In the vast conference hall, the lingering scent of hot pot had yet to dissipate.
"Why did you few just watch at the time?!"
Golden eyes, sharp as a hawk's, stared straight at the corner where Yanqing, Bailu, and the others were sitting. Situ Qinghong's gaze carried a palpable pressure, making the air feel stagnant.
Compared to A-Ranks, who were praised as truly stepping onto the world stage but essentially remained high-level thugs, the "Critical Grade" level—even in Anti-Entropy with its rampant high-end mechs or Schicksal with its deep foundations—enjoyed basic treatment like purchasing organizational shares and numerous enviable benefits. They were considered core members in any faction.
Everyone present was either Critical Grade or held a high position. Whether it was "Project Southern Heavenly Gate" or forging supreme divine offices, it was impossible for them not to understand Fuli's strategic value to the Taixu Front.
And the result?
Even though they were all present, they watched from the sidelines the entire time, looking on helplessly as the A-Rank City Gods charged into battle like moths to a flame!
Yes, I know that guy just stepped into Critical Grade and turned into a monster-like powerhouse in the blink of an eye.
But we haven't shortchanged you on treatment and resources usually. Even if you really couldn't keep him, you could at least fire two shots into the sky just to make some noise for everyone to hear!
This is a matter of principle regarding right and wrong!
"Bailu!"
Getting angrier the more she thought about it, Situ Qinghong's shout was like thunder, targeting the Healer Lady who had just been squatting on the table gorging herself. clearly, the split hot pot and the girl's behavior of jumping on the table to snatch food were fresh in her memory.
"Present!"
The person—the dragon in question—stood up straight with a jolt. The tip of her tail behind her tensed unconsciously before she tried to relax it, putting on a well-behaved appearance.
Situ Qinghong didn't care if she was behaving well or not. "Why didn't you act at the time!?"
"Um, Lord Chief of Staff."
Bailu rubbed her hands together cutely, piling a fawning smile on her face. "You know, there was a tiny problem with the previous inheritance of the Luofu High Elder. My panel strength is indeed top-notch among everyone here, but I'm really not good at fighting!"
"Of course! I didn't slack off on what I should do!" Her tone shifted, and her small face turned serious. "I had my healing Cloudhymn magic ready in my palm the whole time, and my medicine gourd was prepared at all times. No matter which unlucky guy got bumped or bruised in the fight, I could have saved them immediately!"
"However..."
Her gaze quickly swept over her colleagues beside her, letting out a deep and helpless sigh at just the right moment.
Situ Qinghong understood exactly what her unfinished sentence implied. Her gaze, which seemed capable of killing, instantly shifted to the others.
Yanqing and the others had colorful expressions on their faces, looking at Bailu with disbelief: Holy crap! This dragon girl came prepared! No martial virtue at all!
"Hee!"
Moving next to Lingsha, Bailu hummed, her eyes curving into crescents as she revealed a comical smile.
As the saying goes, if I don't move the sht to the group chat members, they will move the sht to me.
Rather than sharing a common enemy only to find out my arm can't twist Optimus Prime's thigh, it's better to strike first! Remove myself from the center of the storm and watch from the sidelines!
"Approved!"
After Bailu stepped back, Situ Qinghong's angry shout targeted the next person.
"Yunke!"
"Present!"
A pretty girl in a plain white Hanfu stood up stiffly. Divine light rotated around her, clearly indicating she was also a bearer of a divine office.
"And you?"
Situ Qinghong said coldly, "What is your excuse?"
"Reporting to the Chief of Staff! This subordinate was fully focused on maintaining the structural stability of the battlefield space at the time, ensuring that the aftershocks of the battle wouldn't leak out, avoiding collateral damage to the many innocent civilians and important facilities in Sapphire City!"
This was the truth.
Back during the battle between Fuli and Rin in her Four-Tailed Fox form at Mt. Yae, a clash between just two A-Ranks had nearly wiped the scenic area off the map and shaved off the top of a neighboring mountain.
Even though Rin's combat power was close to "Broken" tier, this time it was over a hundred A-Rank City Gods besieging a Critical Grade. The destructive power increased exponentially.
If Yunke hadn't acted to maintain the battlefield, weaving invisible force fields into a massive buffer to firmly control the escaping slashes, elemental attacks, and Honkai energy shockwaves within a limited range, those people would have demolished fully two-thirds of a district in Sapphire City in just that short time!
And this was under the condition that both sides were consciously controlling the intensity of destruction and exercising restraint.
Hearing her subordinate's explanation, Situ Qinghong's expression softened.
Maintaining urban stability and protecting civilians was indeed an irreproachable responsibility.
She then turned her gaze to the third person. "Weisheng, don't tell me you were also busy maintaining the city."
"He did act."
Before the person in question could answer, Bailu beside him covered her forehead and answered for him with a speechless expression. "The moment Miss Robin appeared, this guy acted like he was injected with chicken blood, howling 'Miss Robin, I'm your fan!' and lunging at her. If we hadn't stopped him in time, it would have almost caused a major diplomatic incident."
"Fuli? What's that? Don't know him!" The burly man called Weisheng crossed his arms, his tone carrying a mysterious pride. "I've been exclusively pushing (stanning) Miss Robin for thirty-two years!"
"Miss Robin only debuted three years and two months ago."
Yunke roasted him weakly.
"But I am thirty-two years old this year!"
Weisheng emphasized self-righteously, "My love can transcend time and space!"
"Oh my."
Lingsha took out a notebook from her exquisite bag with great interest, recording the other party's hysteria, planning to apply to higher-ups later to use this person as a high-level experimental subject for the psychiatric department.
On the surface, it will definitely be in the name of treatment, and it definitely won't kill anyone.
"I see now. You all have unique skills!"
Facing her three plausible subordinates, Situ Qinghong felt a breath stuck in her chest.
"Then what about Yanqing?"
She asked the last person present at the scene. "You were the first to arrive. The others might have had concerns about their strength, but you, a 'Broken' Critical Grade, why didn't you act?"
"I—"
"I won't blame you. Speak from your heart!"
"Alright."
Seeing his superior's attitude and realizing bureaucratic excuses wouldn't work, the young Sword Preeminent had to tell the truth.
"Wasn't it because I was worried about hurting him and getting blamed by Grandmaster Phoenix?"
He made a bitter face on his handsome visage. "Chief of Staff, you know, due to those historical legacy issues, Grandmaster Phoenix isn't exactly friendly to us juniors who inherited the title of the Seven Swords of Taixu. If we were to hurt her precious darling again, and the Old Ancestor decided to fight us to the death afterward, what would we do? Who could withstand that?"
It wasn't that they couldn't beat her; the current Fu Hua was in a historically weakened state.
But was this a question of whether they could win? Staging "The Seven Swords of Taixu Killing Phoenix" again after five hundred years? Make sure to double-tap when burning Taixu Mountain this time?
—Damn, that's too hellish!
Situ Qinghong's breath hitched. Damn it, what he says makes so much sense, I'm actually speechless.
The thought of that cool, elegant Grandmaster Phoenix, whom she revered like a god, looking at her with eyes full of cold disappointment as if she were trash, made the girl feel like her heart was being savagely stabbed.
Stabbed in every sense of the word.
"Exactly, exactly," Bailu whispered in agreement. "He's someone the Immortal cares about very much. Besides, the Fuli kid didn't offend us or do anything heinous to the Divine State. On the contrary, he made great contributions by finding many extinct animals during the Kanas incident. It would be unjustified to attack him!"
This was the core reason why the Critical Grades didn't enter the fray.
In this land steeped in thousands of years of ritual and civilization, "justification" was very, very important.
If righteousness was lacking, it couldn't withstand the test of history.
In the future, descendants reading the records would point at their noses and curse them for being dishonorable.
If it really came to a point of critical survival for the nation, they wouldn't hesitate to bear the stigma and make sacrifices.
But it hadn't reached that point yet. Moreover, the order from the Divine State's Anti-Honkai Council was to "invite" Fuli back!
No matter how simple the personalities of those who reached these positions were, they couldn't be true idiots. When superiors ordered subordinates to arrest someone but didn't want to take the blame, the subordinates would naturally slack off aggressively.
Of course, the people afraid of taking the blame didn't include Situ Qinghong, this rash youth.
Back when she tried to invite Fuli back to the capital, the commotion she caused on the border between the Divine State's Sky Territory and Kazakhstan wasn't small.
Even though the raised mountains were restored within minutes under the manipulation of Rex Lapis, the satellite records couldn't be faked.
"Fine."
Sensing everyone's thoughts, Situ Qinghong's chest heaved violently a few times. In the end, she only sighed and didn't say anything more about it.
Who told her to have limited power in the Council as a representative of the younger generation?
"Then, moving on to the next agenda item, regarding the placement of the Mirror World—Hm?"
Mid-sentence, the blonde girl's gaze fell on a highly inconspicuous encrypted communication icon in the corner of the holographic screen, which was flashing a piercing red light.
Radio silence during meetings was an iron rule. Ordinary information couldn't possibly penetrate the shielding to connect.
It symbolized the solemnity of the meeting and also prevented outsiders from seeing the unreliable behavior of this bunch.
In other words, only extremely important information could ignore this precept and force a connection.
"Wait a moment."
Situ Qinghong, whose expression changed slightly, quickly waved her hand to close the public screen. She walked alone quickly to the shadowed corner deep in the conference room and activated her personal communication terminal.
About ten minutes later, she walked back.
The expression on her pretty face was extremely strange, a mix of astonishment, confusion, and a trace of disbelief.
"Temporarily adding a top-priority agenda item." She stood back at the podium, facing everyone's curious and nervous gazes. "Immediately discuss which representative should be sent to the Hyperion to negotiate a deep strategic cooperation project with them."
"Huh?"
This 180-degree turn left quite a few people present confused. Everyone blinked their big, cute eyes, waiting for the Chief of Staff to give an explanation.
Anticipating this scene, the girl didn't waste words. She simply raised her finger again and tapped the air. A segment of encrypted video, clearly received not long ago, began to play.
"Take a look at this."
She said.
[Rewinding time by several days—]
Morning on the Indian Ocean. Cold waves rolled with salty wind, slapping the reefs over and over, splashing up white foam like broken jade.
The horizon turned the color of a fish's belly. Golden light began to spill, kneading the sea surface into a sheet of dancing, fragmented gold.
"Mmm..."
Kiana was curled up in a duvet printed with various cute cat patterns. Her waist-length pure white hair, like satin woven from moonlight, covered the soft pillow.
The girl was obviously sleeping soundly, her pink lips slightly pouty, emitting tiny, cute breaths.
Buzz! Buzz!
Current time: 5:00 AM. Still two and a half hours before Kiana's alarm was set to go off.
The phone on the bedside table kept vibrating, indicating someone unromantic was calling early in the morning.
Another three minutes passed—
"Who is it! So annoying!"
The persistent ringing and vibration finally woke Kiana Cat from her sweet dream. With her rage meter maxed out, evil grew from her guts; she grabbed the phone, ready to throw it against the wall.
The moment she saw the caller ID on the screen, her movement froze.
Caller ID: Idiot Ah-Li.
The girl slammed the answer button. Blinking her big azure eyes, she smiled brilliantly. "Good morning, Ah-Li!"
Her voice was crisp and sweet, carrying a soft nasal tone from just waking up, showing no trace of her previous fury.
When people are woken up by something they like, they don't get grumpy.
"It's not early. It's almost eight o'clock here."
The video screen lit up. Fuli was wearing a loose security guard uniform, the background seemingly a duty room.
Looking at the white-haired Tuna in silk pajamas opposite him, exposing her shoulders cunningly, he said, "I've been here in Sapphire City for almost a week. If nothing goes wrong with Raiden Ei by the weekend, I plan to head back."
"Before returning to the Hyperion, I'll likely make a trip to Britain to complete the investiture ceremony for the Margrave title. Let Mei and the others know for me."
"Investiture, huh."
Kiana pouted, her tone sour.
She hadn't met Tribios in person, but she had seen her photo.
The exquisitely beautiful Princess and Saintess of the Anglican Church was a stunning, top-tier beauty.
Thinking that Ah-Li was going to become her knight, even knowing it was just in name, Kiana still felt like a kitten's paw was scratching her heart—a bit stifled.
"What's wrong? Not happy?"
Fuli immediately noticed his lazy cat's expression was off.
"Just saying," Kiana mumbled. "You're clearly the Great King of the Hyperion, yet you're becoming someone else's subordinate. Doesn't that lower the status of us members along with you?"
"Don't worry about that."
Fuli comforted her. "The Western feudal rules are different from ours. They've always gone by 'the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal,' and 'the lower overturning the higher' is practically their traditional art. Who knows, maybe one day the tables will turn, and that noble Princess will have to swear allegiance to me."
"And then you can use your status as Lord to force her to do unspeakable things with you, right?"
Kiana immediately brainstormed a bunch of R-18 doujin plots.
"Stop reading messy stuff when you have nothing to do. Reality doesn't have that many bizarre plots."
Fuli, stuck between laughter and tears, wanted to flick her forehead, only to realize there was a tragic thick barrier between them—the screen.
Noticing this, Kiana Cat immediately leaned her head close to the screen, then cried "Ah!" in pain, covering her smooth forehead and falling backward as if the boy had really flicked her.
Watching her act playful on the bed, Fuli laughed despite himself.
seeing the girl's loose pajamas ride up, revealing a section of fair, delicate, softly lined waist.
He rubbed his chin. "Did you gain a little weight?"
"Awooo! You're the one who gained weight! Hmph!"
Kiana instantly objected, puffing her cheeks and baring her little white teeth at the screen, wishing she could crawl through the internet cable and bite him.
"Just telling the truth."
Fuli spread his hands innocently. He was someone who always spoke his mind.
For example, Erii was the most flatly written character he had seen in years;
The most physically flat character was Rebecca;
The most well-rounded character was the Fourth Sister in Black Myth;
As for the most brainless character, there was much debate, but he still supported Mami Tomoe.
These straightforward comments usually earned him a service of expressionless but powerful punches to the chest from Bronya, but Fuli still felt honesty was a virtue.
"Lack of exercise during recuperation is normal," he instructed. "But be careful when recovering from a serious illness. Don't go on a diet just because you gained some meat."
Getting thinner when sick is the norm. Maybe Kiana's constitution is special?
Anyway, first rule out the possibility that the Spring fairy is stealing snacks all day.
The two chatted for a while longer before a call from a security bro came from outside the screen: "Fuli! Go out on patrol! Stop being lovey-dovey with your little girlfriend on the phone!"
"Coming, coming!"
Replying to that side, Fuli turned back to the screen. "Anyway, that's it. Contact me later if anything comes up."
The video screen went black instantly.
"Mhm, mhm!"
Kiana threw the phone aside and sprawled out on the bed in a "大" shape.
A few seconds later, she suddenly curled up, hugging the duvet and rolling excitedly back and forth on the large bed, letting out a suppressed giggle:
"Little girlfriend... Hee hee, he didn't deny I'm his little girlfriend..."
Soon after, she stopped, rolled out of bed, ran barefoot to the full-length mirror, and lifted the hem of her pajamas, twisting left and right to check herself in the reflection.
"So, did I really gain weight?"