Chapter 13
In the end, Ji Linglu placed that small portrait inside the embroidered pouch Yun Ningqing had sewn for her and kept it close to her body.
The old portraits were not wasted either. They were properly placed in another little box.
—Inside the box was still a whole stack of old small portraits. From the brushwork alone, one could tell that Ji Linglu’s painting skills had improved year by year. After all, even a pervert could not be trained in a single day. It was surely a process accumulated over time.
Immature painting skills, an immature Yun Ningqing, and overflowing, vigorous love—this was the daily life of the Senior and Junior Sisters of Mingguang Peak.
Ji Linglu could not help flipping through them, the corners of her lips holding a gentle smile that was three parts similar to Yun Ningqing’s.
From her self-satisfied expression, one could tell that this person absolutely had no sense of shame at all. She did not think there was anything wrong with secretly drawing small portraits of Senior Sister and carrying them around with her. Perhaps she even regretted that when she was little, she had been too short, with hands too small, and had not been able to draw Yun Ningqing as she had been then.
The system wanted to say something, but held it back.
If there had only been one small portrait, it might have become troublesome if picked up by an outsider. But Ji Linglu had more than a hundred small portraits here, enough to hand out as missing-person notices. And Ji Linglu would never allow anyone else to see or touch the small portraits she had drawn of her Senior Sister anyway.
After all, if this person were a scallop, then it would be the biggest heavenly dumpling among all the systems in Main God Space.
The system carefully observed Ji Linglu’s expression and found that she seemed to be in quite a good mood right now. So it gathered its courage, planning to take a roundabout approach.
If selling misery could make the vicious host do missions, the system wished it could put on sunglasses and go shouting under an overpass right now!
[Host, you know this. I left Main God Space right after I was manufactured and came to this world with you. You and I depend on each other for survival, cross the river in the same boat, and are grasshoppers tied to the same rope. What I mean by saying all this is… please do a mission! I’m begging you!]
The system looked tearlessly at the mission list that had never once been opened.
[Move your noble little hand and open the mission list!] The system gritted its teeth, trying to tempt this stone-hearted bad woman. [As long as you open it, I’ll privately subsidize you with ten reform points! I’ll use my authority and help you open the shop early! You have to know, normally only after completing the first reform mission can the shop open. The exchange rate between points and top-grade spirit stones is one to ten! One hundred points can be exchanged for one yellow-grade spirit vein!]
Since threats did not work, it could only tempt her with benefits.
[Don’t think ten points is too little. When systems from our batch leave the factory, each system only has twenty points of private money. It’s the subsidy the Main God gives systems!]
Cough. In truth, it was one hundred points. Once the host began doing missions, the system could even get a cut. Fifty-fifty!
The amount of points marked after each mission in the mission list was already the price after being watered down and watered down again. In truth, the Main God first took half, then the system and host divided the remaining half. In other words, the points the host received were only one quarter of the normal reward.
If not for the fact that making a horse run required feeding the horse grass, and that some outstanding hosts could even be hired into Main God Space to carry out all kinds of missions in various small worlds just like systems and become true insiders, newbie hosts probably would not even receive one tenth of the profits.
It did not tell the truth and instead pretended to be cutting off its own flesh and bleeding. Unfortunately, Ji Linglu still did not believe it. These past few days, she had been waiting for it to make a move, to see whether this so-called higher-dimensional existence could run wild without restraint on Yunyin Continent. Who would have known this ghostly thing had also learned to be clever? Knowing it could not clash with her head-on, it began pretending to be crazy and foolish.
Ji Linglu clicked her tongue inwardly. It seemed this ghostly thing even had its own private treasury. It had quite a few little schemes.
Since it was showing weakness, Ji Linglu immediately followed along.
The system had stated its demands, so now it was her turn to play pitiful and act miserable.
—This dead thing was too strange. She had to get rid of it quickly, lest it slip into Senior Sister’s mind when she was not paying attention and start spouting those outrageous, ghostly lies, dirtying Senior Sister’s ears.
Even if she could not send it away, she had to make it behave.
“Senior Sister and I have depended on each other since we were little. From the moment I opened my eyes, she was the only one in my world. If I leave her, I cannot live.”
Ji Linglu looked on the verge of tears. “Only when I’m with Senior Sister can I feel my own existence.”
“Family affection, friendship, love—all feelings are concentrated on one person. Long ago, I already lost any path of retreat.”
Ji Linglu’s expression was melancholy, but in truth, her heart was incomparably calm as she began describing her own pitiful background. Everyone had bullied them. Their heroic master could not protect them at all, and instead made them incomparably conspicuous in the cultivation world. Everyone thought Mingguang Zhenjun had left Yun Ningqing and Ji Linglu a vast fortune.
Because when the human race had suffered a joint invasion from the demon race and the yao race, Mingguang Zhenjun had been the wartime Alliance Leader of the immortal sects. On the surface, both the immortal sects and aristocratic families had to obey her commands.
But the world never thought about it. With Mingguang Zhenjun’s free-spirited, unruly, warmhearted nature, even if there had been several hundred spirit veins beneath Mingguang Peak, she would have scattered the spirit stones from a thousand spirit veins outside to help the suffering people of the world.
Ji Linglu could not be a savior who rescued the suffering and delivered people from hardship. She only needed to take care of the little home that belonged to her and Yun Ningqing.
She told the system one heartfelt truth. “To me, your reform mission is like cutting flesh with a dull knife, making me move step by step away from Senior Sister. I might as well have died swiftly and cleanly at Baima Pass.”
At least then, she would have earned more than two hundred years together with Yun Ningqing.
This time, Qingqing definitely had to die for love with her. Even if they died, they had to die together.
Ji Linglu let out a long sigh.
But words were words. Ji Linglu still summoned the mission list with her thoughts, then in the next second, without any teacher, tapped the tiny cross symbol in the upper right corner and closed the mission interface.
She immediately reached a hand toward the air. “Ten points. Give them to me.”
Judging by the way the ghostly thing seemed to be gritting its teeth and aching with reluctance, the points it spoke of were definitely good things. She would take them if they were free.
If the ghostly thing could not keep its word, then hehe.
[You are puruly a bastard!] The system choked, holding back the urge to burst into loud sobs. [Meeting you has made my whole life like walking on green-bean ice.]
If the vicious host did not do missions, where was it supposed to get points from!
It only had one hundred points, and now it had to give the vicious host ten of them. The problem was that she still was not doing missions. She had accepted the sugar coating and thrown the cannonball right back!
Who could possibly be more shrewd than her?
Even throwing a meat bun at a dog was not done like this!
No wonder the Main God did not give newbie hosts a beginner’s gift pack. It turned out the system itself was the host’s gift pack!
Ji Linglu did not understand its little humor. She only felt that it was very noisy and frowned in distaste. “Straighten your tongue before you speak.”
It was already strange, bizarre, and not very clever. If it could no longer even speak human language properly, what difference would there be between it and a true evil creature? Once she squeezed out all its value, she could send it west early.
The system’s code shivered. It comforted itself and convinced itself.
It refused to believe that with so many good things in the shop, the vicious host’s pleasure-loving nature would not be tempted after seeing them!
As long as she exchanged for something once, there would be a second time, a third time, and even countless times!
But everything in the shop required points to purchase. If the vicious host wanted them, then she could only actively do missions.
[Fine, fine, fine! I’ll give them to you! You greedy little girl!] The system indignantly scraped ten points from its own little treasury and transferred them into the host’s account.
Ji Linglu fell into thought as she looked at the dazzling, varied shop interface.
A bad premonition rose in the system. [Ten points can buy a lot of things. Why don’t you look some more?]
“Do you have the authority to offer discounts and concessions?”
Ji Linglu learned and applied it immediately. She had only just learned the word “authority” and already used it right away.
[???] The system simulated a heavy thud, like something massive smashing onto the ground. [Do you know that once I use my authority, when I return to Main God Space, the corresponding module score for using that authority will automatically be deducted from my settlement rating!]
Ji Linglu remained unmoved. What she thought inwardly was that this ghostly thing was considering things quite far ahead. Whether it could return at all was still another matter.
“Now I know. But one more time won’t make much difference, will it?”
The system, in a fit of anger, became angry for one brief moment. [Is a system’s life not also a life?!]
Ji Linglu sneered. “It’s still better than letting others enjoy all the glory while your mission fails and you slink back in disgrace.”
The system had already accepted its fate, but it still remained stubborn with its mouth. [And whose fault is that!?]
Ji Linglu refused to carry that black pot. Spreading both hands, she said, “Blame whoever made you come here. I wish I could beat gongs and drums right now and send you back to your Main God Space.”
The system sincerely felt just how unwelcome it was to the vicious host, as well as her dense, chilling malice.
Both sides felt deeply wronged and believed the other party was unreasonable and not a good thing. On this point, at least, both sides could reach a consensus.
[I am only the lowest-level system. At most, I can give you a five percent discount.] The system sounded utterly weak, and even took the initiative to explain, [I’m not lying to you. If you want to unlock more authority, you can only do missions. Then I’ll have room to operate.]
Main God Space was not afraid of systems and hosts colluding to cheat treasures from the shop. It only feared that the two of them together could not complete the mission.
In the next instant, the shop interface changed.
The product names, pictures, and descriptions on it remained the same, but where the prices were listed below, parentheses appeared after the original prices, showing the current prices after the five percent discount. There was also a bright red countdown.
[Only six hours, which is three shichen, of discount time. Hurry and buy. The next discount will be at least a month from now.]
Ji Linglu leaned comfortably against the chair and began browsing through the dazzling array of products.
Seeing that she was not in a hurry to place an order, the system went off on its own to grieve over its little treasury.
By the time it returned, it was already too late. [Wait, wait, wait! Why are you buying so much merfolk silk? In your last life, did the merfolk do nothing after coming ashore, travel thousands of li just to attack Mingguang Peak, or did some merfolk spit at you in the name of eliminating harm for the people, making you hate merfolk so much?!]
Ji Linglu rubbed her ear. “If I don’t buy fabric, how am I supposed to make clothes? Merfolk gauze is so beautiful.”
[You really aren’t going to buy some cultivation methods, secret manuals, heavenly materials, or earthly treasures to improve your cultivation…]
[You dead lovestruck fool! Fine, love yourself to death!]
Comments 0
You must be logged in to comment.
No comments yet. Be the first!