Chapter 2618 - 2610: The Mountain Master Also Shows Toughness

Chapter 2618: Chapter 2610: The Mountain Master Also Shows Toughness

Hearing Feng Jun’s words, the two elves—let’s call them that for now—both froze.

The Jing Ling exploded first. "What do you mean by that, you actually still want to use me? I’m not afraid to be straight with you: if this guy weren’t here, you’d better honestly work for me!"

The Guardian’s heart was definitely inclined toward Feng Jun, but it still couldn’t help speaking up. "Feng Xiaoyou, you know as well as I do that this senior is the Jing Ling of the ancient Yin-Yang Mirror. Toward a senior, you still need to have some awe."

"I really do feel a lot of awe," Feng Jun answered solemnly. "I’ve already given it the Sun-Mirroring Glass, and the Yin-Yang Mirror can also be given to it... Seniors, search your hearts: doesn’t that count as awe?"

His eyes narrowed, and his expression turned rather ugly. "It was extremely difficult for me to obtain the Sun-Mirroring Glass, and there’s even a share in it belonging to a higher-up... Under those circumstances I still handed it over. You two still think I don’t have enough awe?"

The Guardian had nothing to say; even if you gave it to him, he wouldn’t be that generous—when you handed it over back then, it was mostly out of ’fear’, right?

The Jing Ling refused to let it go. "Since you’ve given it to me, why do you still want to refine it?"

It has become the Jing Ling of the Yin-Yang Mirror, yet Feng Jun still wants to refine the Yin-Yang Mirror—obviously he wants to enslave it. Though this is only a strand of Divine Spirit, the Jing Ling’s true body has no shortage of methods of dealing with it, but the karmic entanglements involved are countless, really not so easily resolved.

Leaving aside the karmic aspect, at the very least this is ’the hurt isn’t big, but the insult level is off the charts’.

Feng Jun, however, answered seriously. "If you took both mirrors and left, of course I wouldn’t refine anything... but you insist on going with me to the Cultivation World, so I have to refine it. This change was triggered by you, senior; it’s not my original intention."

"Tch, still that same spiel from Mars." The Jing Ling finally caught the logic. "You’re not tired of saying it, but I’m sick of hearing it. I just don’t get it—why is it so hard to let me earn some Spirit Stones?"

"It’s not that hard." Feng Jun shook his head and answered calmly. "But the awe I’ve shown you, senior, is already more than enough. If you want to earn Spirit Stones, you can go look for other channels... Latching onto me nonstop—do you think I’m easy to bully, or do I owe you karmically?"

"You think I don’t want to find other channels?" The Jing Ling was furious too. If there were other channels, would I be hounding you like this?

But saying that would be undermining its own prestige, so it changed the subject. "Your backing has agreed too."

The Guardian didn’t continue speaking, because it felt Feng Jun’s reasoning wasn’t wrong—those two thought they’d settled it nicely, but they hadn’t considered the little guy’s feelings.

Feng Jun didn’t care about the Guardian’s stance; instead he spoke sternly. "Since the two of you came to discuss this with me, I definitely have to state my position... Treasures I can give away, but if you want to come with me to earn Spirit Stones, I have to refine it."

The Jing Ling was extremely annoyed. "Old thing, say something, will you? This kid’s demand is an insult to naturally born elves!"

"I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an insult." The Guardian replied slowly, then added, "Feng Xiaoyou, my old friend here takes complete personality very seriously. But if you’re worried, I can place some restrictions on its strand of Divine Spirit."

The Jing Ling almost flipped the table at that, but then thought about it: once two naturally born elves have decided on something, how could a little cultivator possibly change it?

It trusted that the Guardian would lean toward it, and as long as the two of them coordinated things, how could a Small Golden Core see through any so-called restrictions?

Feng Jun just shook his head. "There are too many secret techniques among cultivators. I feel more secure refining it myself. Of course, senior, you can place restrictions at the same time; we’ll treat it as double insurance."

The Jing Ling snorted coldly. "You mainly just want to use me, right?"

"No." Feng Jun shook his head. "I’ve just seen too much deception and scheming, and my sense of security is bad. Senior, wouldn’t it be better if you found your own channel to earn Spirit Stones? Why insist on making things hard for me?"

The Jing Ling was truly helpless. If only I had such a channel!

Bad sense of security—the Guardian was speechless too. It actually understood Feng Jun’s feelings. The reason he gave away the Sun-Mirroring Glass for nothing was precisely because of that poor sense of security, wasn’t it?

In any case, it would never make things difficult for its own tool. So it asked the Jing Ling, "How about we just let him refine it?"

"Don’t even think about it." The Jing Ling opposed it very bluntly. "I finally got my freedom, and now I should go and find myself another master?"

"Once the matter is settled, your true body won’t be able to handle this tiny problem?" The Guardian was getting impatient. "Besides, even if one day your true body does successfully take over the Sun-Mirroring Glass, do you really think you’ll be able to escape the hunt of a great power?"

"Whether I can escape or not is something to talk about later," the Jing Ling answered without hesitation. "Even a brief moment of freedom is something I absolutely have to pursue... Just because I’m a naturally born elf, does that mean I’m destined to be enslaved?"

The Guardian was annoyed at that. "If you don’t want to be enslaved, then don’t ask him for help... The respect he’s shown you is already more than enough."

The Jing Ling just chuckled darkly and fell silent. Clearly that one nerve in its brain still hadn’t straightened out.

Feng Jun didn’t want to waste more breath either. He cupped his hands and spoke formally. "If you two seniors still haven’t settled this, could you send me back first? In a few days, I have to go to Tianqin again."

"Then go back first," the Guardian said. Its attitude toward Feng Jun really was unusually good.

The next instant, Feng Jun appeared back in Luohua. He steadied himself, then continued watching Beauty Lin’s spectacle.

Little did he know that after he left, the Jing Ling and the Guardian didn’t quarrel. Instead, as if by prior agreement, the two of them silently focused their attention on the Small Golden Core.

Beauty Lin’s way of handling her uncle’s problem was really simple and brutal.

Her uncle was a deputy branch manager at a joint-stock bank. He wanted to move up to the full position, and he had some backing, but his competitor wasn’t easy to deal with—guy’s got antennas on his forehead—and the one who could actually make the call was the branch president.

The uncle really wanted to cozy up to the president, but the president didn’t care about this at all—"You all show whatever Divine Skills you’ve got, I’m going to slack off the whole way."

The uncle found out the president’s father wasn’t in great health, and the old man had been in banking all his life. If he could manage to get the old gentleman to come stay at the Cultural Town for a while, things would be much easier to handle.

Beauty Lin didn’t have any connections in the bank, but whatever, she wasn’t planning to use bank ties anyway; she just directly started digging into that branch president.

She didn’t investigate from the bank’s business side; she didn’t want to get into any violations. She went straight and proper for his family and friends, to see what kind of leverage might be hiding there.

Her original intent was maybe to uncover some kind of benefit-transfer network, but it didn’t get anywhere near that complicated—the president’s family instantly slipped up: his son was studying at a university abroad and had gotten a green card, and the president’s wife had been living overseas long-term as his chaperone. It’d been seven years now.

Whether they’d taken foreign citizenship was hard to say, but the mother and son were living overseas in a luxury villa.

As for whether the villa was bought or rented, that needed checking too—Beauty Lin’s team was actually quite efficient at this kind of digging, but she didn’t want to illegally tap any official resources, so things had to move a bit slower.

But using non-official resources raises a confidentiality issue, and two days later the president already knew someone was digging into him.

In fact, a lot of the staff below him already knew about all this, and some people had tried using it to attack him before, but the effect... was really mediocre. Whose circle of friends doesn’t have a few kids studying abroad?

So yeah, regular folks’ whistleblowing doesn’t mean much.

But the president understood that this time they were investigating directly overseas through Chinese contacts, so they definitely had clout. He immediately and very straightforwardly dropped to his knees—"Bro, let’s talk this out. What’s with you clinging to me like a bulldog? Plenty of kids are studying abroad."

The people Beauty Lin had asked for help were just as blunt: "It’s just a background check, don’t overthink it."

Like hell he wouldn’t overthink it. The president instantly sent his confidants out to ask around: "Is someone trying to take me down?"

Who exactly wanted to take him down was hard to say, but someone mentioned, "There’s a deputy branch manager below you whose niece works in the relevant department. She might have some pull overseas."

Under confidentiality rules, even her uncle didn’t have a clear picture of the nature and content of Beauty Lin’s work. It was only because her grandma had stirred up that mess earlier that the uncle had gotten some partial idea—basically, nobody around him knew what exactly his niece was in charge of.

The president hauled the uncle in and sounded him out, "I heard your niece has some connections abroad?"

The uncle had already gotten the hint and said, "I don’t really know the details. Their unit... has strict rules."

The president, very frustrated, replied, "I just want to know who’s gunning for me."

"How would I know who’s gunning for you?" the uncle said. "My niece is a minor leader, sure, and her word carries some weight, but it’s not easy for me to open my mouth to her—that kind of thing’s taboo."

The president started rattling on, "My kid’s going to come back to the country after he finishes his studies, the villa is rented, the sports car is borrowed from a client unit. Whoever’s doing this to me clearly has ulterior motives... Help me straighten this out, and I’ll take care of your promotion."

And then the whole thing got smoothed over.

To certain moral absolutists, the fact that Beauty Lin didn’t keep digging and drag out another parasite would be dereliction of duty—but in reality it really wasn’t like that. She hadn’t been given authorization, she had no right to formally investigate him.

As mentioned earlier, the department Beauty Lin works in is very powerful within its legal scope and doesn’t have to fear a lot of people, but that scope is locked down tight—if a unit like that ever gets too big for its britches, it would be a disaster for Guojia.

So her earlier digging was initially just to look for some leverage; it was her own personal action, as long as she didn’t cross the line.

When the president, by some twist of fate, came knocking to beg, she pulled back in time, because she couldn’t possibly do more anyway—anything beyond that would be overstepping.

Either way, her uncle was seriously impressed with his niece. He understood how hard that whole operation had been—no begging for favors, just grabbing the other side by their soft spot. But this isn’t something just anyone can pull off.

To be fair, if you can advance standing up, nobody wants to move forward on their knees...

Feng Jun was there watching the drama, while the two Elves were watching him—it was exactly, "You’re standing on the bridge watching the scenery, and the people watching the scenery are up in the building watching you."

The Guardian suddenly spoke up. "If you’re going to choose a master, this kid isn’t a bad option."

"Bullshit," Jing Ling immediately spat with fragrant language. "Then why don’t you go acknowledge a master?"

"I already have," the Guardian replied calmly. "This Earth is my master... How about we switch?"

(Updated to here, summoning monthly tickets.)