Love, Gun, Cupid

Wei Ying looked at Lin Jiade, then at Jasmine. Lin Jiade's size was almost enough to fit Jasmine inside him. The contrast between the two people's appearances was greater than Du Juan had described.

As for Jasmine, seeing that the cuckoo and the warbler looked nothing alike, she not only imagined a dramatic family drama, but also looked at the other with a hint of pity.

The real gift Lin Jiade brought was local hickory nuts. The second gift came from his parents to his girlfriend: a red envelope containing little money, but Jasmine valued it far more than the hickory nuts. She carefully placed it in a drawer and locked it, as if it were a precious item.

"Look at the walnuts I bought for you. I know you love them, so I carefully selected them locally," Lin Jiade said helplessly.

Jasmine's lips curled into a smile as she nestled into Lin Jiade's arms. Lin Jiade bent down, nuzzling her neck affectionately and taking a strand of her hair into his mouth. Jasmine leaned back in response, embracing Lin Jiade, savoring this tranquil and blissful moment.

"There's something I want to tell you."

Lin Jiade explained his plan to assemble a team for Mu Mian, outlining the pros and cons. Jasmine quickly agreed; for her and Lin Jiade's future, she needed someone reliable like Mu Mian as an ally and protector. However, one question remained in her mind—

"Did you choose to help Kapok out of gratitude, friendship, or love?" she asked.

“Right now, my feelings are mostly out of gratitude, and friendship is secondary. You know about Kapok's special circumstances; I simply cannot develop romantic feelings for her,” Lin Jiade replied.

"Did she tell you the answers? The answers she would rather hide from you than tell you?"

Lin Jiade shook his head: "I don't know. I don't want to know the past anymore, I don't want to know those secrets. I'll just keep going in this ignorant but happy way."

Jasmine lifted Lin Jiade's belly and gently stroked the kapok mark: "Impossible. As long as this thing exists, you will seek the answer."

"I try not to think about it."

"Why should you suppress your thoughts? You should at least figure out whether this thing is beneficial or harmful to you, and how long it will last. Don't let this become a murky matter. If you're too embarrassed to ask, I'll ask for you."

"Hey, hey, I'll go ask, I'll go ask." Lin Jiade stopped Jasmine. "There's nothing urgent right now. We can ask after Kapok gets promoted."

Jasmine nodded: "What if we reversed the magic on her body and made her a woman again?"

"I didn't even see her face, how can this be... Ouch!"

Jasmine withdrew her foot from Lin Jiade's instep: "I don't want Jianlan to go through what happened back then again. If you really have this idea, you should tell me as soon as possible."

Lin Jiade felt both guilty and secretly pleased. He asked in a low voice, "So, you agree?"

"I mean, I have plenty of time to think about what dish to make you into, so that you will stay with me forever, living inside my body, achieving immortality beyond immortality."

Lin Jiade swallowed hard: "It's a joke, right?"

Jasmine didn't say anything. She followed Lin Jiade into the room, doing her homework while occasionally glancing at Lin Jiade as he tidied up, completely absorbed in the task.

“So this is what the atmosphere of this house is like,” Wei Ying said, using magic to encrypt the conversation. “I’m confirming again that she’s nothing like the red dragon described in the book. She’s just an ordinary human girl.”

"She has been tamed by human civilization, which is why she survived. But when you take a bath tonight, you'll see how she differs from human girls."

The warbler asked hesitantly, "They would do...that kind of thing?"

Du Juan explained, "They won't go all the way. Jasmine is a poor student, but she's working incredibly hard to get into the same university as the person she likes. As for Lin Jiade, he promised to remain a virgin for his girlfriend until the college entrance exams are over next year."

"You were spying on them?"

“Do you think I want to see this? The walls mean nothing to us, and I’m embarrassed for them,” Du Juan said.

"You're lying," Wei Ying thought to herself, "you're clearly very interested."

In fact, the reed warbler was also somewhat interested. Although the inhabitants of the heavenly realm also sought pleasure, their method of pleasure was to penetrate each other's bodies and vibrate to obtain pleasure by making energy flow actively.

Therefore, the inhabitants of the heavens experience joy whenever they use energy, and their joy reaches its peak when two-thirds of their energy is used.

Human pleasures are more primitive and savage, a widely held consensus in the celestial realm. Reed Warbler's classmates secretly showed her a little book from the celestial realm about humans, filled with bizarre and unrealistic imaginations, making the curious young women keep reading while saying "How is that possible?"

The reed warbler couldn't find a suitable metaphor to describe the state of the little perverts until she saw a food program filmed by humans eating spicy crayfish. Even though their mouths were already swollen from the spiciness, their hands didn't stop.

Perhaps, human desires are like spicy crayfish—fiery and stimulating, bringing joy. Even if excess leads to physical pain, those who indulge in that pleasure will continue eating until they reach their limit.

"What time?" she asked in a low voice.

Du Juan paused for a moment, then replied, "They always keep a regular schedule and exercise restraint, on Wednesdays and Sundays at 10 p.m. Remember to keep the privacy of the parties involved."

“We’ve already violated someone’s privacy,” Reed Warbler scratched her head. “Well… this time, it’s just a primitive and backward way for carbon-based life to reproduce, so why would I be interested?”

Chapter 18 Future Planning

When Jianlan returned, she was surprised to see two Jasmines sitting on the sofa. She thought Dujuan was playing a prank, but upon closer inspection, she realized that the girl next to her was different from the Jasmines. Lin Jiade, who came from the kitchen, explained the situation.

"Shall we go upstairs to discuss this in detail?" Jianlan said.

Lin Jiade nodded and went through the door opened by Jianlan to the seventeenth floor. Jianlan casually took off her down jacket, revealing her voluptuous curves encased in a beige sweater to Lin Jiade.

He found it somewhat amusing: "Are you still afraid of the cold now?"

“My colleagues don’t know I’m a lich yet, so I have to do something to explain my unpleasant, cold aura.”

“No, no,” Lin Jiade hurriedly grasped Jianlan’s hand, “I don’t dislike it at all.”

Jianlan pulled Lin Jiade into her arms and leaned forward. She was thirty centimeters taller than Lin Jiade, so Lin Jiade felt suffocated by the soft and heavy feeling. He gently pushed Jianlan's waist, and Jianlan let go of him after a while.

His vision went black, and he collapsed onto the bed behind him. Jianlan took the opportunity to pull him down to lie down, while she turned to her side, propped her head up with her arm, and used her other hand and foot to firmly restrain him.

"Are you alright?" Lin Jiade asked.

Jianlan had a bad feeling. During the few days that Lin Jiade was away, Jianlan investigated Dujuan's whereabouts and found that, at least on the surface, Dujuan's entry into the country and her subsequent activities were legal.

Then, her investigation quickly turned to the Barbary Witch who survived the Jasmine incident; it was Du Juan who vouched for her, allowing the Barbary Witch to leave Fuxing City alive.

Gladiolus tries to investigate the Barbary Witch's situation. The last time the Barbary Witch appeared in the records was on the 20th of last month. She successfully induced labor with the overworked man's child, but the magic she cast with the prematurely deceased child as the core failed and caused a small-scale biohazard in the area.

The biohazard was dealt with by the Empire's rapid response force, which departed from the regional capital, but the Barbary Witch herself disappeared without a trace, and the trail went cold.

During the Mirror Realm Expedition from October to early November, Du Juan only publicly participated in the decision-making meeting that decided to launch the expedition. She offered no help, made no statement, and the whole affair had nothing to do with her. She was pure and innocent, as if all the bad things were just mudslinging by those who hated her.

Gladiolus was disgusted by Azalea's pure and innocent appearance, and even more regrettably, she failed to catch Azalea in the act during this precious time.

There was no need to tell Lin Jiade about these things. Lin Jiade said he wanted to mediate between everyone, but in his heart he was biased and wishfully thought that Du Juan could have any bad intentions.

So she simply absorbed the warmth of Lin Jiade's body, rubbing against him like a giant pillow, gently biting his shoulder, leaving her saliva where Jasmine's teeth marks remained. This gave her the pleasure of having an affair behind his back.

"It's just tiring. Being by your side means cooking and worrying about your and Jasmine's lives. But in the workplace, I inevitably have to deal with all sorts of people. Not everyone welcomes me as a parachuted leader, and there are overlapping functions between different departments, which requires a lot of wrangling."

If I had to choose, I'd rather stay home and have one, two, or three kids for you, and then you could become a corporate slave to support me. I'd take good care of our kids, and Jasmine's kids too. As for Jasmine... she can become a corporate slave after she has the kids; I can manage on my own."

After describing her ideal life, Jianlan chuckled softly. Lin Jiade was also infected by her cheerfulness and said, "I'm afraid no company would want Jasmine. She has too strong a desire to have children. I'm afraid she'll take more maternity leave than she'll do any work."

Alright, alright, let's get down to business. Senior Kapok is in the elimination round for promotion, and I'm planning to organize a team to help her... You know her personality, she's reluctant to ask for favors, so I'll do this.

Gladiolus, in your spare time, could you be our advisor and provide guidance to Kapok and the team?

"Who are they?" Jianlan asked.

"Jasmine, Hehuan, the Baiyun Charity Club that Senior Hehuan said has already been arranged, Dujuan and her sister Weiying, the blonde one who is about the same height as Jasmine, plus you and me, that's all the people I want."

"Isn't this just a collection of your and Hehuan's social media posts?"

Lin Jiade paused for a moment: "That seems to be the idea."

Did you help Kapok because you like her?

"It feels like you all have to ask this question..." Lin Jiade sighed helplessly, "I don't know, we'll talk about these things later."

"I agree to help her. Also, have you thought about what path you want to take after you advance to the level of a junior magic researcher?"

After Lin Jiade's professional title is promoted, he can use points to exchange for a system of level three magic. This brings up a choice: should he first learn the weak magic that rivals level three B magic after rewriting the structure of the sword orchid, or simply use points to buy level three A magic and start over?

His reluctance to give up the magic of lameness was partly due to the sunk costs involved, so after thinking for a moment, he replied, "I want to finish learning it. After all, it's the first magic I've ever encountered and mastered, and I... don't want to give up halfway."

“Alright, starting tomorrow, I will rewrite the Blood Spear spell and the Lionheart spell. You can learn the two spells in a week at most. Next, do you want to buy another top-tier spell to strengthen yourself, or do you want to save up points and buy a second-tier spell directly after you advance to intermediate magic researcher?” Jianlan asked.

Lin Jiade clutched his head in anguish: "Ugh, why do I have to make multiple-choice questions again?"

Gladiolus poked his shoulder with her finger: "You have limited points, and you want to buy too many things, so you'll have to make choices. Don't expect me to give you Korobochka's knowledge directly, or we'll both be doomed."

“I’ve never even considered such a thing,” Lin Jiade glanced at the time. “Ah, I should go now.”

"Sweet moments with Jasmine twice a week?"

Lin Jiade's body trembled slightly, and he said incredulously, "You know?"

"You guys really need to clean the bathroom properly. It's a shame liches don't need to shower, otherwise we could enjoy our twice-weekly pleasurable time too."

Jianlan rolled over and pinned Lin Jiade beneath her. She licked her lips, a dangerous glint in her eyes, and said, "Since there are still a few minutes left, let me help you warm up."

"Do not……"

Lin Jiade reached out, but Jianlan pressed his hand back. A few minutes later, he came down, staring at his messy hair and misbuttoned coat. Jasmine glanced at him, then sniffed him and said, "Lin Jiade... you look like a decent woman who has just been violated."

I touched it.

Chapter Nineteen: Plastic Flower Friendship

On November 19th, a dreaded Monday, Lin Jiade spent half of his professional class daydreaming, his mind filled with the team-building plan centered around Kapok.

After finishing his last class in the afternoon, he quickly went to the large conference room of the Baiyun Public Welfare Association, which was temporarily serving as the meeting place for the Kapok team. Hehuan was setting out disposable paper cups and pouring drinks, while Kapok was talking with Jianlan. When they saw him, they both smiled and looked at him.

"Don't stand at the door and block the way."

Lin Jiade turned around and saw Jasmine, Cuckoo, and Warbler. They seemed to have come together, each holding a skewer of grilled gluten. When Warbler saw him, her face flushed, and she walked past him with her head down, leaving him completely bewildered.

Lin Jiade sat down, and with more than half the seats empty, Wei Ying looked at Mu Mian and asked, "How are you recovering?"

"I've already reached 80% of my full potential," Kapok replied.

"Okay."

The warbler used its beak to tear the last piece of gluten off the stick, and the scenery around it changed, with the Great Pyramid of Giza reappearing in everyone's view.

“Virtual space, this is one of the abilities that the reed warbler possesses, the same technology used in the kapok competition,” the cuckoo explained.

"That's right, I'll be gentler when I do it."

The wooden stick in the warbler's hand was wrapped with green flames and fixed in the shape of a sword. Beneath the transparent blade, the flames danced within.

Kapok pulled out a submachine gun, but Reed Warbler didn't give her a chance to fire. She swept her sword horizontally, sending a grass-green arc of sword energy flying towards Kapok, forcing her to dodge in all directions. However, Reed Warbler could also teleport to the location of the arc of sword energy; she was so fast that many afterimages remained in the air.

As Lin Jiade stared intently at the situation before him, Du Juan patted him on the shoulder and said, "Let others take care of the battle between the reed warbler and the kapok; you have other things to do."

"what?"

"Someone is spying on what's going on here."

"where is it?"

“They are among us.”

Lin Jiade reached into his pocket and touched the hilt of his gun and sword—two celestial weapons he had placed together. He activated his Soul Vision and, amidst a sea of ​​gold, found a peach-colored figure.

Lin Jiade walked over, and the imposter seemed to sense his presence, immediately turning to leave. He pulled out his pistol, fired a shot into the air, and shouted, "Someone's impersonating one of ours! Seize him!"