"Pffft—"
The moment the coffee entered his mouth, Buck's eyes snapped open, his eyeballs bulging in a mask of agony.
"Blegh..."
He immediately leaped up, clutching his stomach as he began to vomit.
After retching for a while, Buck finally recovered his senses, murmuring in a state of exhaustion:
"Wha... what happened? I feel like I just had a nightmare..."
But when he raised his head, his entire body froze.
"Ci... Cipher?! Why are you here?"
Then, he saw the cup of coffee in Cipher's hand, already half-empty...
"Blegh—so it wasn't a nightmare!"
"Alright, alright, it's just a cup of coffee. Is it necessary to vomit like that?"
Seeing this, Cipher put her hands on her hips and spoke with a hint of exasperation.
"Easy for you to say, why don't you drink it!"
The expression on Cipher's face froze.
Then, she switched to a falsely kind expression and said gloomily:
"I only kept it for you because I saw how much you liked drinking it~"
Having said that, she handed over the remaining half-cup of coffee.
"Here, drink up."
Buck froze, then said with a face full of forced smiles:
"No thanks, no thanks. I've already had so much. No matter how good it is, I've had my fill."
Cipher rolled her eyes and didn't plan to press the matter further; the half-cup of coffee in her hand vanished.
"Sam called me here. Didn't she mention it before? I deduced that the guy with the codename Kongyi should be Lin Zhenyi."
As she spoke, she glanced at Lin Zhenyi, who was sitting on the floor with his head hanging low.
"Since I already know these things, there's no way I wouldn't ask Sam what exactly happened."
"So, here I am."
"I see..."
After listening to Cipher's explanation, Buck's brain took a moment to process the information before he understood.
Seeing his slow-witted look, Cipher didn't want to say anything more.
Thus, she got straight to the point:
"I've subdued that old fogey. Your Countercurrent Alliance should have some sort of protocol for interrogating prisoners, right?"
"We do." Hearing Cipher's question, Buck first glanced at the old man lying like a corpse on the floor and swallowed hard before hurriedly replying, "I can have our organization's best interrogator handle it. I guarantee this old man won't be able to keep a single secret!"
Cipher nodded at this.
"Then I'll leave this old man to you. Send the recording of the interrogation results to my Terminal."
"Understood!"
Following Cipher's instructions, Buck hoisted the old man onto his shoulder.
Then, he looked at Lin Zhenyi, who was still sitting on the floor, and said:
"Zhenyi, let's go. Back to the base."
After speaking, he began pulling Lin Zhenyi toward the exit.
Halfway there, he suddenly remembered something and ran back to say to Firefly:
"Excellency Sam, we owe it to you and Excellency Cipher today. Otherwise, we would have all perished here. Our side will provide a reward of ten million Credits each to both of you."
With that, Buck ran downstairs with Lin Zhenyi and the old man.
Once the two were out of sight, Cipher finally let out a smile and said with satisfaction:
"Very good. Another twenty million Credits earned."
Then, she lowered her head and began counting on her fingers.
"Lying that these were mana-blocking handcuffs cost one million. Lying that I could enter sub-space cost another five hundred thousand. Lying that the miniature spirit tide wouldn't erupt and would return to stability... that lie cost five and a half million directly."
At this point, a flicker of financial pain crossed Cipher's face.
Forcibly preventing a miniature spirit tide from erupting and making it return to calm was equivalent to saving an entire building; the consumption was truly massive...
"Twenty million minus seven million... a net profit of thirteen million this time. That's still a very, very large amount."
Having reached this calculation, Cipher nodded in satisfaction.
Next, she looked at the mess in the surrounding environment and thought for a moment.
"The miniature spirit tide is still here for now, and who knows how long it will take to disappear... Better first consider who to send into that world to scout the way and find traces of Lu Zhaoran while they're at it."
Although she said this, Cipher already had a candidate in mind.
Subsequently, she let Firefly leave first while she stayed behind to scavenge for any remaining Credits before departing.
After all, even though she had just acquired over ten million, one must never forget their original profession.
...
"Hong Guoguo, I will likely be leaving tomorrow."
"What? Sister Hyacine, you're leaving?"
Hong Guoguo looked on in disbelief.
She had been resting in the clinic when Hyacine suddenly appeared by her side, followed by these words that completely caught her off guard.
"Yes." Hyacine nodded slightly. "Cipher discovered a miniature spirit tide rift, and the other side of that rift might be connected to your world, which is why I plan to go in and investigate."
"Our world?!"
The originally dejected Hong Guoguo's eyes immediately lit up upon hearing those words.
"Does that mean I have a chance to return to my world?!"
The shock caused Hong Guoguo to revert to her original form as a white-haired cat-girl.
The tail behind her swayed incessantly, her feelings of anticipation and excitement overflowing.
"I'm not sure." However, Hyacine's next words doused her with cold water. "Since no one has entered yet, I don't know if the place it connects to is your world."
"Is that so..."
Hearing Hyacine's words, Hong Guoguo's expression wilted, but she quickly pulled herself together.
"Forget it. This cat has stayed in this world for quite a while; waiting a bit longer is no problem."
Hong Guoguo sighed, then looked at Hyacine curiously and asked:
"By the way, Sister Hyacine, how long will it take for you to come back after you go over there?"
"That..." Hyacine looked troubled. "I'm not sure. It could be one or two weeks, one or two months, or even one or two years."
"Eh? Why is that?"
Hong Guoguo's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Because Cipher said she can sense that the world behind the spirit tide is not of this plane, but another plane."
"This means that unless one has cross-plane teleportation or encounters an item with similar functions, it might be impossible to return."
Upon hearing this, Hong Guoguo instantly became anxious.
"Doesn't that mean there's a possibility you might never come back, Sister Hyacine?"