April 1, 2018

Facing Wang Jiu’s sincere and polite "Safe journeys," Shen Qingming was stunned for a long time before realizing what this meant. Suddenly anxious, she asked, "Aren’t you going back?"

Wang Jiu curiously asked, "Why should I go back?"

"Why... there’s no why..." Shen Qingming was immediately confused. When such a self-evident matter is questioned with ’why,’ it can easily lead some simple-minded people into a logical loop.

Wang Jiu, however, was considerate and began to carefully sort out the tangled mess of Shen Qingming’s thoughts.

"Generally speaking, everything has its reason. The reason Li Fengyun and Lu Xin are returning to Cyan Cloud is their responsibilities towards the Li Family’s affairs in QingCyan Cloud yun City and various duties within the city’s management committee. Working remotely for a long time affects their job performance efficiency. Li Wanqing needs to return to Cyan Cloud promptly to maintain her emotional and physical connections with her lovers in QingCyan Cloud yun City. Li Chaolu’s weight has shown an irreversible trend of increase due to Shen City’s dietary habits. Li Xinyu has already been banned from most local maid cafes, and the ban on QingCyan Cloud yun City has also expired... And your Spirit Cat Plan’s regular performances in QingCyan Cloud yun City have been delayed for months."

Shen Qingming was speechless: "I..."

Wang Jiu said, "In fact, as the chairman, it is my duty to urge you to fulfill your performance responsibilities promptly. Considering the drop in popularity due to a few months of absence, I suggest adding new performance costumes and increasing the frequency of performances..."

"Enough, I understand! I didn’t say I wasn’t going back!" Shen Qingming retorted angrily, "What about you then, don’t you have a reason to go back?"

Wang Jiu said, "No."

"..." Shen Qingming opened her mouth, wanting to say how could that be, but upon thinking about Wang Jiu’s current situation, she really couldn’t think of any compelling reason for him to return to Cyan Cloud.

In the end, the girl had to argue, "But you also don’t have a reason to stay here, right?"

Wang Jiu said, "My research on chaos is still in its early stages, and the battlefield environment here is greatly beneficial to my research. From a data perspective..."

"Alright, I get it." Shen Qingming decided not to waste time on a topic she couldn’t understand and instead asked, "Is there any possibility that I could stay here and help you? Perhaps with your chaos research, as your mount?"

Wang Jiu considered it: "Indeed, for my chaos research, I lack sufficient human subjects. Based on human social and ethical norms, experiments that may cause irreparable harm are not permitted. Your Immovable Tyrant Body happens to meet this need, as most of the damage caused by my experiments could be healed within a month."

"I understand, I’ll return now. I wish you success in your research."

——

Often, what people say and what they actually do are two entirely different things.

For example, in mid-March, all the work teams from Cyan Cloud felt despair over this insane overtime journey and were eager to return to the warm QingCyan Cloud yun City. Every early morning during the second round of motivational meetings, the lead woman Lu Xin would raise her small arms high and shout, "To return home as soon as possible, let’s fight till dawn!"

"Till dawn, till dawn, till dawn!"

However, when April arrived, and most of the difficult work finally wrapped up, people suddenly realized that new problems were just beginning to arise.

Since they hadn’t worked in QingCyan Cloud yun City for a long time, while working overtime to handle matters in Shen City, work in QingCyan Cloud yun City was rapidly piling up.

In fact, by mid-March, the pile of documents on Lu Xin’s desk had already surpassed her height — although such a description might not be sufficiently convincing.

By the end of March, to maintain the normal operations of the Li Family and QingCyan Cloud yun City, the local staff had to adopt numerous makeshift solutions, mainly including taking action before proper authorization, which effectively alleviated the short-term work pressure. However, all the wrap-up work on these tasks was left to Lu Xin and others who were about to return, including the administrative authorization renewal, risk audit report preparation, and relevant briefing sessions, as well as the new version of the Xiangzhou Immortal Cultivation Spirit study materials sent by Heaven-Reaching City...

Consequently, when Lu Xin learned through remote communication magic about the workload awaiting her return to Cyan Cloud, a clever plan slowly formed in her mind.

She decided not to return.

Most official work, as long as it’s stalled beyond a certain time, will naturally vanish like the hair on the City Lord’s Mansion secretary’s head. As Lady Li, Lu Xin was well aware of this rule, so she decisively made a decision to continue fighting in Shen City for another five hundred years!

With this decision, the Cyan Cloud team naturally had mixed feelings, with Wang Jiu, who was focusing on chaos research, representing the joyful side. He finally had a stable and reliable source of experimental material, and the next phase of work could proceed very smoothly. The people worriedly designing new costumes and rehearsing at night didn’t need to be named.

However, for the people of Shen City, the delay in the return of the Cyan Cloud folks was actually a good thing, especially for the young talents in the Outer Courtyard, as sparring and exchanging with them was of great benefit to their cultivation. Inspired by the idea of ’shame leads to courage,’ representative figures like Shen Feihong and Shen Feihu made significant progress in their cultivation. By the end of March, each of them challenged the outstanding cultivator representative of the Cyan Cloud Li Family — Li Wanqing, who had just broken through to the Cloud Flipping Realm.

Although at that time, Li Wanqing’s cultivation had just broken through a bottleneck, combined with the Yuqing Taoist Armor, she was extraordinarily powerful and almost arrogant. However, Shen Feihong and Shen Feihu ultimately achieved victory after a blood battle, regaining honor for the Shen Family Outer Courtyard. At that moment, their hearts were as joyous as volcanic eruptions with boiling lava.

Though later when they saw Li Wanqing, under the guise of "injury," effortlessly hooking up with over 10 female doctors and 20 female nurses in the infirmary, looking vigorous and lively, 90% of the joy of victory quickly dissipated... yet the feelings at the victorious moment remain forever cherished.

On the other hand, art enthusiasts in Shen City were also very reluctant to see the Cyan Cloud talents leave. Especially the fan groups of Three Lives Stone works, the fan creators fervently wished they could apply for a permanent special allowance for the new literary genius who arrived, allowing her to settle down permanently and continuously produce excellent spiritual nourishment.

Speaking of literary works, the things troubling Shen City people recently primarily involved one of its prominent figures, literary master Mr. Shi, who had not released any new work for a long time.

All along, the romance novels of Three Lives Stone have been an important hallmark of Shen City. This powerful frontier city in the southeast, long known for its formidable strength in battle, takes pride in its prowess. However, after all, no one wants to be friends with people who understand only fighting and killing. Therefore, Shen City has spared no effort over the centuries in crafting its soft image.

And the moving stories of Three Lives Stone, which span regions and cultures, serve as an excellent emblem. Their works have become widely popular in Xiangzhou, making many people associate Shen City with an attempt to become a city of love. It is even rarer that the creative career of Three Lives Stone has maintained an extremely high output, creating over three million words per year on average, with peaks exceeding five million words. Their works vary greatly in length, from a minimum of fifty thousand words to some over ten million words, with diverse styles and ever-changing backgrounds. Apart from each work involving many Li Family members meeting their end, there are hardly any other common elements.

Someone once summarized that in the creative career of Mr. Shi, the Li Family members who met their demise in their works could be joined to circle Xiangzhou two and a half times, showcasing the breadth of their output.

Now that Three Lives Stone has suddenly hit a creative dry spell, those literature enthusiasts are as anxious as gourmets suddenly deprived of their rations, feeling as if they could die from starvation. They can only barely sustain themselves once more with stories from fan creators.

Among these life-saving masters, Li Chaolu is undoubtedly a prominent figure. The recent overtime work and creation of "Dew Moisten Jiuzhou" have earned unanimous praise from the city of enthusiasts. Even the seasoned and virtuous elders have praised the style of writing, saying it has a penetrating force that runs through and stimulates one’s life force.

Therefore, even for the sake of the harmony of many middle-aged and elderly couples’ families, special allowances for Li Chaolu are a necessity...

Of course, the best scenario would still be to find a way to contact Mr. Shi to restart their path of creation as soon as possible.

But that is obviously not an easy task. The manuscripts of Three Lives Stone are always delivered directly to the editor’s desk of the publishing institution on dark and windy nights, the mysterious process of which no publishing institution has been able to decipher. So when Three Lives Stone stops writing, no editor has any way to prompt the stylist.

This mystery is truly a trait many art workers dream of, but it also causes many publishing institutions to gnash their teeth. Just when people were scratching their heads, a young man dressed in white with a white sword proposed a very constructive opinion as he passed by.

"Why don’t you hire a ghostwriter?"