Chapter 137: The Worried-Sick Subordinate

Chapter 137: Chapter 137: The Worried-Sick Subordinate

The livestream screen was flooded with gifts.

Beastmen from every city on the continent tuned into the daily livestream, but they could never manage to buy anything. After being tantalized by the delicious food for so long, they were all going a little crazy.

Mang Changbai, for example, spent tens of thousands of coins to send ten Giant Trees in one go. Cooped up on duty in a subordinate hall of the Imperial Palace, he was incredibly anxious, practically tearing his hair out and wishing he could buy hundreds, if not thousands, of jars of pickled cabbage.

He wasn’t disappointed this time. Feng Si immediately listed the daily special, the Nantong City pickled cabbage. It sold out in a second. Amid the groans of the million Beastmen online, the sub-female, Xiao Si, spoke in a soft, clear voice.

"For those who didn’t get to buy any, please don’t be sad. Our Si Shi has opened a new shop in the Secret Fragrant Pine Forest District of Pantian City. Stock is limited, but we welcome you all to come and purchase some."

After making the announcement, Feng Si bid everyone farewell and ended the livestream. Sharp-eyed Beastmen caught a glimpse of the jars on the shelves behind Xiao Si in the final frame.

The jars were spaced far apart, confirming that stock was indeed limited. The Beastmen of Pantian City shot up from their seats and rushed out the door, heading for the Secret Fragrant Pine Forest District.

Mang Changbai was so frantic he almost charged out right then and there, but the lingering power of the King’s authority reined in his impulses. He slammed his fists down in frustration, so hard he could have punched a small hole through a tree.

Meanwhile, the sole master of the Imperial Palace, Chi Jie, had set Xiao Si to "special notifications" after returning from Cang City. He was alerted the moment her livestream went live.

The moment she announced the address, he thought, ’Perhaps this is a good opportunity for a chance encounter.’ With that, Chi Jie rose from behind his desk and walked toward the door.

The grand doors to the study were pulled open from either side by his attendants.

Lip Fei stood by the door with a solemn expression. His blue eyes widened in surprise when he saw the King already at the entrance. Recalling an urgent message, he spoke. "King, I have an urgent matter to report."

This time, Chi Jie’s expression was clearly one of displeasure.

He frowned almost imperceptibly and said in a low voice, "Speak."

Lip Fei took a deep breath.

He took a step forward, presenting an urgent report from the border with both hands. "The old chief of the Wolf Fan Country has passed away. Their young Lord was murdered by his own uncle. Lang Han has now become the new Lord of the Wolong’s Country."

Chi Jie quickly flipped through the urgent report, his golden eyes turning ice-cold.

The Southern Wilderness and the Northern Wilderness were the two largest empires on the continent. Between and around them lay countless other vassal states, both large and small. Combined, the territory of these vassal states was equivalent to half an empire.

The Wolf Fan Country was the largest of these vassal states, occupying the largest and most resource-rich grassland.

Both the Southern and Northern Wildernesses had entertained thoughts of conquest, but the vassal states were a mixed bag. Many were poor, offering no benefit if conquered. The wealthier ones had accumulated their power over millennia, and destroying them without a good pretext would be seen as tyrannical.

Now that beasts possessed human forms, they were no longer driven by simple, murderous instincts. Thus, the small vassal states had been allowed to survive to this day.

In the past, when the two great empires were at war, the other vassal states had remained at peace. But now, with the Wolf Fan Country in turmoil, its strategic location between the South Desolate Empire’s border and the Northern Wilderness became a point of concern.

Now that the Wolf Fan Country was in chaos, the troops in the border cities needed to be redeployed—

As the Beast King of the South Desolate Empire, Chi Jie ultimately turned and walked back into the study. Lip Fei hurriedly followed.

...

「Inside the Four Food Store.」

Feng Si turned to see the dumbfounded faces of Song Jie and Song Xiang. They stared at her, their expressions screaming, ’The female actually turned into a sub-female!’

She touched her wolf ears and gave an embarrassed smile. "It’s just more convenient this way. Please keep it a secret for me, okay?"

Song Jie stared at the pair of wolf ears on Feng Si’s head and nodded dazedly.

They didn’t have much time to stay stunned. A moment later, a tall, sturdy male beast rushed in, panting as if he were fleeing for his life. Before he could even catch his breath, he raised a hand and blurted out:

"The pick... pickled cabbage! Sell... sell it all to me!"

Song Xiang and Song Jie had worked for years in a perpetually empty shop. So when a customer burst in yelling to buy out their entire stock, they were too stunned to react for a moment.

Feng Si, however, was prepared. She sat behind the counter and said with a smile, "Of course, sir. Five hundred jars comes to a total of 1.65 million coins. Will you be transferring the funds or paying in cash?"

"I’ll do a transfer."

Feng Si immediately took out the shop’s account information and handed it over, while saying to her two dumbstruck employees, "Song Jie, you two go and pack up all the customer’s pickled cabbage."

Hearing their boss’s voice, Song Jie and Song Xiang snapped back to their senses. They nodded and began gently packing the pickled cabbage back into the baskets—the very same food they thought no one would want, which had only been on the shelves for less than two hours.

The male beast’s eyes were glued to the shelves and the sub-females packing the pickled cabbage, a suspicious glistening at the corners of his mouth.

He didn’t even glance at Xiao Si as he completed the account transfer, proving that he was a fan of the pickled cabbage, not the sub-female streamer.

’I’ve waited so long for this. The food that kept me up at night, dreaming of eating it... now I can finally eat my fill!’

Since business had gone so smoothly, Feng Si hung a "Sold Out" sign outside the courtyard early. She then took her cub back to Boman Gate Island, giving her two sub-female staff members the rest of the day off.

Feng Si had no intention of treating the two sub-female clerks like servants. Instead, she treated them as employees, a concept she was more familiar with, paying them a monthly salary of 6,000 coins, with a bonus for the new year.

Knowing that Song Jie and Song Xiang had nothing to their names, she even gave them half a month’s salary in advance.

Everyone at the Four Food Store was overjoyed. Meanwhile, Ying Kong had a confusing morning. He’d received a message from a vice-general that the King was on his way, only to be told moments later that the King had been called away on urgent business and that he should continue his covert protection mission.

Ying Kong felt a pang of sympathy for the King. ’Business being *too* good is its own kind of trouble,’ he thought. ’It leaves almost no time for a certain interested male beast to make his move.’

He had been standing guard around the island all morning. Feng Si, who usually went out often, had suddenly decided to be a homebody today.

’This won’t do!’

Even though he was on an external assignment, he still had his own little sources of gossip back in the Imperial Palace.

It was said that the King had previously asked the Prime Minister about engineering a chance encounter with a female. Considering that, along with this morning’s perfectly natural ’shopkeeper and customer’ setup, Ying Kong came to a reasonable conclusion: the King wasn’t using his power to force things but was actively trying to find ways to get closer on his own.

’The King is always powerful and decisive in public, but when it comes to love, he’s hopelessly infatuated, weak, and pitiful.’

As the first hawk of the King’s personal guard, Ying Kong knew that being able to thoughtfully anticipate the King’s wishes was an unspoken rule of survival. After all, if a clever Beastman’s guess was right even just once, he was sure to be noticed and appreciated by his superiors.

He thought it over and carefully dialed Feng Si’s number.

When she received Ying Kong’s call request, Feng Si was just climbing into bed, holding Yun Duo to her chest. She had been planning to take an afternoon nap. While taking off her communicator, she casually accepted the voice call.

Ying Kong’s voice came from the communicator: "You haven’t been to Collection Site No. 1 in a long time. Want to go today?"

Feng Si blinked drowsily. "Why are you asking?"