Apparently, Zoey had been visiting the Wilson family almost every day lately. When Rita was still in Aiken City, Scarlett had urged her to come back, saying Zoey had asked about her.
Rita felt busier than she had been while running for her life in her past life.
At least back then, she still slept six hours a day.
Early that morning, Scarlett called and told her to come home. Rita turned the steering wheel and did not even return to her own house. She drove straight to the Wilson home.
When she entered, she looked exactly like someone who had rushed over without going home first.
Zoey's expression gave nothing away.
Rita was a veteran actress. Naturally, neither did hers.
During the meal, Zoey sat beside her and accidentally knocked over a wineglass. Red wine spilled all over Rita.
Rita seemed to react quickly, leaning back, but she still failed to avoid it in time.
Zoey apologized at once. Rita smiled, waved it off, and said it was fine. Then she went upstairs to wash up and change clothes.
With 18 Agility, there was no way she could not dodge.
Zoey was testing her reaction, so Rita gave her the response an ordinary person should have.
It was a small incident, but it stirred many bad memories.
Rick and Zoey were getting engaged on June 1, Children's Day, right?
No matter what, she had to castrate Rick before June.
That way, Little Rick could spend Children's Day away from his father.
After dealing with Zoey, Rita went to the agency. She directly said she was planning to retire from the industry.
When several executives did not believe her, Rita decided less trouble was better than more. She said she could release a retirement statement immediately.
People with experience killing others knew one thing well. Those who had killed and those who had not were different on a psychological level.
When ordinary people handled conflict, they thought, "Maybe I should just let it go."
When people who had killed handled conflict, they thought, "Maybe I should just kill them."
Rita had truly been busy lately.
The second beta would begin on June 6. Before then, she needed to max out the proficiency of Intermediate Alchemy and Intermediate Engineering as much as possible.
She also wanted to raise Cooking, Fishing, and First Aid to Intermediate.
Most materials contained mana, which the current real world did not yet have. But plenty of recipes still had real-world substitutes that could increase proficiency.
For example, the materials needed to craft [Gunpowder] in Engineering could be found in reality.
After grinding every proficiency she could, she still had to deal with Little Rick.
She really was busy. She had no time to kill people.
Killing someone took only one stab. Cleaning up afterward was the real hassle.
Amelia had only been released yesterday and could not leave Los Angeles in the short term. Rita had even found time amid her packed schedule to track Amelia down and slap her.
Since Rita already knew about Amelia and Robinson's scheme, she could not act as if nothing had happened.
Amelia's life could not be taken yet. Rita needed the core of the case and everyone's attention locked firmly on Robinson.
Seeing how determined Rita was, the company representatives lost momentum.
If she no longer wanted to work, how could they control her?
Bare feet did not fear shoes. Push her too hard, and after all her years in the industry, she knew plenty of company gossip.
In her previous life, Rita endured it because she had not planned to retire. She feared that if she left the industry, no one in the family would earn money. So she kept trying to make a comeback and often used her own connections to introduce friends to Rick.
Desireless people were hard to bend. Without worldly wants, one could clash with anyone.
After clashing with several executives, Rita walked out of the agency. From now on, she had no work. Six months later, she would bring in a lawyer, sign the paperwork, and finish the process.
Throughout March, Rita never left her villa.
She told Samuel, Scarlett, and Rick that the company had abandoned her. She was in pain and wanted them not to disturb her. She needed quiet.
In truth, she was setting up her safe house.
She could use Invisibility Potions, and so could others.
She hired a renovation team from the neighboring city and built a glass room of over two hundred square meters on the top floor of her villa.
Flowers and plants filled the space, and sprinkler machines hung above. At the deepest part of the glass room stood a heavy wooden cabinet covered with bonsai.
Then she found designs and blueprints herself, adding a hidden door to the wooden cabinet.
Inside was a rectangular compartment, seven meters long and four meters wide.
The compartment had a bed for rest. She also installed two hidden humidifiers. The floor was custom-made with extremely sensitive gravity sensors. If anything heavier than two kilograms landed on it, the floor would light up.
Since Invisibility Potions existed, Revealing Potions naturally existed too.
She filled the humidifiers with the best Intermediate Revealing Potion she could brew. Once the humidifiers activated, the potion would turn into mist and spread throughout the room.
The effect would be weakened, so it could not fully reveal a person. But it could show a human outline, and that was enough.
Using the garden sprinklers would be too wasteful. One small bottle would be gone in minutes. She could not afford that.
With humidifiers, one small bottle of Revealing Potion could last eight hours.
At the same time, she installed humidifiers in every corner of the house, all filled with Revealing Potion.
As long as she was home, the humidifiers would stay on.
Only after finishing these arrangements did she feel secure enough to grind her profession experience.
She stopped only after both Alchemy and Engineering reached the current proficiency cap.
She placed the cat bed in the front yard of the villa.
Every day, she placed a serving of low-oil, low-salt meat beside it. From today onward, she would cultivate a bond with this cat bed.
In early April, Zoey and Rick's marriage arrangement was settled.
The two families had dinner together. As Rick's older sister, Rita naturally attended and maintained a polite smile the entire time.
The Lopez family's manners were neither good nor bad. They had basic courtesy, but no respect.
That made sense. Rick was just marrying into their family.
To put it bluntly, what Zoey wanted was Rick's face and genes.
It was fine if her child was dumb, but the child could not be ugly.
The two would sign all kinds of prenups. The Lopez family was enormous. Even if the old Lopez couple and all three of their children died, Rick would never control the Lopez family as a son-in-law.
Rita had attended this dinner in her past life too.
Back then, the Lopez family's cold attitude had made her feel sorry for Rick.
Now, she focused on eating, kept smiling, and said nothing.
After dinner, the Lopez family left. Only Zoey stayed behind. Rita wanted to leave too, but Rick stopped her.
Rick looked at her with concern and probed, "Rita, are you unhappy that I'm getting married?"
Catching Zoey's strange expression from the corner of her eye, Rita almost wanted to ask Rick if they had some kind of grudge.
Or did he think this made him look more charming?
Did he want to make Zoey feel threatened?
Why was he so petty?
She looked at that bastard Rick in surprise. "How could that be? Of course I'm happy."
Rick looked as if he was saying, stop pretending. "Then why have you been acting like this lately..."
Rita smiled bitterly. "I really am happy for you and Zoey. It's just that my company has had some issues lately. I might be unemployed soon."
Rick still seemed unconvinced, so Rita directly opened her banking app and showed the balance of thirty million to everyone.
"See this number? Wouldn't you be anxious?"
Rick's smile nearly cracked.
He wanted to say she was only saying that in anger and that he did not believe it. But Rita's expression was far too sincere.
Zoey, however, believed it.
To her, this amount was only one month's allowance. With so little left, anxiety made perfect sense.
The suspicion that had just surfaced in her heart disappeared completely.
Rick noticed Zoey's expression too. He knew he could not stir her sympathy today, so he let it go. There would be other chances.
He smiled and took out his phone, about to transfer money to Rita.
"It's okay. I'll support you."
Just as Rita was about to smile, Zoey pressed down on Rick's hand.
She took out her own phone, asked for Rita's bank account, and transferred her twenty million.
"This is pocket money from Rick and me."
Rita immediately withdrew the smile meant for Rick and smiled at Zoey instead.
"I have photos of Rick from childhood to adulthood on my phone. I'll send them all to you later. Don't worry, after I send them, I'll delete them on my end. From now on, you'll be the only person in the world who has them."
Zoey's smile became much more genuine.
Possessiveness, was it?
Female rivalry, was it?
Using her as part of their play, were they?
Rita watched Rick's smile grow increasingly stiff. She greeted Samuel and Scarlett, then left in excellent spirits.
After maxing out her most important professions for the current stage, Rita resumed causing trouble.
She had heard nothing about the White family. After all, she and the White family were not in the same social class. Even if the Lopez family knew something, they would not tell the Wilson family.
She did not plan to wait any longer.
Rick's behavior today had genuinely disgusted her.
Rick had not been jobless all these years. If he had no work at all, Zoey would not have taken interest in him.
He was a gaming streamer. Good-looking and skilled, with many fans. Monthly tips alone reached hundreds of thousands.
He also had a small apartment used as a studio.
Rita did not plan to handle Rick personally.
In her past life, while fleeing, she had met many fellow fugitives. Following a method one of them had told her, she used Disguise and found the darker side of the city.
With fifty pounds of gold, she paid for someone to shoot a man's dick off. No need to kill him.
It was an extremely worthwhile deal.
The gold came from the batch she had taken from Samuel's study.
Using Samuel's money to end Samuel's bloodline.
Brilliant. Truly brilliant.
Worried that the hired man could not beat the male lead's halo, Rita also set a time when she paid.
The attack would take place on the morning of April 5, right after Rick left home.
Ideally, not many people would see it. She was still counting on Rick marrying into the Lopez family.
On the evening of April 4, Rita woke at six in the morning and went back to the Wilson home to pick up three luxury bags she had bought before.
She also drank a Beginner Invisibility Potion and a Beginner Fade Potion, passed through the wall into Rick's room, and used [Wheel of Fate] on the man in bed, modifying his Luck to 1.
Almost no one in the house knew she had returned.
But if anyone carefully checked the community or elevator surveillance, they would see she arrived at six, stayed less than half an hour, and left with three designer bags.
At eight in the morning, she had just sold the three bags to a secondhand store near her house when seven gunshots rang out from one street away.
Rita's hand paused.
No way.
Even with Luck at 1, they still missed?
A while later, she received a message saying the mission had failed.
"Damn it, what the hell was that? Seven shots. Not a single hit. He just ran around blindly and still dodged them. Creepy as hell. Are we filming a movie? I'm the Gun King. Do you understand what Gun King means?"
Was it too harsh?
Even with Luck at 1, the male lead halo was still trying everything to protect him?
After all, the male lead could survive death, suffer serious injuries, and endure hardship.
But he could not become the eunuch version.
Rita sent another message.
"Try a knife. Don't go too far. Just cut half."
"?"
"Don't worry. The price stays the same for half."
"How did he offend you?" the Gun King asked respectfully.
"Hurry up. Otherwise I won't pay the balance. Remember to take the cut part and destroy it."
Half an hour later, Rita received a call from Scarlett.
The woman was hysterical, screaming for her to come to the hospital. Her brother had been hurt.
Under her mask, Rita's face was expressionless. But her voice was full of worry and panic.
"What happened? What happened? Hello? Mom?"
Samuel took the phone. His voice was heavy with exhaustion. He gave her an address.
This time, Rita was genuinely surprised.
This was the black clinic opened by another fugitive friend from her past life.
When she arrived, Rick had been out of surgery for quite a while.
In the dim and cramped ward, Samuel sat beside the bed smoking. Scarlett was still crying.
When Scarlett saw Rita enter, she opened her mouth to blame her. But after thinking for ages, she could not figure out how to blame Rita for her son having half his dick cut off.
After stammering for a long time, she only managed, "Why are you only here now?"
Then she collapsed by the bed and cried again.
Rita's expression was heavy with grief. The grief carried disbelief, and the disbelief carried a trace of dazed refusal to accept reality.
She had brought out all her acting skills.
"This is impossible! Did he offend someone?"
Samuel's thoughts were clearly elsewhere. The cigarette was nearly burning his fingers, yet he had not taken a drag.
Scarlett sobbed and shook her head. "He's so good. Who could he have offended?"
Rita asked, "Can it be reattached?"
Scarlett cried, "That person had a gun. How much hate did he have? He missed at first, then fired seven more shots. Then he used a knife. How heartless. What a beast..."
Rita thought, Nice. That gold was worth every ounce.