Chapter 380 : System Lag
When Little Swan Goose had tattled last time, she successfully angered Qingyu and got her to pluck quite a few fox hairs. This time, she tattled again, thinking that since Jiang Mo was closer to her than Qingyu was, she would surely help teach the fox a lesson.
However, Jiang Mo disappointed her. Even with a tiger's boldness, she wouldn't dare to cross her future mother-in-law.
Clearing her throat uncomfortably, Jiang Mo averted her gaze and instead picked up Little Swan Goose, examining her up and down while asking with concern, "How are you? Where are you hurt? Let me see."
Though she was the one covered in wounds, she held Little Swan Goose with such concern that it seemed rather peculiar to onlookers. But Little Swan Goose's focus had already been diverted by her, and she was about to raise her wings to show Jiang Mo when she remembered that it had been a year since the incident—her feathers had long since grown back completely, leaving no trace of injury.
Little Swan Goose immediately withdrew her wings, but letting the matter drop like this left her somewhat unsatisfied. Just as she was racking her brains for ways to continue tattling, she suddenly felt lighter as another hand picked her up.
It was Qingyu who took her, evidently sensing the awkward atmosphere and stepping in to defuse the situation: "That's enough, Qingyue. Stop making a fuss. Can't you see Jianbing is covered in wounds?"
This reminder brought Little Swan Goose's wandering attention back to the matter at hand. After scanning Jiang Mo from head to toe, her feathers puffed up again as she indignantly exclaimed, "Yes, yes, yes! What happened to you? Who hurt you? Why are you covered in wounds and looking so disheveled?"
Jiang Mo didn't particularly want to talk about her experience of being beaten by an elder, but since Little Swan Goose had just put her in a difficult position, she chose between revealing her embarrassment and confronting her future mother-in-law, opting for the former. She gave an edited account of what had happened, concluding with, "It's nothing serious, just receiving guidance from an elder. These are merely flesh wounds that will heal quickly."
Divine beasts indeed possessed powerful regenerative abilities. As if to prove her point, the rather ghastly wounds on her face visibly contracted, and after she casually wiped away the blood, only faint scars remained.
At this rate, her injuries would heal naturally within half a day at most.
Seeing this, Little Swan Goose felt much more at ease. She nodded and said with mock disdain, "Is that so? Then it's nothing to worry about. I thought the wounds were much more serious and had ruined your looks. If they really did ruin your appearance, that would be truly unfortunate."
Jiang Mo never expected Little Swan Goose to say such things, and her eyes widened in shock—the Senior Sister she knew had always been cool and composed. Though she had also raised the reborn Little Swan Goose for a year, truthfully, during that time Little Swan Goose had either been in her infancy or an awkward growth stage. While her vanity was already evident, it had been relatively restrained back then.
But now things were different. With her feathers and tail plumes grown out, Little Swan Goose truly had the grace of a phoenix, worlds apart from her previous chicken-chick-like appearance. With beauty naturally came greater vanity—compared to a year ago, the frequency with which Little Swan Goose admired herself in mirrors had increased at least a hundredfold!
Of course, judging from Little Swan Goose's behavior just now, she wasn't just self-absorbed, but also appearance-obsessed.
Jiang Mo, who shared a similar appreciation for beauty, was momentarily stunned by Little Swan Goose's words. Fortunately, Qingyu was there to smooth things over: "Don't mind her. In a few more days, when she grows up a bit more, she'll be better."
As she spoke, Qingyu gestured for Jiang Mo to look at Little Swan Goose's back, where four beautiful tail plumes had already grown. Additionally, a fifth plume was quietly emerging, sure to be fully grown before long. An adult phoenix could have up to nine tail plumes, though since Little Swan Goose wasn't pure-blooded, it remained uncertain whether she would reach this number.
Nevertheless, by the time Little Swan Goose reached adulthood, Senior Sister would likely return to normal.
Jiang Mo understood Qingyu's meaning and didn't take her Senior Sister's personality change to heart. However, she silently became three times more vigilant—since Senior Sister now valued beauty so much, she absolutely couldn't let her see herself in her featherless state!
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When Jiang Mo was thrown out of the space by the White Tiger, she was in a miserable state, but fortunately, it was only her clothes that were damaged, and her injuries were merely superficial. After changing clothes and resting briefly, her disheveled appearance diminished by eighty percent.
Notably, while changing, Jiang Mo recalled the final pat the White Tiger had given her on the head.
At that time, Jiang Mo had felt somewhat dizzy from the blow and vaguely sensed some kind of restriction enveloping her sea of consciousness. However, she hadn't detected any constraints afterward and hadn't given it much thought, immediately being preoccupied with being thrown out of the space and then by Little Swan Goose. Now that she finally had time to calm down and think, she suddenly remembered the topic the White Tiger had mentioned earlier—the system!
A vague sense of foreboding arose in Jiang Mo's heart, and she hurriedly called out mentally: "System, system, are you still there?"
Previously in the inheritance space, everything had seemed locked down, and Jiang Mo's connection with the system had been severed. But now that she had left the inheritance space and everything had returned to normal, logically, her connection with the system should have been restored as well.
After waiting for about a dozen breaths—a period during which she would normally have received an immediate response from the system—Jiang Mo's heart sank, fearing that her connection to the system had been completely cut off by the White Tiger. Just then, a "buzz-buzz" sound like static electricity came from her sea of consciousness, as if the signal was poor. After quite a while, she finally heard the system's intermittent response: "Hos...host, I...I'm here."
Hearing this, Jiang Mo felt slightly relieved. Although she had always maintained some wariness toward the system, the bond they had formed over decades of interdependence was genuine. She hadn't truly wanted to be rid of the system, and moreover, in this cultivation world, the system was the only entity that knew her origins. Losing it would mean completely severing ties with her previous life.
The feeling was difficult to describe, but in that moment when she thought she had lost the system, she had felt somewhat empty.
Fortunately, the White Tiger hadn't disregarded her wishes, and the system was still there. This brought her some joy: "System, are you alright? Why are you speaking so intermittently?"
The system didn't seem to realize anything was wrong with itself. Through broken mechanical tones, it expressed confusion: "I'm...fine...fine. Host...do you...have any...problems?"
Listening to this stuttering voice, Jiang Mo felt a bit exasperated and asked, "If nothing's wrong, why are you stuttering?"
The system remained oblivious, but this time its answer was decisive: "I'm not."
It denied the stuttering issue and still hadn't realized something was wrong—until the system, which had been lazy for many years, decided to make an appearance and suddenly found it couldn't emerge. The small yellow light orb anxiously spun around in the host's sea of consciousness. It was bound by something invisible and didn't dare force its way out, fearing it might create too much disturbance and damage the host's sea of consciousness.
The system finally became somewhat panicked and hurriedly sought help from its host: "Host...host, what should I do? I...I can't get out!"
Hearing this, Jiang Mo inwardly thought, "Just as expected." Her earlier sensation of the White Tiger taking action hadn't been an illusion. However, the White Tiger, as her elder, hadn't intended to harm her—the intervention had targeted only the system.
This outcome wasn't bad at all. Allowing the system free access to her sea of consciousness had always been dangerous. Now, with the White Tiger's help, the system had undoubtedly been placed under restraint, which both constrained it and protected her.
Jiang Mo naturally appreciated the White Tiger's good intentions and proceeded to probe indirectly: "I don't know either. Don't you have a solution? I've seen plenty of good items in the system mall, and since the main system is so powerful, surely you have ways to fix bugs, right?" She hadn't forgotten that when she first opened the system mall, she had seen a fully-leveled adult White Tiger for sale.
Upon hearing this, the system immediately contacted the main system, but for some reason, the main system, which usually handled matters extremely quickly, didn't respond this time. As for the mall and self-repair functions, after a self-check, the system could only whimper: "Host, I...I haven't...repaid my loan yet, no money...money...to fix bugs."
Hearing this, Jiang Mo immediately shed tears of sympathy for the system before turning away to suppress a laugh. Then she thought of an important question: with the system clearly malfunctioning like this, would the mall still be usable?!
With this concern in mind, Jiang Mo temporarily set aside the system's stuttering problem and opened the system mall.
The system's display screen flickered slightly, but the array of products in the mall remained clearly visible. She browsed through it, initially intending to buy something nice for her Senior Sister, but then remembered that since Senior Sister was growing so quickly, she probably didn't lack for food and drink anymore.
That being the case, there was no need to buy those precious treasures, and the points could be saved for emergencies. So Jiang Mo checked her purchase history and found the item she had bought most frequently and most cheaply—White Rabbit milk candies.
She casually bought a handful, and the candies appeared in her hand as expected. Fortunately, the mall hadn't been affected by the restriction.
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Because of the system issue, Jiang Mo was delayed while changing clothes. Afterward, she made herself neat and clean before coming out.
The beauty-loving Little Swan Goose was satisfied and voluntarily perched on Jiang Mo's shoulder. Her long, beautiful tail plumes hung down Jiang Mo's back, seeming to add an elegant decoration to her simple clothes, suddenly enhancing her appearance tenfold.
Zhu Baiyi watched with some envy and muttered a complaint to Qingyu: "This little one is really biased. I'm her biological mother, yet she's never this close to me, only remembering to hold grudges."
Hearing this, Qingyu gave her a sidelong glance and pushed her away: "You should think about what you did."
Zhu Baiyi felt somewhat wronged—the incident had happened a year ago, yet it was still being brought up. Besides, it wasn't really her fault back then; Little Swan Goose had brought up exactly what she shouldn't have. And she had only plucked two of her feathers. Later, when Qingyu sought revenge for Little Swan Goose, she had deliberately allowed Qingyu to pull quite a few fox hairs—by any measure, that should have been enough compensation, right?
Unfortunately, Little Swan Goose's grudge-holding was completely unreasonable. She was only temporarily pleased when revenge was taken, but later she would still bring up old grievances!
Zhu Baiyi felt wronged just thinking about it, so she decided not to dwell on the matter. Now that the three people and one bird were reunited after a year, the first topic that needed to be discussed was naturally their departure.