There was another slender green elf standing guard at the entrance of the hall, clutching a wooden dagger.
As soon as he saw Genbeier arrive, he immediately stepped forward.
“What are you here for?”
“Civic Card!” Genbeier lowered his voice.
“And who’s that behind you?”
The guard’s gaze went past his shoulder, landing on Yun Ruoxi.
She quickly pulled her hood down a bit, making sure the other party couldn’t see her verdant green skin.
“That’s none of your business. Just know that she’s a guest,” Genbeier said forcefully.
Because of the girl’s noble status, he didn’t even dare to claim she was his sister or anything like that.
“Hmph, go in.”
The guard recognized Genbeier’s face in the end. With a cold snort, he stepped aside.
Among the underclass, just being a member of the Bug Hunting Army was enough to be considered impressive.
If it had been someone else daring to speak to him like that, he would’ve sent them right back where they came from.
After Yun Ruoxi entered the hall, she whispered, “Nicely done.”
“I don’t deserve the praise, Miss. Please follow me.”
This hall was a bit like an exchange or, more accurately, a kind of local black market.
Genbeier walked to the end of the hall, crouched in front of a stall, and lowered his voice, “Boss, I want to get a Civic Card.”
“Planning to desert?”
The stall’s owner, a middle-aged man with yellowish spots on his face, looked surprised at Genbeier’s request.
“It’s not for me, it’s for her.” Genbeier stepped aside, and Yun Ruoxi walked up.
“You? What level do you want? I can only get you a Level Three Middle Citizen card at most. It’ll let you blend in here, but in a big city like Giant Stone City, it won’t work,” the boss said coolly.
Among green elves, even the status of Middle Citizen was split into five levels.
Only Level One counted as nobility, while the lower four levels were ordinary people… Still, being able to get a Level Three Civic Card here was already quite something, even if it would be detected in a major city.
“Level Three, then,” Yun Ruoxi said.
“Four hundred Wood Sona.”
Sona was the currency here, coming in both wood and leaf varieties, crafted from special timber.
You could think of them as copper and silver coins, respectively.
While wandering the city collecting intel, Yun Ruoxi hadn’t been idle.
Though she dared not use her abilities openly, sneaking around a bit was nothing.
Yun Ruoxi stretched out her right hand and laid down a pile of thumbnail-sized wooden chips, intricately engraved, onto the stall.
The stall owner checked them over, his eyes flashing with a hint of surprise before he grinned slyly.
“Not just anyone can shell out 400 Wood Sona. Looks like I’ve got an important guest today. But rest assured, I’m tight-lipped, and my skills are top-notch.”
“Honored guest, please give me a drop of your blood.”
He respectfully handed over a small wooden knife.
Yun Ruoxi didn’t take it immediately, but glanced at Genbeier first before tucking the knife into her robe.
“Ah!”
Just then, a cry of pain rang out in the distance.
As Genbeier and the stall owner instinctively looked up, Yun Ruoxi tossed out the wooden knife, a single drop of fresh blood on its blade.
“Hurry up. My time is precious,” Yun Ruoxi urged.
“No matter how fast I am, you’ll still need to wait until afternoon, honored guest. If you have urgent matters, you might as well come back then.”
“That works.”
Yun Ruoxi said this, then left the underground passage with Genbeier and stepped outside the shack.
She stopped, turned to Genbeier, and said coldly, “This is the last time. Don’t let it happen again.”
“Understood.” Genbeier lowered his head sharply, cold sweat pouring down his forehead and the back of his neck.
Nobles placed great value on their own blood and hated letting it fall into others’ hands.
He hadn’t mentioned this to the young lady beforehand out of fear she’d refuse and he’d lose his usefulness.
But of course, the young lady saw right through it.
“Alright, I have urgent matters now. This afternoon, meet me here again.”
“Oh, right.” Yun Ruoxi tossed him a money pouch, which Genbeier fumbled to catch.
“Go get yourself some decent clothes. Don’t embarrass me later.”
Genbeier had been worried that the young lady didn’t want him anymore, but feeling the hefty pouch in his hand, he thought that even if he were cast aside, at least he wouldn’t walk away empty-handed. He agreed, bowed in thanks, and turned to leave.
So clean and decisive—Yun Ruoxi nodded approvingly.
“Now that the nuisance is gone, it’s time to go back in and take care of business.”
Yun Ruoxi snapped her fingers, a polymorphic Telekinetic Shield forming around her, reflecting incoming beams and granting her brief optical invisibility.
Then.
She turned back into the shack, slipped down into the underground tunnel, and brushed past the oblivious guard, returning to the hall.
Striding quickly to the end, Yun Ruoxi looked down from above at the stall owner, who was packing up and about to leave, and silently followed him.
Civic Cards recognized their owners, but she wasn’t worried that her blood would fail, nor that the stall owner would notice anything amiss.
Because just now, the blood she’d used wasn’t hers—it was taken from some unlucky soul nearby.
Of course, that meant this Civic Card would be useless, a total dud.
But even in a situation with pitfalls on every side, there were still ways to manage.
This time, Yun Ruoxi had snuck in under invisibility to see for herself.
She followed the stall owner to a small room next to the hall.
With arms folded, she watched as he took a neat stack of yellow leaves from a box.
He carefully picked one, laid it on the table, dripped the blood she’d given him onto it, then used a stylus to draw and dab over it.
He finally dropped some strange liquid on it, exhaled in relief, and hung the leaf from a strap above the table.
Then he turned and left the room.
After the stall owner departed, Yun Ruoxi’s figure slowly materialized.
She sat down in the chair.
The box suddenly opened, and an identical yellow leaf floated out and landed on the table.
She picked up the stylus and repeated the entire process step by step.
Whether it was the pressure of the stylus, the extent of the smearing, or the amount of liquid applied, everything was exactly the same.
The only difference was the blood—this time, she used her own.
Imitating others—this kind of thing was child’s play for Yun Ruoxi, who possessed [Ultimate Acting].
As long as she convinced herself she was playing someone else, she could achieve almost perfect imitation.
Once she finished, Yun Ruoxi hung her Civic Card next to the other, crossed her legs, leaned back in the chair, and silently browsed anime and cross-dimensional videos, waiting for the stall owner to return.
“‘i Xi Cycle’? I have a mad remix video?”
It had been a while since she’d browsed Bilibili’s cross-dimensional section, and only now did Yun Ruoxi realize that one of her own mad videos had made it to the hot list.
She clicked it open.
It turned out to be a compilation of her highlights and her beaten-down moments, with an ai-generated imitation of her voice singing a rewritten version of ‘Love Cycle’.
Honestly, it was just ridiculous.