She just stood there, dazed, holding a small card in her hand—like a girl next door who'd just woken from a dream and hadn't figured out where she was yet.
Looking at this "airheaded beauty" and her familiar outfit, an extremely ominous premonition surged through Cloud's heart.
No way...
Could it be...?
Just then, the girl tilted her head, seemingly trying hard to remember something.
Then she looked down at the card in her hand and, in a completely flat voice with a pure-as-pure-gets Sichuan accent, read out word by word:
"Hello... bosses. My name is... Feng Baobao."
"I'm from... Taiwan... an exchange student."
"My hobbies are... singing, dancing, rap... and... basketball?"
After finishing, she gave Cloud and Commander Zuo an extremely clumsy "Chicken You're So Beautiful" hand gesture.
The air froze solid.
Commander Zuo's battle-weathered face showed confusion for the first time in what must have been decades.
He couldn't understand a single thing this girl was saying. It just felt... weird.
Meanwhile, Cloud had completely petrified.
His jaw dropped wide enough to fit a Haoh Shoukou Ken, his mind blank, ears ringing with only that magical Sichuan dialect.
Bao... Baobao-jie?!
The one from Hitori no Shita—identity mysterious, power unfathomable, normally cute as a button but in battle transformed into "Baobao the Merciless," casually burying people with her shovel?!
System!
I asked for an "airhead" teammate, not someone who speaks Sichuan dialect and knows the "Eighteen Burial Techniques"!
Cloud felt his entire worldview being rebuilt from the ground up.
One was the righteous, demon-slaying Commander of the Imperial Guard.
One was the shovel-wielding, people-burying Baobao-jie.
This... what even was this team?!
If he brought these two to KOF 94, wouldn't people think he'd escaped from some mental institution?
"So... you're... my boss?" Baobao finished her script, put away the card, and tilted her head, studying Cloud with those pure, innocent eyes.
"Ah... yes, that's me." Cloud swallowed hard, feeling immense pressure.
He looked at these two "Eastern Dragon, Western Phoenix"—one hard, one soft, one stoic, one spacey—and his emotions were... complicated.
He knew that his KOF 94 journey was destined to become... exceptionally "exciting" and "thrilling."
At least in terms of "memeing," this "Cross-Dimensional Alliance" of his was absolutely championship-tier.
...
The next morning, when Mai Shiranui and Yuri Sakazaki hummed their way over to Cloud's villa for their usual "sweet duo session," they froze in their tracks at what they saw.
On the lawn, a man in ancient Chinese robes, radiating "approach and die" iron-blooded energy and sporting a gnarly scar across his face, was meticulously practicing a fierce, murderous saber technique against the rising sun.
Each slash tore through the air with a shriek, leaving no doubt that if this blade hit a person, it would cleave them body and soul in half.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the lawn, a black-haired beauty in loose sportswear, expression vacant, was squatting on the ground with a military entrenching tool, very seriously, very professionally... digging a hole.
She dug with such focus, such expertise.
As if the meaning of her entire existence was to dig one perfect, appropriately-sized, exactly-deep-enough-to-fit-an-adult-human pit after another.
By the poolside, Cloud sat with two enormous dark circles under his eyes, drinking coffee with the expression of a man who had given up on life.
"Cloud... Cloud..." Mai pointed at the two bizarrely-contrasted figures on the lawn, stammering. "These two are...?"
"Oh, my new teammates," Cloud replied lifelessly.
"New... teammates?" Yuri blinked her big curious eyes. "You... you actually went to South Town's job market to recruit?!"
They'd thought Cloud was joking yesterday. Turns out... he actually did it?! And succeeded?!
"Yep." Cloud nodded, internally screaming.
Recruiting? More like "Cross-Dimensional Direct Hire"—no resume screening needed, just airdrop straight in.
"Let me introduce you." Cloud stood up and pointed at the saber-wielding man. "This is Commander Zuo. My... personal bodyguard and frontline striker."
Then he pointed at the hole-digging girl. "This is Feng Baobao. My... life assistant and backup plan."
Mai and Yuri exchanged bewildered glances, feeling like their brains weren't quite enough to process this.
One looked like an ancient Chinese general who'd time-traveled here. The other looked like a runaway airhead teenager...
What even IS this?!
Cloud, which rock did you dig these two "hidden masters" out from under?!
"Do they... know how to fight?" Mai asked cautiously.
"If they really can't cut it, I could help you ask around at the Kyokugenryu dojo..." Yuri added meekly.
"Fight? Oh yeah, they can," Cloud's mouth twitched. "In fact... they're very good at it."
Good was an understatement. These two were professionals.
One specialized in cutting people. One specialized in burying them. Full-service package—"closed-loop operations."
Last night, when Cloud tried to assess his new teammates' abilities, he'd nearly been "sent off."
Commander Zuo had simply drawn his Spring-Autumn blade and casually twirled it in a flourish. The razor-sharp sword qi had left a deep crack in the bulletproof glass window behind Cloud.
As for Baobao, when he'd asked "What can you do?"—she'd stared at him blankly for three seconds, then produced a kitchen knife from god-knows-where, and asked in that flat Sichuan tone:
"Boss, you want 'em alive, or dead?"
In that moment, Cloud felt even his Absolute Domain trying to turtle back into his body.