The Fang Fang Store was louder than usual that morning.

Customers crowded the first floor, voices overlapping in a restless hum as staff members moved briskly behind the counters. Crystal display cases glimmered under white lights, reflecting the silhouettes of monsters resting inside incubators and the eager faces pressed close to the glass.

Business was good. Too good, some would say.

And then, as usual, the General Manager of the store, Zhi Yan, appeared.

She stepped through the front entrance in her officer’s suit, tailored sharply enough to turn heads without trying. The dark fabric hugged her figure cleanly, practical yet elegant, and her ponytail swayed with each step she took across the polished floor.

As her heels clicked softly, the reception staff straightened instinctively.

Conversations dipped, then surged again the moment she passed.

“Is that her?” someone whispered.

“That’s Manager Zhi, right?” another murmured.

“No, no… she’s Owner Lin’s mistress.”

“But I thought he already had a girlfriend. Trainer Li, right?”

“So he’s two-timing?”

“Maybe all three of them are together. I heard that they all live together…”

“Wow, such an open relationship?”

“These rich people and their fantasies… sigh…”

A few snickers followed. A few looks of envy. A few admiring glances lingered longer than they should have.

Zhi Yan heard none of it.

Or rather, she heard it all and didn’t care.

She walked past the reception desk without breaking stride, her gaze calm, posture straight, and maintained an expression unreadable, despite listening to those words clearly.

As the staff-only elevator doors slid open at her approach, she stepped inside alone. Once the doors closed and the elevator rose smoothly, the whispers were cut off, left buzzing uselessly behind metal and glass.

By the time it reached the top floor, Zhi Yan’s expression softened slightly, the professional mask loosening just a fraction.

The doors opened onto a quiet corridor, carpeted and insulated from the chaos below. Outside the door of Lin Fang’s office/private residence, Nebula stood perfectly still as always, with her arms folded, back straight, and eyes half-lidded but alert.

Zhi Yan slowed her steps.

“Nebula,” she greeted casually. “Is he busy?”

Nebula opened her eyes fully and turned her head. “Master is training.”

Zhi Yan paused beside her. “Serious training, or the kind where he is okay to be disturbed?”

Nebula tilted her head slightly, considering. “The latter.”

Zhi Yan smiled faintly. “I can go in, right?”

Nebula nodded without hesitation. “Master only instructed me to obstruct visitors. Not Miss Zhi, who half owns this business.”

Zhi Yan chuckled softly and then stepped past Nebula and placed her palm against the door panel. The lock disengaged with a soft click, and the door slid open silently.

Meanwhile, Lin Fang sat cross-legged at the center of the room, his gaze fixed on the translucent pet inventory hovering before him.

Rows of familiar names floated there, each one carrying weight far heavier than a line of text should. Xuan Hei. Nyx. Cloud. Tempest. Stripey. Flamy I, II, III.

To his left, another holographic screen hung in the air, displaying the mission list. One entry pulsed faintly, as if aware of his attention.

Side Quest 6: Solo Dungeon Conqueror

Objective: Complete 100 dungeons solo

Progress: 21 / 100

Reward: Evolution ticket, Title.

Lin Fang let out a slow breath and rubbed his face with both hands.

“Still 79 left…” he muttered quietly.

In three months, he had cleared thirty-two solo dungeons, like once every three days. It wasn’t laziness holding him back. He was completing as many dungeons as possible without worrying whether they were even grade-5 dungeons. However, it was a reality that dungeons won’t open in huge numbers. Dimensional dungeons only open where lots of negative energy, mostly from the corpses; nearby the graveyards or those places where lots of casualties occurred due to the instant dungeons.

Adding on top of that, he needs to participate in the bid, on behalf of Zero Guild and win them while participating with others. It means he needs to spends absurdly high amount of money without thinking about returns at all, to even attempt the dungeons.

So far, he had already completed two similar side quests. Each had rewarded him with an Evolution Ticket. Those two tickets sat quietly in his inventory now, glowing faintly like coins too valuable to spend.

The third quest, though, was cruel.

One hundred solo dungeons.

For one more ticket.

Lin Fang leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs, fingers interlaced as he stared into the empty space. Evolution Tickets weren’t just upgrades. A single ticket could elevate an Epic-grade system monster straight into legendary grade. And with 2 of them, Epic grade can become a Mythic grade.

And with Synthesize, things became even more dangerous.

Rare cores into Epic. Epic cores into Legendary. Evolution Tickets into Supreme Evolution Tickets. A possibility of a mythical monster evolving again, breaking past what should have been its natural ceiling.

His gaze drifted back to the pet inventory.

Xuan Hei…

If he waited. If he endured. If he gathered three Evolution Tickets and synthesized them into one Supreme ticket… Xuan Hei could undergo a transformation that put it on the same level as primordial beings like Null

But the cost was time.

A lot of it.

And right now, sitting in his inventory were two perfectly usable tickets. With them, he could evolve Cloud. Or Tempest. Or Stripey. Or Nyx.

His eyes lingered on Nyx’s name.

A black dragon, even in fledgling form, carried symbolism humans had worshipped and feared for millennia. If Nyx became Mythic-grade now, the growth would be explosive. Terrifying. Beautiful.

Yet, Lin Fang clenched his jaw, resisting the temptation.

“I shouldn’t rush,” he whispered to himself. “I know that.”

He stayed like that for a long moment, chin resting on his hands, eyes unfocused, thoughts tangled into something heavy and uncomfortable.

Then something warm entered his vision.

A face. Close. Too close.

“Yan’er—?”

Lin Fang blinked, startled, nearly jerking backward. Zhi Yan had leaned in without him noticing, her face inches from his, eyes bright with amusement.

She straightened up, smiling. “You looked like a statue.”

He exhaled and shook his head. “You’re going to give me a heart attack one day.”

She laughed softly and dropped down beside him on the couch, crossing her legs comfortably. “So,” she said, nudging his knee with her own, “what’s got you staring into the void like that, Classmate Lin?”

He looked away almost immediately. “Nothing.”

Zhi Yan hummed, unconvinced. “That’s a lie.”

Lin Fang sighed. He knew better than to try that tone with her. “It’s really nothing important.”

She tilted her head, studying his profile. “You don’t look like someone thinking about nothing. You look like someone arguing with himself.”

He was startled at her revelation.

“Come on,” she said more gently now. “Talk to me.”

Lin Fang instantly chose a quick lie.

“Well,” he said slowly, forcing a small smile, “I was thinking about the New Year.”

Zhi Yan blinked. “That’s it?”

He nodded. “It’s coming up. And… It’s been a long time since I saw my family.”

Her expression softened slightly.

“I was wondering,” he continued, eyes lowering, “whether I should visit my grandparents. Or maybe try to contact my mother.”

The word came out flatter than he intended.

Zhi Yan didn’t interrupt.

Lin Fang leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “But then I thought… what’s the point? Why bother thinking about someone who abandoned her own son?”

The room went quiet.

Zhi Yan didn’t tease him this time. She didn’t smile either. She just watched him, her gaze steady, thoughtful.

After a moment, she spoke quietly. “You don’t sound angry.”

“I’m not,” Lin Fang replied with a straight face. “I’m tired.”

Zhi Yan stayed quiet for a moment after his words, the faint hum of the building filling the space between them. She leaned back slightly, fingers resting on her knee, eyes drifting to the window as if weighing something in her mind.

Then she spoke, almost casually.

“Say… how about you come with me to my home for Christmas next week?”

Lin Fang turned to her at once. “Your home?”

She nodded, meeting his gaze. “Mm. I actually planned on inviting you from the beginning.” She paused, then added with a small, knowing smile, “After all, If you don’t come, there’s a high chance Li Liu won’t either. And in the past ten years, there hasn’t been a single Christmas where she didn’t spend it with me.”

She shrugged lightly. “So… I figured I might as well invite you properly. But didn’t expect I would get to invite you so casually…”

Lin Fang blinked, clearly caught off guard. For a second, he searched her face, as if expecting a joke, but found only sincerity.

“Alright,” he said.

Zhi Yan froze. “That fast?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep