The old man only shook his head when he saw Reese alternate between her angry and determined expressions. If she was going to stay in this brutal place, displaying all of her emotions on her face wasn't a smart thing to do.
But then he thought about it from another angle. She was still young. There was still a chance for her to learn about how this place worked gradually.
Hence, he raised his hand, wanting to pat her shoulder as a way to comfort her.
He had just lifted his hand in this air when they were interrupted by a loud noise.
Reese instantly froze on the spot.
"Little beauty, didn't I tell you earlier to come and play with us?"
The ones who caused this disturbance were a group of three.
Although their leader was wearing the same hospital gown, he still had the air of a gangster. One of his eyes was covered with an eye patch, and he exuded the vibes of a bandit.
When some of the older aunties nearby saw them swaggering over, they looked at each other and exchanged whispers, which was overheard by Reese.
"Those space bandits are bullying the weak again. This new girl is really unlucky!"
"Exactly! It never ends well for the people they target."
A space bandit!
Reese was a little shocked. She had long heard much about these bandits, but this was her first time seeing one in the flesh.
Space bandits, as their name suggested, were robbers in interstellar space. This galaxy which Reese was in was called the Universal Galaxy. In the year 4066, the overall technology level had greatly improved and various planets could interact with each other. The more developed a planet was, the more their rich and powerful inhabitants liked to travel between the planets, talk business, or expand their forces.
These privileged races built their own exclusive routes for traveling through the galaxy, while the poorer races rented spaceships to escape their impoverished planets, moving to other planets with everything they owned. And some of them could only roam the interstellar until they found a suitable settlement.
Meanwhile, the space bandits would rob these vulnerable and homeless wanderers, killing and looting them.
Even the galactic police often struggled to arrest these bandits. How did ones like them end up in this hospital? At this, Reese was lost in thought.
"Hey! Are you deaf? Didn't you hear him?!" a man in the back shouted.
The bandit leader couldn't help but roll his eyes. "How can you talk to a little beauty like that?"
The man lowered his head and stopped talking.
Immediately, the leader rubbed his palms together and said to Reese, "Little beauty, you must be very lonely since you're new here. It's alright, I'll definitely make you feel so good that you won't be able to fall asleep tonight. Heh heh heh."
He leaned forward until his cheek was almost touching her face. She could feel the heat from his breath on her ear, and she couldn't help but frown.
The muscular leader in the center of the small human group had actually been paying attention to the situation over here. He was afraid that this new girl would disrupt the balance that had been maintained for so long, but he had no intention of provoking the space bandits, as they weren't characters to be trifled with after all.
When the old man saw this situation, he knew that the muscular man wasn't going to get involved. Well, everyone had their own difficulties and considerations. Since no one else wanted to step in, then he would. After all, the girl looked pitiful.
He was about to get up when Reese, who had been watching him all along, grabbed his arm and stopped him from getting up, signaling him to lay low. She couldn't let someone else resolve her problem, even if it was possible that she was facing a notorious rogue.
She dodged the bandit's next move towards her and stood up, ready to confront them. Her heart was pounding. She had never faced a crook head-on before, as her parents had always sheltered her. Now that she was without her parents' protection, she could only be prepared to face the storm alone. And so, her first challenge would be to deal with these people.
However, before she could say anything, a deep male voice could be heard from afar. The steady, mature voice reminded her of King. "Lonely? If you're too lonely, I wouldn't mind throwing you into Dragon Mountain Valley!"
King's voice sounded like heavenly music to her at this juncture. Reese had thought that this sort of bully behavior would go undisciplined in a psychiatric hospital.
Actually, King had been secretly observing for a long time. As a member of the most prominent Black Dragons Tribe, which could be considered the most powerful tribe, he had compassion for helping the weaker races, but not cowardly races who gave up easily.
In fact, he hadn't any obligation to help this little human girl, Reese. However, he hadn't expected that although she looked so soft and vulnerable, she would stand up for herself despite the disparity in the strengths of their races. This showed that she definitely wasn't a coward. With such courage and tenacity, she would certainly be able to grow rapidly here. King couldn't help taking a few more looks at her.
Reese noticed King's sidelong glance at her. He raised his eyebrows and looked at her, seemingly an expression of praise for her bravery. The corners of her mouth curled up unwittingly and she returned a glance as if to brag that she wasn't a pushover.
Looking at her smug expression, King felt his heart tingle.
This little thing was really a natural at seducing him.
He lowered his head and his lips curled. Then, he quickly raised his head and put on a serious expression. "It's break time. Why are you bullying her instead of enjoying your break?"
When the bandit leader observed the interaction between these two, he realized that he might have provoked the wrong person. He only wanted to mess around with her and didn't expect to have picked trouble with someone so difficult to deal with. What bad luck.
He softened his tone and forced a smile. "Well, we just came to say hi since we saw that this little lady's a newbie. We have no ill intentions."
"Did you have to stick your face so close to hers just to say hi?" King grabbed the bandit's arm and pulled him right in front of himself.
Reese estimated King to be about 1.9 meters tall, while the bandit was not much taller than her at 1.7 meters. A pull like that had lifted the bandit's feet off the ground.
It was a rather comical sight. Reese's eyes curved into crescents as she watched the big scoundrel deal with the little scoundrel right in front of her.
Just like this, the two of them locked horns, although it was actually more of a one-sided thrashing than anything.
Within a few seconds, the bandit was defeated and thrown to the ground by King.
With a wave of King's hand, a few strong werebeast guards with weapons came to handcuff the three of them.
"They incited a crowd and bullied the weak, violating the hospital's rules. Take them away. To the interrogation rooms. Each in a separate room."
With that, King gestured, and the space bandits were taken away.
King turned. "You?"
"I'll stay right here!" Reese pointed at the old man beside her, indicating that she wanted to stay put.
He nodded and left. As he walked, he took off his white gloves one by one with a face of revulsion and threw them into the hands of the werebeast who had been following behind him.
The werebeast already understood that he had to throw the gloves away without being told. "King, the bath is ready. Will you be heading back now?"
King looked at his hands. They didn't look dirty at all, but he couldn't help feeling disgusted.
"I wonder what came over me earlier, but when I saw Reese being bullied, I just felt compelled to teach her bullies a lesson, although I clearly could have avoided it…"
"I'll go to the interrogation room first."
Actually, King used to study at the best imperial military academy in the world. At the time, apart from himself, there were also other classmates, teachers, and regular residents of the planet, who detested the space bandits as well.
These bandits had committed almost every sin in the book. They were a syndicate established by galactic wanderers, who had recruited those of stronger races to rob other galactic wanderers together. They killed and pillaged those who were weaker, while they chose to traffic those who were younger, especially the good-looking children. Selling them to privileged planets as slaves made them huge profits.
No matter the era, children always represented the hope and future of a race. Hence, the actions of these bandits could mean a fatal disaster for the more vulnerable races. There were many occasions where the imperial military academy had used the excuse of intern training to send their officers out to round up and suppress these space bandits.
Unfortunately, their whereabouts had always been unpredictable and elusive. Each time their main hideout was discovered, it would have been abandoned by the time it was raided. The officers could only curse silently but could do nothing about it. In recent years, they had been able to capture some of them but hadn't been able to infiltrate its core and capture the syndicate's true kingpins.
Unexpectedly, when King infiltrated this hospital, he discovered that there was still a bandit captain who wasn't high-ranking, but still had a certain amount of authority. King had been looking for an opportunity to interrogate him for the past few months, but there hadn't been any opportunities. Reese's arrival actually helped him quite a fair bit this time.