After the awards ceremony, Ji Jue handed the remaining matters over to the staff and boarded the Tong Family's airship straight back to Yacheng.
Little Cow and Horse was loaded with gifts he had asked relay station staff to buy for him along the way, bags upon bags of them. It first made a trip to Continent Auto Repair Shop to "unload"—rice, pearls, decorative handicrafts, root carvings... piled into a small mountain big enough to bury even Youngest.
Considering Lu Ma's habits, he had bought specialties that were not particularly expensive, merely rare outside their places of origin.
"It's troublesome enough going out, and you brought back so much stuff. There's nowhere to put it, and it's such a waste of money."
Lu Ma did not even look at the gifts. She grabbed Ji Jue's hand and examined him from head to toe. Once she confirmed that he had neither lost nor gained weight, she smiled so hard her eyes narrowed into slits. "You seem much more spirited after going out. Just a little darker."
"Darker?"
Even Lu Feng, who had been idly picking at his feet nearby, burst out laughing. "That's the first time I've heard someone say a Yacheng native got tanned while traveling elsewhere..."
He immediately received Lu Ma's special treatment instead, as she berated him, "What are you laughing at? You're so black you look like a toad, and you still have the nerve to laugh at someone else! All you know how to do is lie around. You never notice any work that needs doing. Are you going to make Xiao Ling carry all this by herself?"
As she spoke, she went up and kicked him, booting Lu Feng to his feet like a dog.
Lu Feng did not dare say a word. Covering his