For a man like Xia Lei, his charisma alone was enough to have women flock to him day and night. Now that he was explicitly pursuing her, given Alice’s response, he was confident that he would not be heading to the movies alone.

The fish had taken the bait. Now all he had to do was to reel it in.

Exiting the casino, Xia Lei entered a Ram pickup truck.

Anjum Khan steered the vehicle out of the parking lot. “Boss, my part went as planned. Thompson invited me to his place to discuss this first thing in the morning tomorrow. He even told me to skip the middleman. Seems like he’s reluctant to pay the intermediary fees.”

Xia Lei chuckled, “Well, of course. He’s got even shorter on funds after the losses he sustained tonight. I’m guessing half of it was his pay and the other half was just credit card debt. Make sure to try to force his hand on lowering the price, but take heed.”

Anjum Khan replied in all smiles, “Rest assured boss, I know what to do. I will make sure he’s convinced that selling it to us was his best option. I’ll make him put in some genuine effort to talk me into it. Only then will it feel less suspicious.”

“Boss, what about your part? How did it go?” Tsukino Kyoko added out of the blue.

Xia Lei instinctively took a quick glance at his right middle finger, but he still cracked up a smile nevertheless, “It went pretty smoothly. Alice promised to go to the movies with me tomorrow night.”

Tsukino Kyoko seemed slightly jealous of his remark but kept her cool.

Xia Lei quickly noticed Tsukino Kyoko’s change in expression as he reached out his hand and lovingly held hers in its grasp.

Bringing himself closer towards her, he whispered, “Alice is just a key player in the grand plan. It’s not within my control to pursue her. You know I’m not really interested in her. She’s not even worth a toenail compared to you.”

Tsukino Kyoko cracked a smile. No woman could resist heartfelt praise from their man. Nevertheless, she wasn’t actually jealous of his actions.

“I wasn’t thinking about it,” Tsukino Kyoko brought herself closer to him, her warm, fuzzy breath radiating sensually into his ear as she whispered, “Since we didn’t manage to buy a house, where are we gonna stay tonight?”

Xia Lei thought for a moment before he reviewed their options, “We can't go to the hotels since we have to stay out of the urban areas. Why don’t we camp by the desert behind Thompson’s house instead? That way we can monitor his whereabouts every now and then.”

His words were spoken loud enough for all three of them to hear, naturally including Anjum Khan as he responded, “Boss, I’m guessing the one keeping a lookout over Thompson would be me, right?”

“Well duh, who else could it be?”

Tsukino Kyoko interrupted, “I will watch after the boss’ safety. You can monitor Thompson and the woman. Great, it’s settled.”

Anjum Khan was left speechless.

The Indian was perplexed, especially knowing that the Japanese ninja herself wouldn’t actually be putting any hard effort into ‘protecting’ Xia Lei. She was most likely out for pleasure.

But how else could he have arranged this anyway? His spiralling thoughts made him miss Yelena even more. If she was here tonight, he would have a blast spending time on the lookout all night.

The moonlight radiated through the vast Las Vegas desert like a midsummer night’s dream, yet he was thrown off the narrative like an outlier, and that instantly forced him back to cold, hard reality.

The truck weaved up and down the sand dunes, one after another.

Anjum Khan ultimately hopped off the driver’s seat, carrying his supplies backpack and went off into the vast sand dunes. He cherry-picked a sand dune with the perfect height for him to monitor Thompson’s estate in full view.

“Watch yourself, don’t let them see you,” Xia Lei reminded him. Ever since he stepped foot into Las Vegas, it felt like entering a spider web. One small mistake and it would ripple across the whole web. It was why Xia Lei had to ensure their plan was covert and cautious at every single step.

Anjum Khan turned back towards his boss with a cheeky grin on his face. “Boss, don’t you worry, nothing will happen. You guys just relax and enjoy yourselves, I won’t peek.”

The Indian was a pivotal member of the team. They had no choice but to stomach his cheeky attitude.

And off he went and vanished into the desert. Down by the flat grounds of the Nevadan desert, only Xia Lei and Tsukino Kyoko were left. The mere thought of it lit up her face more than anything throughout their entire operation thus far.

She retrieved a mat from the storage chest and laid it out right beside the truck.

But she didn’t stop there. She got down on all fours and began flattening out the entire mat to make it appear neat and cosy. It resembled a Japanese tatami mat

After the mat was set, she then moved on to gather water and food from the storage chest and began arranging them on their modest makeshift abode.

Tsukino Kyoko turned to him with a warm smile on her face, in a soothing tone she proclaimed, “In Japan, the woman is responsible for all matters at home. She handle’s how to make her husband comfortable, how to serve him, and all household etiquette.”

Xia Lei chuckled but did not rebuke her statement. He was quickly reminded of an interesting statistic about the social status of women in different societies across Asia. The tabulated results evidently placed Chinese society with the highest social status for women among Asian countries. Japan came ninth, which was a comparatively low ranking.

While Xia Lei was evaluating the statistics, Tsukino Kyoko carefully stepped upon the mat and kneeled before him.

“Kyoko, what are you doing?” Xia Lei was baffled. Tsukino Kyoko shyly covered her mouth as she let out a modest smile. Without a word, she began reaching for one of Xia Lei’s feet and began removing his shoe.

“Alright, I can do that myself,” Xia Lei was left in an awkward position.

Tsukino Kyoko added, “In Japan when the husband returns, the wife would proceed to remove his outdoor footwear with house slippers in this way.”

“I’m not Japanese.” Xia Lei quicked rebuked.

“But I am.”

Nevertheless, Xia Lei knew full well that Tsukino Kyoko was a traditional Japanese ninja and an even more traditional Japanese woman. She was especially serious about etiquette like this.

Xia Lei went along with her and only went on the mat after both of his shoes were removed. He felt rather uncomfortable, but given that it was Tsukino Kyoko that was in servitude, he felt less guilt-ridden.

After the two had some food and water on the mat, they were out of things to do.

Xia Lei laid down on the mat and began to run a simulation of his master plan. All available information was now gathered in his mind and was arranged to run in a simulation.

If a roadblock was met at any point of the simulation and the results turned awry, he would instantly generate viable alternative options to amend the mistakes and recreate accurate solutions.

With his phenomenal brain capacity, he had already begun simulating their infiltration into Area 51, but then it stopped.

“Boss, are you stargazing?” Tsukino Kyoko’s voice wafted softly beside his ear, along with the warmth of her alluring breath.

Xia Lei felt a tingling sensation by his ear as he gave it a scratch while he answered, “What stars? I was just thinking about our next move.”

“Are you looking for inspiration?” Kyoko continued with her sensual approach as she huffed into his ear.

“Look, a shooting star!” Kyoko excitedly pointed at the night sky, her hands promptly held together with her eyes closed, seemingly making a wish at the rare sight.

Xia Lei also took to notice the shooting star whooshing past the clear night sky. He too shut his eyes even though he was extremely sceptical of the supernatural. It was hard for him to put his faith in a rock.

Yet possibly due to Tsukino Kyoko’s influence, he made a wish deep down his heart. I wish my wives and kids would stay safe and sound, and that I could make it through this hurdle in two years.

The shooting star lasted no more than a second and there it vanished. It might have crashed into the sea, or burnt-out before it reached the ground. It was a blink and miss.

Just as Xia Lei was emotionally reminiscing the highs and lows of life, his belt began unbuckling itself. He quickly seized the hands in question and averted the topic. “Kyoko, what did you wish for?”

“It wouldn’t work if I say it out loud,” Tsukino Kyoko replied.

Xia Lei awkwardly grinned at her response, once again sceptical of that perception but was aware of the sincerity on her face.

Tsukino Kyoko stood back up and then returned to the kneeling position before him. Her voluptuous hips pressing onto her calves, shielding it almost in its entirety from view.

Leaning forward, her pair of alluring breasts began hovering in plain sight as her blouse stretched to its limits. The rest of the buttons after the third seemed to be on the verge of popping at any moment, unleashing the bunnies in all their glory.

The deep cleavage exposed in the dry desert air appeared to be the weakest cleavage of any kind in the world, for its soft, enticing appearance seemed like it would melt at the mere presence of sunlight.

Xia Lei felt that she was far more seductive in this position and with that, his intention to draw her attention backfired spectacularly as he instead got drawn towards her voluptuous bottom.

Tsukino Kyoko’s touch was soft and delicate.

His personal restraints had reached its limits.

“Let me serve you,” with a sensual voice Tsukino Kyoko declared.

Xia Lei nodded without further thought. Life’s short and painful. Why not enjoy the sweet moments in them?

Tsukino Kyoko brought herself closer to him, and his body felt lighter.

Over at the sand dunes, Anjum Khan was on his night vision binoculars and decided to peek down the slope. However, Kyoko was anticipating this and had set up the mats on the other side of the Ram truck, effectively shielding themselves from his vision.

Even if their horizontal action was obscured by an entire vehicle from view, on the heat radar, Anjum Khan could still pick up their heat signatures.

“Pfft, no fun,” Anjum Khan sighed at the lack of entertainment as he turned his binoculars away towards the other side.

In Thompson’s mansion, Anjum Khan noticed Alice entering the bathroom. Over on the other side of the room, Thompson was dosing himself with a mist of cologne. His mood was at a high, most likely from the money he was going to earn tomorrow along with some nocturnal entertainment.

Alice then made her entrance into Thompson’s room, with him enthusiastically pulling her into his embrace.

Alice pushed Thompson away, “Hubby, it’s that time of the month, I can’t tonight.”

Thompson lifted his hand to give it a quick fondle, his sexual desire promptly deflated like a loose balloon.

“Let’s go to bed honey, we still need to sell the house tomorrow. You need to be in tip-top condition.”

Alice turned off the lights.

Anjum Khan frowned at her words as he cursed, “This little bitch sure is cunning. Not sure if the boss can handle her.”

Thereafter, he shifted his binoculars towards the truck as he watched.

It was going to be one hell of a sleepless night for him.