Chapter 62: I Can Explain This! No, I Got Nothing!

Chapter 62: I Can Explain This! No, I Got Nothing!

"Huh?! Um... what?"

"Master, I am officially baaack~♪!"

With her hands clasped politely in front of her belly like a professional maid, she slowly closes the distance and leans in toward my ear. I do not feel any physical hostility emanating from her body, but rather a strong sense of pure mischief.

No, who the hell is this woman? She was never like this when she was serving Scott Tang in the past. She leans in closer to whisper directly to me."I am your new sidekick, Yellow Emperor~!"

Hearing those specific words, my brain immediately begins to move at high speed as I mentally calculate what is actually going on beneath the surface.

"Do not bother pulling your gun out right now, Rick. I am completely on your side. I promise I will tell you more details once the two of us are no longer standing out here in public. Just know that the Central Government fully supports me and I am officially here legally to aid you in your affairs."

She is exceptionally good at reading physical cues. She managed to catch the slight twitch in my arm muscles before I could even make a conscious move to reach for the pistol hidden against my lower back. I keep my voice low and demand a real answer.

"Give me one good reason why I should actually trust you right now?"

"Because you technically owe me, and I owe you. Oh, and I can also actively help you with your ongoing revenge against Scott Tang."

She lifts a finger, pointing over toward the security guard booth at the main gates. "Go take care of the gate authorization first, and then the two of us can head inside your house to talk in private. Chop-chop, let's go before your two beautiful wives come back home from the day-spa and start asking a bunch of serious questions that you won't be able to answer."

Her heavy air of professional field experience is deeply felt in her posture, and I notice that her level in acting must easily be at an advanced level. It is almost as if she can look right through my expressions.

Deciding to play along until I can get some real clues, I take her official government identification papers from her hand and walk over to the booth to sign the clearance form allowing her to come and go from the property. The gate guard happily writes down her vehicle registration plates, and soon after, I climb straight into the passenger seat of her Honda Civic so she can drive us back down the neighborhood road.

As we pull into the main gates of my personal home, I point a finger toward the empty, open spot inside the garage to show her exactly where to park.

I brought Mei Xia into my private den located right behind the garage, and the two of us just stood there staring at each other from our respective ends of the room. I cross my arms, breaking the silence to demand some real answers.

"Let us just forget the whole revenge and Scott Tang thing for a second and start with the basics," I say, locking eyes with her. "Why exactly do I owe you, and why do you owe me?"

She walks over to the furniture, crossing her legs casually as her expression turns completely serious to lay out the facts. "Let me give you a full disclosure that I never normally tell my targets, though in this specific case, you are officially my protection target. First of all, my real name is actually Mei Xia. I was born inside The China Empire on the continent of Australia. When I was only seven years old, I was out on the streets begging and stealing just to survive."

She catches sight of my mini-fridge in the corner, shifting her posture to peek inside the glass door. Gesturing with her hand for permission, I offer a silent nod, and she reaches in to grab a cold bottle of water.

"Well, naturally, the world is an incredibly cold and heartless place when you are living in the shadows that no one ever bothers to look at, especially inside the tightfisted Empire," she continues, twisting the plastic cap off. "But back then, I didn't care about the political landscape of the rulers. I only cared about wanting to live to see another day."

Sipping the water deeply to quench her thirst, she lets out a soft breath and continues her story. "I was eventually picked up and saved by a kind but exceptionally firm Eurasian pair of spies who trained me in all the things I needed to know, functioning basically like an adoption. But absolutely nothing in this life is free, Rick. Their kindness came with a heavy price of mandatory training. In order to survive my upbringing, I had to learn how to act, kill, steal, and commit complex crimes of espionage. Frankly, I was trained from childhood to be a professional spy."

She extends her hand, pointing her finger directly toward the floor beneath our feet. "I was trained thoroughly in the ways of Eurasia, studying the people, the history, the local customs, and many more specific things. I was also trained to eventually infiltrate the China Empire military as a hidden double agent. My directive was to take any mission inside Eurasia I could possibly get my hands on, allowing me to come out here and locate my adoptive trainers—or parents, as you could call them."

A sudden, slightly sad smile forms on her lips, and she looks up to pose a question. "So, Rick, do you have any idea what specific mission the Empire gave me?"

I turn the details over in my analytical mind, answering her with a serious expression. "To infiltrate and seduce one of the prominent family members of the four great houses?"

She smiles back at me, nodding her head to expand on the topic. "Rick, you are significantly smarter than you give yourself credit for. That is exactly right. And do you know how many eligible male members of the four major families are actually available to be seduced? That's right, my pickings were extremely limited due to the fact that there are so many damn daughters born into those lines. So that wasted young master Scott Tang was my absolute only real option. The heads of the families are far too old, and my seduction actions would be easily noticed by their security."

"Then if your real loyalty actually rests with Eurasia, how did the authorities take you targeting Scott Tang?" I ask, leaning against the desk.

She smiles at my naivety, leaning back to expose a bit of intelligence history. "The Central government regularly plants hidden spies inside the four houses to make absolutely sure they aren't trying to rise up in power to overthrow the other families and the government itself. This specific scenario has actually happened in our past history within the last two thousand years. Some proud houses had gotten far too big and arrogant, wanting their specific states to be independent, and actively tried to start a civil war. This history is completely erased from the public school textbooks, however. Bottom line, the Central government actively wanted me at Scott's side."

Connecting the pieces with my Business Management Advanced knowledge, I take a guess. "And to curb those potential civil wars, the formal formation of the house syndicates was created as a strategic way to control the tyrants of the major families."

Mei Xia nods her head in agreement with my deduction, taking another sip of water before continuing. "My official mission from the Empire was to seduce him, secure a legal marriage, give birth to an heir, and ultimately turn him into my personal puppet to grant the Empire favorable business deals. There was nothing truly nefarious or destructive involved. But this is the exact role given to virgin spies of the seduction-trained divisions."

She suddenly produces a silver coin from seemingly nowhere, flipping it expertly through the air with her fingers to show me its opposite side. "The Central government, knowing fully of my imperial mission, actively helped me infiltrate the Tang family network to get next to my target. The secondary mission our government wanted was for me to closely monitor Scott and the Tang family to see if they would attempt to sell sensitive information or restricted products to the Empire. So, both missions were essentially one and the same. I just reported to two different bosses."

I rub my forehead in exhaustion as the full picture comes together, letting out a sigh. "And my blind rage against Scott Tang made me lash out against you just to hurt him. The move wasn't bad in itself, but the fact that your patriotic home mission was completely tangled up in it means I totally screwed the pooch, right?"

"Yes, exactly. Your fucking amazing Computer Use Master skills got my entire mission royally failed, and I was swiftly deported straight back to the stupid Empire," she says, her tone sharp but amused. "I really felt like I had completely wasted my time, my physical purity, and my life after you fucked me sideways like that."

I almost feel a little bit bad for her situation. My targets had been strictly Scott Tang and Debby Tang, but just like my previous blackmail maneuvers involving the Ning twins, I hadn't paid any attention to the potential collateral damage of my hacks. "I am absolutely not sorry that I made Scott suffer, but if it is worth anything to you, I am sorry for your professional loss."

Mei Xia drinks a bit more water, waving her hand casually through the air to dismiss the apology. "I have thirteen solid years under my belt as a spy and an assassin. If I couldn't handle loss, physical pain, and severe disappointment by now, I would have been locked up in a military prison a very long time ago. But this is exactly what I meant when I said you owe me for my failed mission. However..."

She uncrosses her legs, leaning her torso forward across the table to close the distance between us. "The very same Eternal Imperial Dragon—you—who completely failed my initial shit-mission, also managed to bring me right back out of sheer, dumb fucking luck. Not only is Central incredibly happy with the development, but the Empire actually thinks my mission hasn't failed at all. So my spy job has simply changed from partnering with that wealthy trash Scott to partnering directly with the fucking Yellow Emperor! Now that is an operational mission that is actually respected, and it doesn't involve being a temporary bed warmer for a piece of trash like Scott."

A massive, confident grin spreads across her red lips, and she finishes her explanation. "So that is exactly why I also owe you."

She extends her arm, pointing her finger straight toward the massive custom computer rig I had built from scratch in the corner of the den, her eyes smiling.

"The person you talked to on the phone that night when you killed that master assassin was actually one of the agents assigned to monitor your progress, but now that responsibility falls entirely into my hands," Mei Xia says, tilting her head with a playful look. "You are currently wondering what my mission is exactly, right, Ricky~♪?"

I nod slowly, since that is obviously the most logical chain of questions to ask, though I am entirely sure she is guiding our conversation on purpose just to keep me from running around in circles.

"Simple. My only job here is to keep you alive, kill your enemies, and properly train and guide you for when you enter the big pond," she explains, her voice dropping into a professional tone. "Right now you are still incredibly young and inexperienced in the world, so you should just think of me as your personal teacher, assistant, and confidant to help you grow into a truly strong Yellow Emperor. If you make a massive mess out there, I will help you clean it up. If you have questions about anything, I will tell you whatever I am permitted to reveal."

I lean back against my desk, crossing my arms as I study her posture. "What exactly happens to your status if I decide to completely reject your help?"She smiles faintly, showing absolutely no signs of offense at my blunt question, since she would have undoubtedly asked the exact same thing if our positions were reversed. "The Empire would immediately demand I locate a new, susceptible corporate or family seduction target to manipulate, while Central would either lock me up in a hidden cell beneath the Capital until the day I die, or simply kill me outright for knowing far too much sensitive information about you."

Well, that sounds absolutely peachy. Yeah, it is definitely not a good spot for her to be in, but if I refuse to take her in, the Central government will almost certainly deploy a different agent whom I won't like at all to monitor my movements. Hell, they might even just lock me up in a cell right alongside her.

"Ricky, I know that exact look on your face," she says, a confident smirk returning to her lips. "You are officially on my boat now, right?"

"Yeah, I guess I am," I mutter, rubbing my chin. "But first of all, why the hell are you calling me Ricky? Second, how long are you actually planning on helping me with my affairs?"

She puts on a thoroughly amused smile, smoothing down her maid apron. "Well, Nadia calls you by that nickname secretly whenever she thinks no one is listening, right? So I just figured you liked being addressed that way, fufu. As for how long? Until death do us part."

Wow. Just fucking wow. I lean back in my chair, completely stunned as I grill her with a few more serious questions regarding how she managed to secure her reentry, her legal residency status, and how the hell I am supposed to explain her sudden physical presence around my house.

After she thoroughly details what she learned during her government debriefing, my brow furrows into a heavy frown. "So, my bastard grandfather is still actively kicking around out there and causing trouble? I don't need a single bit of his help."

Hearing my words, Mei Xia suddenly grabs her belly with both hands and starts rocking back and forth in her seat, truly amused by my rigid speech patterns. Once she finally calms her laughter down, she looks back up at me to speak. "Oh man! You are genuinely the absolute only person in all of Eurasia who possesses the balls to talk about that legendary old man like that. No, seriously, I am absolutely terrified of him! But you don't have to worry about it, because us using his name to clear my record wasn't even his personal idea and he wouldn't like it one bit, but all the nobles will buy the story hook, line, and sinker. The Tang family excuse is tailored more for my ongoing Empire mission, and your explicit dick-pic hack is strictly for dealing with Scott."

I give a casual shrug, and as long as that old man isn't directly commanding her actions behind my back, I am perfectly fine with utilizing the leverage.

"So now it seems the two of us are completely stuck together. What exactly do we do about my wives and our current living arrangements?"

She stands up from her seat, smoothing out the fabric of her uniform before dropping into a polite, professional bow to explain her layout. "Your grandfather officially made a firm agreement for me to help you out and take care of your household, which also functions as a convenient way for the country to monitor my movements. This placement is also being framed as a form of official punishment for you, since you were the one who turned me in as an innocent house maid to be deported. I have already been paid in full by your grandfather's office, and they factored in the fact that you are currently expecting children. I don't think you even possess a single clue on how to properly take care of newborn babies, right?"

My face instantly stiffens at her accurate accusation, because in reality, I indeed do not know anything about child-rearing. Well, using my Medicine Advanced skill, I technically possess all the relevant anatomical and pediatric knowledge, but the actual day-to-day physical process of changing dirty diapers is a bit of a trick, right?

"I am an unofficial medical doctor," I point out defensively.

She wags her finger back and forth right in front of my face, letting out a sharp giggle. "Do you know the exact proper nutritional mixture and liquid temperature required for baby formula? Do you know the specific facial expressions they make when they are feeling hunger versus when they have a dirty diaper? Do you honestly think all medical doctors make good parents? No, they absolutely do not. They hire professional maids and nannies for a very good reason, Rick."

She turns around, pointing her finger toward the layout of my private den. "This space right here is a servant's room, and it is going to serve as our brand new Bat-cave, just like that classic superhero movie. I am just a significantly more attractive version of Alfred."

I look toward the door, pointing a hand upward toward the ceiling. "We still have two completely unused, empty bedrooms upstairs that you can easily occupy until the kids grow up and fill the house."

She puts a sly, knowing smile onto her red lips, looking down at my naive expression. "So, how exactly do you think Mary and Hana are going to feel when a hot foreign maid is suddenly granted a private bedroom right next to theirs, and you start spending a massive amount of time with said maid? Yep, it looks exactly like a hidden lover arrangement to me, and it will definitely look that way to them. So just trust my field experience on this one, Rick. I will sleep down here in the den, and this place is incredibly nice compared to the absolute dumps where I have had to sleep during my early years on the street. Plus, sleeping down here allows me to easily guard the house's entire ground floor at night. You have to start thinking about real physical security, Rick."

I look at her, a strange question popping into my mind as I process the shift in my life. "All my life, I have taken care of my own business, so it is honestly going to feel pretty strange for me to suddenly have a personal maid running around."

"You are officially a Tang now, even if it's completely unofficial, so your primary job from now on is to learn to act like a true young master, and I am here to help you pull it off," she says, stepping closer. "I know you currently do all the household cooking and the washing, but now I will take over all that easy stuff for you. You also frequently need help closely surveilling targets online, right? I am the exact professional cyber manpower you have been wishing for. Oh, and I can operate your firearms with absolutely no problem at all, including your heavy sniper rifle, fufu. What could possibly be sexier than a loyal maid-sniper systematically killing men around your perimeter?"

I look at her funny because, for some strange reason, that specific visual image actually seems kinda cool in my head. But because I have so many massive, overlapping system problems running through my brain right now, I just focus on the immediate future. "Then right now, what exactly should we do to handle this?"

Mei Xia points her finger straight up toward the kitchen ceiling, offering her immediate suggestion. "I should head upstairs right now and cook a truly fantastic meal to hit your wives' tummies and soften the blow of my arrival, and you should sit on the couch, watch TV, and carefully think about exactly what you are going to say to them when they walk through the door. Because as far as they are concerned, I am just going to be a simple, regular household maid, not a high-level government super-spy. Naturally, you can't tell them a single word about any of this secret business, right? So let's head on up, young master Lee!"

An hour later, the exceptionally talented Mei Xia proves she is a completely legitimate maid and easily possesses at least Advanced Cooking capabilities. Watching her work, the technical efficiency of her movements makes me realize I could probably even learn a few professional culinary tricks from her myself to add to my own Cooking Basic skills. So, while she has been cheerfully humming and dancing around the kitchen counters, I decide it is the perfect time to bring up the serious personal questions I had deliberately shelved before.

"Sooo... you and Scott Tang?" I ask, leaning against the counter.

Mei Xia, fully expecting my personal curiosity, only offers a calm smile as she handles her utensils to lay out the cold facts. "He got full possession of my physical body, he got my absolute purity, and he got my surface loyalty, but he never once managed to capture my actual heart. Does that sound like a loose woman to you, Rick? No, the reality is that most women willingly give something up in this life for one reason or another. Some women do it for the sake of having babies, some do it for massive money, fame, power, or simple security, some just happen to really like sex, and some are truly and blindly in love with a man who only values them for their physical body."

Hearing her precise breakdown, my mind immediately pictures Hana’s past situation dealing with that scumbag doctor dick.

"Did Scott actually love me?" Mei Xia muses, her tone turning analytical. "Maybe, in his own twisted, broken version of a heart. Did I absolutely hate every single second I spent with him? No, because on rare occasions, he could actually be nice. But do you honestly think a sadistic man who beats another human being to within an inch of his life just for fun and his own self-worth is the kind of man I would ever willingly give my heart to? Dream on. I did his dirty work for him because it was my assignment, including bullying you and paying off local thugs, sigh. Now that I am officially on your side of the board, I am double pissed about the whole situation."

Mei Xia, showing absolutely zero emotional distress on her face, points the wooden cooking spoon she is holding directly at my nose to emphasize her words. "Scott literally got off sexually every single time he ordered you to be beaten. The moment he finished watching you get brutalized, he would drag me straight to his private room and ride me as hard as he could just to release his happy energy. Is that the exact visceral detail you really wanted to know from me, Rick? So no, I do not possess a single ounce of genuine feeling for that piece of trash who actively fantasizes about you while fucking me."

Wow. How fucking blunt is she? I am left completely and utterly speechless standing there in the kitchen, hearing the raw reality of what she was enduring while I was stuck at home painfully nursing my broken body.

"Sorry I asked," I mutter, clearing my throat in discomfort. "I didn't mean to bring up a touchy subject."

She walks straight over to my side, reaching up to gently pat my head exactly like a pet owner comforting a dog. "You are incredibly dumb in a really cute way, Rick. Why on earth would you apologize for what he chose to do? You were a literal victim in that scenario, and I was standing there entirely by choice performing my official job as a spy. But now I have a brand new job, and that involves taking care of you, dummy. Until you are finally man enough to carry the weight of the entire world on your shoulders like the other historical legends, just focus on fixing what you can right now and let the other professionals fix what they can."

She twirls like a trained dancer, spinning gracefully back toward her steaming pots to finish up the final details of the meal. I just stand there watching this strange foreign woman with her thick accent, feeling like her absolute unwavering confidence is a bright light in a dark room. I shift my weight, speaking up again. "Mei, what exactly am I supposed to be doing as the Yellow Emperor? I tried looking up the title online and I just got a bunch of generic folk tales and ancient myths."

She places a finger thoughtfully against her chin, turning the question over in her mind. "I am sorry, but my official government clearance level is simply not high enough to access that sensitive intelligence. But here is the basic baseline of what I know to be true from both countries..."

She closes the physical distance between us, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. "The very first Yellow Emperor was the actual founding ruler of the Ancient China Empire who successfully united all of the primitive, warring lords. This occurred roughly thirty thousand years ago. Then, every four hundred or so years, that exact same soul would reincarnate into a brand new life as a national prodigy. Every single generation of the Yellow Emperor would completely reshape humanity by innovating, inventing, or completely changing the landscape of warfare. Think of it like a god teaching primitive cavemen how to safely make fire."

She quickly runs back over to the stove, reaching down to turn off the heating element before continuing her lecture. "Then, just over two thousand years ago, a massive civil war erupted during one of the active reincarnations. The Yellow Emperor can only ever arise from a direct bloodline descendant of the Li Clan. That is your true heritage, if you are currently sleeping on the facts. Well, the rival nobles started to systematically slay every single family member of the Li Clan to permanently kill off the Immortal Emperor's line. That is exactly why the four guardian families—the Feng, Tang, Lang, and Long—all fled across the ocean to Eurasia, specifically to hide the remaining true Emperor's blood from the traitors who now rule the China Empire."

Mei Xia steps up to me, gently placing her soft finger directly over my lips to silence me. "You must hide your true identity at all costs, Rick, or those traitors will actively hunt you and your loved ones down. Take this warning from someone who actually lived there: they do not want you alive at all. And that is the exact reason why my life is currently being used as a shield to protect your perimeter. What exactly you will choose to do in the future, absolutely no one can say, but historically, no Yellow Emperor has ever failed to completely change the face of Pangaea. So I am a very lucky woman to get to walk in your shadow. Get me, Rick?"

As I give her a silent nod of understanding, she removes her finger from my mouth. Suddenly, the loud mechanical hum of the garage door opening echoes through the walls. A massive, playful smile spreads across her lips.

"Looks like we are about to have a serious roast before the actual dinner roast, fufu!" she giggles.

Soon enough, the main door clicks open, and an exceptionally happy Mary and Hana step inside the house. They instantly catch the mouth-watering aroma of the cooked food filling the air, their expressions lighting up with joy, but the exact second they spot a gorgeous woman standing in their kitchen with a polite smile and her hands folded neatly over her apron, their brains visibly slow down to a complete halt.

Mei Xia, slipping perfectly into her role as an actual professional maid, drops into a flawless, respectful bow to offer her greeting. "Welcome home, Madams Mary and Hana. Dinner is completely ready for you the moment you finish washing up your hands. I am Mei Xia, young master Lee's personal servant. I will be handling all of the household duties from now on, and I will eventually take care of the children."

Both of my wives freeze, staring intensely at her, then they slowly turn their heads to stare at me, then back at her, and then they look down at themselves to compare. I immediately stand up from my seat, rushing over to press a quick kiss onto each of their cheeks.

"I can explain this... no, I got absolutely nothing!" I blurt out.

For just a single, terrifying moment, my genius analytical brain simply did not know where the fuck to start.