Four Directions Chamber of Commerce

A response soon came: two blue signal flares and one green. A huge magical symbol flashed briefly afterward, resembling four diamonds nested inside one another.

"It's the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce," Zijin explained to Su Ming. "They're the largest chamber of commerce around here, and they're requesting a meeting."

"If they don't pose a threat to us, does that mean our supply problem is solved?" Su Ming asked.

"Of course. When merchants come calling, they're bound to want something," Zijin replied. "A small condition like supplies definitely won't be a problem."

"Great!"

The scholar twirled her staff and sent three green signal flares into the sky. The signal meant: permission granted!

The other side fired an orange flare and a green one, meaning the communication was over and conveying their regards. Zijin replied with a single orange flare, and the scout quickly rode away on the dragonhawk.

"Their liaison will definitely be here in a little while." The scholar dismissed the signal-flare runes and tied up her hair with a hair tie. "Can you get me something a little more presentable to wear-not a suit or a formal dress, just something that makes me look a bit sharper and more put-together-"

"I understand that much. I can do it," Su Ming replied.

The girl currently had only one outfit. As for pajamas, Su Ming had gotten her a red floral set in the Northeastern style. It was time to address that problem.

"You'll need an outfit too. Then we have to tidy up, clean, and put everything on the ship in order," Zijin said, thinking it over. "We also need to clear out a reception room."

"Is some important person coming?" Su Ming asked, puzzled.

Zijin shook her head. "It has nothing to do with how important our visitor is. If we get the details right, it means we're well organized and can handle affairs with ease," she explained to Su Ming. "We already have enough deterrent power. What we need to show is our underlying strength."

"Oh, I get it. Putting on a show to look more impressive than we are."

Zijin gave Su Ming a serious look. "Don't underestimate us. We really are that impressive!"

The scholar's zombie crew naturally took care of the cleaning and tidying. For the reception room, Su Ming casually copied an audience chamber and built the structure, then left the rest of the details to Zijin.

Then he took control of Little Spiky Head and started working on the clothes.

It was two in the afternoon on Earth. Going shopping at a clothing store at this hour was a big problem for a skeleton, and an even bigger problem for the store he visited.

He decided to send Miao Xin out to scout first, while he used Little Spiky Head to pull out a phone and start searching.

"When will the guests arrive?" Su Ming asked Zijin.

The girl went over to the radar and took a look. She even selected one of the dots and casually performed an enhanced scan and zoomed in. "This ship should be theirs. It's 110 kilometers away and moving at twelve knots-so it'll take five hours."

She truly was a titled scholar. Her learning speed made even Su Ming feel a sense of crisis.

Zijin also turned her head and secretly breathed a sigh of relief. After watching so carefully so many times, she was glad she hadn't made a mistake.

Su Ming counted on his fingers. Five hours meant he had to get it done before seven in the evening. Clothing stores on Earth would still be open then.

He couldn't wait until they closed. That gave Su Ming a bit of a headache. A few items of clothing weren't worth disturbing public order over.

After floating around for a while, Miao Xin found a shopping mall and headed for the clothing section. As she passed a camouflage clothing store, Su Ming took a liking to a black camouflage tactical outfit. It looked sharp and would be convenient for all sorts of everyday work.

But that sort of thing wasn't very suitable for Zijin. Su Ming used Miao Xin's vision to browse several stores before finally choosing a mid-length suit dress in a beige-gray color.

There were two similar styles. One was a conventional A-line dress, while the other had a very unconventional asymmetrical design: the left half of the skirt was plain fabric, while the right half was pleated gauze in the same color. The two halves were joined in a striking design.

Meanwhile, Little Spiky Head had arrived at an ATM. He entered the booth, locked the door, then took Miao Xin's bank card and the cash he had looted from the nursing home director's house out of his pocket. There was about fifty thousand in all, and he deposited the lot.

Su Ming logged into a service platform and hired an errand runner for sixty yuan to buy the clothes for him.

"Zijin!" Aboard the Zhiyuan, Zijin was arranging the reception room when Su Ming walked in with a measuring tape.

"Hmm?"

"Your height, weight, shoulder width, and bust, waist, and hip measurements." Su Ming handed her the tape. "Sorry for the trouble, but could you give me those? I'm buying you clothes."

"Buying?" Zijin looked puzzled. "Didn't you steal everything before?"

"That was borrowing! A scholar-" Su Ming protested. "All right, clothes are relatively cheap. There's no need to snatch them."

Zijin was somewhat reluctant, but she cooperated and took her measurements.

"Is it easy to buy clothes for someone with my figure in your world?" she suddenly asked.

"I really don't know much about that." Su Ming was a little stumped by the question. "But it should be easy to buy clothes for a pretty girl, right?"

"You're good at compliments," Zijin said indifferently.

"I've been single all my life for over twenty years, and now someone's actually praised me for knowing what to say," Su Ming said self-deprecatingly. "By the way, do you like pleated skirts?" he asked. He had noticed that the girl's current dress had almost no decoration.

"No. The simpler, the better," Zijin replied.

A black skeleton servant at work caught Su Ming's attention. Like the white skeleton, its entire body was covered in a faint, eerie glow. It looked refined, clearly different from the other bones here.

"A new skeleton?"

"Mm. I hadn't had time to deal with it before. I only found time to summon it today."

The more Su Ming looked at it, the stranger he found it. "Why is it black?"

"Did you forget? You burned it yourself."

He burned it himself? When?

The answer suddenly came to Su Ming. He jumped up, pointed at the skeleton, and shouted, "Galio!"

"That's right. A servant summoned using the corpse of a holy magus as material has good potential to develop intelligence," Zijin explained. "With patient training, it could serve as a butler without any problem. It could even operate some equipment-so I made another one."

Su Ming turned to look at the white skeleton from before and suddenly understood who it was. He gave the scholar a thumbs-up, expressing his heartfelt admiration.

Returning his attention to Little Spiky Head, Su Ming sent over the clothing tag numbers and sizes. The camouflage outfit was easy to buy. The errand runner sent him a QR code, and Su Ming used Miao Xin's phone to scan it and pay. The runner then collected the outfit.

But when he got to the suit dress, the saleswoman told him the size needed altering.

"Your client is a little slim, so the waist needs to be taken in further, and the shoulder width needs adjusting too," she explained. "If we alter it, it won't be ready until tomorrow."

"That's too long to wait." Su Ming thought for a moment, then asked the saleswoman just to tell him how to alter it. He paid and took the dress as it was.

The errand runner was just about to start the delivery when Su Ming stopped him, because he remembered that he had only bought outerwear and forgotten everything else.

Fortunately, he realized it in time.

Su Ming paid the runner extra and had Miao Xin follow him to a nearby store to continue shopping.