Sinking into the couch on Liu Xueli’s jet, Lin Songmei felt a little like a slug. In the end, she didn’t really have to do too much... she just had to survive until the strikeforce team arrived.
It felt a little anticlimactic.
Well, she wasn’t going to complain, this was a nice advantage of cultivating in the modern era. If this was a few hundred years ago, she’d have just suffered and died. She wouldn’t have had any knowledge of the plant, probably ate it, then died. Or, she would’ve realized the plant was bad, stayed too close to the big plant, then died. Or would’ve gotten run over by the rushing beasts after the plant had bloomed, then died.
Maybe having more security wasn’t too bad...
On the jet, Songmei and the others watched as Qi-artifact vehicle after vehicle appeared. There was a bathtub, some jets, some boats, some pods, some cars, the whole set. After they had arrived though, Xueli had left her own jet that was now just hovering in midair.
And that was what Songmei and Mingqing watched while being huddled together, their faces pressed against the window.
Hovering in midair, a single person facing a little over twenty vehicles, Xueli stood there with her hands behind her back, waiting as each person got out of their vehicles. Some reporters’ vehicles also appeared from the clouds, stopping behind the twenty elders who had also arrived late. Waving her hand and sending a small Qi wave over, Xueli stood there, stone-faced, spreading her Qi out and layering the air in a dense cloud.
“You all are late.” Xueli began once all the elders and reporters had left their vehicles, enhancing her voice with Qi so that everyone, even Songmei and Mingqing, could hear it. With each “late” person looking like they had just been served a plate full of excrement, Xueli turned and pointed towards the now tundra-fied crater. “As you can see, I already solved the most imminent issue.”
Seeing the reporters’ cameras begin to flash, Xueli let out a long sigh, turning away and waving her hand. “Well, it’s your problem now, you all can do the clean up, so have fun with that. I’m going to go spend some time with my disciples.”
Pausing half way back to her jet, Xueli looked back over her shoulder with a grin. “I’ll post a video of it later. I’m back bitches.”
With a collective “ohhhh” sounding out through the cabin of the jet, everyone broke out into laughter as Xueli entered.
“You were so cool!!” Songmei exclaimed as Xueli walked over to them with her arms out wide as if saying, ‘Hey hey? What’d you two think?’
“Very amazing show of style,” Mingqing nodded with a laugh, watching as Xueli’s face lit up after the two bits of praise.
“Thank you, thank you,” Xueli bowed with a flourish, “Couldn’t have done it without you all.”
Songmei was pretty sure, like ninety-five percent sure, Xueli could have done it without them... but still, it was nice to have that little warm feeling in her chest too.
Sitting back down onto the couches as Xueli accelerated her jet once more, Songmei and the others all decided to eat some snacks, a late-afternoon snack, sponsored by Youhong’s spatial storage ring.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“So, what’s the plan moving forward?” Xiao Feng broke the silence, unwrapping the lychee jelly in his hands. “I have some, but what are all of yours?”
Back on her duty of steering the jet while being splayed out on the couch, Xueli tossed her already empty lychee jelly container into the air. “I’m just going to hang out in the city for a bit. I think I’ll have to do a couple interviews...? I gotta talk to the city leader too, gotta make him block off the outside temporarily while we do clean up.”
A little depressed over the fact that some of his lychee jelly had been extorted from him, Youhong murmured, “Cultivate... and buy lychee jelly.”
“Cultivate as well.” Wang Taigang shrugged, a little unsure of what to really say, being the only one who didn’t have their master present.
“Cultivatee~” Songmei called out from the ground behind one of the couches.
“Cultivate too.” Mingqing agreed, her face beginning to freeze over a little more now that they were just sitting around with two relatively unfamiliar people.
“Very informative plans,” Xueli chuckled with an inaudible murmur of “Youngsters these days...”
Storing the empty lychee jelly container into her spatial storage ring, Xueli looked over some of the messages in her terminal. “Okay, I just got sent some updates. All disciples currently outside Westriver are going to be called back, and the city is going to be locking down its gates for the foreseeable future while the ecosystem reorganizes itself.”
Giving her terminal to Xiao Feng to pass it around, Xueli laid back down onto the couch, staring at the ceiling. “Therefore, for the time being, you’re all going to have to take quests from inside the city. Luckily the city is big, but it’ll still feel a little crowded, so be proactive, you all.”
A wave of “got it’s” replying to Xueli’s advice, the room fell back into a quiet atmosphere as everyone did their own thing, passing the time until the jet got back to Westriver.
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Flying over the city, Songmei, having gotten up off the bed, was now just staring out the window while leaning against Mingqing.
They were almost back, they had already flown over the river and were now just... nearing the transportation hub. Unlike last time though, there was a massive amount of traffic. From what Songmei could see too, it could mostly be categorized into three groups. There were the normal... whatevers, people leaving too and from Westriver, taking their own personal vehicles or taking paid transport. Then, there was a mass influx of reporters, Songmei, over the course of two minutes, managed to count at least fifteen different media reporting companies.
The last group was the most interesting, they were all transport vehicles.
From what Songmei could tell, they weren’t sect transport vehicles either, they were all business transport vehicles.
It seemed some business planned on capitalizing on the increased manpower that was going to be available.
White Tiger, Vermillion Bird, Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise.
Songmei could see the emblems of the four business tycoons present, so it seemed like either the news had leaked already or they had some inside connections.
Poking Mingqing, Songmei couldn’t help but whisper, “Have you met the four big business tycoons before?”
“I have,” Mingqing nodded, her eyes also glued to the stream of vehicles that passed by them as they waited in line to land in the transportation hub. “They’re all pretty nice. Surprising considering how long they’ve been alive...”
Pausing for a moment, Mingqing shrugged, “White Tiger is probably the best with kids, he’s just pretty warm. I’ve heard he has a dark side to him though.”
“That’s fancy,” Songmei murmured, watching them descend a touch while moving forward in line. “They’ll probably have to do a press talk or something based on how much stuff they’re moving into the city...”
“Yeah,” Mingqing mused, leaning against Songmei before changing the topic and making some idle conversation.