Chapter 48

“What follower?”

The butler and the gathered malevolent spirits looked at Yue Yin in confusion. But before they could ask another question, she lunged at them.

The malevolent spirits gathered at Jiang’s mansion weren’t numerous, nor were they particularly strong, none reached A-level, with most being B-level and C-level entities—not much of a threat. Yue Yin barely had to lift a finger before the group was scrambling in panic.

The butler was struck back into his true form: a half-humanoid, half-tentacled octopus creature.

“Alright then,” Yue Yin said, sitting loftily in an ornate chair with one leg crossed over the other.

She picked up her bag from the ground, glared at the battered evil spirits, and demanded coldly, “Where’s Jiang Suliu? Where did he go?”

“Huh? Who?” The spirits, battered and bruised, leaned on each other in confusion, muttering pitifully.

Yue Yin, lounging in her chair, raised an eyebrow and repeated, “Jiang Suliu.”

The monsters looked around, clueless as to whom she was referring to, before their gazes all landed on the equally bewildered butler.

“Young Master Jiang? He went abroad to visit relatives.”

Seeing them continue to hide the truth, Yue Yin narrowed her eyes, leaned forward, and pressed her right foot firmly on the butler’s tentacled head.

“Where is Jiang Suliu?”

She applied more pressure, and the butler emitted a sharp wail, dark tears spilling from his narrow eye sockets.

The other evil spirits, terrified, scooted back, clutching each other in silence. Even the tentacles around the painting’s edge, after a moment of pause, began to withdraw discreetly.

With the pain intensifying, the butler’s survival instincts kicked in. Sobbing, he shouted, “Young Master Jiang? He really went abroad to visit relatives!”

But he’d already told her this when she first arrived! Was she this forgetful?

“Do you know,” Yue Yin leaned closer, smiling but adding pressure with her foot, “I hate repeating myself.”

The air around them tightened, and every evil spirit felt invisible hands squeezing their throats, rendering them breathless.

A conjoined twin pair of spirits near the wall began sobbing, covering their mouths. “Jiang Suliu… Tell her, Butler!”

Remaining unfazed, Yue Yin’s gaze prompted a renewed wave of nervous glances from the monsters. The butler himself was on the verge of despair, his face wrinkled with worry. “I truly don’t know!”

Yue Yin frowned, standing up. “He’s not with you?”

Realizing the reason for his beating, the butler’s eyes filled with even more tears, nearly ready to protest aloud, “I didn’t capture him!”

Hearing this, the other spirits, recalling that they hadn’t actually captured the Jiang family’s young master, pitifully chorused, “We only capture other people.”

A chorus of pitiful sobs and streams of snot and tears poured from the strange-looking creatures, giving them a surprisingly comedic appearance.

Yue Yin blinked, slightly confused, “You don’t know?” As she spoke, she removed her foot from the butler’s head.

The octopus butler nodded wildly, protesting, “Young Master Jiang’s family said they were traveling abroad to visit his grandfather. I don’t know exactly where they went!”

The pain was unbearable! After terrorizing people for so many years, this was the first time he’d been subjected to such humiliation.

Tears streamed down the butler’s face as his tenuously held humanoid form dissolved further, leaving a mass of multicolored tentacles writhing on the floor.

Hovering in the air, the butler explained, “I was created from a painting, absorbing years of pain and twisted emotions before I was born. Then Mr. Jiang bought me and brought me back. I haven’t harmed many people… well, maybe a few.”

Under Yue Yin’s interrogation, the octopus butler sobbed, “I swear, I haven’t done anything to Young Master Jiang. He and his family left yesterday, and the ability users went with them. With the house empty, I invited the other spirits over for a party.”

Yue Yin, resting her hands on her sword, raised an eyebrow. “You malevolent spirits… party?”

The butler nodded cautiously. “Of course. We’re not idiots…” But his voice trailed off.

Floating there like a glob of sticky snot, he muttered, “They’re all dear friends. I couldn’t ignore them.”

The octopus butler had lived a life of luxury in the Jiang mansion, feasting and driving around in fancy cars, while his spirit friends had no such luck. They still resided in sewers, leading lives of scavenging and survival.

The ghost girl, swinging from the chandelier, nodded tearfully, “Right! True friends forever!”

Yue Yin was speechless. “…A bunch of lunatics.”

She rose, casting a sharp glance around the room. “And the other Jiang family members?”

As a top-tier family, the Jiang mansion was surely staffed with servants and assistants. But from the moment she entered, the octopus butler was the only one present. It was obvious the others had been either devoured or hidden by the spirits.

Yue Yin’s gaze drifted over the gathered spirits, all of whom shivered under her scrutiny. “Hand over the people.”

The ghost girl, who liked swinging on chandeliers, shrank back and murmured, “They… they’re all in the basement.”

The butler also chimed in hurriedly, “All in the basement, ready to be eaten.”

Evil spirits, all bonded by friendship, wanted to wait for everyone to arrive before they feasted. Yue Yin’s arrival had just happened to delay their meal.

They cast accusatory glances at her, silently resentful of her intrusion.

Yue Yin, meeting their stares, raised an eyebrow and swiftly cut down the closest spirit with her sword.

Blood splattered as the deformed creature split in half, sliding to the floor.

The other monsters hadn’t expected her to act so suddenly, and they cowered, clutching their heads.

The evil spirits huddled low, no longer daring to look at her. She was terrifying—this woman, who killed without a word, attacking them as if it was nothing.

If only they could meet the students Chen Nan and Zhou Xiaohai outside the school gates right now. They’d surely have a lot of complaints about Yue Yin.

Unbeknownst to her, Yue Yin’s reputation as a ruthless figure was becoming remarkably unified across the worlds of both humans and spirits.

She looked at the group of cowering, spineless monsters and muttered, “Whatever, suit yourselves.”

The strange and overly dramatic creatures didn’t know where Jiang Suliu had gone, but she figured he was probably still alive.

For a moment, Yue Yin felt worried. Without Jiang Suliu, who would help her with her homework tonight? If she didn’t finish it, she’d definitely be dragged out by the homeroom teacher tomorrow for a scolding.

She sighed, a trace of sadness on her face, as her gaze drifted over the trembling monsters around her. Then, her eyes suddenly lit up.

Pointing at the octopus butler standing at the front, she said, “You. Yes, you—Grilled Calamari.”

The others weren’t sure who she was talking about until she repeated it a few more times. Hugging his injured tentacle, the octopus butler finally looked up in confusion. “Me?”

Yueyin crossed her arms, looking thoroughly pleased. “Yes, you—Grilled Calamari.”

The octopus butler’s eyes widened helplessly. “Wait… but I’m an octopus, not a squid!”

He flailed his tentacles in protest, but Yue Yin couldn’t care less.

She pulled out her homework from her bag, set it on the table, and looked back at him. “Well? Why are you just standing there, Grilled Calamari? Hurry up and get over here and do my homework.”

Hugging his injured tentacle, the butler looked up, wide-eyed and overwhelmed, questioning everything about his wicked life choices. The other monsters watched in confusion, stifling their laughter at his newly assigned nickname.

Under Yue Yin’s unyielding stare, the octopus butler reluctantly took a seat at the dining table, staring at the mountain of homework in front of him.

Scratching his head with a tentacle, he looked back at Yue Yin and cautiously said, “My lady, I… I don’t know how to do this.”

Yue Yin had already taken out her handheld game console. Hearing him, she looked up in surprise.

The octopus butler hastily explained, “Really, I grew up abroad. I didn’t go through basic schooling.”

He typically enjoyed playing the sophisticated foreign gentleman, trying to show off a cultured demeanor. But now, his refined airs were useless; he couldn’t even understand a word on the page.

It was outrageous. He was just a helpless octopus—how could he know how to solve chemical equations?

Yue Yin looked at him, frowning. “Are you illiterate?”

The butler quickly nodded. “Yes, yes!”

“Then you’re useless.” Yue Yin picked up her sword, her face blank, and moved to finish him off.

Just as her blade was about to land, the octopus butler shouted, “I know English! I know English!”

Yue Yin raised an eyebrow, lowering her sword just a centimeter from his face.

Sweating profusely, he continued, “I’m foreign, you see—English is my native language.”

After a moment, she put the sword away. Relieved beyond measure, he barely dared to breathe.

The octopus cautiously picked up a pen with a tentacle, awkwardly scrawling it across the paper, hoping she wouldn’t notice his haphazard approach.

Yue Yin’s gaze lingered on him, as if making sure he wasn’t lying. For the first time, the butler felt true terror—one mistake, one typo, and he was done for.

All he wanted was to give his underprivileged monster friends a fun night in the mansion. He didn’t expect it would lead to this.

Silently cursing Yue Yin and her test papers, the octopus forced himself to smile and said, “See, look—I got this. Nod for yes, shake for no. I’m an English pro!”

He forced a grin, pretending to recall bits of his long-forgotten native language, all while silently mourning his miserable fate.

Yue Yin, however, looked very satisfied. She had nearly killed him for being useless but unexpectedly discovered his value. If he did her homework well, she could keep him around to handle her foreign language assignments!

In a way, she was quite the genius when it came to reusing waste.

The octopus butler, still unaware of his bleak future as her unwilling helper, heard her say, “Do a good job. Don’t slack off.”

He looked up, still wearing a forced smile. “Of course, absolutely. Don’t worry, my lady. I’ll finish quickly and thoroughly.” Turning back to his work, he thought to himself that dying might be preferable.

The other monsters, huddling nervously on the floor, had been fearing for their lives. But when they saw the butler, nicknamed Grilled Calamari, stuck doing homework with a miserable look, they couldn’t hold back a few snickers.

At least they weren’t foreigners, so they didn’t have to do any homework.

Sitting at the table, the octopus butler started working through the English test as quickly as he could, throwing side glances at his mocking companions.

Suddenly, an idea hit him, and he raised a tentacle. “My lady, the chandelier ghost used to go to middle school. She knows chemistry!”

The smirk froze on the ghost girl’s face, and her eyes widened in disbelief. …Are you kidding me?!

Watching the chandelier ghost get roped in, the octopus butler let out a sly laugh. Misery loves company, after all.