Flying Bird City.
The sea breeze blew in from the east, wrapping the streets of the entire port city in a faint salty tang.
Mu Ningxue stood in the top-floor office of the municipal building, with a map of Flying Bird City spread out before her.
She had marked this map dozens of times over with pens of different colors.
Blue marked the commercial districts, green the residential areas, and red the land that needed to be replanned.
She was rolling an ice-blue pushpin between her fingers, holding it over the map without yet deciding where to place it.
Her profile looked especially cool and aloof in the afternoon sunlight, yet there was a gentle softness to her when her lashes were lowered in concentration.
Mu Nujiao sat on the sofa by the window, a thick financial report spread across her lap.
Tang Yue leaned against the other side of the desk, holding a cup of coffee that had long gone cold.
None of the three spoke, but they all had the same thought—where were they supposed to get an Earth Pistil?
Just then, a dark rift silently tore open in the middle of the office.
The three women looked up at once.
Jiang Che stepped out of the rift, with a few grains of yellow sand from the Taklamakan Desert still clinging to the hem of his black windbreaker.
He held the Earth Pistil in his hand as though displaying an ordinary gift he had casually picked up during a trip.
"It had just matured, so I brought it over."
His tone was calm, as though he were merely commenting on the nice weather.
Mu Ningxue's ice-blue eyes settled on his face for a long while.
"Where did you get the Earth Pistil?"
That was something capable of helping