5

Xia Zhi sat in a chair carved from actual jade, eating grapes she definitely wasn’t allowed to touch, staring at the luxury villa pool glistening under the sun.

Then she turned to Fu Ran, dead serious.

“So… this place… is supposed to be the biggest, scariest prison in the world?”

Fu Ran didn’t answer. She was busy ironing a pure silk tablecloth.

Xia Zhi slapped the grapes onto the table. “Then the internet LIED to me!”

She stood up dramatically. “All those late-night articles, all those shady forums, all those YouTube thumbnails with red circles and arrows and ‘TOP SECRET EXPOSED’ — lies! All of them!”

She stormed around the villa like a betrayed fangirl. “The netizens called it Blackstone. Said it was an island where fugitives, warlords, and ghost mercenaries were locked away! A place so dangerous, governments didn’t admit it existed!”

She spun around, arms wide. “Does this look like that?! Huh?! There’s a smoothie bar, Senior Fu. A. SMOOTHIE. BAR.”

Fu Ran: “Mango pineapple.”

Xia Zhi: “I drank three!”

She dropped to her knees on the marble floor. “This isn’t Blackstone. It’s Diamondstone.”

She stared at the ceiling. “What, was Blackstone just the marketing name for tourists with bad taste? What’s next? Rubyrock? Platinum Pebble?”

Fu Ran finally spoke. “It’s owned by a very powerful man. Private island. Hidden from public records. It’s where the real criminals go.”

Xia Zhi pointed outside at a guy jet-skiing with two girls on either side. “That one’s real criminal is probably tax evasion!”

She sighed, defeated. “So… the netizens got catfished. This isn’t a prison. It’s a VIP criminal resort.”

Fu Ran nodded. “Disguised as myth to keep it off maps.”

Xia Zhi held her face. “Oh my god… the criminals are living better than me.”

She looked up miserably.

“I thought I was investigating international corruption. Turns out I’m folding towels for it.”

_____

They lined up in the villa’s entrance like two very unwilling concubines from a historical drama.

Xia Zhi, in her frilly black-and-white maid outfit, was clutching a tray of fruit. Fu Ran held a bottle of chilled wine. Neither of them looked particularly happy about their lives.

Then the doors opened.

And in walked a man who looked like he’d walked off the cover of World’s Most Eligible Villains.

Tall. Sharp jawline. Expensive sunglasses. Shirt unbuttoned just enough to show he had no business being this casually rich.

Three assistants followed him. One handed him a cocktail. The other fanned him. The last one walked ahead just to announce his mood like a weather report.

“Boss is at 62% satisfaction,” the assistant said cheerfully. “No sudden loud noises or ugly fruit trays.”

Xia Zhi stared at her tray of bananas, blinked, then slowly hid it behind her back.

The man stopped in front of them, took off his sunglasses, and—

—looked straight at Xia Zhi.

Her brain froze. Her instincts screamed. And like all great disasters, she reacted with sarcasm.

“Wow,” she blurted. “So you’re the VIP? I thought it’d be someone scary, not… someone from a K-pop villain audition.”

Fu Ran didn’t even turn her head. “Xia Zhi.”

The man blinked once. Slowly. Like a cat deciding whether or not to kill the bird that just insulted him.

One of the assistants gasped. Another dropped their fan.

Xia Zhi, realizing her mistake, smiled awkwardly. “That was a joke! A friendly joke! Maid banter!”

The man took a step closer. He reached out—

—and gently picked a grape from her tray.