I'm really not the number one slacker in Soul Society.

Some were planning how to make their move (Hirako, Luo Wu, Kensei), some were organizing their escape route (Lisa, Loujuro), and some were just acting cute for no apparent reason (Kunan Shiro). Hatsumi Akita was nowhere to be seen, and Hiyori was nowhere to be found, probably hidden away by Lisa, who was probably afraid that she would mess things up in a moment of impulsiveness.

"Eat? Why aren't you touching your chopsticks?"

Mizhen blinked and looked at the people sitting around the dining table: "What kind of logic is it for the host to watch the guests eat?"

"..."

Hirako rolled her eyes and said bluntly, "What exactly are you here for? If you're going to eliminate the problem completely, just do it already. Why bother with all this pointless foreplay?"

"Cut the weeds out completely? Why?"

Mi Zhen raised an eyebrow: "You make it sound like I have a deep-seated grudge against you."

Upon hearing this, he clearly saw that everyone present turned ashen-faced, as if they had eaten shit.

That was indeed a bit excessive... but if you're going to act, you have to go all the way.

The veins on Hirako's forehead bulged, and he almost slammed his fist on the table to fight back, but considering the difference in strength, he swallowed his anger and gritted his teeth, saying, "Well, thank you so much for your great kindness! How about we hold a welcoming ceremony?"

"Hmm, that would be a bit too formal."

Mima took a bite of sea bream, looked outside, and said, "If I'm not mistaken, Hachigen Uesugi should have gone to find Kisuke Urahara, right? But he's taking so long..."

"Really?"

Before he finished speaking, a slender figure with a high ponytail appeared silently in the room.

She looked at him with a cold smile and said, "Who are you calling slow?"

"Yoruichi Shihouin." Mima shrugged, his expression unchanged as he put another green pepper in his mouth, chewing as he said, "That's just how it is. If I had that kind of intention, all you would have seen would be a pile of corpses."

"Tsk..."

A faint but extremely dense trace of Kido energy flashed across Yoruichi's palm. She put away her smile and stared at Mima with an icy gaze.

"Oh, don't be so tense..."

With a gust of wind, a blond man in a green coat appeared in the room with a smile and began to smooth things over, saying, "Let's talk properly, let's talk properly, why make the atmosphere so bad?"

Mizhen glanced sideways and saw a face with a stubble beard and dark circles under his eyes that resembled a panda's.

Has this guy not slept for the past forty-odd days?

But then again, this outfit... it's only missing clogs and a hat to complete the classic three-piece set...

Now that the capable fighters had arrived, Mima put down his chopsticks, calmly wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, and said in a relaxed tone, "I'll repeat myself, if I were here to eliminate all the threat, the eight of you would already be dead—Urahara Kisuke is right, wouldn't it be better to relax a bit?"

"Ah, after all, guests from afar are welcome."

Kisuke Urahara smoothed things over, winking at Hirako with a smile, calming down the nearly erupting Visored Army, and then casually asked, "In that case, what is your purpose?"

"Do you want me to repeat it again?"

Mi Zhen sighed and said, "How can we live without eating? I just happened to catch you cooking, so I came over to mooch a meal."

Kisuke Urahara slapped his thigh: "Rhodes' tempura is really delicious, especially the secret sauce, it's no worse than the top chefs in Seireitei."

While they were chatting and joking around, the chief and deputy Taoist priests in the distant forest were secretly doing some dirty work—specifically, setting up some barriers to disperse the surrounding people, so as to prevent innocent people from being hurt in the event of a fight.

Although Mi Zhen didn't know exactly what they had done, he could still sense that the common people within a radius of several kilometers were running away quickly. By deducing the cause from the result, he could also get a sense of what had happened.

However, he hadn't planned to fight this time anyway—why resort to violence when things can be resolved with words?

We're all adults; shouting for violence has a bad influence.

"Oh? Then I'll have to come over for a meal more often."

His casual remark made Lou Shilang's face even uglier, and Urahara Kisuke's lips twitched a few times. He then adopted a surrender posture and sighed, "Alright, enough joking. Everyone knows what kind of grudge we have. If you don't intend to take action, then please state your purpose."

"The purpose..."

Mizhen pouted and said casually, "You probably wouldn't believe me if I said I didn't mean any harm... Let me think about it... Just consider me here to 'inspect the goods'."

Urahara Kisuke's face twitched; he vaguely understood what Yama meant, but he still forced himself to speak:

"There's nothing of yours here. If you want to inspect the goods, you've probably come to the wrong place."

"Why isn't it there?"

Mima looked at each of the members of the Visored Army one by one and smiled slightly: "The Hollowfication potion is still lying dormant in their bodies perfectly fine—how about it, isn't my gift interesting?"

Hirako, Kensei, Luo Wu, and Lisa's fists immediately hardened, and even Lou Juro, who had the best temper among the group, had two bulging veins on his head.

Translate this: What the hell is called a gift?

You've already screwed us over like this, and you're still not satisfied? You want to come after us and finish us off? We'll fight you to the death...

Well, I can’t beat him.

"Even when conducting experiments, the consent of the volunteers is required."

Kisuke Urahara was also somewhat annoyed and couldn't help but retort, "I don't see how your behavior has anything to do with any 'gift'."

“Doesn’t that count?” Mima asked casually. “After breaking the boundary between Shinigami and Hollows, their power ceiling will increase significantly. Moreover, being driven out of Seireitei will also allow them to escape the control of the 46 Chambers in a roundabout way. How can it not be considered a gift? ... Okay, I admit that this requires taking some ‘small risks,’ but in terms of the result, no one has sacrificed themselves, right?”

"Your logic is truly unique!"

Unable to contain himself any longer, Hirako slammed his hand on the table: "According to you, we should thank you?"

"If anyone wants to do that, I wouldn't mind accepting the offer."

Mima smiled as she answered, and immediately saw Hirako's face turn red at a visible speed—this was not shyness, but rather hot blood rushing to her head, almost making her hair stand on end.

Kisuke Urahara reached out to stop him, then looked at Mima again, took a breath, and calmed down before saying, "Don't make such pointless jokes. Who are you anyway?"

"I'm just a passing righteous messenger, remember that!"

After casually making a joke, Mi Zhen changed the subject: "Well... justice and injustice are minor matters. In the end, I don't have any particular interest in you. I just happened to run into you while I was in Chongling Land on some business. Why do we have to be so tense?"

"Get things done?" Kisuke Urahara frowned. "What do you mean?"

“The Spirit Land is a great place; you can do many things with it,” Mi Zhen hummed. “For example… um, do you know about the King Key? As long as you find a Spirit Land and refine it, you can get the key to directly ascend to the Spirit King Palace.”

This terrifying topic almost made Urahara draw his sword.

Others might not understand what creating the King Key meant, but he and Yoruichi knew it perfectly well—it was basically like openly declaring a rebellion, and that they would first have to sacrifice tens of thousands of people from a city.

Those who dare to do this are no ordinary villains; we must take strong measures!

Seeing the atmosphere suddenly drop to freezing point, Mima immediately changed the subject and said in a relaxed manner: "--Of course I was just joking. Putting aside the fact that I have no need to go to the Spirit King Palace, even if I did, I would be ganged up on and beaten to death by the Zero Division. It would be a thankless task."

Although his strength is basically enough to make him stand out from the crowd, if he were to be bombarded by Guanyin's Red Princess Modified Form and Raijin Battle Form several times, he would still die. Even someone as tough as Askin died under Urahara's combo. Watanabe's life is not that tough. He should know when to stop.

"It's not funny."

Kisuke Urahara's expression darkened, and his spiritual pressure sharpened: "There are some topics that cannot be touched."

"Hmph...you really can't take a joke."

Mi Zhen pursed her lips, then spread her hands and said, "Alright, since your attitude is so bad, let's talk about something practical... How about cooperation? Since we've met, it means we're quite destined to meet. Cooperating with people you're destined to meet usually yields good results."

The topic took such a sharp turn that it almost caused everyone present to strain their backs.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, they finally came to their senses, and a strong sense of absurdity immediately arose in their hearts.

"Cooperation?" Hirako said, enunciating each word clearly. "Us, and you?"

"Yes."

Mi Zhen nodded and said calmly, "What happened before was just a minor misunderstanding that doesn't really eliminate the possibility of cooperation between us, does it?"

His expression at that moment looked so calm and matter-of-fact, as if he were really talking about something trivial.

"Impossible!" Hirako roared. "You think you can talk about cooperation after putting us in this situation?! You're dreaming!"

“That’s a real shame.” Mima shrugged. “If we hadn’t run into each other, that would have been fine, but now that I know where you’re hiding, I have to come up with a proper solution. Since you have no intention of cooperating, I’m afraid I’ll have to resort to some brutal methods.”

Instantly, a murderous intent arose.

Yoruichi's Kido energy began to surge, Kisuke Urahara's cane glowed red, and the Visoreds were ready to risk complete Hollowfication and going berserk to temporarily revert to their Shinigami forms—they were by no means cowards who feared battle, and if the enemy came with clear malice, none of them would hesitate to fight to the death.

And Mima... was also a little nervous.

That's exactly the effect he wanted, but it seems like he overdid it a bit...

I need to finish quickly... or we might really start fighting!

"Well... even for me, facing both of you at the same time would be a bit of a headache, so let's try again."

Completely ignoring the palpable killing intent in the air, he smiled and looked at Lisa, saying, "That lady over there, is she called Yadomaru Lisa? Do you remember what I did that night?"

Lisa's face stiffened, and she didn't reply, but instead released an even more intense killing intent.

"One, two, three, four, five, six... one inside, and one more squatting outside." Mima counted off the masked soldiers one by one, his smile gradually turning cold. "Don't you think we're still missing one?"

Everyone's expression changed drastically at the same time.

In their eyes, Watanabe Yashin was a lucky survivor who had escaped the calamity of that night, and a righteous man who risked his future and position to help them escape the judgment of the Forty-Six Chambers. He was a junior, a friend, and a benefactor. If Watanabe Yashin were to suffer any misfortune because of them...

Although it was somewhat underhanded, Mima intended to use this to negotiate.

"I've always been interested in that kid named Watanabe Yama, but he got away a month ago, and I haven't been able to forget him since."

The villainous smile he had practiced finally came in handy. With that expression, Mima looked around at the eight people present and then uttered a conclusion they absolutely did not want to hear: "If I let him come here too, you would all be very happy, wouldn't you?"

This is his secret to negotiation, the ultimate art!

—Self-destruct!

There's no way around it; the grudges from before were too deep, and even a fool could tell they wouldn't obediently listen to reason.

They don't want to fight (definitely not because they're afraid of losing), and they can't reason with them, so it seems they can only use a hostage as a threat.

Actually, the range of hostages is quite broad. If he were less principled, he could have easily taken on someone like Shihouin Yushiro, Kunan Shiro's sister, or even Soi Fon. But none of these people are as suitable as himself.

First, on the one hand, Watanabe Yama was the only survivor that night and one of the very few people in Soul Society who had a connection with "Saki". On the other hand, the Visoreds and Kisuke Urahara were indebted to him and would never stand by and watch him get into trouble.

So while self-destruction is somewhat despicable, it does offer a lot of room for manipulation, enough to easily control them.

Seeing the murderous aura suddenly diminish, Mima picked up the miso soup, took a sip, and continued with a smile, "Your spiritual pressure has all been marked by Soul Society. Once you get there, you'll be hunted down by the Gotei 13. But I can easily enter Seireitei and do what I want—so what? Are you going to refuse to cooperate? Or do you want to gamble on whether you can stop me here?"

He looked at Yoruichi, who was clenching her fists and clearly ready to attack at any moment, and smiled: "My speed may not be as fast as yours, but stopping me won't be that easy."

"enough."

Kisuke Urahara looked at him with a grim face and said in a calm tone, "State your conditions."

That solves it.