Jiang Qin and Long Yue held hands, following behind Zhan Xiao and his men. Protected in the center of the group, they walked into a city built in the desert.

Everyone in the city automatically bowed to greet Zhan Xiao upon seeing him:

"Greetings, Gang Leader."

"Gang Leader, you’re back?"

"I’m back."

"Welcome back, Gang Leader."

"Gang Leader, who are these two females?"

Zhan Xiao introduced them with a serious expression, "This is Miss Yun Xin. She is my mate.

The one beside her is her older sister, Miss Bai Yue, Mo Han’s mate. From now on, they will officially be part of our Golden Sand Gang."

Everyone stared at Jiang Qin and Long Yue with curiosity, then shot looks of envy and jealousy at Zhan Xiao and Mo Han.

After the greetings were exchanged, Zhan Xiao led Jiang Qin away.

As the Gang Leader, his house was naturally the most luxurious in the city.

"Mo Han lives in the house right next to ours. If you want to see your sister, you can go over and hang out with her.

Later, I’ll arrange for two Half-beastman females to come and take care of you."

Even though their aliases had different surnames, neither Zhan Xiao nor Mo Han asked about it. After all, it was possible they were cousins.

Long Yue was actually only a few months older than Jiang Qin, but older was older. That was why the auction house had said she was the older sister and Jiang Qin was the younger one.

The concern and care they had for each other were evident in their eyes; no one doubted their sisterly bond.

...

Since Zhan Xiao hadn’t restricted her freedom, Jiang Qin naturally took the first opportunity to ask Long Yue to go out for a walk with her.

They inquired about news as they strolled.

Thanks to Zhan Xiao’s introduction, the people in the city were quite friendly to them, answering whatever they could.

But when it came to things they couldn’t answer, they would just smile at them.

They were especially vigilant when asked how to get news from the outside world.

"Sister-in-law, they’re still wary of us."

"As they should be. After all, there’s no trust between us."

"Fine, I’ll go back and try to sweet-talk that fool some more. Maybe I can even coax him into sending us away."

Jiang Qin knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it was worth a shot.

***

Meanwhile, Yun Xie and the others had followed the forces of the three factions and turned D9 Star upside down, but they had found nothing.

The kidnappers had already inspected everything on the females’ bodies back on the spaceship, not even sparing a single strand of hair.

After all, some high-tech devices could be disguised as hair.

In short, they had confiscated every single item from them and thrown it all into space.

That was why the search parties found nothing on D9 Star. They hadn’t even managed to capture a single one of the Star Thieves who had come for the auction.

The underground auction house had been blown to smithereens.

Although they were disappointed, everyone had already been mentally prepared for it.

"We’ve received news from the other two planets as well. They’re completely deserted and have also been destroyed.

Those people didn’t leave us a single clue.

There’s no list of attendees on the Dark Web, either. Many of them just went because they were nearby. Not even the auction house knows who was actually there."

So, even with Yuan Ling on the case, no record of the list was found on the Dark Web.

Basically, everyone on the Dark Web who had any power and was ranked in the top 10,000 received an invitation. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Whether it was the Federation, the Empire, or the Myriad Races, all of them had undercover agents on the Dark Web.

But their agents either weren’t qualified to receive an invitation or just happened to not be near the auction house. As a result, only one or two of them managed to win the bids for three of the females.

These three females were all pregnant.

During the rescue effort, they had prioritized bidding on the pregnant females.

Yun Xie and his team confirmed that Jiang Qin was not among them.

To ensure they could get the latest news from the Federation, Mo Chen gave Yun Xie access to his network of contacts before returning to the Prison Star.

As for the Empire’s side, they had Long Hao.

Shi Lichuan had already dispatched Bounty Hunters, and Lan Yuyan was providing massive financial support.

Yuan Ling was tinkering with a newer model of a person-locating device.

Cang Hong was staying by Yun Xie’s side to help.

Nan Xin was also helping to look for information.

It had to be said, with so many forces at work, the search was proving to be somewhat effective.

Following the information they uncovered, the forces of the three factions had already intercepted and killed several Star Thieves, recovering a few females.

However, some females were taken hostage during the confrontations and tragically lost their lives.

Because the people who had won the females had already left with them without ever showing their faces, it was still very difficult for the military to confirm their identities.

Only those who were more high-profile and had directly shouted their own names at the auction house could be found easily.

Under these circumstances, everyone’s Riot Value was skyrocketing.

They were completely unable to calm down.

It was at this moment that the Federation’s research institute launched a new type of Inhibitor.

An Inhibitor that was transmitted through sound.

[You live and you learn. I guess if you live long enough, you’ll see everything.]

[Can you believe it? In my lifetime, I’d get to see an Inhibitor that you don’t have to ingest, but that you absorb just by listening.]

[The most, most, most important part is that the sound is a song sung by Jiang Qin! Unbelievable...]

[Already placed my order. I want to see for myself if this Inhibitor, which looks like some kind of Bluetooth headset from thousands of years ago, is any good.]

[Doesn’t anyone else think this research is as pointless as taking off your pants to fart?

Is the *method* of using Inhibitors what we’re lacking? What we’re lacking is a drug that actually lowers our Riot Values!!]

[So, this thing is the result of Miss Jiang Qing’s cooperation with the research institute back then?]

[They’re not even pretending anymore, are they? Just tossing out some little toy to shut everyone up?]

[Hey, let’s not be so pessimistic. Maybe this Inhibitor’s effect is super good? It has to have *some* good points, right?]

...

With so many females missing, launching a new type of Inhibitor... one had to admit, the research institute really knew how to do business.

The quantity released on the official website sold out in an instant.

However, this also made everyone suddenly realize that they hadn’t gotten any new updates about Jiang Qin for many days.

[Speaking of which, didn’t Qin Bao go to attend that association meeting? Is she back yet?]

[She should be back, right? I haven’t seen any of her big fans acting weird.]

[She probably threw herself back into filming. I heard she’s working on a huge script that’s super hard to shoot.]

[It’s called Journey to the West. Judging from the name alone, you can’t really tell what genre it is yet.

But I did hear it’s difficult to film, so the shooting schedule probably won’t be short.]

[That’s good. I heard a lot of females went missing. My Qin Bao couldn’t be that unlucky, right?]

...

The very unlucky Jiang Qin was currently at Zhan Xiao’s house, getting acupuncture.

She had only just found out that she had inhaled a trace amount of poison back on that cruise ship.

The poison came from a type of Sea Beast and was transmitted through scent.

It smelled pretty much like fish.

Fortunately, it only caused some dizziness and discomfort and wasn’t a very potent poison. Her body had already expelled most of it on its own over the past few days.

The acupuncture now was just to clear out the little that remained in her system.

Long Yue had the same issue, so she was getting acupuncture beside her as well.