Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 254 - 174: Power is Beauty

Chapter 254: Chapter 174: Power is Beauty

Upon arrival, the sheriff placed the three of them beneath the palace’s outer trees, for without the queen’s command, these outsiders had no right to enter the palace.

Originally, the sheriff had intended to directly throw the three into prison, to first deprive them of food and water for a couple of days, then use some torture devices to break their bodies and will. However, after negotiating with Duan Mingyuan, he decided to give them some face.

Surrounded by a group of battle robots, Jiuyue bit Duan Mingyuan’s ear and whispered, "Mr. Mingyuan, we’re about to meet the queen of Mechanical Star, are you nervous?"

This time, however, she heeded the criticism Duan Mingyuan had given her in the car and refrained from licking.

Instead, she gently took his earlobe in her mouth.

Doing such a small gesture in front of the sacred palace always felt like a thrilling taboo.

"Why be nervous?"

Duan Mingyuan had been about to sternly chastise Jiuyue, but the little fox demon’s sharp teeth lightly touching his earlobe produced a tingling sensation.

And Jiuyue always emphasized that it was because they were too close, it was an accidental touch.

If it was an accident, then there was no helping it, after all, it’s inevitable for people to have accidents in life.

"Eh? Haven’t you looked at the travel guide in the hotel? It says that Mechanical Star’s current queen is the most beautiful woman on the entire planet, her beauty unparalleled, capable of causing the opposite sex to lose their souls with just one glance."

Sounds like the fox demon of Mechanical Star.

Fox demons are always particularly sensitive to the topic of beauty, possessing a natural competitive spirit in this regard.

Unlike the universe’s beauty rankings fabricated by some meddlesome third parties, the Mechanical Star seems to take the reigning queen’s beauty seriously enough to include it in their brochures, which made Jiuyue quite curious about to what extent the queen’s beauty actually reached.

But strangely, the brochure did not feature a photo of the queen.

According to official statements, the queen was the most exalted person on the planet, and ordinary mortals were not entitled to glimpse her visage; allowing them the space to imagine was a grace bestowed by the queen.

Driven by intense curiosity, Jiuyue even sent a message to the Third Prince, but he replied saying that the "Cosmos Beauty Appreciation Encyclopedia" did not mention the queen of Mechanical Star, and the people of Mechanical Star were not specifically highlighted either.

Quite an ordinary appearance, without much to note.

This was the "Cosmos Beauty Appreciation Encyclopedia’s" comprehensive assessment of the people from Mechanical Star.

Up to this point, Jiuyue considered her greatest rival to be the queen of the West Wind Clan, someone who had surpassed even her own mother in beauty.

The little fox demon deliberately grazed Duan Mingyuan’s earlobe with her teeth and whispered seductively, "Mr. Mingyuan, you won’t lose your soul too, will you?"

Ling Long saw the two’s subtle gestures and quickly turned her face away.

"That’s hard to say."

Duan Mingyuan stared at the great hall.

He had a feeling that "losing one’s soul" might not just be a figure of speech, but a practical description.

Soon after their arrival, he noticed several blindfolded, trembling girls being escorted into the great hall. About an hour later, several cold corpses were carried out. Combined with the sheriff’s remark that the queen was bathing and ordered them to wait outside the hall, he couldn’t help but make some unpleasant conjectures.

Clearly, there were those who had lost their souls before their arrival.

"Mr. Mingyuan, what in the world are you talking about!"

Jiuyue, dissatisfied, bit his earlobe harder as if to demonstrate.

This Mr. Mingyuan had the audacity to daydream in her presence, it seemed she still had too much "Action Value" to use up.

Tonight, she’d have to further reduce Mr. Mingyuan’s "Action Value"!

In the meantime, the queen of Mechanical Star had finally finished her bath.

When the sheriff said they could enter, the three had been standing at the entrance of the great hall for over an hour.

Jiuyue braced herself; she wanted to see just who the queen of Mechanical Star was, how beautiful she really was, and how she managed to make the opposite sex lose their souls.

How would she compare to the Soul-Hooking Technique passed down among calamitous foxes for generations?

However, when Jiuyue saw the figure within the palace, all her thoughts came to an abrupt halt. Her eyes widened as she stared fixedly at the figure upon the throne.

A fraud!

From childhood, fox demons were always the deceivers; never had she been deceived by another!

Here was not the universe’s most beautiful woman, but instead, a mound of flesh nearly fused with the gigantic throne!

The layers of fat made one doubt whether she could move on her own. Half of the "flesh mountain" had turned into cracked, earthy soil, exacerbating her unsightly appearance. If one had to describe her, she resembled the half-flesh, half-statue monsters from dungeon-crawler games.

Jiuyue didn’t know what Duan Mingyuan was thinking, but she nearly lost her soul—out of fright.

Thereafter, the comparison-loving little fox developed a strong sense of guilt.

Others had ended up like this, and yet she dared to consider competing with them; for such a queen, they should provide more encouragement.

How did that saying go?

Her Majesty the Queen has good foundations, she’ll definitely look good after slimming down!

Duan Mingyuan, on the other hand, observed more undisclosed details.

He smelled a scent of blood in the air, not pungent, as if mixed with some kind of fragrance, and the source of this odor was the queen of Mechanical Star sitting on the throne.

The hunch in his mind was confirmed—the cause of death for those breathless girls became clear.

But he had never imagined that there would truly be someone who subscribed to the fiction of "bathing in the blood of young girls to retain eternal youth."

"So, you few are the thieves who attempted to embezzle the secret treasures of Mechanical Star?"

The queen examined the three with a cold gaze, showing particular hostility toward Jiuyue, "That’s a capital offense, not even the Chamber of Commerce can save you. Let’s hear what you have to say for yourselves."

She didn’t like seeing people prettier than her...

No, there was no one more beautiful than her in this universe, the beauty of this Fox Demon wasn’t even one-tenth of hers.

But even so, she felt greatly offended, and after locking these three up in prison, she must pay special attention to that fox, and to her delicate face.

"We just happened to pick up a secret artifact lost by the Royal Court, and we were very curious about what it is used for."

Duan Mingyuan said.

If one wanted to unlock the secrets within the black staff, asking the nobility of the Mechanical Star’s Royal Court was the most direct and effective method, and this was why he was willing to accompany the sheriff on this trip.

He always enjoyed academic exchanges with others, and Duan Mingyuan firmly believed that human wisdom and insight were improved through the collision and discussion of ideas in these exchanges.

"This has nothing to do with you."

The empress who scolded them suddenly froze for a moment, and Duan Mingyuan didn’t miss the change in her expression.

It was as if she heard another voice, bringing joyous news to the empress.

Delight danced on the empress’s brows as she looked at Jiuyue with a greedy and blatant gaze, as if she were appraising a treasure.

This subtle change in emotion displayed on the empress’s mountainous face instantly made Duan Mingyuan’s scalp tingle.

In fact, he didn’t need the empress’s answer to know everything about the black staff, but it all came at a price.

Forcefully invading a person’s memory would reveal everything about her in the first person, including those deeply hidden secrets that only the empress herself knew.

This was something he wanted to avoid.

Duan Mingyuan felt it would pose a great risk to his mental and physical health.

"Come, take these two to the dungeon, I will interrogate them personally later!"

The empress waved her right hand and commanded.

The battle robots led by the sheriff surrounded them, and amongst the robots, another voice interjected.

"It’s me, Oath."

One of the robots assumed a fighting stance and whispered as it approached, "Play along, I have something to tell you."

The Extraditor’s timing was perfect because if he had been a step slower, the palace would have only been left with new decorations, but before long, news of the empress’s assassination would spread across the entire Mechanical Star, and he would become a bona fide fugitive.

Perhaps He Ya was right.

In a place like Mechanical Star, it was difficult to keep out of conflicts.

"Be gentle, don’t damage that fox!"

During the escort, the empress also instructed, "Take her to bathe and change clothes!"

...

Moments later, inside the Mechanical Star’s dungeon.

"I didn’t expect you to come, and to have found the secret artifact too."

After the sheriff left, the battle robot guarding the dungeon door spoke.

He had indeed underestimated Ruihu’s luck; this sudden twist made the future pattern of Mechanical Star all the more unpredictable.

"You can turn into a robot too?"

Duan Mingyuan was amazed.

This Mr. Extraditor was also someone he didn’t wish to scrutinize in memory; there must be many perverted secrets contained within.

"Although it took some effort, I eventually managed to blend in. This godforsaken place is under strict guard, and the patrol team is so demented they shoot even small animals on sight."

While speaking, the battle robot in front of the dungeon covered its butt.

This simple gesture was enough to explain its painful experience from the night before.

Only one who had taken an arrow to the butt could understand the Royal Guards’ cruelty.

"Long story short, you must have noticed something off about the empress... Recently, a doctor was summoned to the palace; the doctor suggested that she bathe in the blood of young girls daily to alleviate her condition of turning to sand."

The robot said, "The interesting part is that the person who found the doctor is the Chancellor, the most trusted by the empress. It was also the Chancellor who suggested the ’Golden Hourglass’ to desertify the surface of the entire planet."

The one who afflicted the empress with the strange illness was the Chancellor.

The one who brought the doctor, telling the empress she could be cured, was also the Chancellor.

The one who had dealings with the Chamber of Commerce behind the scenes, who bought the girls as consumables for the empress, was also the Chancellor.

"I suspect that the Chamber of Commerce orchestrated the fall of Mechanical Star from behind the scenes."

"Never mind that, what are they going to do with Jiuyue?"

Duan Mingyuan wasn’t interested in the scheming of the Chamber of Commerce; he was puzzled by why the empress suddenly looked delighted a moment ago.

"They probably want to use her to cure the empress’s strange illness, and this is most likely the Chancellor’s suggestion too."

"Why didn’t you say that earlier? Put the important stuff first next time."

"Eh? How did you just walk straight out of the cell? Right now, it’s best..."

"Get out of my way."