After cooking for Yuki and the other patients, Shiro had a proper medic examine them. Hearing that they were completely healthy now, Shiro let them do whatever they wanted while she prepared to make her way to the east of China.

  Yuki stayed around for a little while before deciding to make her way back to the Winter’s Grace main headquarters so that she could reorganise the faction a little. After all, she has been away for quite a while and was not able to run the faction how she wanted to. Sending small letters and secret phone calls was not optimal.

  Watching Yuki leave, Shiro had a small smile on her face since Yuki was now getting her life back on track after Duan Han Ying f*cked it up.

  "Do you want to make your way to the east now? Thankfully, there’s a teleport shrine in the city so we can get there immediately." Nan Tian asked with a smile.

  "Sure. I guess it’ll be just me and you for a bit then." Shiro shrugged.

  Of course, that was excluding the spirits that were following her, Estrella, Nimue, Iziuel and Atesh. With Keiko and Keomi making their way to the front lines to get some levels, their current group had thinned out a little.

  "I see, perhaps you could call this a date?" He said with a smile and removed his mask.

  "You wish. Unfortunately for you, I have a few permanent tenants with me." Shiro grinned before summoning Nimue, Iziuel and Attie.

  "You know, if you’re gonna summon me, at least tell me. I was about to rest ya know?" Nimue sighed.

  "Fine fine, you can go back then." Shiro chuckled and let Nimue back in the mana realm.

  "What about you Iziuel?"

  "I’ll stay out here." She smiled as she enjoyed staying out in the world. It was soothing in the way that it made her feel free.

  "Mn." Nodding her head, they started to make their way out of the village as Shiro held Attie in her arms.

  Seeing Attie glance towards his face curiously, Nan Tian gave him a small wave. To which, he only looked the other way in boredom.

  "Pft, seems like Attie doesn’t like you." Shiro laughed as Nan Tian could only smile tiredly.

  "I guess that’s a sign that I’m not too good with children." He sighed.

  "Too bad for you then huh? I already have 3." Shiro chuckled.

  "Well I don’t exactly mind."

  Rolling her eyes, Shiro sped up ahead of him as she started to walk towards the closest teleport shrine.

  Shaking his head, Nan Tian followed behind her.

  ###

  Arriving in the city of Zhao Men, the duo made their way to the last known location of the monster.

  Surprisingly, when they arrived, there were already a few people searching around the place for clues.

  "Mn? Why are there so many people here?" Shiro asked as she turned to Nan Tian.

  "Hm…… I’m not too sure. Let me ask the member we had dispatched to this city." He replied as he brought out his phone. At this point, he had already placed his mask back on his face.

  After a short while, a woman arrived at the scene with a rather curious guest.

  "Branch Master." The two said at the same time.

  "I didn’t realise that you were visiting this place Huan Er. How goes your training?" Nan Tian asked as the second woman was Huan Er, the one that Shiro would like to call a second rate hacker girl.

  "It’s going fine Branch Master. It seems like you’re with Miss Shiro today." Huan Er bowed slightly before glancing towards Shiro.

  Feeling Huan Er’s gaze on her, Shiro grabbed Attie’s hand and gave her a small wave.

  "Mn, so what brings you to this city? I thought you would have been training with the elder down south?" Nan Tian questioned curiously.

  "I’m here for the mission. Master has told me to practice my puppeteering on this monster and see if I can bring it under my control. If I’m able to do that, I’ll be able to proceed to the next step of my training." Huan Er replied.

  "Hm…… I see. That’s quite unfortunate since we’re here to kill that monster too."

  Hearing that they were also here to kill the monster, Huan Er had some hope that she could show off her potential to Nan Tian but stopped when she realised that Shiro was around.

  Seeing the child in her arms, she couldn’t help but wonder who he is. Seeing how affectionate Shiro was being with it, she could guess that it was a child of a good friend that she’s looking after.

  Plus, there was no way that it was going to be her child as she was still……

  Thinking up of this point, Huan Er finally realised that Shiro seemed to look a bit older than the last time she had seen her. Previously, she looked about 13 but now she seemed to be around 18 to 20 years old.

  "If you’re curious about Attie, then I can tell you that he’s my son." Shiro smiled. Since Huan Er liked Nan Tian and Nan Tian liked her, if Huan Er found out that she had a son, she would be quite annoyed no?

  Plus, Shiro was in a good mood so she decided to mess around with Huan Er a bit.

  "!!!"

  Widening her eyes, Huan Er glanced at Shiro in surprise.

  ’How the f*ck is that child her’s? Wasn’t her body that of a kid before?’ She thought with confusion.

  "You know, you saying that Attie is your son is quite confusing to a few people. After all, your previous form was rather…… young wouldn’t you say?" Nan Tian chuckled.

  "What? Adopted son is still my son. We’re a package ok? Get me and you get Attie with Yin and Lisa. If they don’t like you then you don’t get me." Shiro rolled her eyes as she decided to joke around.

  "Oh? Does that mean you’re entertaining the idea of being with me?" Nan Tian smiled.

  *Cough!

  "Just a joke, just a joke." Shiro glanced away with a small blush as she couldn’t help but think back to what Nimue said about the Freudian Slip.

  ’Damn it! Nimue you’re making me overthink stuff now!’ Shiro pouted in her mind as Nimue sat in her mana realm, confused as to why she was suddenly blamed.

  {Eh? But I didn’t say anything just now?} Nimue replied in confusion.

  While this was happening, Huan Er couldn’t help but feel a little awkward seeing the aura around the two.

  Feeling a little jealous, she glanced towards her friend by the side who seemed to have been forgotten by the Branch Master.

  "Anyways, enough about that. What about the monster, didn’t you ask her to come so we can find out more about the monster?" Shiro changed the subject quickly since she didn’t want to dwell on those thoughts about the Freudian slip.

  "Right, if I remember correctly, your name was Cai Xiu right?" Nan Tian nodded as he took a step back in his advances. After all, if she didn’t want to stay on the topic, he wouldn’t force her to. He was happy enough to know that she was considering the thought.

  "Indeed." Cai Xiu replied with a nod.

  "Are you able to tell us what happened here and why there are so many people gathered?" He asked.

  "Of course. For you see, earlier this morning, they had discovered a sudden spike in mana. The monster in question was rumoured to have mutated. In addition to this, there was a severe increase in casualties so they’re putting a priority mark on this monster. There were rumours to say that even a few level 200’s were killed with ease." Cai Xiu replied respectfully.

  "Hm…… I see. I suppose if you’re able to control this monster then it would be a great asset for you. How about this, we’ll have a small competition. It’ll be a match between Huan Er and Shiro. For Shiro to win, she’ll need to kill this beast before you can control it and vice versa. I will not be providing any form of assistance during this." Nan Tian suggested with a smile.

  He knew that Shiro wanted to ’exercise’ after waking up so a competition should be right up her alley.

  "Oh? That sounds pretty interesting. However, how would Huan Er win if I accidentally land the final blow just as she controls it?" Shiro raised her eyebrow.

  "Don’t worry about that, I’ll keep it alive if Huan Er controls it first." Nan Tian chuckled.

  "Hm, fair enough." Shiro nodded before glancing towards Huan Er.

  "Let’s have a bit of fun then shall we?" She smiled as there was a small sadistic hint in her eyes.

  Seeing this, Nan Tian knew that Huan Er was going to have a bad time but decided to ignore it as Shiro was the one he cared about.