Chapter 271
Ling Yuanhang was far away in Lanshan. Great Yan had only just heard their revelations; even if they flew, they wouldn't have dealt with this person so quickly!
However, his little life was indeed worth a whopping twenty thousand points, second only to Sima Jing.
[Let me take a look!]
In the system space, it ran a data retrieval. Amidst the flickering of massive amounts of data, the system saw the mission line, which looked like a large tree with a straight trunk and countless large and small branches branching out.
Some branches of the entire tree had already been lit up, while others remained dull and unlit.
The system ignored the branches and only looked towards the main trunk.
[Host! The main quest suddenly advanced by five percentage points, so the system gave a reward of twenty thousand points.]
The system looked at the progress bar that had suddenly advanced by five percent, feeling extremely excited.
"The main quest advanced by five percentage points? What did we do to advance it so much all at once? Didn't it always advance at a speed of fractions of a percent before?"
Yue Fuguang really wanted to find the reason and replicate it!
After all, the two of them had exposed so much dirt and sent hundreds, if not thousands, of people down, yet the completion progress was still in the single digits.
With a sudden increase of five points, how could she not want to know the reason behind it?
[It seems we only exposed Ling Yuanhang's dark secrets, and you gave a blessing to the future heir of this dynasty.
It doesn't seem like we did anything extra today!]
The system scratched its smooth, round head, unable to figure out the reason.
[How about I ask the main system?] 07 had already lain flat like a system pancake at this point.
Unable to come up with a result, it wanted to find a parent to seek the answer.
Anyway, it didn't think there was any problem with this. It was still a novice system doing a task for the first time. If it didn't look for a parent, it would look for a senior.
However, System 07 always felt that its seniors seemed to be intentionally or unintentionally avoiding it, as if they didn't really want to chat with it much.
Yue Fuguang didn't want to give up easily. Besides, she felt that asking the main system might not necessarily yield an answer.
"Ling Yuanhang is at best a formidable warlord. Exposing his dirt, or even his death, couldn't possibly advance it by five points.
As for blessing the Crown Prince and the others, that's even more irrelevant. It doesn't even count as a task, and the blessing talismans used were paid for out of my own pocket!"
Yue Fuguang analyzed it point by point, carefully thinking over everything she and the system had said and done tonight.
It couldn't be that the Emperor was scolded as useless by the system and had his fighting spirit roused, right?
The two of them had done their fair share of scolding. If scolding were useful, they wouldn't have had to wait until today.
While Yue Fuguang was brainstorming, Xie Zhiyan's toast had already reached Dongyi.
The little prince of Dongyi, Matsuyama, cupped his hands and said, "Your Highness, Crown Prince of Great Yan, my great Dongyi presents our congratulatory gifts: a hundred pearls, a coral tree, and ten boxes of specialty fruits from Dongyi. We also wish for generations of friendship between our two nations, never to invade each other."
The pearls were very round, the coral was very red, and some of the fruits Yue Fuguang had never seen before; they were small, just like the stature of the Dongyi people, who could never grow tall unless they resorted to crooked methods.
Unable to find the reason for the sudden increase in the task progress bar, Yue Fuguang inevitably felt a bit annoyed.
When she was annoyed, she needed to find someone to vent it on; she wouldn't hold it in and consume herself internally.
Unfortunately for him, the moment Yue Fuguang looked up, she saw Matsuyama, who was holding his head high and puffing out his chest, trying to make his height of less than 1.6 meters look like 1.9 meters.
You're the one!
It had been a long time, and they hadn't really exposed any dark secrets about Dongyi yet.
Yue Fuguang picked and chose on the task panel and finally selected one.
The system received the signal and immediately entered a gossip-consuming state.
After several rounds of drinks and dishes, the crowd, who were already somewhat drunk, mostly leaned halfway back in their chairs.
They were very relaxed, squinting their drunken eyes at the beautiful dancers twirling in the center of the hall.
Yue Fuguang felt that these people needed a beating, so she said, "Little Zhu, look at these lords staring lecherously at the dancers in the hall.
Those who don't know might think they're looking at Tang Monk's flesh."
[Master, eating Tang Monk's flesh can grant immortality, but these dancers can't do that. If they don't exercise some restraint, they will only deplete their bodies and die early.]
As soon as these two ancestors spoke, the alcohol buzz of everyone who heard them instantly sobered up! Not having time to wonder where to find immortality-granting Tang Monk's flesh, they all first drank a cup of cold tea to calm their nerves!
Once they recovered slightly, they no longer leaned back in their chairs to look at the beauties, but instantly got busy.
They either lowered their heads to drink wine... drink tea and eat meat—they didn't dare drink wine anymore, afraid that if it went to their heads, they might do something they would regret for the rest of their lives.
Or they found colleagues to chat and compete in drinking... tea!
No matter how beautifully the dancers in the hall danced, they didn't dare take another look.
If it had been in previous years, if the Emperor saw that one of his trusted ministers liked them, he really might have given a few away. That was how some of the concubines and bedmaids in the backyards of certain ministers' homes came to be.
This year, it seemed impossible. Emperor Mingxi dared to bet that if he dared to give them away, these two ancestors would gossip and scold him right to his face until he was dripping with dog's blood.
A certain divine artifact might even take revenge against him!
Shen Junshu, who had been constantly observing the changes in the hall, saw the reactions of everyone, including her Crown Prince and her father-in-law, Emperor Mingxi.
It once again refreshed her understanding of the Junior Preceptor.
This immortal lord's influence in the court of Great Yan was even greater than what her father and brothers had told her.
At this moment, Shen Junshu's half-suspended heart finally settled completely.
She carefully replaced the cold food on Yue Fuguang's table with hot dishes, and silently added a few pretty pastries.
All of this was seen by the Empress Dowager and the Empress. The two exchanged a smile, both feeling that this granddaughter-in-law/daughter-in-law was very perceptive. No wonder the Junior Preceptor treated her with special regard.
The Empress thought a bit further. In a few days, she planned to take her daughter-in-law to properly familiarize herself with the palace rules and delegate some of the power of managing the inner palace to her.
After all, she was the future Empress. It would be good for her to get the hang of it early while she was still around to guide her.
Since the Junior Preceptor had blessed her daughter-in-law and son to be of one heart as a married couple, never doubting each other, it meant that this daughter-in-law was a trustworthy person.
The Empress didn't mind slowly delegating power to her.
At this moment, Shen Junshu still didn't know that her subconscious little act of goodwill towards the Junior Preceptor would bring about such a huge unexpected joy.
After gossiping about the crowd who had almost made a fool of themselves, the system continued, [Master, did you see that short winter melon?]
What kind of melon was a short winter melon?
The farming expert, old Lord Wang Shouchen, silently searched the hall with his eyes. Finding nothing, he craned his neck to look outside the hall at the low-ranking officials who were bustling about drinking and joking.
Let alone something called a short winter melon, there wasn't even a single watermelon or pumpkin like the ones he had seen.
"Little Zhu, are you talking about Matsuyama?"
Wang Shouchen: So the short winter melon was referring to him! The little immortal lord and the divine artifact were indeed worthy of being master and servant; they had such a tacit understanding. They couldn't compare, they just couldn't compare!
[Yes, that's him! Master, do you know which royal family is the most bizarre among the six nations?]
"Since you're asking like that, it must be Dongyi! What's wrong with the Dongyi royal family?"