Arknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Don’t Help a Friend’s Husband

‘Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.’

Lucian rubbed his arms, suppressing a sudden chill. The line between innocent devotion and a full-blown stalker was razor-thin, and Swire was apparently tap-dancing right on the edge of it. He had always known the wealthy feline was active in showing him favor, but discovering the sheer, obsessive depth of her active surveillance was genuinely frightening.

He took a slow sip of his warm soy milk to settle his nerves, eyeing the elegant girl sitting across from him. “Here is the real question,” Lucian said, lowering his cup. “Swire clearly doesn’t want me to know about this. So why are you telling me?”

“Because it annoys her.” Yuxia’s lips curled into a wicked, playful smirk. “I despise the police, and I harbor a special kind of loathing for wealthy, capitalist young ladies who play at being cops. If there is a chance to ruin her day, and it costs me absolutely nothing, it would be a tragedy to let it slip by, wouldn’t it?”

She spoke with the casual pragmatism of someone finding a loose banknote on the pavement. Lucian simply stared at her, entirely unsure of how to respond to that level of petty vindictiveness.

Despite Miss Yuxia’s incredibly refined appearance and elegant posture, her core nature was deeply rooted in the gritty pragmatism of the common streets. And for someone who claimed to hate the police so much, her mastery of advanced law enforcement grappling techniques was certainly something to behold. Lucian wisely decided to swallow his complaints. This particular topic was a landmine, and he preferred to keep his limbs intact.

He let her smugness slide in one ear and out the other, pivoting straight to business. “So, Miss Yuxia, what is it you actually want to ask? Old Lin and I really didn’t spend our time gossiping about you. I came to see him today for a serious matter.”

“Then enlighten me about this ‘serious matter’.”

Yuxia leaned forward slightly, her long, dark eyelashes brushing the tops of her eyes as she studied him. “I have every right to know what is happening in the Slums. A few of these streets are under my direct management now. If you need information, I can help you. Consider it an equal exchange.”

“An equal exchange, huh…” Lucian let out a quiet sigh.

He understood her underlying frustration perfectly well. Raised by a fiercely capable father who doted on her as the absolute apple of his eye, Yuxia had somehow avoided becoming a spoiled brat. Instead, that overwhelming shadow had forged her into someone desperate to prove she was worthy of her bloodline.

In a strange way, she was exactly like Swire. Both were wealthy daughters of immense privilege who worked themselves to the bone to earn their own standing. It was exactly why these two girls, despite their polarized social statuses and constant bickering, maintained such a close bond. Their dynamic was a bizarre mix of genuine intimacy and oil-and-water hostility.

But Yuxia was far too impatient. Or perhaps, Old Lin’s suffocating affection was just too much to bear. Under the Rat King’s massive umbrella, any achievement Yuxia managed was immediately credited to her father’s influence. The underworld would only ever see her as the Rat King’s daughter, never as Lin Yuxia in her own right.

Because of that, she was aggressively eager to insert herself into her father’s affairs. To put it bluntly, she wanted to prove she could replace him. While it hadn’t escalated into open rebellion yet, Lucian had no desire to watch a bitter, irreconcilable rift form between father and daughter.

Since the information wasn’t exactly a state secret, Lucian decided to indulge her. “You keep up with the news. You know about the neighboring Ursus Empire, and the recent chaos surrounding the city of Chernobog, right? It’s an extremist Infected organization causing the riots over there…”

Lucian gave her a brief, sanitized rundown of the situation.

The young lady of the Slums listened with rapt attention. Her focused, unwavering gaze made her look exactly like a top-tier student absorbing a lecture—the exact type of attentive girl that teachers adored.

When he finished, Yuxia blinked slowly, processing the weight of the information. “I see. An extremist faction of the Infected, bleeding into Lungmen to poach our people… It is true that the number of Infected refugees fleeing from Ursus has spiked recently. If someone is actively preaching radical ideas in the alleys, those desperate people are incredibly easy to draw in.”

“Exactly, which means it’s incredibly easy for things to blow up in our faces,” Lucian said, leaning back against the cushions. “This has the potential to escalate into a massive diplomatic crisis. Personally, it doesn’t matter to me as long as I can pay my bills. But if the higher-ups start feeling the pressure, that pressure is going to roll right down onto the common people. I just want to run my tea shop in peace and handle a little logistics business on the side.”

Yuxia rolled her eyes, her refined facade breaking into a deadpan stare. “Forget the tea shop for a second. What kind of ‘logistics’ company are you even running?”

It had been a long time since someone had delivered such a perfectly timed, snarky jab at his expense. Lucian felt a strange wave of refreshing amusement wash over him.

That was the extent of his report. He deliberately omitted his physical, skin-to-skin altercation with Crownslayer in the alleyway. Preserving a woman’s reputation was just the gentlemanly thing to do—he truly was a great philanthropist at heart.

He didn’t actually expect Yuxia to be able to do anything with the information. When it came to sweeping decisions that affected the entirety of the Slums, absolutely nothing moved without Old Lin’s explicit approval.

But Yuxia clearly didn’t share that sentiment. She took the matter far more seriously than Lucian anticipated. She rested her chin on her small, delicate hand, her brow furrowing in deep concentration. “Ursus… Chernobog… the Reunion Movement… Infected extremists…”

“Miss Yuxia?” Lucian leaned forward, waving a hand in front of her glazed eyes. “Are you still with me? If you keep spacing out, I’m going to pinch your cheeks.”

“Try it if you have the nerve.” Yuxia lifted her gaze, her eyes narrowing into a dangerous, feline crescent. “If you so much as lay a finger on me, I will scream at the top of my lungs that you are trying to assault me. The old man will rush in here and tear you limb from limb.”

Lucian blinked slowly, his expression entirely deadpan. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Old Lin might just be thrilled. He’d probably lock the door and force us to consummate the marriage on the spot. You know how extreme that old man can get.”

“Guh—!”

Yuxia choked on her retort. The sheer horror of that entirely plausible scenario flashed behind her eyes, draining the color from her face in an instant. She snatched a throw pillow from the sofa, clutching it tightly against her chest like a physical shield. “Stay away from me. Do not come within ten meters of this sofa, and keep your eyes strictly above my shoulders.”

“Where am I supposed to find ten meters of clearance in this room?” Lucian let out a heavy sigh, stretching his arms above his head. “If there’s nothing else, I’m heading out. That was everything I needed to discuss with Old Lin. I’m exhausted, and I just want to go home and sleep.”

“…Wait a minute.”

Yuxia’s voice stopped him just as he shifted his weight to stand.

She remained hunched behind her pillow, her shoulders drawn tight, but her lively eyes darted up to meet his. “Just as a reference… I want your honest opinion. Given the current situation, and the impending chaos caused by these Infected radicals, what would you do if you were in charge?”

“That is a very troublesome question.” Lucian slowly lowered himself back onto the seat.

She was asking a question that only a politician would entertain. It was the exact type of authority and responsibility Lucian despised the most. He had spent his entire life deliberately avoiding that kind of power, knowing full well he would never accept the burden of that position.

But Yuxia’s expression was dead serious. The vulnerability in her eyes showed she genuinely valued his perspective. This wasn’t something he could brush off with a joke.

Lucian let out a long, measured breath, the playful atmosphere draining from the room. “The Ursus Empire’s reputation is a bloody mess; even an outsider like me knows that. Old Lin doesn’t care about the Infected issue in a vacuum—he is looking at the empire as a whole. This Reunion riot could indeed become a critical flaw, giving Ursus the perfect excuse to mobilize against Lungmen… but that is all it is. An excuse is just an excuse. As long as the Lungmen authorities deny everything, the city will remain safe.”

This was the dark, unspoken benefit of the Slums operating as an unacknowledged gray zone. The Lungmen Guard Department and the city’s elite had never officially recognized the existence of the Poor District. The Infected who smuggled themselves across the border into Lungmen had no household registration, no identification, and no entry records. Whether they starved, were robbed, or were murdered in the streets, theoretically, those events never happened.

It was a brutally cold political stance, but it provided absolute plausible deniability. Lungmen bore zero responsibility for the actions of its undocumented Infected. Whether these ‘non-existent’ citizens joined the Reunion Movement or formed their own gangs, Lungmen—or rather, Chief Executive Wei Yenwu—just needed to stubbornly deny their existence. That was the end of the diplomatic trail.

Even with the Ursus Empire’s barbaric tendencies, they couldn’t just declare war on a whim. They needed a legitimate casus belli, not just a vague accusation of harboring fugitives that didn’t exist on paper.

So, if she wanted his ideal solution, it was the simplest one.

“As long as Wei Yenwu and Old Lin continue to cooperate and play their respective roles, Lungmen and the Slums will survive,” Lucian explained, his voice calm and steady. “The Infected in this city aren’t exclusively from Ursus, and they certainly won’t all flock to the Reunion Movement. With Old Lin keeping a tight grip on the underground, he can keep the radicals in check.”

“…”

Yuxia offered no agreement and no argument. She simply sat in silence, absorbing his words.

Lucian knew his perspective was highly idealistic. As long as the Reunion Movement didn’t trigger any catastrophic, devastating events, their current level of petty alleyway recruitment was manageable. It would take years, perhaps over a decade, for their influence to truly take root outside of Ursus territory.

Lungmen had plenty of time to bleed that influence dry. Old Lin was committed to maintaining the delicate balance of the Slums. He would never allow Reunion to run wild in his territory.

…Of course, all of that depended on the fragile hope that Reunion didn’t do something entirely insane.

But as he watched the young lady across from him, it became clear that Miss Yuxia harbored a very different philosophy. She held her cup of soy milk tightly, her knuckles pale against the ceramic, still clutching the pillow like a lifeline. She looked incredibly insecure, her gaze darting away before stealing a hesitant glance back at him.

“I have an idea,” Yuxia murmured, her voice dropping to a quiet, dangerous whisper. “It’s really just a thought. You just need to listen, alright?”

“Please, go ahead.” Lucian waited, the tension in the room thickening.

Yuxia let out a shaky breath, her eyes darkening with a cold, ruthless calculation that looked entirely too much like her father. “I was thinking… what would happen if we took this opportunity to drive every single Infected out of Lungmen?”