Who is spreading rumors that my filial piety towards them has changed?

Zuo Qiuchi has been missing for quite some time. In the past, whenever she heard that something had happened to him, she would rush back immediately.

Last night, he thought Zuo Qiuchi had already returned to the vicinity, but he found that the young ladies in the mansion were constantly coming and going, and he had no chance to show himself.

But last night he waited for a long time and she still didn't appear, which shouldn't be the case.

Where did they go?

Even if he went to find a female bodhisattva for him, shouldn't he have come back by now?

His anxiety made his face even more somber, giving him a resemblance to Sima Yi.

If Jinyu were here, she wouldn't take it seriously. She would even come over and ask her brother what's wrong and why he's unhappy, and then they would do some fun things together.

But now he was facing Baili Mi.

She felt a chill run down her spine.

After some hesitation, Baili Mi decided to ask about the Golden Crow Heart Essence later, adopting a slightly forced, alluring tone:

"Your Highness, what should I do today?"

Chu Mingkong led her to a large hall in the palace, a place used for banquets and entertainment. It was spacious enough to accommodate many dancers, but it was rarely used.

He sat down in the master's seat, leaning back against the armchair, enjoying the spaciousness to change his mood, rather than staying in the small bedroom and getting more and more depressed.

Looking at this place, Baili Mi wondered if Chu Mingkong intended for her to be a dancer here for his amusement.

Although she was not as glamorous and favored as she appeared on the surface, she still enjoyed a noble status and pampered treatment. She had never worked as a dancer; that was something for the favored concubines!

“I’m really annoyed right now. You have two choices: go there and dance for me, or serve me drinks. Choose one.”

Serving drinks... is better than posing and dancing, especially without any elegant music accompaniment. What kind of dance can one do?

The beautiful woman decisively knelt down beside Chu Mingkong, her back to him. Occasionally, she bent over and twisted to pour wine, revealing a perfect curve from her slender waist. Even through the coarse medical robe, it outlined a full and round peach shape.

If the fabric of this robe were a little softer and thinner, one might even be able to see a slight bump in some place.

"Without musicians to accompany you here, even the best dance moves will only look like a madwoman performing a dry, uninspired shamanistic ritual. I'd better serve the young master a drink."

Upon hearing the news that another 200 points of corrupted filial piety had been credited to his account, Chu Mingkong nodded secretly, feeling that he had vaguely grasped a bit of the trick.

She might be unwilling to let Doctor Baili serve her wine, but she would still do it anyway.

But if you first hint that she wants to dance, and then offer her the "lenient" option of serving drinks, she will feel it. Even though she is being coerced, she will feel it is a favor and will be very pleased with herself, and will generously show her filial piety.

While drinking, Chu Mingkong communicated with the system: "Do you have any cheap items like clothes?"

He had seen the newly added clothing section of the Filial Piety Mall, but the clothes there were extremely expensive, often costing tens of thousands of Filial Piety Points, which he couldn't afford.

The product names are also explicitly named, such as "The Empress of Heavenly Pole's Palace Dress", "The Empress of Heavenly Pole's Bellyband", "A Random Princess's Socks", "The Sect Leader's Dress of XX Sect", and so on.

That's pretty weird. Could this really be the original flavor?

The system replied: "You can get it from the Filial Piety Blind Box."

He randomly picked a few boxes, but this time he didn't get anything; they were all blue sky and white cloud items. Moreover, when he opened the boxes, he found some familiar toys.

"This sheer dress looks so much like the one Aunt Gu wore back then, and this bodice seems familiar too. And what's with the sexy lingerie and the 'Hehuanlu' (a type of underwear)?"

Is this a blind box gift added after the system upgrade, or was it already there?

Chu Mingkong had a bad feeling because the system suddenly stopped responding to him.

Is this thing perhaps feeling guilty?!

I'll ask again later to find out more.

He took out the sheer dress he had just pulled out and placed it in front of Madam Baili.

"I don't like the burlap outfit you're wearing now. Change it."

Lady Baili looked troubled: "Your Highness..."

Chu Mingkong took out the bottle of Golden Crow Heart Essence, poured a few drops into the wine glass, pointed to the clothes, and then pointed to the wine glass.

Want a drink?

In the instant she hesitated, Chu Mingkong picked up the wine glass as if to pour it out, but the beautiful woman took his hand, pursed her lips, and nodded at him.

In exchange for wearing shameful clothes, they obtained a few drops of Golden Crow's Heart Essence.

"Another 400 points? Is this thing really that tempting?" Chu Mingkong was surprised by the sound of the account being credited in his mind.

"Your Highness, what did you just say?"

"It's nothing, go change your clothes."

Doctor Baili picked up his clothes and went next door to change out of his coarse cloth robe before returning to Chu Mingkong's side.

A bottle of Golden Crow Heart Essence costs 200 points of corrupted filial piety, but Chu Mingkong used this bottle as a reward and repeated the process several times, thus extracting nearly 2000 points of corrupted filial piety from this young woman.

However, seeing that the amount of spoiled filial piety he could get each time was getting less and less, Chu Mingkong became too lazy to give it out drop by drop.

He took out the remaining half bottle: "Tell me about the treatment you, the sect leader's wife, received from your husband before. If your husband didn't dare to harm you, then there must have been other ways to torture you?"

The beautiful woman had already been tormented by Chu Mingkong and was somewhat tempered, but she dared not openly lash out. She lowered her head resentfully and said, "Not as many tricks as the young master has!"

Chu Mingkong showed no mercy and slapped Peach across the face: "Speak properly."

The woman suppressed her temper: "My husband doesn't dare to touch me. He has never done anything intimate with me, and he has never even seen me dressed so provocatively."

"Why is it so fake?"

“He fears he won’t be able to resist my beauty. If he endures it, when my divine essence dissipates, he can enjoy me at will, and then enjoy me and change wives as many times as he wants. But if he acts impulsively and can’t hold back, he will lose his position as sect leader.”

To be honest, Chu Mingkong would usually laugh at most women who praised their beauty, but these words coming from Baili Mi were hard to refute.

She had the confidence and the right to say that; Baili Mi was more beautiful than any of the princesses of the noble families that Chu Mingkong had seen back then.

I wonder how her husband explained to Baili Mi why he refused to touch her body. I just heard him say that he accidentally found out about this secret.

"One last question for you: you can go out and carry out your missions so easily, you must have some tricks up your sleeve, right?"

Tell me, have your spies caught any trace of the Sword Immortal Zuo Qiuchi, or rather, any more concrete information about the collarbone-clad female bodhisattva outside the city?

--------

P.S.: The Queen's bizarre character design was actually something the author added haphazardly, letting his imagination run wild...

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Just lingering by the door, not going in to read.

As the empress, if she wants to plan her own important affairs, having informants and intelligence channels is naturally indispensable.

Baili Mi did indeed know some information about Chu Mingkong's sword immortal master.

But since the other party suddenly made a request, can we set some conditions?

"I wonder what Your Highness would be willing to use to repay this..."

Before she could finish speaking, Chu Mingkong forcefully pulled the beautiful woman kneeling beside him into his arms. The warm, soft body and the exquisite, voluptuous figure he was in was an indescribable sensation that stirred his soul.

He began to understand what Baili Mi meant when she said that her husband dared not look at or touch her too much.

It is indeed easy to make fundamental mistakes and cause serious harm.

"Doctor Baili, if you're planning to play this kind of swapping game with me, I can let you play some thrilling games too~"

Do you think I can stay true to myself and just rub against you, or will I accidentally...? My current temperament is very difficult to suppress.

Are you sure you thought about the consequences of saying and making those demands before you spoke?

Chu Mingkong had no intention of becoming allies with Baili Mi. If she could still scheme against her sect leader husband in her situation, she could do the same in the future.

So why would he, who is now in a dominant position, lower himself to exchange resources and intelligence with her on an equal footing?

If she honestly tells him the information, Chu Mingkong will give her something as a reward.

But it wasn't her who brought it up.

"no, do not want!"

The scorching, domineering force startled the beautiful woman, and her attempts to block it by clamping her legs together were in vain.

Chu Mingkong was amazed to discover something new and interesting; the royal family really had a lot of tricks up their sleeves.

"Oh? This is yet another extremely yang water spiritual energy seal placed on your virginity mark, forcibly protecting your purity? Ordinary five elements spiritual energy can indeed do nothing to you. Madam, would you be interested in trying... whether my fire spiritual energy, corrupted by the Abyss, can burn away this seal?"

"...I'll tell you everything! Your Highness, could you please release me first?"

"Let you go first? Now you're making demands again?"

Baili Mi dared not say anything more.

"A few days ago, Zuo Jianxian visited Master Nongyu at Baiyun Temple."

"Who is Daoist Nongyu?" Chu Mingkong still held her close and pressed against her.

"A female Taoist priest who is blindfolded and seeks to understand the principles of fate."

Blindfolded? I think I've seen that before.

It was that blindfolded Taoist woman who suddenly appeared, muttered a couple of mystical words, and then vanished.

Chu Mingkong thought she was just blind, but eye patches are usually used to increase attack speed, right?

“Go on.”

During the brief moment the woman was stunned, he straightened his back as a threat. Baili Mi was so frightened that she twisted her delicate body wildly. Only when she realized that Chu Mingkong did not really intend to stab her all the way to the bottom did she feel a little relieved.

"...Later, Zuo Jianxian went to the outskirts of the city, where there was an ancient Buddhist temple. After that, I know nothing more."

Baili Mi has already told everyone she knows. The capital is still the emperor's capital, not hers.

Baili Mi can only cultivate a limited number of informants, unable to reach too many or too far-reaching areas.

First, it's difficult to cultivate a skilled spies; second, they dare not be too conspicuous in the capital.

Even now that the emperor is seriously ill, Baili Mi does not dare to make any major moves, and will not even make decisions on matters of the court.

No one knew whether the emperor had left any contingency plans in advance. He would occasionally leave his imperial edicts at the Court of Imperial Clan Affairs, which was one way of leaving a contingency plan.

Therefore, Baili Mi could only selectively collect a lot of intelligence. For suspicious intelligence, he would only collect a rough estimate and then ignore it once he confirmed that it was irrelevant to him, so as not to waste his energy.

The capital city is a melting pot of people and a complex web of power. To claim to know everything is to know only the surface of things, which is equivalent to knowing nothing at all. Therefore, one must seek information in a targeted manner.