Bone Broth Could Keep You Alert and Nourish Your Stomach
December 24, 2024.
Christmas Eve.
Christmas -themed Volga car was parked outside the Bu Family, emitting a comical trombone sound.
Before long, A Xing was seen rushing out with a backpack on his back and Jiang Xueming and two brocade boxes in his hands. This tall boy, who was 1.9 meters tall, had a very long stride and made an impressive appearance, kicking up clouds of dust as he ran at full speed.
When A Xing saw the Volga car arrive, his eyes filled with anticipation and curiosity, much like when he saw the traveling circus performers at the Flower Street Market. He casually picked up Ming Ge as luggage and took him along.
"Coming, coming!" A Xing knocked on the car window, lifted Jiang Xueming from under his arm with his thigh, and carried him to the window, asking the driver to open the car door.
The Volga got a new bright red paint job, and the halogen headlights were given sparkly pink eyelashes, complete with red and white accessories.
Car window rolled down--
--Reveling 9527 that utterly hopeless expression, he asked, "Have you always treated your brothers like exercise equipment?"
A Xing grabbed the handle on Xue Ming's cotton-padded jacket from behind, as if he were carrying a large handbag. He explained with a grin, "Hehe. The <Alien> dumbbells I usually use weigh no more than 75 kilograms. Ming Ge has gained a lot of weight these past few months, so they're perfect for maintaining his training condition!"
Jiang Xueming's head happened to be right next to the car window. Seeing Seventh Brother's listless appearance, he put the Steel Heart back on his ring finger and took out a box of cookies from his cotton-padded coat.
"These are some snacks I brought for you. Bailu and I made them ourselves."
"Oh!" Xiao Qi perked up immediately, snatched the gift box, and unwrapped it quickly and smoothly, untying the colored paper and ribbon in less than two seconds.
Xue Ming was quite envious of those moves— Xiao Qi seemed to have become even more skilled. Four months ago, when she was demonstrating her bartending skills, her hands weren't this dexterous.
"It smells so good!" Xiao Qi smelled the sweet, milky aroma of the cookies, popped one into her mouth, and her eyes lit up as she chewed.
Jiang Xueming remained suspended in mid-air. After delivering the gift, her arms hung naturally at her sides without any further movement.
Seeing this, Xiao Qi was filled with curiosity. While popping a snack into her mouth, she asked, "Employer, what happened? How did you become a cripple?"
"In winter, I just can't muster any energy," Jiang Xueming said frankly. "In the past four months, I've gained eight kilograms, and my metabolism and hormone levels have changed drastically, so I'm sleeping longer and longer."
"Oh! You're about to complete your second metamorphosis!" Xiao Qi exclaimed excitedly. "Your corundum has responded to you; it needs you to remain calm. Transforming from an egg to a nymph requires a great deal of mental energy!"
"I can vaguely feel that my body is gradually catching up with my mind. A Xing also said that he can no longer feel any Inspiration Pressure from me, as if all the spiritual essence has returned to my body. If it is not necessary, I try to reduce my activity time and keep quiet." Xue Ming's eyelids drooped, looking half awake.
"Hehehe, you look kind of cute with that dazed look on your face!" Xiao Qi grinned, crumbs of biscuits sticking out from between her teeth.
Jiang Xueming pursed her lips, looking like a doll that wasn't fully charged. "If you like it, that's fine."
"Seventh Brother! Shall we go?!" A Xing was trying to climb into the car and squeeze Ming Ge into the back seat.
"Wait! I dressed up specially today! Let your Ming Ge take a good look at me!" Xiao Qi immediately opened the car door and jumped out.
She hadn't worn high heels many times and was almost stumped by the twelve-centimeter stilettos. Stepping onto the asphalt in front of the Bu Family, she revealed her beautiful and fit figure under the streetlights.
She wore a brown and black reindeer-themed dress with a fur trim and warm tights underneath. Her hair was braided into pigtails and draped on either side of her collarbone. She wore Steel Heart made of black ribbon around her neck.
She had a touch of rosy blush on her cheeks, looked very energetic, and her eyes were full of anticipation.
She spun around in place, her skirt lifting up in the process.
"How's it going! How's it going? Your little reindeer has come to pick you up!"
When Bu Liuxing mentioned Ming Ge, he treated Ming Ge's head like a security scanner, scanning him from a low position down to his beautiful legs, waist, hips, and top of the head.
"It's fine." Jiang Xueming said expressionlessly, without any change in expression.
Xiao Qi pouted, clearly annoyed. "Tch! I thought you'd say something else."
"I'm not good at praising people, and I haven't read many books," Xue Ming bluntly stated. "But I think it's very impolite to comment on a girl's appearance—if you ask me what I think, I can only say, 'Pretty good.'"
Xiao Qi rephrased the question, "Do you like it?"
Xue Ming countered with, "Do you like it?"
Xiao Qi tilted her head and squatted down in front of Xue Ming: "It's not comfortable. These shoes are so awkward, but I see bloggers on Little Red praising them every day, saying that wearing them will improve your posture! So I wanted to try them, but now I have trouble even walking."
"Your shoes are already beautiful." Xue Ming didn't say anything, but spoke gently based on her own experience, "I saw you walking barefoot at home before, when we cooked together, and your posture was very good. There's no need to make things difficult for yourself; just be comfortable walking and dressed comfortably."
"Huh?" Xiao Qi suddenly froze, her face turning bright red.
Immediately afterwards, Xue Ming tugged at A Xing's clothes, wanting to drive A Xing to the front of the Volga.
He skillfully retrieved Xiao Qi's waiter's cloth shoes from the front shelf.
Xue Ming asked, "Will you do it yourself, or should I help you change it?"
"Me! Me! Me! Me! I can do it myself!" Just as Xiao Qi was about to bend down, a button on her slimming, trendy chiffon dress popped open, and the zipper started to creak.
Meteor's face contorted from trying to suppress a laugh, "Pfft!"
In that instant, Xue Ming awoke from his dozing state, Inspiration reminding him of a powerful killing intent emanating from somewhere unknown.
He frowned and glared into the distance. "Are there enemies?"
"No, no, no," Xiao Qi forced a smile, "Not an enemy. A scoundrel."
She was filled with deep regret.
--I bought the dress in size M, but I didn't expect that the muscles in my shoulders, neck, waist, and spine would be so different from the skinny figures of those online celebrities. I even have trouble bending over.
Xue Ming had long since discerned Seventh Brother's unspeakable secret.
He held Xiao Qi's ankle and helped Xiao Qi change her shoes.
Just as one foot was changed, I noticed boiling water starting to appear on Xiao Qi's face.
Xue Ming explained, "Don't misunderstand. I just think you look better in these shoes. Twelve-centimeter heels are really too difficult, and they're not safe to drive in either. I'm quite afraid of dying."
"Mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm." Xiao Qi just covered her face, and through her fingers, you could see a shyness even more intense than her blush.
After changing her shoes, Xue Ming said again, "Take your hands away."
Xiao Qi nodded and did as instructed.
Xue Ming took out a tissue from his cotton-padded coat and, as usual, wiped Xiao Qi's mouth clean.
At that moment, the passenger window rolled down.
--3301 dressed as Santa Claus, his face full of anger.
She pushed up her glasses, adjusted the big red hat on her head, and muttered curses.
"Can't you two stop this? Don't you care whether others can stand it or not? Ugh!--"
The final howl, like a wolf's roar, startled A Xing so much that he quickly scrambled into the car and pulled Ming Ge to the back seat.
Then--
--Volga went with the flow, Yingtian, as if he were under the spell of causality. He was stuck in traffic on the busiest and most bustling street in Hong Kong on Christmas Eve.
At this juncture, the four of them chatted idly.
3301 gave A Xing a cold greeting.
"Employer, it's a wonderful thing you're still alive. Although you're still young and destined to die young, you must have long been prepared to die under the peony blossoms. I hope you can bring me more shocks and surprises on this journey."
A Xing didn't understand, but he just chuckled and replied, "This little sister has always been very good at talking."
9527 chimed in, "Mr. Bu Liuxing, you're almost done with your second transformation, aren't you?"
"Oh! Maybe?!" A Xing pulled out the passenger logbook and pointed to the newly added guide page, "My sleep schedule is really weird right now. I can sleep for twenty hours straight, then stay awake for sixty hours, and then sleep for another twenty hours right after that."
The nymphal forms that evolve are also different depending on the color of the passenger's pyroxene.
Judging from the Rose Shining Stone of Bu Liuxing, his spiritual essence is undergoing a constant, excited process of charging and discharging. It's like a larva in an egg stretching its limbs, struggling and probing again and again, until finally growing limbs.
Ms. 3301 cheered and started yelling, "Wow! Really? Well done, employer! If you can complete your third transformation next year and I meet my performance targets, I can get a big job and a lot of freelance work! I'll get four months of vacation!"
Meteor scratched his head, not quite understanding his servant's thought process, and quietly asked Seventh Brother.
"Was this the same before in 3301? I'm not well-educated, and I've never seen anyone howl like a wolf every day."
"Don't mind it, I'm a Lapis Lazuli Guards," 3301 explained. "It's an occupational hazard."
--The so-called Lapis Lazuli Guards.
They are patrol officers who travel between various stations in the underground world. They are armed employees with special abilities.
If the first piece of jewelry a passenger receives is Lapis Lazuli —this quality of [contemplation], [reasoning], [planning], and [tracing origins] could earn the passenger an extra Lapis Lazuli Guards's law enforcement badge.
The main function of the Lapis Lazuli Guards is to capture hunters and stop crime, and they exchange the hunters' bounties for money, which can be considered a side job.
Like Victor's attendant, he was also a Lapis Lazuli Guards.
To protect the local police officers at these stations, and for the safety of their families, these officers usually have a special code name to conceal their real names.
Professor Victor's personal attendant is codenamed [Bloodhound].
Most VIPs and their attendants take on this part-time job, so people in the upper echelons of the station often use pseudonyms instead of their real names.
Victor is an oddball—besides writing books, he also has to be a translator for the boss. He has absolutely no interest in this bounty hunter-like side job and always uses his real name.
The Lapis Lazuli Guards needs to undergo an advanced ritual to enhance her tracking senses. As 3301 mentioned, her occupational hazard is that she likes to howl like a wolf when she has nothing to do—this allows her to distinguish olfactory details that are difficult for ordinary people to detect.
As for this ritual—that's another story.
They were stuck in traffic from Christmas Eve until 3 a. m. on Christmas.
Finally, we returned to the Houwang Hall at Nine Realms Station. The Council of Five Kings was almost full today, with people who came to handle business stretching out onto the main road outside the reception hall.
If you want to hold a festival in the underground world, have a great time with your family, and go on a shopping spree, there will always be places to spend money. Since there are no branches at the various trading hubs, you can only get cash from HC by going to the main train station.
Jiang Xueming was in a semi-conscious state, which made 9527 very worried.
Corundum is a very strange stone.
--It likes a quiet and peaceful owner, and will also make the owner more quiet and Zen-like, especially during the crucial moment of the second [transformation], when the owner will become like a BOSS, and may fall asleep at any time.
All the spiritual essence will return to Xue Ming's body, slowly accumulating power, gradually expanding the egg's outer shell, and finally completing the transformation.
Xiao Qi privately asked her boss, "Is it really okay for the employer to continue traveling in this condition?"
The boss only replied with four words.
"Go ahead and deal with him!"
Since it was the BOSS's arrangement, Xiao Qi had nothing to say. She just hoped that the employer could still complete the bell-ringing action in a half-asleep state!
As for that stick of unknown origin--
This will probably give employers a headache for a while.
9527 told the other three to line up while he went to the station's luggage storage and retrieved the stick of unknown origin.
She had consulted the Cat Tree Lady and the boss about what the stick actually was.
The cat was completely horrified when the BOSS saw this thing.
I learned from the Cat Tree Lady—
--This is a key to Mingde's success.
In the very beginning, within the council of the twelve schools of commerce in the underworld, there was a single [remains of Mingde].
The staff made from the remains of the BOSS has a very important symbolic meaning, much like the dragon-headed staff in the Chamber of Commerce school.
Whoever gets this bone will become the head of the Senate.
Engineering Institute and Agricultural Institute, mainly based at Redstone, as well as the Third Transportation Department Fourth Transportation Department.
These places mostly deal in food and medicine, and the transmission of skills is mainly through master-apprentice relationships. Therefore, the ownership of the sticks is in the hands of highly respected masters of the school. These masters have usually undergone five or six transformations. Both their spiritual essence and their personal skills are ridiculously strong.
If it were any other stone of the five colors, but one of the blue ones, from the Business Law Academy or a logistics company, the person who could obtain this stick would either be from a wealthy family or have exceptional abilities; they would all be renowned figures.
The problem is, even the BOSS doesn't find this club rare. To him, the remains are like claws from his behemoth body, more useful for dealing with Spirit Calamity, and a gift for those who are brave and skilled in combat or have exceptional craftsmanship.
Once something is given away, the boss won't ask for it back. It's like Little Kitty catching a mouse for you because it's worried you'll starve.
As for the additional meaning and symbolic significance of this stick, these were all imposed upon it by the passengers.
If Xue Ming obtains this relic, it means he has a connection with a certain council of elders.
In order to find out which unlucky kid had lost the dragon-headed staff in the Senate, Seventh Brother used his connections again and conducted a thorough investigation.
Finally, tracing back to the source...
--This school of thought was found within the Black Crystal Clan.
There has always been a mysterious Senate in the underworld. It does not teach people how to do things, nor does it impart any skills. There is no fighting or strife. The students or craftsmen there rarely speak, but simply travel in silence. Their stones are mostly black and white, with a very few being pure-colored corundum and white crystal glass ornaments.
The Senate's presence in the underworld was not negligible; it was practically nonexistent.
Because its main function is to help people calm down, free from fear, anger, sadness, joy, and rage, etc.—it's practically an emotional dumping ground, providing psychological counseling—and its name is quite ordinary: [Anonymous].
Xiao Qi made a special trip to the Grand Archives to check the history of the Senate, and actually found quite a few strange passengers.
One of the guests was named Luo Ping'an.
This guy wrote an autobiography, saying that during the Zhenguan era, he was recruited into the palace as an actor because of his good looks. Empress Wu took a great liking to him, but Mr. Ping An refused to perform, so he was exiled to the south to do hard labor by digging tunnels. He dug out a Peach Blossom Spring and escaped there, living there for more than a thousand years.
Mr. Ping An cultivated immortality and refined his mind and body in Peach Blossom Spring. He mistakenly thought that the radiant stone was a spiritual stone and used the radiant stone to seek longevity. As a result, he actually cultivated and underwent six transformations, becoming a VIP. Finally, he dug up the railway, found the station, and registered.
Even today, Mr. Ping An still believes that the Soul's Glory manifested on his body is his external avatar, and that if he cultivates for several thousand more years, he should be able to ascend to the Immortal Realm.
This is the [Nameless Man] who emerged from the underworld more than eighty years ago, spending his days discussing the principles of divination and the way of heaven, and providing psychological counseling to passengers.
Whether this autobiography is genuine or not remains unknown.
According to Ling Weng, black stones are generally obsidian, a type of volcanic rock, which symbolizes the absorption of energy and knowledge, calmness and introversion, and a strong sense of curiosity.
Colorless stones, primarily composed of clear quartz and corundum, are symbols that release energy and knowledge, while also conveying tranquility, composure, focus, and equanimity. Their inner meaning is quite profound.
Further investigation revealed that Xiao Qi, a notorious gossip enthusiast and leader, had stumbled upon her own personal scandal.
Her master possessed the remains of the Black Stone Senate and was also a disciple of Daoist Master Ping'an.
The autobiographical story of the Great Library takes a direct leap into the fantasy genre from here.
However, Xiao Qi never saw his master mention this thing for anything important.
Finally, Xiao Qi pondered—Master probably didn't want to be an emotional dumping ground, which is why he was so low-key.
As for the remains that Xue Ming brought—
Xiao Qi didn't take it seriously at all.
It's just an urban legend circulating in the underworld.
Long ago, about three or four hundred years ago, there was a group of strange, nameless people who wanted people to live peacefully and try to live as long as possible—like knife sellers, strange fortune tellers, feng shui masters who searched for auspicious burial sites, and so on. As time went on, there were also many private detectives, psychologists, and psychiatrists.
Later, this organization gradually disappeared from the glamorous and decadent underworld, which is probably related to the relentless march of time.
After all, in modern society, who isn't hysterically indulging in debauchery on the stage of life? In comparison, [Anonymous] in other derivative industries of the Senate are practically like a group of monks and Daoists who eat vegetarian food, chant Buddhist scriptures, and build ships to cross the sea of suffering.
This relic is not a symbol of power or wealth, and has no direct connection with any school of thought, the Senate, or even the various industries of the underworld today. Giving it to Xue Ming to use should not be a bad thing, after all, it still possesses a portion of the BOSS's power, and is a very powerful tool for breaking superstitions and dealing with Spirit Calamity.
After Xiao Qi explained these things clearly...
Jiang Xueming sprang up immediately from his half-awake state.
He wondered, "What game gives you max-level equipment right from the start?"
He was going to use this stick to beat up the enemy? He figured his character level wasn't high enough!
Based on the description from this anonymous member of the "Scholar of the Wrongful Seeds" school, he felt that this thing was unacceptable. Even if it wasn't a hot potato, eating just sweet potatoes might cause an allergic reaction.
"If I sell this, will I be able to pay back the money I owe you?"
"You're looking for black and white stones and corundum? These three types of people are extremely rare in the underworld, truly exceptional. Only they would be interested in this bone, and even if they were, they might not be able to afford the price. And even if they could," Xiao Qi pondered, "It's hard to guarantee that there won't be guys like the business school who manipulate the auction, maliciously bidding to profit from it. These little rascals who study math and finance are very clever. They say ordinary passengers are like working oxen that eat grass and do the work, while those who control the pyroxene coins are the real predators."
Xiao Qi shrugged indifferently and continued.
"Employer, people like you are all very laid-back. You would never do a losing deal if it's not meant to be. How about I take this bone to the trading hub and give it a try? I'm bored anyway. Maybe if I get lucky, I can get a few girlfriends to hype it up and turn it into a new concept product, like the Metaverse digital collectibles, and sell it. The game of musical chairs still works these days. After all, this superstition probably won't be broken for another ten thousand years—people always have a gambling instinct."
Jiang Xueming returned to her luggage form, hanging on A Xing's hand.
"Then forget it, let's save it for soup. Maybe if I'm lucky, after drinking this bowl of soup, I'll be like that Daoist priest in your story, and really achieve great skill."