But the rewards were gratifying.

Name: Jiang Zheyu

Gender: Female

Current Spiritual Power Value: S (550/3000)

Points: 433

Jiang Zheyu looked at the numbers. If she purified another five hundred wisps of Beastification Value, she would reach S+ Spiritual Power!

The sky was dark and silent. In the old, crowded Outer City District, only a few scattered streetlights lined the road, their light flickering unsteadily, creating the feeling of a scene from a midnight horror movie.

Her pace toward the inner city gradually quickened.

"System, it’s so quiet. Talk to me," Jiang Zheyu secretly spoke to the system, trying to dispel the unease in her heart.

The system replied, "Host, you needn’t be afraid. A clear conscience fears no ghost’s knock."

’I’m not afraid of ghosts,’ Jiang Zheyu grumbled silently to the system in her mind. ’I’m afraid of getting robbed by a Beastman who’s stronger than me...’

In the next second, her mental conversation with the system stopped.

A teenage boy was running toward her, with several vicious-looking Beastmen chasing him from behind.

The boy was clearly injured, clutching his arm with one hand.

Perhaps because he saw Jiang Zheyu standing in the road ahead, his pace slowed to a stop.

That single action was all it took for the men behind him to catch up and surround him.

Terrified, Jiang Zheyu quickly looked left and right, only to discover to her dismay that she was in a straight alley with walls on both sides.

’The only way out is back the way I came.’

As a result, she was completely exposed. The men had seen her as they ran over.

But they just shot Jiang Zheyu a fierce, warning glare. "If you don’t want trouble, scram!"

Jiang Zheyu silently clutched her black cloak. ’If I saw that correctly, the boy noticed me and stopped running in my direction, slowing down instead. Was he trying to avoid dragging me into his mess? Or did he think I was trouble and didn’t dare approach?’

As she slowly backed away, she used her spiritual power to probe them and saw that all of their spiritual power was below S-rank.

Jiang Zheyu instantly calmed down inside.

’What’s there to be fierce about? Their spiritual power is lower than mine!’

However, Jiang Zheyu silently turned around and quickly ran back the way she came.

’Right. We’re strangers; we don’t owe each other anything. It’s best to pretend I never saw this whole "damsel saving the hero" situation.’

Jiang Zheyu ran to an intersection, wanting to quickly duck into a random side street to hide.

But just as she turned, her gaze met the purple-gold eyes of a little boy.

’When... when did a child get here?’

The seven- or eight-year-old boy was only as tall as Jiang Zheyu’s waist. He wore shabby clothes and watched her with calm, purple-gold eyes.

Jiang Zheyu froze for a moment. She suddenly recalled that in her brief glimpse earlier, the boy being chased seemed to have the same pair of purple-gold, quicksand-like eyes.

She understood. So it wasn’t that he was afraid of her, nor was he trying to avoid troubling her. It was because he saw his younger brother! He didn’t want those men to hurt his brother, which is why he had slowed to a stop.

Jiang Zheyu paused again, then hurried over to the little boy’s side, using the corner wall to hide herself.

She seemed to remember who that boy was. And it seemed she really did owe him something—or rather, it wasn’t her, but the original owner of this body who owed him.

He was from the family that had refused her compensation. The boy also had a seven- or eight-year-old younger brother, who must be this little turnip head next to her.

Jiang Zheyu abruptly thought of that beautiful pair of purple-gold, quicksand-like eyes again.

’What kind of beast has eyes like that?’

She recalled the stack of documents the Empire had given her.

It was a purple-gold butterfly.

Insect-type Beastmen, like butterflies and dragonflies, were not popular with females in the interstellar community because their beast forms were too similar to the Zerg Race. These Beastmen occupied the lowest rung of interstellar society.

However, there was a small niche of females who did like them.

Jiang Zheyu didn’t have any particular feelings about this type of Beastman. After all, butterflies originally came from caterpillars.

Anyway, the way to distinguish between them was that bugs were always bugs and couldn’t transform into humans, whereas Beastmen could.

"What? You think you can come and fight whenever you want, and leave whenever you want? You think Night K is that easy to deal with?" a vicious Beastman said as he approached Yin Si and grabbed him unceremoniously by the collar.

Blood flowed endlessly from one of Yin Si’s arms, staining it red. It ran from his wrist down to his scarred fingertips before dripping off.

"Heh..." Yin Si let out a soft chuckle.

The next second, he slammed his other arm into the man’s temple, sending him crashing to the ground.

Soon, the other men all rushed forward to tangle with Yin Si.

Every punch was thrown with vicious force.

The boy fought with even greater ferocity, kicking, chopping, and punching several of the men to the ground.

But the men quickly scrambled back up, grabbed his leg, and threw him down.

The boy was suddenly at a disadvantage again.

"You little punk, still putting up such a fight even when you’re injured. Not bad," one of the men said, stomping heavily on the boy’s abdomen.

Yin Si let out a muffled grunt.

Jiang Zheyu and the little boy listened from behind the corner wall, paying attention to the situation. When she saw that Yin Si was pinned and couldn’t get up, her heart leaped into her throat.

Seeing his older brother beaten until he was bloody and bruised, unable to get up from the ground, Yin Xuan instinctively started to move forward, but his wrist was caught by the strange person in black beside him. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He didn’t know what was up with this person in black. A moment ago, they had clearly wanted to avoid trouble and leave, but after seeing him, they had, for some unknown reason, walked over to his side and waited with him.

Little Yin Xuan instinctively looked up at the person in black, only to see their grotesque smiling face. He subconsciously struggled against their grip on his wrist.

From the information the Empire had given her, Jiang Zheyu knew that the little boy before her was mute—had been since birth.

Their eldest brother had been killed by Bai Ruo, leaving only the second brother—the boy currently being beaten to a pulp not far away.

From the men’s words, Jiang Zheyu roughly understood what the boy did for a living—he was a fighter at Night K.

And it seemed that Night K was unscrupulous, having broken their contract and refusing to let the boy leave.

Jiang Zheyu was really starting to dislike Night K, and by extension, its boss, Si Yu.

"Kid, you stay here. I’m going to help your brother," Jiang Zheyu said with a soft sigh.

After all, she knew how to use her spiritual power for attacks now.

Besides, those Beastmen all had lower spiritual power than her.

She hadn’t wanted to meddle because they were strangers, but now she was getting involved because she was supposed to compensate them anyway.

The child looked at her but didn’t speak—not that he could have, anyway.

"You stay right here," Jiang Zheyu said, patting the child’s shoulder before turning and walking back.