Transform into a human

Luo An strolled leisurely through the university town at night, enjoying a rare moment of freedom.

Her pink ponytail shimmered under the streetlights, making her look like a fairy who had escaped from a story. Sunglasses covered most of her face, making her seem even more unconventional at night.

The wind ruffled the strands of hair at her temples, and she occasionally straightened her slipping glasses, continuing to leap between the moonlight and shadow, as if she were wrestling with her own shadow.

As for the security issue... this young lady wasn't worried at all, little did she know that the calmest time is after a storm, and who in the university town would dare to cause trouble these days?

She wasn't intentionally trying to oppose Diefu and Qiqi; it was just her nature.

The girl muttered to herself:

"Who told you to pick a 'rebel' for me? The nickname was awful, calling me 'my unworthy son' and 'my rebellious son'... You said the rebellious persona suited the aesthetic preferences of young people, humph."

Luo An successfully convinced himself.

Of course, she had a little ulterior motive in secretly having Deeford bring her to the police station. For some reason, she had been plagued by bad luck for some time now. She would trip and fall while walking, bite her tongue while eating, yawn at concerts, and her beloved ship was hit by an asteroid... It was driving her crazy!

"I've heard that the Director's sincerity can dispel evil spirits. Maybe shining some sunlight on him will help."

As she pondered this, she strolled to the entrance of the National University. Although it was late at night, there were still many college students who were not returning home at night coming and going. Feeling their free bodies and souls, Luo An felt slightly anxious and subconsciously moved away from the area.

She didn't notice that she was getting further and further away from her current location.

Suddenly, hurried footsteps came from afar, and a beautiful, unreal snow fairy brushed past her, carrying someone she knew very well in her arms.

Luo An was stunned, her mouth growing wider and wider.

"Is the police headquarters so lawless? They even dare to steal my face here..."

Anyone who didn't know better would think they'd stumbled upon a frontier planet! I really don't know how to spell "copyright fee"!

Just as she was about to chase after them to demand an explanation, two people rushed towards her at an extremely fast speed from a distance—two extremely obese women.

Luo An's attention was distracted again; she couldn't understand how these two fat women could run so fast!

"Gaining weight... seems to be a common path to becoming a man?"

Then something unexpected happened: the two women's eyes lit up when they saw her, and without saying a word, they charged at her menacingly.

"Why are you coming at me?!"

Seeing that the newcomers were hostile, Luo An immediately became vigilant. She was, after all, a battle songstress, not some cute little white rabbit!

Then...then she was struck down to the ground with lightning speed, completely powerless to fight back.

"duang~"

It's a good melon!

Her last thought was:

"I will never come back to this barbaric land of Jingshu..."

……

……

When Luo An woke up again, he found himself in a rather luxuriously decorated villa. The two fat women who had kidnapped him were standing in front of a pale-faced man, giving a report.

Damian left the banquet early without even changing his clothes. He only breathed a sigh of relief when he got home and saw that "things" were safe and sound.

"Are you sure it's this person?"

The fat woman nodded: "There are no surveillance cameras inside the house. When we checked the surveillance footage outside, we found that one of the people looked exactly like Miss Winona Loan. We then encountered her during the chase, so it should be her."

Damian nodded. It seemed impossible that they had arrested the wrong person. He didn't believe that there was another person in the university city who would dare to steal the face of the Battle Diva and happen to appear at that time while chasing the thief.

Luo An, who had his mouth sealed shut, finally understood that he was taking the blame for the two people who had run over earlier!

"Mmm..."

"What are you yelling about? Be quiet, or I'll teach you a lesson later." Damian looked at her with disgust. Although she looked like his goddess, he felt more and more disgusted by her appearance, as if his ideals had been tainted.

It might be hard for outsiders to understand why a young nobleman like Damian would be such a fanatical idol, but for him, Winona Ronne has become an integral part of his life. His decision to come to the university town was also partly motivated by a desire to participate in a charity performance.

He even had a major argument with his father, who was a high-ranking member of the conglomerate, over this matter, as his father could not accept that his carefully groomed successor was spending his energy on such things.

If Luo An hadn't been of such a special status, that important figure would have wanted to hire an assassin to eliminate the threat completely.

"Lock her up first, I'll interrogate her myself tomorrow!"

"Yes, young master."

Some secrets are known even to the bodyguards.

The second fat woman ignored Luo An's struggles and grabbed her, throwing her into the underground chamber. Looking at the vengeful sea monsters beside her and the eerie blood-red magic circle beneath her, Luo An felt like dying.

She wished she could faint right now!

With a loud "boom," the passageway to the underground chamber closed again, and Damian's long-awaited communication arrived as scheduled.

In the Chain Crystal Network, he bowed gracefully: "Justice Avery."

Avery's eyes turned slightly cold: "Did something happen to you?"

"It was a test from that FBI agent; luckily, nothing was lost."

He didn't dare mention that one person had escaped.

"The FBI has always been neutral, so why would they target you?"

"Perhaps it's her own will, or perhaps... they don't intend to stand idly by this time."

Avery said meaningfully, "I believe your promise for now, but if things go wrong, it's not you who will answer to me, but to Taiyang."

The Taiyang Group is also a behemoth, and Damian's family, the Medici family, is just a finger of a giant.

As for the mission of the Taiyang Group this time... it is naturally to do what the Empire Group has failed to do well.

Meanwhile, at Tang Xiao's private residence.

The banquet at the city hall had just ended, and Tang Xiao had already changed into his finest attire; a new banquet was quietly underway.

Unlike the banquet just now, those seated here were all pillars of the empire's security apparatus. Dressed in traditional imperial court attire, they sat solemnly behind their respective desks, as if time had been pulled back a hundred years.

This was a standard feast within the Imperial faction.

The person seated at the head of the table was not Tang Xiao, the host, but Hou Fan, who had just arrived from Chicheng, the capital of the police headquarters.

Unlike Avery's plump and kind appearance, this Attorney General is thin and mean-spirited. No wonder he is always compared to Avery; the two are natural enemies.

Adhering to the Imperial tradition of beating around the bush before making any statements, he suddenly started talking about things thousands of light-years away:

"There is a race called the Peak People under the Empire's rule. When they reach the end of their lifespan, they split themselves into two new offspring, one male and one female. Only one of the two offspring can survive, and some are destined to be devoured from birth."

"This has also led to great gender conflicts within the Peak people, resulting in numerous gender wars throughout history, which have even interrupted the process of civilization development."

"Do you know how it was resolved in the end?"

Everyone shook their heads; no one dared to know.

"The Minister of Rites back then didn't want them to be part of the empire and cause internal strife, so he had the Onmyoji periodically reverse the gender of the entire civilization. They would be men for a period of time and then women again, so that they could understand each other."

"Scholar Gao is a man of great talent!" Tang Xiao exclaimed, clapping his hands in admiration.

Despite being the current Minister of Education of the Federation, he addressed the other person by their official title from the Imperial era.

"But changing gender is easy, changing stance is difficult. We will never have the opportunity to put ourselves in the shoes of the Central Faction and the North Wind Faction."

The greater the mass, the greater the inertia. The Imperial war machine can no longer stop; this is something that even the gods cannot change.

Hou Fan then got down to business:

"Who is that good-for-nothing Wen Qing working for?"

Tang Xiao coughed awkwardly twice: "I came from our national university."

News of the riot at Prison No. 14 has spread, and this juncture will undoubtedly become an excuse for attacks from the central faction, given the deputy warden Wen Qing's performance... which was so stupid it was astonishing.

Hou Fan said coldly, "Back then, when the Imperial Academy, Qing Teng Theological Seminary, and Hanfeng Temple merged to form a national university, we paid a huge price to gain dominance, and this is the kind of trash you produce! The worst part is that you even recruited him into your ranks. Do you think the Imperial faction collects junk?!"

Tang Xiao could only pretend that he was mute.

It's no wonder Hou Fan was furious. Now he had to make this difficult decision. If he chose to abandon Wenqing, there would be a risk of disunity within the Imperial faction. If he chose to protect him, he would undoubtedly give the initiative in this confrontation to the Central faction.

Avery clearly realized this as well, and so he fired the first shot at the end of the dinner.

"Avery has already drawn his sword," Hou Fan said, tapping the table lightly. "He has proposed in the name of the Supreme Court that the university alliance, led by the Federal National University, is no longer able to suppress Neptune's Crown and has demanded the introduction of 'advanced' technology. Taiyang Group must have come here for this very reason."

"We must not back down," someone said in a low voice. "This concerns the path to divinity; we cannot retreat even a step."

"What about warmth?"

The man immediately fell silent; he didn't want to encounter anything in the future and be used as a pawn.

Hou Fan turned to look at Tang Xiao, his meaning clear: You're responsible for the mess you've made.

The headmaster gritted his teeth and said fiercely:

"Since we've already lost the initiative, we might as well switch tactics. If they're using sentimentality as leverage, we'll target the Pacific Group!"

Hou Fan glanced sideways: "Did you send that investigator from the Investigation Bureau to the party?"

Tang Xiao finally regained some face, and now he could only rely on Yue Hao's ability to cause trouble:

"Yes, give me some time."

After pondering for a long time, Hou Fan finally made a decision:

"Three days."

"If Taiyang Group hasn't withdrawn by three days, you'd better figure something out yourself!"

……

……

The next morning, at Prison Number Fourteen.

The quiet prison was filled with the sound of breakfast bells. If today's communal meals hadn't been canceled, one might have thought last night's riot was just an illusion.

Cavendish looked next door. The bad news was that his cellmate, whom he had just become familiar with, had run away, and the one lying there now was a fake. The good news was that someone even more familiar had arrived.

Seeing that only the three of them were around, "Kerr" leaned against the corner of the wall with a dazed look on his face. He said with great distress, "Boss, you put me in jail, and now you're in too? What was the point of my sacrifice?!"

"How can this be the same?" Deputy Warden Wen Qing, or rather Yue Lai, had also been locked up in the temporary detention cell on the third floor because of the big mess he had made, making him the guest instead of the host.

While arguing with his own evil thoughts in his mind, he responded:

"Wen Qing knew that some high-ranking police officers wanted to kill me to silence me, so he himself would either be silenced or recruited. By using his identity, I had the opportunity to get close to the real mastermind behind the scenes, instead of the few pawns on the surface."

"You have a leader now?"

Yue Lai finally managed to calm his restless impulses by explaining to his new employees that "doing business requires patience":

"They originally thought Cavendish was doomed, so they leaked an important piece of information—the Pacific Ocean Group."

"When I was investigating Malfoy, I learned that he went to Esvelt on a ship from the Pacific Group. I originally thought that it was a bait deliberately thrown out by someone behind the scenes. I didn't expect that the bait was indeed bait, but it was real bait."

"Now that Yue Lai is sitting in prison, I can finally taste the bait with a compassionate heart, so you deserve all the credit, Odysseus."

"Call me Cavendish," the skin-painting artist felt he was finally getting a brain, "and how long are you going to wait here?"

Yue Lai closed his eyes and sensed the situation of the four chess pieces: Yue Hao and Li had already begun their battle, while Zara and Xia Du were still on their way to their positions.

Overall, we've reached the middle game and are not far from the endgame.

He said softly, "Three days!"

Seeing his boss's confident demeanor, Cavendish finally felt relieved. Although he felt his skills were improving at an unprecedented pace as the Yue Lai case gained momentum, he couldn't very well go to the execution ground in his boss's place. The truth would eventually come out.

He began to rethink his skills, unaware that Yue Lai was also having doubts:

"Strange, I feel like I've forgotten something..."

It was as if a thin layer of fog had obscured part of his thoughts, making him remember that he had forgotten something very important, but he just couldn't recall it no matter what.

……

……

The Eighth Starport, not far from the university town, is a large starport responsible for interstellar travel in the surrounding area. Its size is self-evident. But today, the city's docks were completely filled with enthusiastic crowds. So full that... not even a shoe could be thrown in.

"Who threw that shoe? Don't they have any sense of public decency? I'll f*** them!"

This shoe has hit countless people.

As the time drew near, the waves were silently boiling on the silver-gray metallic ground.

The yacht's stern propellers spewed forth eerie blue flames, and amidst the buzzing of the anti-gravity field, the mountain-like hull gently kissed the berth. Before the gangway even touched the ground, the shouts of millions of people crashed against the hull, merging into a scorching wave of sound.

"Winona! Winona!"

Then, a shocking piece of news instantly spread throughout the police headquarters—

Winona has disappeared!!