Controlling his eating pace to a casual shoveling, Han Youhong listened in as Lin Songmei, Yan Mingqing, and Wang Taigang gave their opinions. Songmei gave comments mostly on girls, Taigang on boys, and Mingqing for both.

Suspiciously though, in contrast to other times where Youhong had asked Songmei and Mingqing to comment on hot people, the comments were... weirdly brief. A little forced, a little awkward, a little mechanical.

At the current rate, Youhong really needed to rent out an entire mental warehouse to shelve all the thoughts he was having about those two...

If only everyone and everything could be as simple as lychee jelly.

“What quests are we thinking of taking? Do we want another day off or are we all chilling?” Taigang asked, having dusted his pasta in a matter of moments. “I, personally, am ready at any time really, but I understand if you all want another day off.”

“Personally, I was originally planning on a uhh... solid month more off, but...” Youhong sighed, taking an intermission from his lychee dishes to eat some lychee jelly, “Cultivating for a month straight sounds like hell.”

Peeking over at Mingqing and making eye contact, Songmei tried her best to convey that she didn’t really care. Sure, they had a date, but that was in the afternoon after this little chat they were having with Taigang and Youhong. Miming a shrug in the most discreet way she could, Songmei received a nod from Mingqing in return.

“Songmei and I were probably going to take another day off? If that’s alright with you?” Mingqing asked, lacing her fingers together and propping her chin up.

“Of course, no problem at all,” Taigang chuckled, a slight twinkle appearing in his eyes as he looked over to Youhong. “I can always go to the gym and cultivate another day. I need to catch up to Songmei after all.”

“Don’t we all,” Youhong lamented with a sigh, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, yeah though, no worries I always have more things to do.”

Dying inside from embarrassment after Mingqing faced her with a bright smile that seemed to say “didn’t I do well?” Songmei looked away—what could she say? She didn’t want to ruin the brilliance that radiated from Mingqing’s smile...

Giving Mingqing a resigned double-thumbs up, Songmei turned to Taigang while taking a sip of her tea (that had been half-emptied by Mingqing), “Since you’re asking, do you have some missions that have already caught your eye?”

“I have, yeah,” Taigang admitted with a sheepish smile, “For tomorrow, I was thinking about this mission that just consists of being manpower for warehouse organization, while the day after, there’s this mission that’s guarding a basic transport for one of the seven district lords.”

“How long do both of them take?” Songmei inquired, a serious gaze in her eyes, “I need to know for uhh... lazy reasons...”

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“They’re both a week,” Taigang clarified, a chuckle escaping his lips as Songmei’s eyes seemed to glaze over slightly. “Five days actually, but just think of it as working for a week. I think within the city itself, cultivators are just treated as hire-as-needed spot help.”

“Mhm, so it’s not too long…” Youhong remarked, leaning back into his chair.

“Yeah, definitely not that long,” Taigang laughed, “I actually only saw five day quests. It could be because there’s an unspoken rule, or because the city enforces something. Maybe like-”

“Wait, wait though, can you give some more details? Like, on the contents of the missions themselves. Also, importantly, what’s the danger level for the second one?” Youhong interrupted, cutting Taigang off before he started a grandiose story about the fruits or lack of fruits his research resulted in.

“Do you even need to ask that, Youhong?” Mingqing raised an eyebrow with a grin, a bit of her ice queen aura blending in with her slight bantering tone.

“Yes, yes I do,” Youhong retorted, tossing a lychee jelly at Mingqing, “What if the warehouse we’re supposed to move boxes in is actually infested with massive spiders or something?”

Murmuring a quiet “ohhh, that’s true!” Songmei got poked in the leg as Mingqing sighed. “No, no it’s not true, the quest would be labeled spider extermination if that was the actual issue. Don’t be tricked by Youhong trying to just be difficult.”

“Oh... You know that would make a lot more sense,” Songmei murmured without thinking, focusing more on her lunch than the conversation. “Are we doing more training after lunch? Did we have a plan, originally?”

“Hmm... I’m pretty sure we didn’t have too much,” Taigang shook his head, “I was just going to go like... do the final in person registration part of us becoming a team, then also sign up for a mission. You want to do some more training?”

“I mean... I’m not opposed to it,” Songmei confessed, poking at her food. “I do have some plans in the afternoon though. So if we do end up training, I think 1 pm ish would be the limit really...”

Raising a finger, Mingqing added, “I also have some plans.”

Making eye contact with Taigang, Youhong saw his own thoughts mirrored in Taigang’s eyes. It was quite obvious really. Songmei and Mingqing had been making weird comments the whole training session—well, more weird than usual.

Earlier too they had let it slip that they had plans together later in the day. Of course, these plans that Mingqing and Songmei spoke of could be something innocuous like a meeting with their master. Liu Xueli was in town, so it would be understandable...

Drumming his fingers on the table while popping some lychee jelly into his mouth, Youhong couldn’t help but just think that it was just... so suspicious.

Taigang seemed to agree, at least from what Youhong could see.

See, it wasn’t as simple as it seemed. Mingqing and Songmei hung out all the time, Youhong knew that. Youhong knew it so well that it showed up in his dreams.

However, they never announced their plans to hang out, they always just... did it. They’d never cancel other plans or even reserve time to hang out during the day, they’d just fill in their free time with hang out time.

They even lived together!

Letting out a long sigh after clearing his throat, Youhong waved off the confused questions from Songmei and Mingqing. “I’ll come with you later to do the registration, Taigang. Might as well, I don’t really have any plans.”

Raising his eyebrows, Taigang nodded, “Ahh, thank you.” There was about as much subtlety in Youhong’s statement as a freight train, but it did its job.