I Am Your Natural Enemy

Every time Tuoba Martial God makes a move, that wild, matchless yang energy of his, with such a massive coverage, is basically like a map-wide nuke—he manages to force out a bunch of things every single time.

If something was just hiding and hadn't hurt anyone, then it just gets recorded and that's it. But if something's committed some crimes, that one sweep could single-handedly max out this year's performance stats.

These days, Old Xi has been happily running around racking up accolades, taking the opportunity to nab three ghosts still carrying blood energy, plus a hopping corpse hiding in the mountains.

That corpse only drank some livestock blood secretly at night, hadn't hurt any people—normally you'd just take it in, but Old Xi doesn't care much for hopping corpses anymore and just traded it in at the Scorching Sun Department for credit.

Wen Yan scrolled through the forum for a while, but didn't find anything interesting.

Aside from the buzz around Tuoba Martial God's latest moves, right now the hottest topic is that Nether Soul Realm—everyone is still guessing about how Minister Cai's going to handle it.

Like, are they gonna drop another smaller mushroom bomb for purification or what?

Because, up to now, nothing's really happened—everything's just sealed off.

Wen Yan shook his head, put away the phone issued by the Scorching Sun Department, took out his own phone, bought another phone and a tablet.

Finally, after thinking a bit, he bought two more phones, two big power banks, and a large-capacity hard drive—so later he could download some movies or dramas or whatever, and send it over to King Guilong.

King Guilong's pretty badly hurt, dropped a whole grade, so the fact that he's still behaving is already hard to come by in Wen Yan's mind.

Might as well comfort him a little, help him pass the time with some stuff so he keeps being good.

The next day, after getting the delivery, Wen Yan grabbed a bag, put a phone and a tablet inside, and at mealtime, brought Sparrow Cat and Little Zombie along to crash for a meal at Pei Tugou's place.

While dinner hadn't started yet, Wen Yan went to the little girl's room and put the bag on her desk.

Since he'd already promised before, as the adult, he couldn't break his word to a kid.

The little girl's really been putting in effort lately—everyone's seen it. When she saw the gift box, she couldn't help but smile, but after thinking about it, she still pushed it back.

"Take it, I told you, I got my bonus this month, so I'm giving this to you. You can't possibly make me go back on my word, right?"

The little girl didn't really know how to argue with Wen Yan. She thought for a long time, then finally squeezed out a line:

"But my monthly exam grade isn't out yet..."

"Exactly, that's why I'm giving it to you now."

"Huh..." The little girl didn't get it.

Wen Yan reached out his big hand and rubbed the little girl's head.

"Your grades are for yourself.

This is a reward for your hard work, not for your grades, got it?

Take it, I got a fat bonus this month—a seven-digit sum, I'm not lacking this bit."

The little girl couldn't help but snort and laugh out loud.

Of course she thought Wen Yan was just bragging, but she could also tell the bonus must've been pretty good this month—maybe even thirty grand?

She still didn't dare accept it, so she went to ask Grandma, then her mom—after both nodded, she finally took the gift with a bright smile and thanked Wen Yan sweetly.

The little girl's sensible, but what kid doesn't like electronics these days?

Both Grandma and Jia Jinfeng felt their girl had been working harder at her studies lately—didn't even need to nag her to do homework anymore. That's a big improvement, so they just let her have it.

After dinner, Pei Tugou mysteriously pulled Wen Yan aside, quietly took out his phone, and showed it to Wen Yan.

"Wen Yan, someone just suddenly sent me some money..."

"That's your bonus."

"I asked—they said it's not from the office."

"Did you ask the director?"

"Nah, this kind of thing, how can I go straight to the director?"

"Just take it, really—it's your bonus. Bonuses come on the 5th of each month. Salary and subsidies and stuff all get paid on the 12th."

Pei Tugou relaxed a bit.

"I thought maybe someone sent it to the wrong account, I waited a whole day and nobody contacted me."

"Relax, if it was a mistake, someone would've called you ages ago."

"So... how do I pay tax on this? I heard if you get more than five thousand you gotta pay tax, and all your income gets counted together—so if you add this to the salary, it'll definitely be over five thousand. Stuff from the office arrives post-tax, but for this part, am I underpaying tax now?"

"..."

Seeing the look on Pei Tugou's face, Wen Yan knew he'd definitely checked up on this already. Otherwise, how would he know that income tax now is based on total income, and he wouldn't be worried about stuff like this.

"Bro, you're too honest. Don't worry, whatever gets paid to us is after tax—you don't need to stress about that."

"Alright, alright. I was just watching the news yesterday about someone getting busted for tax evasion. I spent a whole day trying to figure out how to file and just couldn't work it out."

"Don't worry, next March there's an annual settlement—they refund if you overpay or ask for more if you underpay. I'll sort it out for you when the time comes, you don't have to worry."

After settling Pei Tugou's worries, Wen Yan started wondering—where did Scorching Sun Department get the money to pay Pei Tugou a bonus?

What did Pei Tugou even do last month? Why would Scorching Sun Department be handing out a bonus?

There was just too much going on last month, he couldn't remember at all.

After dinner chit-chat, Wen Yan teased the silly dog—every time now the guy sees Wen Yan, he starts smacking his lips and drooling like crazy, just dying for a treat.

While Nanwu Commandery has finally calmed down, things over in Europa are getting wilder and wilder.

At night, Old Meng changed into a tux and top hat, then got off a carriage pulled by a bony thestral.

Across from him stood a few foreigners in suits and ties.