The Alien Prince Has Fallen for Me

Chapter 6: Silent Bullets and a Billion-Dollar Bodyguard

Yue Yao's face detonated into crimson. She sputtered in mortified fury: 'Get lost! Shameless!'

Xing Hun chuckled. He handed her a folded piece of paper and said with deadpan seriousness: 'You're reading too much into it. I meant bed-warming in the literal sense. Don't believe me? Read my instruction manual.'

Yue Yao snatched the paper from him and shoved it into her clutch purse. 'I'll read it later!'

The two returned to their seats. Fu Yuan immediately wrapped his arm around Yue Yao in a possessive, territory-marking gesture and trained a hostile glare on Xing Hun. 'Baby, you can't bring Xing Hun home. He'll ruin our alone time.'

Yue Yao tried to placate him: 'Sweetie, I keep feeling like someone's trying to kill me lately. Xing Hun is hired protection.'

Fu Yuan immediately started selling his own value: 'Have you forgotten?! I've been implanted with a top-tier martial arts knowledge chip! I'm a master of all eighteen weapon categories! As long as I'm here, no one can harm you!'

Yue Yao looked at him. She silently recalled the two times she had 'died' right under his nose. *Lean on you? I've died twice right in front of you! If I weren't smart, it would be four times by now.* But what came out of her mouth was: 'The more people, the stronger the protection, right?'

Xing Hun ignored Fu Yuan entirely. He picked up a pair of chopsticks and began prodding at the dish in front of Yue Yao—the very plate that had nearly killed her. He picked up a glistening cube of jelly, seemingly trying to inspect it for poison.

Yue Yao's heart clenched. The memory of that excruciating pain surged back. She frantically smacked the jelly out of his chopsticks, her voice carrying an urgency she didn't even recognize: 'Don't eat my food! If you want something, get your own!'

Xing Hun paused, surprised. Then he understood—she was instinctively trying to protect him. A warmth flickered through his eyes, though his face remained set in that roguish grin. 'Stingy. I was testing it for poison.'

Yue Yao turned her head away, unwilling to let him see her concern. Stiffly, she said: 'No need. I'm not eating any of it. There'll be something useful for you to do later.'

'Like what?' Xing Hun asked with keen interest.

'My house! Come home with me and protect me!' Yue Yao turned back and glared at him.

Xing Hun immediately seized the opening and abused his 'bodyguard' prerogative with a wicked grin: 'In that case, I'm only sleeping in the master bedroom. Personal protection—as agreed!'

Yue Yao weighed the calculus for a few seconds—balancing personal safety against the risk of… other losses. In the end, mortification won. She snapped: 'Absolutely not! You degenerate!'

Beside them, Fu Yuan watched the two 'flirt-bicker' and nearly imploded from repressed frustration. He muttered under his breath: 'Why did she have to hire this huge headache as a bodyguard… this is going to be a problem.'

At that moment, the gong signaling a finalized auction bid thundered across the ballroom—a resonant boom that echoed through the hall.

In the exact same heartbeat, Yue Yao caught two glints of cold light in her peripheral vision. Moving at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, they tore through the air, hurtling straight toward her chest and Fu Yuan's! They were… bullets!

Time seemed to stretch into infinity. Yue Yao could see the dust particles in the air disturbed by the bullets' trajectories. The scent of death was more direct than the poisoning had been—colder, more absolute.

Her mind went blank. The scream never made it past her throat.

But the anticipated impact, the explosion of pain—neither came.

In the split second as the gong's reverberation was fading away, Xing Hun was somehow back in his seat, as if he had never moved at all. The two lethal bullets, as though they had slammed into an invisible wall, had their trajectories subtly, imperceptibly deflected. They buried themselves soundlessly into the wall behind them, leaving only two tiny holes. The impact had been perfectly masked by the gong's resonance.

Yue Yao noticed nothing about the bullets. But Fu Yuan—a seasoned fighter—sensed it immediately. His head snapped toward the bullet-riddled wall, then whipped back. His gaze cut like lightning toward the source of the shots, just in time to catch Xiao Yan's silhouette disappearing at the crowd's edge, and Yu Man settling beside Roger, whispering into his ear.

Fu Yuan shot to his feet in fury, ready to give chase—but Xiao Yan had already vanished without a trace. He could only slam his fist against the table in frustration and snarl through clenched teeth: 'Damn it!' He sank back into his chair, face dark as a thunderhead.

Yu Man leaned close to Roger's ear and murmured: 'We missed.'

Roger's face maintained its genteel smile. He stroked Yu Man's hand, but his eyes were as cold as frost. 'A pity. It's rare for either of you to miss. Both of you missing at once is unheard of. I suppose we'll let them live a little longer.'

Yu Man nodded: 'Understood. I'll proceed with the next plan.' She rose gracefully and left her seat.

Yue Yao was still reeling, though she didn't understand what had specifically happened. The chill of being watched by venomous snakes had crawled over her skin once more. She noticed the empty seat beside Roger at Table Two. Remembering Tang Yu's threat, she decided to go on the offensive.

She drew a deep breath and told the two men beside her: 'I want to sit at Table Two for a while. You two, follow me.' Steadying herself with all the composure she could muster, she rose and—trailed by two starkly different yet equally eye-catching 'bodyguards'—strode confidently toward Table Two. Toward the man who might know the whereabouts of Tang Yu's daughter.

Roger saw Yue Yao approaching and immediately stood. A flawless mask of deferential respect snapped into place on his face. He personally pulled out a chair for her. 'Madam Chairwoman! Please, sit.'

Yue Yao inclined her head slightly and sat with all the elegance she imagined Mei Guo would possess. Xing Hun and Fu Yuan flanked her from behind like two guardian statues.

Loli's eyes lit up the second she saw Xing Hun. A blush rose to her cheeks as she fired a relentless volley of flirtatious glances his way.

A surge of displeasure—a strange, possessive flare—rose in Yue Yao's chest. She spoke coldly, with an authority that brooked no argument: 'He is mine. It is not your place to flirt with him.'

Loli's smile stiffened. She quickly replaced it with a wounded expression and wheedled: 'Mom, I was just teasing him. Don't be upset.'

Yue Yao nearly choked on that single word—'Mom.' Watching a woman her own age call her Mom while simultaneously trying to steal her man was surreal beyond measure. She hastily masked her discomfort and adopted the tone of an elder dispensing wisdom: 'Be rational about celebrity crushes. I won the bid for Xing Hun precisely to protect you—so you wouldn't be fooled by some unscrupulous playboy.' She punctuated this with a meaningful glare at Xing Hun.

Xing Hun was internally screaming his innocence. But externally, he could only arrange his features into a suitably wronged expression.

The charity auction was approaching its dramatic c****x. Under the spotlight, the painting entitled 'Daughter'—created with fungal pigments—radiated an eerie yet magnificent luster. The girl in the painting had blurred contours, as if shrouded in mist. Only her eyes carried an indescribable sorrow and longing, gazing directly at everyone present.

'Twenty million—going once. Twenty million—going twice…' The auctioneer's voice throbbed with professional fervor.

Just then, a deep, powerful voice shattered the silence: 'One hundred million!'

Every gaze converged on the man who had raised his paddle. He was powerfully built, with a rugged, chiseled face. About thirty-five or -six, his brow carried the sharpness of a battle-hardened warrior and a trace of weather-beaten weariness. It was Ray Lo—Tang Xin's biological father, the Alchemist General of Planet Mir. He stared at the painting with an expression of profound complexity, as if trying to reach through the canvas, across twenty years of time, to touch a lost silhouette.

Not far away, Tang Yu's wine glass trembled in her hand. A few drops splashed onto her plump fingers with icy coldness. Her heart felt as if it had been seized by an invisible fist. Her breathing nearly stopped. *Ray Lo! What is he doing here? He's back? When did he return?* Countless questions boiled like a geyser in her mind. Twenty years of separation, of misunderstanding, of raising their daughter alone, of the endless agony after the daughter's disappearance—all of it churned together into an indistinguishable torrent of bitterness and shock. She forced herself to look away, terrified that her eyes might betray emotions too vast to be spoken.