Do You Like Me That Much? Miss Villainess-Chapter 102 : It Doesn't Matter, You Will Take Action

The attack at the full-month celebration seemed to have no impact on Mu Qinglan at all.
She still followed her usual routine—sleeping on time, precisely oversleeping, and refusing any wake-up service.
The Six Bureaus was nearly frantic because of this incident.
After all, it was a real assassination where someone had died, which naturally made it quite different from the previous attack incidents. Most critically, the assassin was still at large!
Last time at the Hundred Flowers Banquet, the incident was already significant.
But in that case, Ninth Imperial Princess Jiang He was unharmed, and the devil clan team was executed on the spot. Because it involved the divine artifact [Boundary Shadow Pearl], the subsequent investigation was handled by the royal family. But even so, the Six Bureaus had been operating at full capacity.
This time, letting the assassin escape by hand was even more embarrassing for the Six Bureaus.
You're the Six Bureaus!
How could you let a criminal escape??
In "Destiny's" timeline, movable type printing technology was already fairly developed in Heyang City, and this incident involved many aspects, making it impossible to suppress the news.
So early the next day, this had already become a hot topic discussed in teahouses.
As if they had witnessed it firsthand.
Some people freely criticized the Six Bureaus in their speech, feeling that as a transcendent organization, failing to catch an assassin was truly concerning.
Others defended them, arguing that at least they had fulfilled their duty to protect civilians.
There were also trolls muddying the waters, contradicting anyone who spoke, embodying the spirit of "the world is drunk, but I alone am sober."
No one could convince anyone else.
And the talking points about this incident clearly didn't end there.
Even within Prince Qi's mansion, the servants and maids couldn't help but whisper and discuss it secretly.
However, their topic wasn't about the Six Bureaus.
Instead, it was about the young lady who had been chronically ill for years but recently had been shining brightly.
As the maids chatted away, their eyes occasionally sparkled with admiration and respect. Steward Yuan had initially wanted to tell the servants to be more careful, but seeing this, he couldn't be bothered to interfere.
It wasn't a bad thing after all.
Mu Qinglan didn't mind such trivial matters either. As long as no one offended her, the young lady's heart was quite generous.
'Anyway, she wasn't trying to assassinate me. Although I feel she might target me in the future, she's just a sixth-rank shadow warrior. If we were to confront each other directly, she probably couldn't do much to me.'
Mu Qinglan thought matter-of-factly.
Unless there was deep hatred, she always dealt with others with targeted approaches.
Take this assassination incident for example. She first confirmed the original course of events from the storyline, then deduced the culprit's strength. After confirming the assassin wouldn't threaten her, she calmly spoke up, adding another brick to her extraordinary persona.
If the culprit had been fifth rank, she would have been more cautious.
Slightly more steady.
And if it had been fourth rank, Miss Mu Qinglan would wisely not have made a peep. What? Someone died? I didn't see anything.
Heyang City had no shortage of officials. If one died, there were plenty waiting to replace them!
All in all, no one had died!
In the back garden, the bad woman thought proudly as she held a watering can in one hand, humming while slowly watering the flower beds.
Zhu Yan followed behind as labor, handing over a new can when the water ran out.
She wasn't very happy.
Not because following behind Mu Qinglan as labor was boring, but because she felt that Sister Mu was taking her own safety far too lightly.
That was still a sixth-rank assassin.
Miss Zhu Yan felt a full sense of crisis. If she didn't work harder, she would completely fall behind Sister Mu's pace and be laid off!
"What's wrong? You don't look very happy," Mu Qinglan asked casually.
"I'm too weak and can't help." Zhu Yan was silent.
With her current eighth-rank strength, plus her innate destiny trait that could kill invisibly, she couldn't be considered weak. But even so, compared to the dangers Mu Qinglan faced, she was completely useless.
She felt she wasn't working hard enough.
Hearing this, Mu Qinglan changed her thoughts and began comforting her.
"We just have different specialties. You're an assassin; you don't need to worry about these things."
Mu Qinglan glanced at the petite gray-haired girl. In the mansion, Zhu Yan usually didn't wear a mask, so her delicate and pretty little face was clearly visible.
The girl's small face was tense, her tiny body now giving off the feeling of a corporate wage slave about to be optimized by the company, making Mu Qinglan want to tease her.
Hmm... maybe that's not so good.
"I'm not an assassin anymore." Zhu Yan shook her head.
Mu Qinglan smiled: "You can be."
Zhu Yan raised her eyebrows to look at her, somewhat surprised, but in the next second, it turned to excitement.
She wasn't very proficient at a maid's work and could hardly be called a perfect, elegant maid. But if it came to being an assassin, she wouldn't struggle.
Although she had previously worked for the Crown Prince.
Due to the gradual nature of brainwashing, up until the assassination attempt on Mu Qinglan, she had only killed people who already had stains on their records, so there wasn't much psychological burden.
Now able to pick up this craft again, Zhu Yan was happy to showcase her skills.
"What do you want me to do?" The cold killing machine came online.
"No rush."
Mu Qinglan raised an eyebrow.
"It's not time yet. When I need you, I won't be polite." Mu Qinglan smiled and handed back the empty watering can: "When the time comes, just don't find me annoying."
"I'll work hard!"
Zhu Yan's attitude was serious, like a chosen worker with the [Work Efficiency] destiny trait.
Mu Qinglan nodded casually: "Just wait."
Her words couldn't really be considered a lie. After all, bringing such a highly deterrent assassin as Zhu Yan under her control, she surely didn't intend to have her be a maid for life.
In her view, things should be used to their fullest potential.
The same applied to people.
So after two months of tempering and being strengthened by Mu Qinglan, this invincible assassin lady should begin stirring up trouble in Heyang City.
Yes, just like that.
You should be just like in the storyline, killing whoever you catch, manipulating things from the shadows. Except this time, you'll be working for me...
Mu Qinglan leaned back in her wheelchair, staring at the flower bed, her blood-red eyes narrowing slightly.
Invisibly, it was as if a venomous snake had flicked its tongue, chilling one's heart.
○
In Heyang City, rumors spread.
In the Six Bureaus, official business was hectic.
Bai Yuyu jumped down from her family's carriage, patted her skirt, and walked in with a relaxed expression, receiving many friendly and affectionate glances.
Just as a class has a class flower, a school has a school flower, and a kindergarten has little red flowers given by teachers.
The Six Bureaus also had its own flower.
The lively and outgoing Miss Bai Yuyu, the bureau's flower, greeted the passing constables and then entered a large office in a corner of the yamen to see the Six Bureaus' other aloof flower, the Great Ice Mountain Shen.
Shen Yao wore white casual clothes, sitting behind her desk, which was filled with various official documents.
"Eww... so many words."
Bai Yuyu closed her eyes and waved her hand, showing great resistance to official documents.
"Asking about yesterday's incident?" Shen Yao glanced at her friend, her gaze calm, not at all surprised.
"Hmph, Senior Sister knows me well."
"The files are over there. Look for yourself." Shen Yao said calmly.
Bai Yuyu nodded with satisfaction, but didn't rush to look. Instead, she very familiarly sat beside the desk and peered over to peek.
"..."
Shen Yao was speechless, not knowing what Bai Yuyu was up to again, and cautiously asked: "What are you doing?"
"Let me see, Senior Sister." Bai Yuyu leaned over, grinning.
Facts proved that after becoming familiar, ice beauty Shen Yao was quite powerless against Little Bai's type of outgoing, cheerful young girls.
So she couldn't resist Bai Yuyu and had to give up some space.
The room quieted down.
Only the quiet sound of turning pages and the scratching of charcoal pencils marking and crossing things out occasionally broke the silence.
"Still no clue about the assassin's identity?" Bai Yuyu suddenly asked.
"Hard to find. Wang Song was a warden. Many families had approached him to make their descendants' time in prison more comfortable. Looking at the connections, everyone has a motive to hire someone to kill him."
"What about his family?"
"Besides the contraband, there's no evidence left."
"Contraband?" Bai Yuyu looked up.
Shen Yao understood her meaning and shook her head slightly: "Don't get your hopes up. These contraband items are all common valuables, and after so many years, it's impossible to know who sent which item."
"Then why did the assassin want to kill him? Can we approach it from this angle?" Bai Yuyu offered her view.
Shen Yao was silent for a moment:
"There's too much contraband in his home. Anyone who had bribed him would have a motive to kill him."
Bai Yuyu deflated with a "pop," puffing her cheeks to express her unhappiness: "So we just let the assassin run free?"
Why is she so unhappy?
Shen Yao was slightly puzzled, then suddenly had a thought:
"We'll wait for the rabbit by the tree stump. Mu Qinglan almost caught the assassin, so they must have formed a grudge. I might go over to keep watch for a few days to see if there's a chance to catch her."
"?"
Hearing this, Bai Yuyu widened her eyes and glanced at her, clearly not expecting such an answer.
You, with your thick eyebrows and big eyes, Senior Sister, you've changed!
Damn it, if only I weren't so weak, I would also actively volunteer for this task!
Shen Yao took in Little Bai's unhappiness completely, wondering what she was thinking. She had been attentive to Mu Qinglan before, but not with this kind of possessiveness.
Bai Yuyu sat for a while longer, then bid farewell.
As soon as she left, she ran toward the training room.
It was obvious that although she appeared confident about Mu Qinglan on the surface, in her heart, she was eager to help her.
Eighth rank was just too weak.
Activate the innate destiny trait quickly... Bai Yuyu thought.
○
Study room.
Mu Qinglan looked at the messages sent by the Bai and Jiang families, raising her hand to annotate.
Dense small characters were written on paper, silently taken away by Prince Qi's mansion's scouts as they passed through the eastern market, then quietly returned at dusk.
Between the strokes of the wolf-hair brush, a few more small characters appeared.
'Truly worthy of a century-old family. Even in decline, their network of connections isn't something that nouveau riche families that have risen in the past few decades can compare to.'
Mu Qinglan somewhat envied their foundation.
'If they hadn't blocked 'Emperor Wu's' path, they probably wouldn't have been silently erased…'
She sighed.
During this period, the Bai family had been following Mu Qinglan's requirements, secretly passing her information about the movements of the Crown Prince and Prince Li's factions.
For Mu Qinglan to do this herself would seem deliberate.
But for the Bai family to do it was just right.
Even though Mu Qinglan had openly visited the Bai family recently, it didn't matter.
Due to Bai Yuyu's willfulness, no one outside considered Mu Qinglan a true honored guest of the Bai family—what honored guest would meet in a daughter's boudoir?! None of the Bai family's decision-makers had gone to welcome her, and they finally found her in the back courtyard.
But in reality?
With the great favor of gifting a weapon, the Bai family owed Mu Qinglan a significant debt.
Their granddaughter had even been led astray by her.
As for the other family sending her messages to curry favor, the Jiang family, they purely owed Mu Qinglan a favor because of the full-month celebration incident and wanted to repay her.
Although nominally they were all in Prince Qi's faction.
But factions, you know, some are loose, some are tight. Most people in their faction had merely gathered together due to similar political views and had no cohesion to speak of.
They weren't the kind of existence that tightly surrounded each other, sharing in glory and misfortune.
The reason it was called Prince Qi's faction was because Prince Qi was powerful, not because everyone had a great relationship with Prince Qi.
Just like how Prince Li's faction was called Prince Li's faction.
Second rank, the fame was significant.
However, Mu Qinglan's requests to them weren't so detailed. She only asked them to help keep an eye on Prince Li's recent movements, never mentioning the Crown Prince.
The Jiang family didn't think much of it. As rival frontier princes, it was natural for Prince Qi and Prince Li to be at odds.
Thus, Mu Qinglan had two chosen workers under her.
Working diligently for her.
And she only needed to be an ordinary trainer, catching people and then exploiting their labor.
Knock, knock, knock—
"Enter."
The door was quietly pushed open, and Shadow One, on duty, walked in with light footsteps, just in time to meet Mu Qinglan's questioning gaze.
She knew Mu Qinglan didn't want to hear nonsense, so she directly said:
"News came from the palace. The Ninth Imperial Princess has come out of seclusion. Just now, the National Advisor had someone come to tell you that Jiang He has stabilized at the seventh rank."
Saying this, Shadow One hesitated for a moment:
"She also sent a verbal message."
"Speak." Mu Qinglan was curious.
Shadow One closed her eyes and said: "She told you to hurry up and work hard. Even if you're a genius, don't fall too far behind Jiang He."
"..."
Mu Qinglan was speechless for a moment. She waved her hand, dismissing Shadow One.
Only after the door slammed shut did the white-haired girl finally burst into laughter: "Sister Ning is really cute, using Jiang He to pressure me, but she definitely didn't expect..."
"I'm already almost at the sixth rank."
Mu Qinglan lay on the table, making "puff puff" sounds, her body shaking slightly.
Actually, a few days ago, Mu Qinglan had already qualified to challenge the Earth Gate.
However, the Earth Gate was unlike the Human Gate—it was filled with hidden tigers and crouching dragons, more rigorous, and had certain penalties for failure. So for her real-world arrangements, Mu Qinglan decided to polish her strength further before challenging it.
Most importantly, if she went to challenge the Earth Gate now,
She couldn't guarantee she would achieve a perfect three-purple rating.
As for getting gold?
Mu Qinglan still had some self-awareness. That kind of thing would have to wait until at least her second attempt at the Earth Gate.
"The fifteenth day of the first lunar month... only a little over a month left."
"Before then, I'll focus on putting experience points into skills... and also practice using items... this can't be done through system points..."
"But before that..."
A flash of light gleamed in Mu Qinglan's eyes. She tapped the table, calling for Zhu Yan.
"Now, it's your time to perform."