Chapter 225 - 222: Mei Meimei
A few minutes later, the ManSa landed smoothly on the mountain peak where the Thief’s Palace was located.
Unlike the Main Peak Hall, the vast palace before them was nearly empty, giving it a strange sense of desolation.
Following Wang Tongqian into the palace, Feng Hao curiously sized up his surroundings and asked with a frown, "Brother San, why are there so few people in such a huge palace?"
"That’s how it’s supposed to be. The Thief’s Palace isn’t a place just anyone can enter," Wang Tongqian said with a faint smile.
Feng Hao nodded thoughtfully, more or less understanding what Wang Tongqian meant. The Thief’s Palace was likely one of the sect’s restricted areas, off-limits to ordinary members. ’By that logic, I guess I’m pretty lucky,’ he thought.
"Big Brother’s territory is just ahead. Second Brother and Fourth Sister are over there, too."
Soon, under Wang Tongqian’s lead, a quiet little courtyard appeared before Feng Hao. From a distance, he could already sense the imprint fluctuations of his Big Brother Lin Luo and Second Brother Kang Shuai. Besides them, there was another, unfamiliar fluctuation that must belong to his legendary Fourth Sister.
As soon as he stepped into the courtyard, he saw a trio led by Lin Luo approaching with welcoming smiles. The dashingly handsome man on the left was obviously Kang Shuai, but the gorgeous woman with a smoking hot body on the right was even more eye-catching.
"Haha, Brother Feng, you’re finally here!" Lin Luo had never been one for airs and rushed forward with a bear hug. Even the impossibly cool Kang Shuai joined in for a bear hug of his own.
"Big Brother, Second Brother, it’s been too long," Feng Hao said excitedly.
Just then, the woman with the fiery figure came over. Without a word, she started pinching and pulling at Feng Hao’s cheeks, clucking her tongue in admiration. "So you’re our little brother Feng Hao?"
Feng Hao was left completely bewildered by the pinching. It took him a moment to snap out of it, his gaze darting away instinctively. His eyes landed right on the pair of Mount Everests straining against her tight leather armor, and he nearly fainted from shock.
It wasn’t that Feng Hao had never seen "well-endowed" women before, but the pair before him now were definitely in the Mount Everest category!
"Ahem... you must be Fourth Sister, right?" Feng Hao said, his expression stiff. "Could you please stop pinching my face?"
The fiery beauty finally let go and planted her hands on her hips with a swagger. The Mount Everests on her chest shook like an earthquake. "That’s right. The name’s Mei Meimei. Gene level sixty-one, bottom of the barrel among the Thieves. I was just waiting for you to come and bump me up to second-to-last."
Feng Hao didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. "Hello, Fourth Sister. I’m your little brother, Feng Hao."
"Haha, finally, someone younger than me! Come on, I’ll take you out for a joyride," Mei Meimei said with a hearty laugh. The sound, paired with her curvy, smoldering figure, created a rather stark contrast.
Lin Luo rolled his eyes and said irritably, "If you want to go for a joyride, go by yourself. Don’t go corrupting Brother Feng."
"Fourth Sister, stop messing around," Wang Tongqian added. "Brother Feng just got here. There will be plenty of time for that later."
"Fine," Mei Meimei pouted, clearly reluctant.
Seeing Mei Meimei back down, Feng Hao finally breathed a sigh of relief. To be honest, he had steeled himself before coming, but this Fourth Sister of his still managed to exceed all his expectations.
If his three big brothers hadn’t been there to run interference, Feng Hao truly would have felt the urge to turn and flee.
"Alright, let’s go inside and talk," Kang Shuai said with a gentle smile, his every move graceful and handsome. Any other girl would have swooned at the sight, but Mei Meimei didn’t react at all, obviously long accustomed to Kang Shuai’s impossibly cool demeanor.
The five of them chatted and laughed as they went back inside. A table of food and wine was quickly laid out. Having been reunited after so long, a long talk was inevitable.
Fourth Sister Mei Meimei turned out to be even more wild than Feng Hao had imagined. After downing several bottles of strong liquor, she showed no signs of intoxication, while Feng Hao and the other three men were already starting to get tipsy.
"Fourth Sister is truly a heroine among women," Feng Hao said, his eyes full of admiration.
"Don’t mind her. That girl drinks liquor like it’s water. She never gets drunk," Lin Luo teased with a smirk.
Hearing this, Mei Meimei was instantly displeased. She brandished a wine bottle and protested, "Who says I don’t get drunk? You guys just can’t hold your liquor!"
"Alright, alright, we surrender, okay?" Wang Tongqian slurred, feeling dizzy.
"Hmph, that’s more like it." Satisfied, Mei Meimei tilted her head back and chugged from the bottle, making Feng Hao’s heart pound in alarm.
Lin Luo and the other two were clearly used to this. They turned to Feng Hao with a laugh. "By the way, Brother Feng, how’s that little chick who scammed me last time? Did you get justice for your big bro?"
"You mean Yao Ying?" Feng Hao gave a helpless, bitter smile. "By the time I found her, she had already forged that Fiery Sun Stone into a weapon."
"Then forget it. It was just one Fiery Sun Stone; I don’t care about it." Lin Luo laughed it off, then asked with a grin, "Speaking of which, don’t tell me that little girl actually became our sister-in-law?"
Feng Hao’s face darkened. "How could that be possible?"
"Tsk, tsk, what a shame." Lin Luo sipped his wine with a meaningful look, his expression like a father disappointed in his son’s failings.
Mei Meimei piped up curiously from the side, "What are you guys talking about? I want to hear, too."
"Go back to drinking your wine," Lin Luo said irritably.
"Oh." Mei Meimei nodded blankly and went back to drinking happily, the front of her top over her Mount Everests already soaked through with spilled liquor.
Just then, Kang Shuai, who had been drinking elegantly the whole time, suddenly spoke up. "Oh right, Fourth Sister, where’s that intel you gathered for Brother Feng? Go on, take it out."
"I almost forgot since Second Brother didn’t mention it." Mei Meimei put down her bottle with a start. Her Spatial Ring flashed, and she pulled out a stack of grimy scrap paper covered in crookedly drawn lines that looked like mechanical blueprints.
The moment they saw the scrap paper, Lin Luo and the other two slapped their foreheads, speechless.
"For crying out loud, woman! Weren’t you supposed to be compiling intel on his opponents? What are you doing with a stack of ruined blueprints?" Lin Luo’s face was dark with exasperation.
Mei Meimei blushed slightly. "They’re just some useless blueprints. The intel is on the back. You’ll just have to make do."
"You..." Lin Luo was too angry to speak. He snatched the papers from Mei Meimei’s hand and tossed them to Feng Hao. "Your Fourth Sister has always been unreliable. You’ll just have to make do with this intel. Get to know your opponents."
"It’s fine, I don’t mind." Feng Hao took the papers with a light laugh. He briefly flipped through a few pages and couldn’t help but frown in confusion. "Why are there only a dozen or so people here? I thought there were a lot of contestants."
Kang Shuai let out a wry laugh. "These are the opponents worth paying attention to. A few of them are even favorites to win the whole thing."
Feng Hao understood. He carefully stored the intel in his Spatial Ring and looked up to ask, "By the way, when do the preliminaries start?"
"In twelve days," Lin Luo stated.
"Uh, that long from now?" Feng Hao’s face was lined with exasperation.
Lin Luo’s expression suddenly turned serious. "Actually, the main reason we had you come so early was so you could meet the old man. If you can make a good impression on him, it’ll be a huge help in your future bid to become a Thief."
"..." Feng Hao was speechless. ’So they brought me here all this way just to pull some strings.’ No wonder Lu Linfei had been giving him such strange looks on the way here.
"Who is this ’old man’ you’re talking about, Big Brother? Is he some big shot from the Grand Hall?" Feng Hao asked with a frown.
Lin Luo explained with a faint smile, "The old man’s position is Thief Master. In other words, he’s our master."
"Thief Master?" Feng Hao nodded thoughtfully, his expression conflicted. "Speaking of which, won’t I get in trouble for so blatantly pulling strings like this?"
"What do you mean, ’pulling strings’? We call this making rational use of interpersonal relationships," Wang Tongqian said with a smug, suppressed grin.