Chapter 334: Three Things

After learning that Yan Jing was at the Seventh Rank, Zeng Qing spent the next few dozen minutes rethinking how she should interact with him.

Her final conclusion was...

It was best to pretend she didn't know.

Since Yan Jing was at the Seventh Rank, the matters he involved himself in were far beyond her ability to casually guess. Acting rashly now would only increase her risk.

She was better off acting exactly as before, pretending nothing had happened.

After all, their relationship wasn't terrible to begin with.

But one thing was certain.

From now on, she would unconditionally side with whatever decisions Yan Jing made.

This was a Seventh Rank!

The Great Exploration Association backing her only had two Seventh Ranks in total.

If she could firmly secure Yan Jing's backing, she would no longer be considered a useless pawn who had fled to Muke District to avoid family infighting. Even her family would have to look to her for guidance.

At that thought, she suppressed her inner excitement and took a deep breath.

"We've arrived, my lady," An Kexin said.

"Mm."

Zeng Qing collected her thoughts and nodded with a cold expression.

"I'll allow you to keep watch by my side tonight."

An Kexin's eyes widened. To him, this was an unparalleled blessing.

He just couldn't figure it out. Zeng Qing had clearly been furious in the car just moments ago—why had her mood suddenly improved?

...

...

After returning to the hotel, Yan Jing switched his consciousness back to Mao Si.

At that moment, Mao Si and Boss Rat were sitting on the sofa watching TV.

The broadcast happened to be showing the news of Chen Xiaojing's arrest.

When the news broke yesterday, the two of them had chatted about it briefly. However, Boss Rat had rushed off because of some matter, so they hadn't had the chance to talk in depth.

Seeing it again now, the "father and son" chatted casually.

"What did you go do yesterday? Can you talk about it?"

Yan Jing grabbed a handful of melon seeds and started cracking them.

"No, it's a secret."

Boss Rat reached out a hand, and Yan Jing naturally picked up a few seeds and placed them in his small paw.

"Don't be so stingy."

Yan Jing stared intently at the screen.

"The Four Masters Society turning into the Three Sons Association should have an impact on the situation in Muke District, right?"

"Not much of an impact."

Boss Rat said, "If things stop at this stage, the impact won't be significant."

"Chen Xiaojing was the one with the least actual power among them. Most of her connections weren't subordinates, but people willing to do her favors because of the dirty work she handled."

"So you're saying things might escalate further?" Yan Jing asked.

Boss Rat chuckled.

"Hard to say."

"Alright, you should worry a little less, kid," Boss Rat said.

"It's good to stay at home. Don't always go running around outside."

With that, Boss Rat stood up, jumped down from Yan Jing's shoulder, and walked toward the door. Just then, keeping his eyes on the TV screen, Yan Jing suddenly spoke up.

"When I went out yesterday, I ran into an old employee from our organization. He was carrying a batch of Happy Water, and it seemed to be the illicit kind."

He was referring to the Third Level Line that Xiao Xin had spotted last time.

...

Hearing this, Boss Rat laughed.

"You probably saw wrong, kid."

Yan Jing hadn't said a bottle, but a batch.

That meant the person most likely wasn't a buyer, but a seller.

"Maybe."

Yan Jing tossed aside his melon seed shells and smiled.

"Go on then. Don't worry, I'll just take casual strolls at most. I won't run around blindly."

Having received Yan Jing's repeated reassurances, Boss Rat left the house.

Yan Jing narrowed his eyes.

Ever since he had Xiao Xin track down that the Third Level Line was an employee of Plague, he had vaguely felt that something was wrong. Now, seeing Boss Rat's reaction, this feeling was essentially confirmed.

Boss Rat had always shown a deep hatred for illicit Happy Water. Yet, upon hearing about it, he hadn't asked where Yan Jing had seen it, nor did he express any disgust. Instead, he had subconsciously denied it.

Although it seemed natural, Yan Jing still sniffed out a hint of something unusual.

"There's a secret here, but there's no need to dig into it..."

Yan Jing felt that this was more than just a secret; it was a landmine.

"But if the sky falls, Pops will hold it up..."

He crossed his hands behind his head and lay back on the sofa in leisurely contentment.

Favorability wouldn't lie. It was rare to have a situation he didn't need to worry about, so of course he wouldn't be foolish enough to take on everything himself.

Thus, for the next few days, he essentially lived a strictly routine life:

During the day, he would become Mao Si, heading out to lead the actors from his Sanitarium in their performances. In the afternoon, he would become Luo Sheng, accompanying Zeng Qing to discuss business and meet with Wen Tian and Li Chengxi. At night, he would switch back to Mao Si to chat with Papa Rat. It was a fulfilling schedule.

Of course, in the midst of these ordinary and pleasant days, a few extraordinary things still occurred.

First, of the dozens of Chen Xiaojing's enterprises that he had taken over, any that were related to medicine had recently been investigated.

Zeng Qing had already received news that it was a proposal put forth by Wen Tian during the council meeting. Citing the Chen Xiaojing incident, he had proposed a strict investigation into major medical institutions and enterprises.

The proposal sounded well-founded, but a little thought made it clear that it was aimed directly at them.

It couldn't be helped. Many of Chen Xiaojing's businesses weren't exactly clean, and in just a few days, three of them had already been shut down.

Fortunately, that fellow Wen Tian was quite slick.

As long as Yan Jing didn't point it out, he acted as if nothing had happened, exchanging toasts with Yan Jing at night as usual.

This also allowed Yan Jing to smoothly figure out the living habits and schedules of both of them.

He had even obtained a schedule.

This was only because Wen Tian thought Yan Jing had been drinking with him lately to actively show goodwill and beg for leniency, so he had started to put on airs.

When Yan Jing suggested they share a drink every night from then on, he used the excuse that the election was approaching and he had too many unavoidable dinner engagements.

He then handed a schedule to Yan Jing.

In fact, he wasn't the only one with this idea. Zeng Qing also believed that the reason Yan Jing sought out Wen Tian and Li Chengxi so frequently was to ease tensions with their side and poach them away from Zhou Mo.

After a drinking session one time, she really couldn't bear watching it anymore. On the way back, she said to Yan Jing, "Playing soft with these two won't work. Those guys are best at bullying the weak and fearing the strong. If you let them, they can play Taiji with you for half a year."

"If it comes down to it, we should just abandon those businesses. We can slowly build ourselves up relying on our current ore and bio-potion trades anyway."

"Otherwise... you'll need to use harder tactics..."

She originally meant to persuade Yan Jing to back down, knowing he definitely wouldn't want to expose his Tier. But she hadn't expected Yan Jing to reply with a smile, "Yeah, use harder tactics. That's exactly what I'm planning to do."

"...You're joking, right?" Zeng Qing probed.

"Maybe."

Yan Jing found Papa Rat's trick of speaking in riddles very useful at times. As long as he wasn't the one being riddled, he was quite happy.

Besides this, two other rather notable events occurred.

The first was that his Second Brother and Third Brother were officially going to war.

With one backed by Councilor Liu and the other by Councilor Li, they were now at daggers drawn.

Today, one side would go pick a fight with the other, and tomorrow, the other side would come over to deliberately stir up trouble.

Their biggest clash happened when both found clues leading to a Third Level Line of Happy Water at the same time.

Just as they were about to succeed, the two factions broke out into a direct fight, allowing the Third Level Line to escape.

Unexpectedly, even after things reached this point, Papa Rat still had no reaction. It seemed he had truly delegated all his authority and was letting both sides cause as much chaos as they pleased.

Yan Jing actually understood this to some extent.

Just as Papa Rat had said last time, the two had fallen for the strategy of dividing the peach. They had long lost their heads, and stepping in to forcefully suppress them now would probably backfire.

So he was just watching to see when this powder keg would finally explode, at which point the whole affair would likely end.

And the final matter.

Was that Tianwei's promotional campaign had succeeded.

After a period of learning, this girl from the Anthill, who carried a unique aura, had achieved massive success in her first attempt at entering the public eye.

Zeng Qing had found a somewhat well-known public video blogger and had him "accidentally" discover Tianwei sorting through discarded bottles at her door while he was recording a video.

The two met by chance and chatted, and then the blogger helped Tianwei gather the bottles. Tianwei shyly declined at first, but after agreeing, she displayed a hint of youthful, blossoming joy. Finally, when the blogger left, Tianwei reluctantly saw him off, gifting him a bracelet she had woven herself.

The script for the video had been written by a master scriptwriter whom Yan Jing had hired through the director he met last time.

Once the video aired, it caused a massive uproar. The audience clamored for the blogger to go back and find Tianwei, threatening that he should drop dead if he let her down.

And this was exactly where the script's brilliance lay.

For the next period of time, Tianwei wouldn't show her face again. The blogger would repeatedly search for her to no avail, ultimately giving up and allowing Tianwei to gradually fade from view.

Then, just as the masses had forgotten her, Tianwei would appear in the corner of a video shot by another blogger, like a stone tossed into a lake, once again stirring ripples in everyone's hearts.

Of course, in the information-exploding Peace Heavenly Kingdom, it was very hard to be remembered once forgotten. That would be the time to deploy a massive army of paid promoters.

All in all, with a professional team handling things, combined with Tianwei, a girl who grew up in the Anthill, their chances of success had been infinitely magnified.

Not to mention they still had their final trump card, which was Yan Jing's original plan: she would care for the Anthill, never forget her roots, join no faction, and take no sides.

Just like that, the days passed one by one.

Soon, it was the penultimate day before the Dungeon began.

On this day, Yan Jing set both of his characters to auto-pilot and then logged out of the Inner World.

Today, Shen Youran had dragged him out to get properly dressed up. It wasn't because he was attending some important event, but because he was going to meet his designated teammates in advance today.

In the hotel lobby, Shen Youran stared fixedly at Yan Jing's hairstyle. She had spent a long time working on it today and absolutely wouldn't allow any mishaps.

Yan Jing smiled helplessly.

"Teacher Shen, if you're worried, how about I use weird energy to fix it in place?"

"Absolutely not!"

Shen Youran instantly vetoed the idea. "Weird energy is far too unnatural!"

After speaking, she reached out and started straightening Yan Jing's collar.

"Look over here!"

In the distance, Lin Xiaoran raised her camera and called out to Yan Jing and Shen Youran.

The two turned their heads at the same time, forever frozen in this moment.