Chapter 4: Storage Ring

Hua Chen was somewhat surprised by Luo Bi’s readiness. He was a Level 2 intermediate Thunder Flame Warrior with an A-grade strong gene, and he had recently been appointed captain of the Fifth Combat Team of Zhihuang Planet. In every respect, he was superior to Luo Bi, an ordinary person. Logically, upon hearing about the annulment, Luo Bi should have vehemently opposed it.

Hua Chen had long prepared to deal with Luo Bi’s pestering; he hadn't expected the annulment to be so easy. A trace of doubt flickered in his eyes, but he also breathed a secret sigh of relief. Regardless of what Luo Bi was planning, it was good that the engagement could be annulled smoothly.

"Please return the storage ring I gave you," Hua Chen said, demanding the return of the valuable item he had gifted.

Luo Bi looked at Hua Chen as if she were seeing him for the first time. She stared at him in disbelief and continued to chuckle. He had initiated the annulment, and now he wanted the storage ring back? Keep dreaming, keep having your delusions.

Luo Bi was good at putting on an act. She feigned difficulty and said, "I'm afraid returning it is impossible. Uh... it was about ten days ago, I went to the mining area to try my luck, and I ended up losing the storage ring in there."

Zhihuang Planet was a frontier planet of the Empire, and its mineral resources were classified as intermediate. To earn interstellar coins, many people would go to mining areas that had been abandoned after extensive excavation, hoping to get lucky and dig up leftover jadeite. Luo Bi was one of them.

Outside of work, Luo Bi would go to the mining area to wander around every so often.

Occasionally, she would extract a few pieces of low-quality jadeite, earning over a thousand interstellar coins a month from selling them. Compared to others, it wasn't too much, nor was it too little; her luck was slightly above average, a point she controlled very well. No one would notice that she had actually awakened her talent, and even fewer would imagine that someone in this world would hide their talent, not wanting to become a noble gifted contractor.

The abandoned mining area was so vast that something like a ring dropped inside would be impossible to track down.

Luo Bi chose this excuse simply because she didn't want to return it; she would have to be out of her mind to do so.

Luo Bi stopped twisting the teacup by its handle and instead began flicking it back and forth with her index finger, amusing herself. She had no intention of drinking the tea today. She had just been dumped; how could she have the leisure to drink tea? She was already full from the sheer anger of it.

"You... lost it?" Hua Chen was slightly annoyed.

That storage ring was a Level 1 storage device. Although it only had three square meters of space, it was worth 300,000 interstellar coins. To Hua Chen, that was a sum that was neither too large nor too small, but since the engagement was being annulled, he didn't want to give it away for free. Don't tell him it was lost; Hua Chen didn't believe that excuse for a second. But since Luo Bi insisted it was lost, what could he do? As a strong-gene Thunder Flame Warrior, he couldn't exactly lay a hand on a woman he had been engaged to!

The thin layer of guilt Hua Chen felt was completely washed away by his irritation: "That’s 300,000 interstellar coins. You didn't look for it after you lost it?"

"I looked, but I couldn't find it." Luo Bi lied through her teeth, determined not to return it. Only a fool would return it.

"You..." Hua Chen’s gaze was unkind, dark and gloomy. "I didn't expect you to be this kind of person. Keep the storage ring; consider it compensation for me initiating the annulment. From now on, we owe each other nothing." After saying this, he cast a contemptuous glance at Luo Bi, stood up, pushed back his chair, and strode away.

Because Hua Chen hadn't controlled his volume, he drew the side-glances of the surrounding guests. Among them were several familiar faces of Thunder Flame Warriors, who were likely soldiers of the Fengyao Empire.

As inquisitive gazes turned toward her, Luo Bi felt somewhat uncomfortable despite her anger. She slowly lifted the lid of her cup to smell the tea, pretending not to see them.