Liya, looking aggrieved, quickly rattled off the entire sequence of events to Bai Xiaodu.
Bai Xiaodu's fur immediately bristled, and his tail shot straight up.
“You guys are just too nice!” he fumed. “That guy dares to come here and threaten you with some random, half-assed report he found in a toilet?”
“Let me in! If I don't bite him to death in three bites, consider me a dud!”
As he spoke, he reached out to knock on the door, but the two bodyguards were quick on their feet and immediately held him back.
Liya said anxiously, “Bai Xiaodu, calm down first. He's the Deputy Chief of the Pingshan District Transportation Bureau. Don't do anything reckless.”
“Calm down? Calm down my foot!”
Patting the documents in his hands, Bai Xiaodu sneered.
“The Deputy Chief of the Pingshan District Transportation Bureau is exactly who I'm looking for!”
“Tell Lady Xin Hai'an that I've brought back both the things she wants and the things she doesn't want.”
...
Inside the office.
Xin Hai'an maintained her cold, indifferent expression.
The middle-aged man was still talking endlessly, playing both the good cop and the bad cop, but his point boiled down to one thing:
I have people backing me, and my boss has had his eye on you for a long time. If you don't want things to get completely ugly, hand over the 1% of shares quietly.
“Have you thought it over, President Xin? Your group is so massive; you won't even miss this 1%, will you? It's a win-win.”
“Why always clutch your money so tightly? It's so boring. The Federation has long advocated for those who get rich first to help others get rich. Haven't you heard that saying?”
The corner of Xin Hai'an's mouth twitched.
Boom!
The office door was kicked open with a resounding crash, the sudden loud noise making the middle-aged man flinch.
He turned around in confusion, only to see a slender, silver-white figure standing in the doorway.
Splinters of the wooden door flew everywhere, creating quite an imposing, dramatic entrance.
It was Bai Xiaodu!
“My leg!”
With one foot planted on the threshold and the other caught in the gaping hole he had just kicked through the office door, Bai Xiaodu was caught between tears and laughter.
His physical stats were a bit too high now.
In the past, he would have kicked the door open, not shattered it into a broken mess.
And...
What kind of cheap door did Xin Hai'an buy?!
This woman was clearly so rich, yet she was so stingy when it came to interior design. It made Bai Xiaodu want to start picking at it himself.
Either swing wide open, or fly off your hinges entirely.
How did he end up getting stuck in the middle?
He tried hopping a few times, but it was useless. When he tried to pull his leg out, the sharp splinters around the edge of the hole kept digging into his skin.
The only option was to kick the door again.
Bang!
Meeting the startled and bewildered gazes of the two people in the office, Bai Xiaodu looked down at his current, wide-legged stance and finally let out a resigned smile.
Once he got a clear look at the intruder, the Deputy Chief's face contorted with anger.
He didn't recognize him, and he wasn't of the same race as Xin Hai'an.
Where did this reckless punk come from?!
His superiors had given him a strict mandate to extract a satisfactory result from Xin Hai'an.
A whole half hour had passed with absolutely no progress. He was sweating bullets from anxiety, yet Xin Hai'an refused to yield even an inch.
And now, some random troublemaker had barged in to disrupt them.
He cast a quick, calculating glance at Xin Hai'an, guessing this was an excuse she had set up to avoid the conversation.
Given her status, he couldn't openly lose his temper with her.
But her subordinate was a different story.
After a brief moment of thought, the Deputy Chief made up his mind. He was going to show Xin Hai'an exactly who was boss!
The Deputy Chief's face darkened instantly. He spun around and harshly scolded Bai Xiaodu, who was still struggling with the door.
“What insolence! Your boss and I are discussing important business. What do you think you're doing barging in here? No matter how urgent it is, put it aside. We don't have time for your trivial nonsense right now.”
“Get down from there, and make sure to close the door on your way out!”
Screeech—
Bai Xiaodu threw two heavy punches, violently smashing open the door that trapped his leg. The hinges let out a pathetic, groaning screech.
Stepping down, he turned and gave the middle-aged man a strange look.
Then, with another punch, he ripped the door completely off its frame, slammed it onto the floor with a loud clang, and tossed it right in front of the Deputy Chief.
“Here you go.”
The Deputy Chief: “...”
Veins throbbed on his forehead. Seeing Bai Xiaodu find a seat to rest on, and then looking at the shattered door at his own feet, he felt his dignity completely vanish.
As a government official, he absolutely could not tolerate such insolence, especially from a mere merchant's subordinate.
He slammed his hand on the desk and roared,
“I am representing the Federation to discuss critical business with your company's president! Who gave a common employee like you the right to barge in so arrogantly? And to sit down right in front of us?!”
“Stand up this instant!”
“My god, big brother! Have you seen yourself in a mirror lately?” Bai Xiaodu retorted. “That beer belly of yours is practically in my face, and you expect me to get it up looking at that?”
The two bodyguards poked their heads in from the doorway. Hearing this, they both covered their mouths, their eyes crinkling with laughter.
Xin Hai'an kept her head down, her expression hidden, but her shoulders were shaking for some reason.
The Deputy Chief, who was used to constant flattery, had never been insulted like this in his life. For a moment, his mind went blank, utterly unaccustomed to such treatment.
His face flushed a deep crimson, and his neck swelled as he gasped for air. He pointed a trembling finger at Bai Xiaodu.
“You... you, you...”
But the latter didn't care about his reaction at all. Using his tail to drag a chair over, he quickly slid next to Xin Hai'an and handed her several sheets of paper.
He looked exactly like a teacher's loyal little pet reporting on who was talking during class!
At the same time, he scooted his chair a bit further away from the man, looking thoroughly disgusted.
The middle-aged man opened his mouth, wanting to scold Bai Xiaodu further, but in the next second, he snapped his mouth shut and glared at Xin Hai'an instead.
“President Xin!”
“If you don't rein in your subordinate right now, he's going to get completely out of hand!”
Xin Hai'an had been keeping her head down to hide her laughter, but now she simply waved her hand dismissively, indicating she had heard him.
For some reason, after getting a clear look at the papers in her hand, her eyes lit up, and her laughter only grew.
Laughter among friends is contagious, especially when it was caused by something Bai Xiaodu had pulled off himself.
He couldn't help but chuckle along with her.
The doorless office was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.
However.
One person was definitely not happy. The Deputy Chief wore a face as grim as a funeral.
He felt his dignity had been severely trampled upon.
Everything had been going so well. No matter how stubborn Xin Hai'an was, she would have been forced to bleed some assets.
How did everything change the moment this guy showed up?
What on earth were these two laughing at? Was losing money and company shares some kind of hilarious joke to them?
Or did they simply look down on him?
No, this couldn't go on!
It seemed today was not a good day for negotiations. But that was fine. No one ever secured this much wealth in just a few sentences anyway.
The Deputy Chief stood up furiously, glaring at the two of them, his eyes lingering on Bai Xiaodu.
“Very well. Very well.”
“This is the first time I've seen someone treat the laws of the Federation as a complete joke.”
“Rest assured, I will report everything that happened today to my superiors, word for word.”
“As for the consequences, that's not for a lowly Deputy Chief like me to predict!”
Having delivered his threat, the Deputy Chief couldn't stand staying there a second longer. He grabbed his documents, stood up, and stormed out.
His face was twisted in a near-convulsive grimace of rage.
It was bad enough that he had to bow and scrape to his superiors on a daily basis, but today he had been reduced to a laughingstock in front of a mere merchant and her subordinate.
As various exaggerated and embellished accusations swirled in his mind, he resolved to get his revenge by heavily doctoring his report.
It would be best if he could lock that woman up for a few years. And he certainly wouldn't let that fox off the hook either—he would make sure to slap him with a heavy charge of incitement.
If he didn't, people would think he, the Deputy Chief of the Transportation Bureau, was a pushover!
Thinking of this, his mood finally improved slightly.
“On January 27th at 3:27:36 PM, a shipment of magic replenishment crystal powder potion weighing 2,700 pounds was escorted by the Thirty-First Spaceship Fleet of the Pingshan District Federal Transportation Bureau, destination: Tianhuo City, Beta-231 war front.”
The Deputy Chief's steps toward the empty doorway ground to a sudden, dead halt.
Bai Xiaodu's words were crystal clear. He understood every single syllable.
His head turned back with agonizing stiffness, his lips trembling uncontrollably.
Bai Xiaodu was holding a ledger. Having finished reading, he looked up and smiled at him.
That adorable face...
Looked exactly like a terrifying demon crawling out from the depths of hell.
Rate on N.U.
