Chapter 7 — I'll Make the Wolf King Pay in This Life

An ordinary human, when standing before a high-level beastkin, instinctively descends into a state of primal terror. Chi Loc Minh stared at the security monitor and placed a call to the front desk.

"Let him up. Thirty-second floor."

The receptionist’s voice trembled. "Ms... Ms. Chi, that gentleman—"

"Just let him up." She hung up and rose to her feet. An Cuu Uyen slid down from her knees, coiled on the floor, and tilted its head to look at her.

"He's here?"

"He's here."

"Six hours ahead of schedule."

The serpent's voice carried an icy chill. "Punctuality is a virtue. It seems the wolf pack lacks such discipline." Chi Loc Minh walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows, turning her back to the door. The sunset filtered between the opposing skyscrapers, piercing the glass and casting a brilliant, fiery golden-red hue across the floor. The elevator chimed. Footsteps echoed. The security door emitted a harsh "beep"—it had been bypassed. Biometric authentication for iris and fingerprints meant nothing to a predator like Le Hanh. The door swung open. The footsteps stopped at the threshold.

"Chi Loc Minh."

That voice—deep and gravelly. Chi Loc Minh turned around. Le Hanh stood at the entrance; the sunset draped behind him, casting his entire frame in a halo of golden shadows. His gaze swept past Chi Loc Minh and landed on the floor beneath her. An Cuu Uyen lay coiled there, its golden slit pupils fixed squarely upon him. Two golden gazes collided in the air. The atmosphere grew stiflingly heavy.

"God of All Beasts."

Le Hanh spoke, a hint of greed surfacing in his voice for the first time. "So, you are truly here." He took a step forward. An Cuu Uyen raised its head.

"You whelp of the Wolf clan."

The voice was not loud, but the moment the words dropped, the air in the entire apartment seemed to be crushed by an invisible hand. The pressure of the All-Beast God was unleashed. Le Hanh’s footsteps faltered. His body stiffened, and his pupils contracted sharply—not from fear, but because the three shards within his body were vibrating violently. Three seconds later, the golden patterns covering An Cuu Uyen’s body erupted with radiance.

"Return."

It was not a command for Chi Loc Minh, but for the fragments of its own soul. Le Hanh’s composure shattered instantly. His back arched sharply, as if something were trying to tear its way out from his very bones. He opened his mouth, a guttural growl choking in his throat. Then—three streaks of light pierced through his chest, his spine, and the base of his neck, tearing their way out. Three golden spheres of light, each the size of a fist and stained with bloody threads, tore through the air with unstoppable force, slamming directly into the serpent's body. An Cuu Uyen’s form expanded violently—half a meter, one meter, one and a half, two meters—it restrained itself, holding its size at two meters, but the golden patterns now draped its entire body in a blinding glow. Le Hanh collapsed to his knees. It was not an act of submission, but a physical inability to remain upright. He knelt on one leg, one hand pressed against the floor, his knuckles turning deathly white. Fresh blood erupted from his mouth, nostrils, and ear canals simultaneously. His eyes remained golden, still locked on An Cuu Uyen, but the greed in them had crumbled, replaced by utter disbelief.

"You... you have recovered?"

His voice was rasping and raw. "It has only been three days... how can you—"

"Thirty-five percent." An Cuu Uyen’s voice boomed from above. The two-meter-long black python remained coiled at Chi Loc Minh’s feet, its golden pupils looking down with arrogance upon the Wolf King kneeling on the floor. "That is enough to crush you."

Le Hanh’s pupils constricted into pinpricks. He struggled to rise, but the weight of An Cuu Uyen’s presence pressed down on his shoulders like a mountain. His knees remained pinned to the floor; he could not stand. Chi Loc Minh stepped forward. She stopped in front of Le Hanh and looked down at him. In her previous life, he had stood on a balcony and watched her fall from the hundredth floor. In this life, she stood, and he knelt.

"Le Hanh."

She called his name. He lifted his head, his face masked in blood, his eyes locked on hers.

"Do you intend to kill me?" he asked.

Chi Loc Minh squatted down to meet his gaze.

"In the last life, you watched me die," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "In this life, I am letting you live."

Le Hanh’s pupils flickered.

"I am not sparing you out of mercy," Chi Loc Minh stood up. "It is because killing you would be letting you off too easily." She turned her back on him and walked toward the serpent. "Remember this day. If you dare to come looking for me again, I will not just be taking back the shards."

An Cuu Uyen flicked its tail. A surge of power struck Le Hanh, tossing him off the floor and hurling him out the door. A loud thud followed as his body slammed against the hallway wall before sliding to the ground. He pressed a hand against the wall, trembling as he forced himself up. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor, took one last look at the tightly shut door, and then turned to limp away, step by agonizing step.

Inside the room, Chi Loc Minh leaned against the wall, her legs turning to jelly. The façade of calm had vanished, and the delayed reaction of terror began to wash over her. An Cuu Uyen shrank back to its half-meter form and slithered over, winding itself around her ankle.

"You're shaking," it noted.

"Shut up."

"Your hands are shaking, too."

"I told you to shut up."

The snake crawled up her leg, ascended her arm, and finally rested its chin on her shoulder. Its cold scales pressed against her burning neck.

"You did well."

For the first time, its voice was stripped of all mockery. Chi Loc Minh closed her eyes and slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. Her heart was still hammering, but a smile pulled at the corners of her lips. She had won. The first battle of this new life—she had won.

Two days after Le Hanh left, Chi Loc Minh received a letter from a lawyer. The sender: Chi Kien Bang. The content: A demand that Chi Loc Minh compensate Chi Oanh for 3.2 million in medical expenses and 2 million for emotional damages, totaling 5.2 million. The reason cited: Chi Loc Minh had "lured" Chi Oanh into bidding on dangerous species at the black-market auction with subjective malice.

Chi Loc Minh sat on the sofa, staring at the legal notice in silence for ten seconds, then let out a laugh. An Cuu Uyen poked its head out from her shoulder to take a look.

"Your father is trying to extort you."

"Yes."

"Was it like this in your previous life?"

"In the last life, it was far worse." Chi Loc Minh set the letter aside. "Back then, they used the pretense of severing family ties to force me to surrender all my earnings to Chi Oanh. Nine out of every ten dollars I made went straight into their pockets."

"And this time?"

Chi Loc Minh picked up her phone and dialed a number. "Lawyer Tran, this is Chi Loc Minh. I need you to handle three things for me."

"Ms. Chi, please, go ahead."

"First, file a countersuit against Chi Kien Bang and On Chi for twenty-four years of financial control and emotional abuse. I will provide the bank statements and recordings as evidence."

"And the second?"

"Second, investigate all real estate and companies under Chi Kien Bang’s name. If there is any evidence of illegal activity or tax evasion, compile it and deliver it to me."

"And the third?"

"Third, trace the source of the one billion used by Chi Oanh to bid on beasts at the black-market auction. A brat fresh out of school with no job—where did she get a billion?"

The other end of the line went silent for a moment. "Ms. Chi, if the third request reveals illegal income..."

"That is her problem, not mine," Chi Loc Minh said. "Just follow the legal procedures."

"I understand. I will report the results as soon as possible."

She hung up. An Cuu Uyen’s tail flicked against her shoulder twice.

"Why didn't you do this in your last life?"

Chi Loc Minh leaned back against the sofa, staring up at the ceiling.

"In my last life, I thought they were my family," she said, her voice eerily calm. "And families... sometimes you just endure things until they pass."

"And what happened?"

"And then their precious daughter pushed me off a building."