Chapter 72

In my mind, my mother seems to be born to be a mother. She always smiles with a sly smile to hide her cold heart. No matter what problems she faces, she never shows her emotions. She will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. She can even pretend to be a close sister to a strange lady from an assassin family.

Lady Kijk seemed to be born looking like Lady Kijk. She was tall and always concealed her face. Her strength was also unfathomable. Although her emotions fluctuated greatly, every action and every word she uttered was unpredictable.

They were always people I had to look up to in the past.

But now, Mr. Shiba appeared before me and my grandparents and told us that my mother and Mrs. Kijjo had encountered a life-threatening danger.

“It’s not a problem worth troubling me; I can solve it.” He continued calmly and coldly, “It’s just…”

He turned his gaze to me.

My long-standing habit of living under the roof of the Zoldyck family prevailed over everything. I instinctively straightened my back to face the future head of the Zoldyck family, adopting a respectful and attentive posture before my brain could even process it.

Fortunately, my manners were already quite proper, and no one else present noticed my subtle change.

Mr. Shiba slowly and clearly explained the words he had left unsaid to me:

“...Miss Adrian”

I:"……"

Mr. Shiba asked in a sincere tone, neither humble nor arrogant, and with a calm attitude:

"You should be able to tell that although Kikyo is a bit crazy, he's not the type to actively seek out trouble, right?"

Unlike his children and his extremely emotionally unstable wife, Mr. Sheba's conversations always seem ordinary and harmless at first glance, but behind the calm lies a lot of profound meaning.

“She’s completely following Miss Gumira’s lead,” Silva finally revealed his most important purpose. “I don’t want to interfere with Kiju’s choices, but to be honest, some of Miss Gumira’s ideas have indeed affected Kiju and my wedding plans. And now they’re both facing difficulties…”

I finally understand what he meant.

“I’ll go with you to find them, sir,” I readily agreed. “I’ll keep an eye on Gemira.”

His subtext was clear: if I couldn't separate my mother and Mrs. Kijo, he would take matters into his own hands. And what other methods would an assassin prefer to use to solve a problem?

But Kikyo was having a great time playing with his mother, and he didn't want to kill her right away and ruin his relationship with his future wife, so he subtly warned me—

His children did not inherit this understated yet awe-inspiring method.

No wonder I instinctively straightened my back and perked up the moment I saw him; I was genuinely afraid of him.

...

I followed Mr. Silva to the place he mentioned where my mother and Kikyo were trapped, thinking about it on and off. Although Mrs. Kikyo is still young, she is still quite strong, and my mother has the Nen ability to read people's minds and a cunning mind. The place that could trap them must actually be...

I was worried that I might be a hindrance to Mr. Shiba here, or that I might not be able to keep an eye on my mother, when suddenly I heard a loud bang and panicked shouts.

"The warehouse exploded—"

A jubilant scream mingled with panicked shouts. I looked in the direction of the familiar screams and saw Mrs. Kikkoman standing on the rooftop, laughing and throwing things around. Sparks flew and explosions boomed wherever she waved her hand.

I:"……"

I couldn't help but glance at Mr. Silva beside me. He didn't say anything, and his expression was somewhat complicated. I didn't know if he really didn't expect this to happen, or if he thought her behavior was too outrageous.

I guess it's the former.

But then again, where did Mother go?

I peeked out and looked around, but couldn't find any clues. In the end, I just grabbed a small fry who had hurriedly escaped from the explosion site created by Kijou and "friendly" questioned him.

He pointed shakily to a building not far away, gave me the floor number and location, and I let him go. At that moment, Mr. Silva spoke up:

"I'll take Kikyo back first."

It means I should handle it myself, figure out how to keep my mother in check so that Kijo doesn't cause any more trouble.

I nodded and agreed, and Silva left. Then I rushed to the place where my mother was, the place I had just asked about. As soon as I found the general location and opened the door, I heard a gunshot.

My mother was standing in front of the desk with her back to me. When she heard the door open, she was startled and threw the gun away. When she turned around and saw me, a huge smile suddenly appeared on her bewildered and fearful face.

In the background where she was partially visible, a man in a suit was slumped on a desk, with dark red liquid splattering everywhere.

“Kikyu is too busy playing to pay attention to me,” my mother said to me with a sigh of relief, without explaining how the situation had come about. “When you suddenly pushed the door open, I thought someone else had found me.”

“What’s going on?” I asked her.

"We'll talk about it when we get back," she said.

Then she ignored me, picked up the landline phone on the table, pressed the button on the laptop next to her, dialed a number, stared at the contents of the laptop, and said, word by word:

"Hello, sir."

She clearly stated a code name, saying that the owner of that code name was dead, and that the transactions and ledgers he had handled had fallen into her hands.

"If you don't want these things to be made public, you have to grant me one request."

“Jenni… no, the quantity you can offer will not be of any use to me.”

“I want someone,” she said firmly, “the person who gave the order to hunt down the escapees from Meteor City. I want to talk to him.”

...Her dark journey truly began before me from this moment on.

I've come to realize once again that my mother was an ambitious woman by nature.

She was once weak and had nothing to show for it. She once didn't know what Nen was, and the Zoldyck family head once unilaterally decided to eliminate her without a second thought.

She had an ordinary family and a seemingly predictable, happy life.

But she herself broke free from that peaceful world at all costs.

“No,” I heard her repeat, “I don’t need you to stop the kill order. I have my own ways of invalidating it. What I want is to talk to you.”