The villain daughter did all kinds of things

Miss Mengmeng puffed out her cheeks again, glaring fiercely at Amelie:

"You just said you'd help me investigate the case, and then you immediately killed the person who knew the truth? You wouldn't happen to be in cahoots with the mastermind, would you? You big liar!"

"I am indeed helping you investigate the case, dear investigator~~"

Emerald remained completely unfazed, even taking the time to tease Lulu by reaching out and hooking Mengmeng's chin under Lulu's curious gaze.

"Didn't I tell you? Scum like these don't tell the truth in much of what they say. Instead of wasting time interrogating them, getting their testimonies, and then verifying their authenticity, it's better to do it like I did... that's efficient!"

Snapped.

As Amelie snapped her fingers with her other hand, Ham, who had already turned into a corpse, stood up again and walked to Mengmeng's side, indicating that he was ready to serve.

"Tell me about it."

With a complex expression on Miss Mengmeng's face, Amelie gave the order to the corpse:

"What exactly is wrong with your daughter? You've been holding back for the past two weeks, why did you suddenly lose your temper?"

"...because my daughter should have died three days ago."

Despite speaking of something very sad, Ham, now a corpse, spoke calmly:

"My innate magic is telepathy, which allows me to connect with blood relatives and sense everything about them at any time... That's how my brother and I used to work together back then."

“I could have used this talent magic on my daughter, but unfortunately she is a magic rejecter… Using magic on her would be murdering her.”

"However, after my daughter went missing, I couldn't resist using my innate magic to find out her situation and location so that I could rescue her."

"However, perhaps because my daughter is a magic rejecter, the mental link I established with her is very unstable, like a communication magic device that is about to break down. I can only receive some completely meaningless and chaotic information intermittently, and I have no way of determining her location."

"Although I can't find my daughter, in the days before she disappeared, I could clearly feel that she was still alive, and that she was not suffering or in any danger. I was just very scared."

"So despite my anxiety, I didn't take any rash actions, but patiently waited for the police investigation results, hoping they could find my daughter."

“Until three days ago… my mental link suddenly broke down. The only possibility for this is that my daughter is dead. But I don’t want to believe it, I fantasize that my daughter is still alive somewhere, waiting to be rescued…”

What happened next was pretty much the same as what Ham had personally recounted while he was still alive.

"Now you see?"

Emerald shrugged at Mengmeng, whose expression was complicated, and then pinched Mengmeng's cheek with the hand that was hooking Mengmeng's chin:

"He wouldn't reveal such important information as his daughter's death while he's alive... If I had agreed to his conditions and foolishly gone to find his daughter, I would have only wasted resources and found a corpse... Would he have kept his promise and let Lulu go in his despair? So you can't trust the words of the living. The most efficient way to get information is through the dead."

"You... hum!"

Mengmeng moved her head slightly in disgust to avoid Amelie's hand:

"I think your mouth is the most untrustworthy! Humph~~ What a scumbag's mouth, you jerk!"

"...Oh, Mengmeng, do you really hate my mouth?"

A smile suddenly appeared in Amelie's eyes, and her voice became alluring:

"You didn't say that back in that little white building at Langdon Hospital... You were clearly enjoying yourself immensely, and yet..."

"Ah ah ah ah ah!"

Miss Mengmeng instantly became as agitated as a cat with its fur standing on end:

"Don't say it! Don't say it! Don't say it! How can you talk about that kind of thing in front of a child?"

"It's okay, keep going, sis, I love hearing this!"

Lulu, however, showed no respect for Miss Mengmeng, directly contradicting her, her bright eyes sparkling with excitement:

"Investigator, are you one of my sister's girlfriends? You seem to really like my sister's lips? Do you kiss a lot when you're on dates? What positions do you like to use... Hey, Investigator, don't run away! I want to hear your story with my sister!"

Miss Mengmeng fled in panic, taking Ham, who had turned into an undead creature, with her.

Ham said that he had obtained a lot of messy information from his daughter through his innate magic. Miss Mengmeng intuitively felt that this information was very important, so she decided to take Ham back and ask him to tell her all of this information, which might contain the key to solving the case.

After Miss Mengmeng left, Amelie didn't choose to stay in the mountains for long. The follow-up work at the scene was handled by the Red Star Investigators and ordinary agents of the Investigation Bureau. She took Lulu and started flying home.

It was that same cool magical chair. Emerald sat in the chair and hugged Lulu in her arms again.

Once no one else was around, the little girl seemed to recall the kidnapping incident, and a hint of lingering fear returned to her eyes.

She snuggled closer to Emerald, adjusting herself into a comfortable position, then pouted and stared at Emerald, her eyes gradually welling up with tears.

"……What's wrong?"

Amélie chuckled and pinched Lulu's nose.

"If you have any questions, just ask them directly. Don't keep them to yourself."

"……Well."

Upon hearing this, Lulu buried her head in Emerald's arms again, her voice muffled:

"Sister, when you were negotiating with the kidnapper, you said... that if the kidnapper didn't agree to your conditions, you would assume I was dead and launch a direct attack... Is that true? If the kidnapper really refuses to budge, sister, would you really disregard my life and launch a direct attack?"

"Of course not. That was just one of my tactics to scare him. If it failed, I would just use other tactics. Why would I really launch a full-scale attack?"

Emerald pinched Lulu's soft cheek again as she spoke:

"Silly girl... I'm here to save you, not to kill that nobody. What good would it do me to kill that nobody a thousand times if I couldn't even guarantee your safety?"

"...Yeah, I knew you spoiled me the most, so I would never do something like that!"

Lulu's voice brightened again, and she rubbed her face against Amelie, making a sound as comfortable as a cat being petted.

After a while, Lulu finally raised her head again, her eyes filled with curiosity once more.

"So, sister, how did you determine that the small-time kidnapper would definitely back down? What if he really went to extremes and tried to take drastic measures?"

"He won't."

Emery chuckled confidently:

“If Ham were the kind of desperate criminal who kidnapped Lulu to save his own life, I really wouldn’t dare to scare him like that… But Ham isn’t. You can clearly see from his story that he loves his daughter very much and he doesn’t want to give up any hope of seeing her again.”

At this point, Emery looked down into Lulu's eyes and said very seriously:

“Remember this, Lulu. Hope can be not only the last ray of light guiding people out of their predicament, but also a poison that drowns them in their fantasies.”

"Despair is terrifying, and desperate lives are often quite insane. Even a strong person like me doesn't want to easily provoke a desperate person... Therefore, sometimes giving the other party some hope is the most effective and deadliest weapon."

“Take Ham’s case for example. When I agreed to help him find his daughter, he must have had hope of reuniting with her. It was this hope that kept him from taking the most reckless step of going down with you, and it also made him keep making concessions on my terms—he knew it would be very dangerous for me to see him, but he still agreed in the end.”

"Hmm... I think I understand."

Lulu nodded, seemingly understanding, a hint of eagerness flashing in her eyes:

"Next time I bully those weak upperclassmen at school, maybe I can try this trick you taught me—using false hope to control and manipulate them? Hmm... just imagining it makes me... ouch!"

"I'm teaching you these things to make you more shrewd, not so you can bully older female students!"

Amélie tapped Lulu on the head with her finger, clearly annoyed.

"I'm warning you, it's fine for you to make friends with the older girls at school, but don't go too far... Otherwise, when your parents report you again, I won't protect you. I'll have my wife hang you up and give you a good beating."

"...Hmph, you were much worse than me back then, sister..."

Lulu protested quietly, clearly unconvinced. Seeing Emery raise her finger again, she quickly shrank back, her eyes darting around, and the topic returned to Ham:

"Speaking of which, that poor, lowly kidnapper uncle was really pitiful. Not only did he fail to find his daughter, but he also got played by that wicked woman~~"

"I'm not a bad woman! Everyone says I'm a beautiful and kind-hearted saint!"

Emerald tapped Lulu again with her finger without hesitation before giving a meaningful smile:

"To be honest, Ham might not necessarily be unable to see his daughter again... because his daughter is already dead, and now he is dead too, so maybe they can reunite in hell? In that case, killing him was actually helping him. I really am beautiful inside and out."

"Wow!"

Lulu was stunned, looking at Emery with a strange expression, as if she was seeing for the first time what it meant to have a thick skin that could withstand the bombardment of a warship.

Emery remained unmoved and tapped Lulu's forehead with her finger for the third time:

"Finally, let me teach you the most important thing... Never empathize with or pity your enemies! That's a betrayal and irresponsibility towards all your comrades! You think that Ham was only doing it out of necessity to find his daughter, but have you ever thought about Sissi and Miss San?"

"..."

Lulu fell silent again. For the rest of the journey, she rarely spoke, spending most of her time nestled in Amelie's arms, deep in thought.

Emerald and Lulu didn't fly very fast, but 60 kilometers was not a long distance for a flying magic device, and they soon returned home.

"Mom~~"

When Lulu jumped out of Emerald's arms, she had regained her usual liveliness. She first gave Lady Catherine a hug to comfort her frightened mother.

"Lulu, I'm so glad you're alright..."

Even though she had already received the news in advance, Catherine still looked nervous.

She first held Lulu tightly for a while as if she were suffocating her, until Lulu was having difficulty breathing and wanted to call for Emerald's help, then she let go of Lulu, checking her all over while asking:

"That damn kidnapper didn't do anything to you, Lulu, did he?"

"No, Lulu, I'm perfectly fine~~"

Lulu, while obediently turning her body to allow Mrs. Catherine to examine her, proudly held her head high:

"My sister went to rescue me herself! How could those weak kidnappers be a match for her? He was crushed to death before he could do anything!"

"Good riddance...good riddance!"

After confirming with her own eyes that Lulu was truly unharmed, Lady Catherine was finally relieved.

She hugged Lulu tighter in her arms again, then looked up at Emerald, her eyes glistening with tears, her lips moving slightly as if she were about to say something.

"Don't say thank you to me, ma'am."

Emery, however, deliberately put on a stern face first:

“We’re family. If you treat me like a stranger, I’ll be sad.”

Chapter 184 Family Dinner

After Lulu was successfully rescued, everyone at Melson Manor breathed a sigh of relief.

Emerald and her family members took turns kissing, hugging, and lifting Lulu high to comfort her. Even Bobo, unusually, showed concern for his twin sister and said he would design a magical device for Lulu's self-defense to prevent such a thing from happening again.

Ms. Laura also convened a meeting with the management of the Melson Estate's Internal Affairs Department to discuss the lessons learned from this incident.

The kidnapping of the children of the most powerful and wealthy is extremely rare in the Allen Federation.

Because this world is different from Earth, the planet Amelie's previous life, even if kidnappers successfully kidnap someone and extort a lot of benefits, they generally have no chance to enjoy them.

There are nominally more than 200 sovereign states on Earth, and there are always some with bad relations and conflicts. It is feasible for a kidnapper to successfully kidnap someone in country A, extort money, and then run away to country B to live... Although most kidnappers will eventually be caught, at least in theory this method is feasible.

But that won't work in this world.

Top conglomerates possess immense power; offending them severely would make it impossible to survive in the Allen Federation. Even hiding under an assumed name wouldn't help; too many high-level divination spells are adept at finding people, and being discovered would result in a fate worse than death.

The idea of ​​extorting money and running away is equally foolish, because apart from the Federation, the only places suitable for human habitation are the two ancient empires east of the White Sea and the elven kingdoms on the southern shore of the Emerald Strait.

If one could escape to the east side of the White Sea, there would indeed be a high probability of starting a new life. However, the distance between the east and west coasts of the White Sea is more than 17000 kilometers. There are also dangerous storms, monsters, and pirates in the deep sea, and there are also radicals among the sea creatures who are unfriendly to humans.

Normally, only fleets organized by large families or the federal government can safely travel between the two sides of the White Sea. It is almost impossible for an individual to cross the sea alone. Even fusion-stage mages or grand mages would not easily risk doing such a thing.

Therefore, the only place where kidnappers who have extorted money from the Federation can escape is the Elf Kingdom.

But don't be fooled by the fact that all elves are beautiful and therefore a kind race; the wicked among them can be far more perverse and cruel than humans. And a human who has lost the protection of the federal government and lives alone in the elven kingdom will only end up as a toy or slave of the elves.

Therefore, assassinations of members of large families are not uncommon in the Allen Federation, but kidnappings are really rare. Even if they happen, they are usually due to power struggles within the family. There are no similar cases to Lulu's experience.

As a direct descendant of the Melson family, Lulu possesses numerous powerful magical artifacts as protective weapons. However, Ham, a former professional mercenary assassin, is very familiar with the protective magical artifacts favored by the children of the wealthy and powerful. Therefore, his methods towards Lulu have always been control and abduction, without inflicting any real harm, precisely to avoid triggering those magical artifacts.

That wasn't all. After successfully kidnapping Lulu, Ham immediately took her to a base he used before and used a magical barrier to suppress the magical devices on Lulu's body.

That's why Emerald was hesitant to act rashly and had to resort to negotiation to find a rescue opportunity. Otherwise, she could have just launched a direct attack, and Ham would never have been able to break through Lulu's automatic defenses with her magical artifacts before being killed.

As for Lulu's security, Ms. Laura and the others, after discussing it in a meeting, concluded that there were no problems in this regard.

According to the rules of the Melson family, each family member must have at least one maid to take care of them and one guard to protect them when they are out in the field. Maids wearing combat maid outfits can also be regarded as guards.

At the time, Marcy and Ms. San were responsible for picking Lulu up from school. Marcy was a combat maid, and Ms. San was one of the hall maids who often took care of Lulu, which was in full compliance with standard procedures.

Although Marcy has little combat experience and would certainly be no match for Julia, Viliana, and Flora in a real fight, her magical power is genuinely at the control level, which should be enough to intimidate villains.

One master-level mage as a guard is theoretically sufficient. If the attacker is powerful enough to easily kill a master-level mage, then adding more guards would just be a waste of lives, not very meaningful, and less cost-effective.

Therefore, the manor's internal affairs department decided to find a way to fully upgrade the protective magical artifacts carried by family members. Laura synthesized several reliable suggestions and formally submitted a report to the family's main castle, which was quickly approved.

The Melson Magic Workshop will immediately establish a new research and development team to specifically study more reliable protective magic devices.