Cui Jinqi woke up feeling refreshed.
Last night, her father urgently contacted her, asking where she was.
She replied that she was at her boyfriend's place.
Her father just responded with an "Oh," and suggested she stay at the Shendu Cheng family's place. Due to their involvement in the Tianluo business, the military level among their people was generally higher, and the location was more remote, probably safer than their family's place.
Now, with most of the covert security forces withdrawn from the clan by the court, and with the reputation of the Five Great Families attracting too much attention, it's actually safer to be elsewhere. The Taiyuan Wang family has secretly sent a group of women and children to the Xie family's territory. If she hadn't gone out, he would have considered sending her there...
After hanging up the phone, Cui Jinqi felt frustrated. She hadn't informed her family where she was going, so it was clear that there was a traitor within the Cheng family!
So early in the morning, she got up, changed clothes, and angrily went to find Cheng Jinyang to hold him accountable: "I was tracked down in your territory; you owe me an explanation!"
When she entered the council chamber, she saw Cheng Jinyang, with heavy dark circles under his eyes, lethargically typing on his computer, dragging the mouse, clearly showing signs of working overtime all night.
"What's wrong with you?" Cui Jinqi didn't dare to approach him, afraid that he would collapse if she touched him. "Did you not sleep last night?"
"I wanted to sleep." Cheng Jinyang said helplessly. "Get me a cup of coffee."
Coffee beans, imported from the islands of the South Seas by Sima Yi, were now commonly used for staying awake during overtime work, sometimes even with added stimulants to boost neural activity—hence Cheng Jinyang's dark circles.
"Your dark circles look kinda cool," Cui Jinqi said insincerely, pouring him a cup of coffee and adding three spoonfuls of sugar without asking.
"Do you think I want to stay up late?" Cheng Jinyang took the coffee feeling exhausted, and took a sip. "Since I went to bed last night, I've been bombarded with phone calls every few minutes, not giving me a chance to sleep."
"Is the clan leader working so hard?" Cui Jinqi asked sympathetically.
"It's not the clan leader who's working hard, it's the Tianluo department." Cheng Jinyang sighed.
The Tianluo Assassins of the Shendu Cheng family had a training cost far exceeding any branch of the Shenwu Army. After all, regular army units could accept a certain level of manpower loss to achieve strategic goals (they could be replenished through conscription), while every loss for Tianluo couldn't be easily replaced (due to bloodline concentration limitations).
So during large-scale warfare, while the Shenwu Army could issue tactical tasks directly to frontline officers for autonomous decision-making, Tianluo had to manage with high precision, almost down to the individual level, constantly evaluating between "continue the mission" and "abandon the mission" to minimize casualties.
Even with a mature command system at the headquarters, almost all civilian staff were overworked, forced to work late into the night. Cheng Jinyang had originally wanted to be a figurehead, but was dragged into it by his cousin Cheng Huaiyan's dozen or so phone calls.
"You wanted decision-making power, right? Well, we have 167 strategic matters needing decisions right now. You deal with those first, and we have over four hundred more being compiled, which will be presented to the clan leader for review soon."
Cheng Jinyang was infuriated: "How can I handle all this by myself?"
Even Cheng Huaiyan, who was usually quiet, spoke up: "When heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a person, it must first exhaust their mind, toughen their muscles and bones, starve their skin and flesh..."
Cheng Jinyang had no response. After all, Tianluo was essentially the Cheng family's private army. If even the clan leader didn't take care of it properly, how could he expect the court to take care of it? During wartime, the court was eager to use your people to the fullest!
Usually, the workload wasn't as heavy, but on the day of the attack on Pukou District, some civilian employees were on duty at the headquarters and were hit by a missile, resulting in an immediate loss of twenty percent...
In short, the Tianluo department was stretched thin, wishing to split every person in half for use, and the clan leader had served in Tianluo and had enough experience. How could he let him handle it alone?
Quickly, let's work overtime together!
"Tianluo, huh," Cui Jinqi sighed. She had certainly heard of the "Tianluo Assassins," the largest military contractor within the empire.
The covert security forces of other noble families, while individually capable, were nowhere near the scale of Tianluo. After all, Tianluo, through its relationship with the Cheng family and the royal family, had obtained a legitimate business license for security work, so they could openly accept contracts, attend assignments, and earn money. Of course, the price was being heavily relied upon by the court during times of war.
After finishing another cup of coffee, Cheng Jinyang completed the final few lines of commands, sent the email, and called it a day!
"I'm going to bed now." He staggered to his feet, intending to return to the bedroom. However, even the coffee couldn't hold back the overwhelming drowsiness. Just as he half rose, he sat back down, and soon fell into a deep sleep.
"Are you asleep?" Cui Jinqi asked when she saw him lying motionless on the table.
Cheng Jinyang didn't respond.
"Really asleep?" Cui Jinqi reached out to poke his face.
Still no response.
So Cui Jinqi called over a passing maid, who half helped, half carried the Cheng family patriarch to her room.
Yes, it was her own guest room.
She had been to the old house in Wujiang Town, where there were only two bedrooms, and one of them couldn't be occupied, indicating that Miss Wang slept with Cheng Jinyang every night.
This was quite suspicious: clearly, there were two bedrooms, so why would they prefer to squeeze together rather than clean up the other room for someone else to sleep in?
Unless there was a reason why Wang Wanrou and the other girls had to sleep with Cheng Jinyang!
Struggling to move Cheng Jinyang onto the bed, Cui Jinqi pinched her nose and took off his shoes and socks, and then...
Huh!
What was she supposed to do next?
Draw little turtles on his face with a pen?
Cui Jinqi was slightly tempted by the mischievous idea, but then thought it was too childish.
No, no! The purpose of bringing him back was to figure out what qualities attracted Miss Wang!
Pushing aside the mischievous thoughts, Cui Jinqi carefully observed him again.
In her aesthetic view, Cheng Jinyang's appearance was passable, even above her own standards for choosing a spouse.
However, even if there were free love in the aristocratic family, it was still based on the compatibility of social status. Even if the Cheng family maintained their noble status, she and Cheng Jinyang would never have a future together.
Since there was no possibility, she naturally wouldn't develop feelings. The so-called "boyfriend" and "liking you" were just jests from Cui Jinqi, aimed at seeing his embarrassed expression.
Cheng Jinyang was well aware of this, completely ignoring her teasing. But the more he did, the more Cui Jinqi wanted to challenge him, trying every possible way to deceive him.
Huh?
Cui Jinqi, still scrutinizing the sleeping face of the other party, suddenly noticed a change in the surrounding spiritual field.
The so-called spiritual field was the outward manifestation of the intensity of an ability user's bloodline, similar to how brain activity emits brainwaves. By sensing each other's spiritual field strength, one could roughly determine the grade of the other party's bloodline, such as whether it was ninth grade or eighth grade.
However, at this moment, the spiritual field intensity beside Cheng Jinyang was fluctuating violently, jumping from below eighth grade to above eighth grade, then back to mid-eighth grade, like the erratic electrocardiogram of a heart patient.
Cui Jinqi: ???