what to make of it. "Let's just say she had a request I wasn't willing to comply with."

"Then I take it she wanted you to marry one of her daughters?"

"H-How on earth did you know?" Su Ping was stunned, not expecting her to guess what had really happened just like that.

Melinda chuckled, enjoying her husband's look of bewilderment. "Let's just say it's a woman's intuition."

"Hahaha..." He let out a dry laugh when she used his own words against him.

He then took a seat in the living room, leaning into the chair. Melinda walked up to him and sat on the chair as well, intentionally leaning onto her husband.

"You're not mad, are you?"

"Of course not. I'm sure she only wanted to have someone powerful by her daughter's side," she said with a smile.

"Besides, I believe it was already obvious. Let me guess, the youngest daughter was the one who suggested such an idea."

"I'm not sure, but she seemed to support it at the time.... Wait a minute, you knew?" Once again, he was surprised by her intuitiveness.

"I think the real problem here is that you didn't," she let out a helpless sigh. This husband of hers was particularly dense to things like this, she thought, because she'd noticed more than a handful of women around him who'd already developed feelings, and yet he seemed unconcerned about each and every one of them. She had no idea if he was just acting dense or perhaps there was another reason he acted in such a way.

"I'm beginning to wonder if you've already grown tired of your dear old husband," Su Ping pulled her onto his lap before she could react.

"Oh please, as if I could ever get tired of you," she gently caressed his cheeks with a loving look in her eyes.

"And yet you never seem worried when other women approach me."

"Are you saying I should be?" she replied with a teasing smirk. "Don't tell me my darling has begun cheating on me already." 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Why do I get the feeling that's what you want to happen?" Su Ping said with a crooked smile on his face. This wife of his really was an unpredictable handful.

"Am I interrupting something..." The sound of the door being closed followed by another's voice was heard.