Chapter 183: You Have to Pay

Chapter 183: Chapter 183: You Have to Pay

"Master? Is this a genuine surrender?" he wondered.

Zhang Yun was a bit skeptical, but since she had repeatedly begged him to stop, he didn’t continue punching her. However, he remained on high alert.

Zhang Yun released his grip on her ankles, and Qi Luo immediately shrank back, clutching her abdomen.

"You hit way too hard! We agreed this was a martial arts bout!"

Perhaps having accepted her defeat and her fate, Qi Luo’s attitude shifted slightly after calling him ’Master’, losing much of her previous antagonism. To Zhang Yun, her complaint even sounded a bit like coquettish whining.

Zhang Yun snorted. "A martial arts bout? I held back so many times! You were the one using underhanded tactics, and if you had won, you were going to kill me!"

Qi Luo shot him a complicated glare. "Did I really kill you just because I said I would? And where did I use underhanded tactics? Is your mouth an underhanded place?"

Zhang Yun thought about it and realized he might have gone a bit overboard. After all, she had launched a surprise attack with a kiss, whereas he had brutally punched her stomach into menstrual-level cramps.

"So, what do you say now? Does the bet still count?" Zhang Yun stood up.

Qi Luo specialized in killing Techniques, making her somewhat lacking in her ability to take hits. Moreover, she had just been held spread-eagle by her ankles and hadn’t expected him to suddenly pummel her abdomen. With no time to hold her breath and tense her muscles, the pain had been unbearable. But she was no fragile woman. After taking a moment to recover, she was still able to hold on.

"I lost, and I’ll honor the bet. From today onward, I am your subordinate," Qi Luo said helplessly.

Zhang Yun didn’t forget to keep his guard up around her, considering he didn’t have any drugs to control her.

But Qi Luo soon started laughing. "Since I’m your subordinate now, you should be paying my salary. It absolutely can’t be lower than my previous income. If there’s someone you want dead, I’ll kill them for you. If there isn’t, you still have to pay me..."

"Based on what?"

"Based on our agreement! I promised to be your subordinate, and you agreed to the bet, so you have to honor it. You even said yourself that my career was on the line. What’s my career? It certainly isn’t being your servant."

Initially helpless and depressed, Qi Luo suddenly regained the initiative and her demeanor relaxed.

Zhang Yun frowned. "Are you a subordinate or a boss? I don’t kill people, nor do I have access to your middleman channels... No, wait, even if I did, I have no interest in doing that!"

What a joke! If people like Liu Yandao hadn’t come looking for trouble, why would he ever get involved in such things?

Qi Luo looked exasperated. "Which means... you won’t give me work, and you don’t want to pay to keep me around. So there’s another option: you fire me as your subordinate, we go our separate ways, and naturally, I won’t bother you anymore. Right?"

Zhang Yun said irritably, "You had this planned out from the start, didn’t you? This way, if you won, you could kill me. But if you lost, you wouldn’t have to pay a thing!"

"How can you say that? I’m a good girl who keeps her promises! You’re the one who doesn’t want me, so I’m just obliging you by offering another choice... Master, you’re the one driving me away. I really hate to leave you." Qi Luo was practically beaming!

Finally! Just when all seemed lost, a silver lining had appeared! She had constantly hit a wall while actively seeking revenge, but now that she had resigned to her fate and surrendered, she had ironically achieved her goal.

Zhang Yun stared at her with a frown. He felt unwilling to just void the agreement like this; it would mean the fight had been for nothing, as if he had just been toyed with. But if he didn’t void it, keeping an assassin around would be expensive and troublesome.

"How about this? Let’s change the condition. You let me ride you a few times, and we’ll consider it..."

"Bah! You pervert! Are those even the same thing? I bet my career. I sell my skills, not my body! And the skill I sell is killing!" Qi Luo made a throat-slitting motion. Unfortunately, as someone who had been defeated multiple times, her gesture carried absolutely no intimidation; instead, it looked more like she was trying to be cute.

"You won’t let me ride you? You forcibly kissed me just now, so you need to compensate me!"

"Damn! You sure are shameless!" At the mention of this, Qi Luo blushed slightly, unable to hide her disdain.

In that situation, she hadn’t been able to care about anything else; she only had one thought—to win. Thinking back to Bruce Lee movies, where he could break a chokehold by biting the enemy’s foot, that was true freedom from the rigid forms of Techniques. Now he was accusing her of forcibly kissing him... She was a girl, for goodness’ sake, and they had only known each other for a few minutes!

Zhang Yun smiled. "You pay the compensation, and I terminate the contract. It’s just like dealing with a celebrity. That’s perfectly reasonable."

"Here’s a hundred bucks!" Qi Luo snorted. "Consider it payment for whoring you out!"

Zhang Yun lazily lay back on the bed. "Bring it on! You have to actually do it first. I don’t mind you being on top."

"Scoundrel!" Qi Luo wanted to whip him with her belt again.

Zhang Yun continued, "Anyway, if you don’t pay up, you have to be my subordinate. I never agreed on exactly how much to pay you. You’re an assassin, right? You want work? I can arrange for you to slaughter pigs. I’ll get you in touch with a pig farm... No, it should be a slaughterhouse. I’ll let you kill a few hundred a day..."

Qi Luo frowned. This guy really was a scoundrel. She obviously wasn’t going to do that, and it would just lead to more bickering. Seeing how he was demanding compensation, he clearly wasn’t going to pay her much of a salary anyway.

"Let’s both take a step back! If you have a need... a need for an assassin! You can contact me. As long as it’s not too outrageous, I won’t refuse. Otherwise, we don’t interfere with each other’s lives. I’ll take care of my own work and income."

Qi Luo proposed this new compromise. It was something she could accept, as it didn’t cost her her freedom or career; it simply meant she might have to do a few jobs for free.

On the bed, Zhang Yun mulled it over. This meant he had won an assassin’s promise, which might come in handy one day.

"That’s a good suggestion. It’s like milk—as long as you can drink it when you want to, there’s no need to raise a cow."

A cow? Qi Luo rolled her eyes. "The one you have inside is the real dairy cow!"

"Haha, don’t be mad. I know you’re small, I was just making a metaphor."

Qi Luo was so frustrated her teeth ached. She wished he would just stop explaining!

"Deal. I’ll take a bit of a loss on this bet and give you your freedom. But don’t forget, in name, I’m still your master, and you are my Thug!"

Zhang Yun emphasized this with a smile. Having a beautiful Thug wasn’t half bad.

Qi Luo opened her mouth but held back. Bickering was pointless. Anyway, as long as she didn’t interact with him normally, none of her peers would ever find out.

"But one thing has nothing to do with another. You still have to pay me for forcibly kissing me!" Zhang Yun said with a straight face.

"Compensate my foot! If you have the guts, kiss me back!"

This time, Qi Luo really couldn’t hold back. Wasn’t she the one taking a loss in this kind of situation? As a grown man, he got off cheap and was still acting like the victim, harping on about compensation? Did he have no shame?

"Come here!"

"In your dreams!"

"I’m being serious. As you already know, I’m still a virgin. Forcibly stealing my first kiss was immoral and traumatized my fragile heart. Additionally, you bit my lip so hard it’s swollen. That’s physical assault. Don’t you need to pay for mental distress and medical bills?"

Qi Luo was so angry she laughed. "With emotional intelligence like yours, you deserve to be a virgin!"

"I don’t care, you have to pay. You also injured two of my friends. You might have used drugs on them, which means they’ll have to get their stomachs pumped and undergo treatment. You have to pay for that too!"

"Goodbye to you!" Too lazy to pay him any more attention, Qi Luo simply turned to leave.

Zhang Yun said unhurriedly, "Go ahead and leave, if you’re not afraid of me ’magicking’ myself into your bed in the middle of the night."