"What's wrong, my long-legged girl? Why the sudden melancholy?"
As longtime colleagues, Chip Girl Su Enxi and Jiu De Mayi always traded jabs and spouted nonsense at each other. As for the Three Nos... she occasionally traded barbed remarks too, but her tone was like an icy blade from the polar regions... so comparatively speaking, Su Enxi chatted with Jiu De Mayi more often.
"Melancholy my ass! I'm not some Mary Sue shut-in girl who slips into 'fantasy time' at the drop of a hat."
After firing back neither too hard nor too softly, Jiu De Mayi put away the serum, grabbed a pillow from beside her, and flung it at Su Enxi, who was sprawled on a Stowe leather sofa eating chips.
"I'd advise you to eat fewer chips! I know you're using them to suppress your drinking habit, but if your calorie intake keeps exceeding the limit, your figure's going to look worse and worse."
"I don't give a damn! Hey, I've worked my ass off for so many days and exhausted myself. What's wrong with enjoying myself now?"
Su Enxi dodged the flying pillow with a nimble motion while half-reclining, then crunched on chips as she held forth.
"In my opinion, the current Chen Family Head got full marks in conspiracy, planning, and forming cliques. But to maintain the effect of one conspiracy, he often needs countless interlocking conspiracies to patch it up. Look—at a time like this, we only need to pull a few strings, and he's already scrambling around like a dog."
"And our young hero Emiya? He doesn't need any crooked schemes at all. With a casual wave of his hand, any earth-shattering idea he comes up with can set off a brand-new trend among the great families of China, a tide of reform. Isn't that way more badass than some shady clone experiment?"
Su Enxi lay on the sofa chewing chips, yet she looked as though she were sitting on a little stool cracking sunflower seeds while watching a thrilling opera. "The Chen Family is still thinking of dragging the Gattuso Family into this. Oh my God, this astounding move is killing me! More and more actors are taking the stage in this grand show!"
"That may be true... but aren't you and I actors who entered the stage as well?"
Jiu De Mayi leaned back and sat on the sofa too. Her high-tied bun was bound with a bright red ribbon, while two-foot-long locks of jet-black hair hung down beside her cheeks. This look, paired with the sporty image of a high ponytail and her dazzling long legs and proud curves that made countless women green with envy, was exceptionally eye-catching.
She pictured the Chen Family girl who, having lost her place in life because she was a clone, had resolutely embarked on a path toward certain death. Anyone with eyes could see that whether her revenge succeeded or failed, only a vast blank emptiness awaited her at the end. Miss Chen could not find a haven she could truly call safe.
A sudden rush of thoughts welled up within her, and she softly recited, "Perhaps because she knows not dreams, the wandering one chases phantoms."
"What is it, what is it, my long legs? Why do you look so sentimental?" Su Enxi mischievously reached out to mess up her hair, but Jiu De Mayi slapped her hand away. "Could it be that Miss Nono, the one you've been dealing with, has made your sympathy overflow?"
Jiu De Mayi shook her head.
"Did you know? At first, I guessed the boss was guiding Nono this way because she had somehow displeased him. But today, the boss had me deliver this tube to her... If today weren't our last contact, I would have thought this Nono had a chance of joining us!"
Su Enxi's playful expression suddenly turned serious.
"You know that's impossible! The boss needs useful tools like us, not conspicuous troublemakers like Chen Motong who can easily expose themselves! Giving her the Ancient Dragon Serum is only meant to let her provide her final value under our guidance. Don't go doing anything unnecessary on your own—"
"I know, I know! But Chips, do you know? After communicating with that Nono for so many days, she gives me the feeling of someone desperately lacking a sense of security, the type who can't help climbing the moment she sees a rope that resembles hope."
"She isn't some strong girl at all. She merely wraps the unease and suffocating feeling in her heart tightly beneath a hedgehog-like shell. Today, she told me she didn't want to be some foolish monkey waiting in the Water Curtain Cave for Gattuso to take her away, but deep down, she still hopes someone will come for her."
"And this time, we're the ones who gave her hope. So this foolish monkey hopes we'll take her away. Even though she clearly knows she's being used, she'll still obey every word I say. But all we're doing is throwing her away again, onto a dead-end road where no one will come to take her away."
Jiu De Mayi described everything in as calm a tone as she could, but Su Enxi's next words still struck precisely at the heart of her pain like a sharp blade.
"This isn't your sympathy overflowing. You saw yourself in her!"
Su Enxi understood Jiu De Mayi's mindset. Jiu De Mayi regarded herself as the boss's "sword," as a tool. Ever since making a contract with the boss, she had treated his missions as the meaning of her continued existence.
In a sense, Jiu De Mayi did not want the boss to discard her, just as Nono did not want to be discarded by the person who had taken her away.
"I can understand that mindset of yours, but how should I put it? Let go of your urge to save people and respect their fate... Oh, no, follow the fate arranged by the boss. Maybe the boss has other plans and will have some kind person take this Nono away?"
Su Enxi shook her head. Her mindset was different from Jiu De Mayi's.
Though she, the little accountant maid, looked like an employee, she was actually the boss's partner. If the boss wanted her to make money, she made him money. If he wanted to go crazy, she went crazy with him. But if the boss wanted to terminate their contract one day, she was not about to hang herself or jump off a cliff and die over it.
Tang City, Zhou Family.
Zhou Yuxuan directed a group of workers as they cleaned up the traces left behind by Emiya and Old Tang's exhibition match, then repaved the smooth road.
Tang City covered several million square meters in total. The places Emiya and Old Tang had damaged did not even amount to a fraction of it. Even though the land here was terrifyingly expensive because of the Zhou Family, such minor losses were hardly worth mentioning compared to the profits that followed.
"Yuxuan, long time no see. How come you've gotten so much thinner again?"
A burly, bearded man in a traditional jacket and long robe approached from ahead. His muscular arms and pectorals looked large enough to race horses across, making the lean Zhou Yuxuan look like a bean sprout beside him.
Zhou Yuxuan had met this man before. The burly man was Wu Jianhong, the Wu Family Head. But in terms of their relationship, Zhou Yuxuan had only glimpsed him from afar behind Wa Lord during mutual visits between the great families on holidays. They had never exchanged a single word. Zhou Yuxuan was not qualified to associate privately with the heads of other families, but the situation was now vastly different.
Ever since Wa Lord sent the footage of Emiya and Old Tang's exhibition match to several great families, their attitudes had made an immediate one-hundred-eighty-degree turn. They all sent people to request an audience with Wa Lord.
Wa Lord grew so annoyed by the disturbances that she waved them away, saying she was too busy to receive them. So they unanimously redirected their attention and came to curry favor with her close attendant instead.
Thanks to @Exploding Heavens Gang's Upright Sleazy Old Man, @Yuan Jingyuan, @Passerby653, @XingyuDragon, @KirovAirship1988, @BewitchingSevenEmotions, @Reader20200127210121611, @Reader20221204130854311, @Reader20230701035247275, @Starry Phantom Glaze, and @Han Court Patriarch for the monthly tickets!
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