Chapter 18 The Butler Is a Coward

"Pfft, in the end, you jumped?"

"Jumped, yeah~"

Mingmei very frankly confessed to the young man on the other end of the video call.

Ruan Xun took off his white coat from work, poured himself a glass of water, and sat in the休息室 of his office, listening to his niece's reply, which sounded like a confession of love. He lowered his eyes and smiled.

"How did it feel?"

Ruan Xun looked up at Mingmei. She had just been wearing a calm "Ah, what did I tell you, what could happen?" expression, but now she was actually a little embarrassed, and her eyes darted around as she replied, "It was, it was okay. He's pretty strong."

"Pfft~" Ruan Xun almost spat out the tea in his mouth. "You think he's strong just because he caught you?"

"Yeah." Not really!

The moment Mingmei jumped down and was caught, Mu Chen's cold fragrance rushed into her nose from below.

She was clearly already very familiar with that scent, but Mingmei was still drawn to that clear, bone-chilling fragrance every time she got close to him, losing her senses.

It was clearly a cold fragrance, but the longer she smelled it, the more she felt a burning flame that consumed the soul hidden beneath the icy coldness. The cold fragrance was bewitching, leading her into the deepest fire to be devoured completely.

Her face also unconsciously flushed as she spaced out…

Seeing Mingmei spacing out while talking to him, Ruan Xun wasn't in a hurry to speak. He waited until his niece came back to her senses before saying, "Why did you think of telling me about this?"

"You want me to tell Uncle Yan Hui? He obviously has something to do with Mu Chen…"

Although Mingmei wanted to share this budding emotion, she also knew that she couldn't just tell anyone. "Uncle Ruan, this is our secret, you won't tell anyone, right?"

"Of course, it wouldn't be a secret if I told anyone~" Ruan Xun smiled very kindly, a flash of excitement at knowing his niece's secret passing through his eyes.

Heh heh~

He was the most trustworthy uncle~

"By the way, I was swamped with overtime a while ago, but now I'm free. Should I come visit you in a few days?"

"Nah, my vacation just ended this month, and it'll be several weeks before I can leave school again." Mingmei pouted as she said this, looking at Ruan Xun. "You're just like Uncle Yan Hui, always so busy. How come you suddenly have time?"

"The project made progress, so I have time~"

Ruan Xun smiled and propped up his chin. Mingmei was once again choked by his expression. She still muttered to herself that she couldn't afford to offend either of her uncles.

"But, I really need a rest recently. Work has been too tiring, so I'm planning to transfer to another position. It just so happens to be at your school, so it'll be convenient to see you in the future."

Ruan Xun smiled and secretly stowed his research data into his portable storage device where Mingmei couldn't see it. The label read: *The Entity of Silicon-Based Life and Its Reference to Mental Separation.*

Mingmei was stunned for a moment when she heard that Ruan Xun was actually coming to work at her school, but she quickly became very happy, saying, "That's great, we can see each other often in the future~"

As she spoke, Mingmei couldn't help but yawn.

"Why are you so sleepy? Didn't you sleep well?"

"I just got out of the game before talking to you. This round lasted almost twelve... no, three hours."

Mingmei felt a huge amount of malice from the game length of *The Duke's Estate.*

"What game is so long?" Seeing the little bit of fear in Mingmei's eyes, he asked further, "I've played most of the games Yan Hui designed, and none of them are that long, right?"

Mingmei glanced at her uncle's low-key humble bragging, and then told him about the game, its plot, and general direction. After she finished, she saw Ruan Xun suddenly burst out laughing, as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world.

"You guys… I beat it in two hours back then."

Mingmei: ??? Nani?

"How did you do that?"

"Just kill the butler and the other players, especially the butler. However, the version I played didn't have other players, the other candidates were all NPCs. It might take a little longer with some really good players."

"Uncle, your thinking is?"

Mingmei couldn't imagine how her uncle could talk about beating the game so casually. Mu Chen and the others ended up with the players killing each other, but her uncle knew that from the start?

The key was that he even killed the butler.

"First of all, in the dining hall, there's a butler's favorability rating, right?" Ruan Xun helped Mingmei break down the key points in the game.

"Yeah."

"Also, I learned from the other servants that the butler had a lot of power, and could even control the heir. As a future duke, I wouldn't keep someone like that around."

Ruan Xun directly adopted the mindset of a superior. "Deciding who the heir is isn't up to him. So, he didn't need to live. Once he was dead, as long as I made sure there were no competitors, I would become the successor."

Simple, brutal, effective.

"See, isn't it the same outcome?" He already knew that Mingmei and the others had beaten the game. "That guy named Mu Chen killed the butler in the end, right?"

"Yeah… the butler committed suicide. Mu Chen whispered something to him. But I didn't hear it."

Mingmei shook her head. She remembered that in the game's ending, Mu Chen said a few words to the butler, and the butler immediately announced that he was the next duke. Then, the butler killed himself in the rose garden outside the castle.

Ruan Xun's eyes flashed when he heard this, and he said something that Mingmei didn't understand, "The butler was just a coward after all~"

"Huh?"

"Good girl, you're still young, you wouldn't understand~" After saying that, Ruan Xun was about to close the video call. "Get some rest, see you in a couple of days, goodbye~"

Mingmei closed the video call and lay down on the bed to rest. She had a big lecture tomorrow, so it was better not to waste time and get some rest.

"Good morning."

As soon as Mingmei and Lu Xiaoyao left the dormitory building in the morning, Mingmei saw Mu Chen standing downstairs, holding a bag in his hand.

"Morning." Mingmei greeted him.

Lu Xiaoyao, who was still halfway in her自闭 shell because she didn't remember how she was eliminated from the game yesterday, was half a beat behind. She only came back to her senses when she noticed Da Zhai Ou Hu, but she didn't expect her position next to Mingmei to suddenly be taken by someone else.

Lu Xiaoyao: ?!!!

She looked up and saw Mu Chen turning to look at her, tossing a bag of breakfast into her arms, the warning in his eyes very clear.

Eat your breakfast and be quiet.

Lu Xiaoyao silently dropped one step behind the two of them, watching their backs, both excited to be watching their cp up close, and feeling that she was so redundant _(：3」∠)_

It would be better if she could turn into air and spectate.

"I made the rose cakes I promised you yesterday. Have some~ I just baked them this morning."

Lu Xiaoyao saw Mu Chen take out a portion from his storage device. Even Lu Xiaoyao, trailing behind, could smell the tempting fragrance of roses and honey interwoven.

Lu Xiaoyao impatiently opened the breakfast bag that Boss Mu Chen had tossed to her—oh, a sandwich and milk from the vending machine downstairs.

"And rose honey black tea, be careful it's hot."

Lu Xiaoyao: …

What was she thinking?

She clearly thought she could freeload, but… oh well, dog food flavored sandwich is not bad~