Volume 3 – The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace, Chapter 26: Extra Reward
The unforeseen event came suddenly, and shocked everyone present!
Qiqi was also temporarily startled, puzzled as to what was going on.
She heard Qianye speaking with a cold and apathetic voice, “I am a commoner, and I am only at rank four. So what? Didn’t you want to teach this bastard of a slum a lesson? Then stand up and continue!”
The young man’s limbs twitched as he struggled several times in attempt to climb to his feet. In the end, he collapsed on the ground and fainted.
The empire had very strong martial custom, and a duel in a feast was nothing to be surprised at. After the surprise, the initial cheers came mostly from girls. The glittering looks they threw at Qianye were both hot and bold. On the other hand, most of the young noblemen wore unhappy looks on their faces. The hatred born from Qiqi holding his arm hadn’t yet faded, and now that they heard that Qianye was actually just a commoner, most of them felt as if they had been offended.
Qianye raised his right arm. The restrictive formal wear was a major hindrance, so he decided to just pull off the gemstone cuff links and undid his upper garment. Then, he swept a glance across the young man and his few other companions and said coldly, “Who else will come forward?”
Qiqi’s eyes glistened with extraordinary splendor as she put on the appearance of someone awaiting a good show. Yuan Zeyu shook his head and said nothing.
The few youths froze where they stood and looked worriedly at their fallen companion and Qianye. For a moment, they weren’t sure how they should deal with this situation. Their companion, who had been taken out in one punch was a rank five Fighter, and not only was he the highest ranking fighter among them, he also had the highest martial force. They could not understand at all why their companion had been defeated this quickly, but they at least knew that they would only be useless even if they had gone up stage.
It was at this moment a furious voice rang from the southern side of the crowd inside the hall. A young noble man cried out, “This is not the place where a mere rank four Fighter like you to act imprudently and arrogantly! Miss Qiqi should understand if I teach you a lesson!”
Qianye raised his eyes and looked towards that direction. Then he said in a straightforward manner, “Then come!”
The youth was absolutely furious, and he took a great step forwards. Suddenly, a hand pressed down on his shoulder, and he could not longer move at all. When he turned back to look, he was stunned, “Cousin?”
A slightly older noble young man sharing about a third of this youth’s appearance appeared beside him. The latter first nodded his head at Qianye before he turned around to scold the youth coldly, “You sure are all grown up now. A rank six versus a rank four? Hmph! Are you trying to throw away all of the Shen Family’s face?” once done, he added strength to his hand and dragged the impulsive noble youth back into the crowd.
On the second floor, Qiqi blew a whistle and said, “Shen Rongan is truly a fox! His younger cousin may be rank six, but if he truly went on the field he may not necessarily be able to beat my little Qianye!”
Yuan Zeyu nodded slowly and said, “The little fellow you bring has extraordinary strength, and his origin power is condensed to a point that is rarely seen. The common rank six Fighter really isn’t his match if they were even a little careless.”
Downstairs, the hall had completely fallen into awkward silence.
Shen Rongan’s act of pulling his cousin away had poured a cold bucket of water on many hot blooded and eager noble youths’ heads.
Most of the people who were qualified to participate in the mayor’s feast were not idiots. Qianye’s punch earlier was fierce and violent, taking out even a rank five Fighter in a single strike. Moreover, the guy on the floor wasn’t the kind of rubbish who only had origin power and nothing else. Here in this place where prestigious houses gather, who would dare cause trouble without a bit of confidence in their own skills?
Rank five Fighters no longer dared to take part, whereas rank six Fighters would lose face regardless if they win or lose.
Qiqi said smilingly, “Uncle Yuan, sorry for messing up your feast. I’ll make amends some other day!” she said this, but her face was filled with jubilance as she stared at the young man by the wall being carried up by his companions.
Yuan Zeyu smiled bitterly. He had also noticed that the person whom Qianye took out was Ye Mulan’s cousin. Thank goodness Ye Mulan had walked off furiously due to Qiqi, or another conflict would most certainly arise and make the situation difficult to mop up.
A moment later, Qiqi left the feast along with Qianye ahead of time. After they sat into the silver car, Qiqi immediately asked about the cause and effect with great cheer.
In reality, the situation was very simple. Ye Mulan’s cousin brother had suddenly appeared when the crowd were unable to inquire any substantive information from Qianye. He had asked Qianye immediately if he was a commoner, obviously having obtained this information from a certain channel.
To Qianye, he could choose not to reveal his personal information, but he did not plan to lie for it either. Therefore, he had admitted this honestly.
Then, Ye Mulan’s cousin immediately taunted Qianye and said that he was just a poor man born in the slums, capable of relying on his face to earn a living and nothing else. He said that god knows how many medicines he ate under Qiqi’s expenses to have grown to rank four.
Qianye felt no need to waste words with such a person. He simply asked coldly, “You think you’re very strong, don’t you?”
The young man, a rank five Fighter answered with a cold smile, “Of course! What, you want to fight?”
“Okay.”
Then, Qianye breathed, gathered his strength, punched out as heavy as a mountain and as fast as lightning. He knocked out the young man with a single punch. If Qianye hadn’t withdrawn his strength at a suitable time, if Qianye had aimed at a vital spot, this one punch could’ve beaten his victim into a near death state.
Qianye’s explanation was very simple, but Qiqi obviously hadn’t heard enough yet, “Is that all? That can’t be all! You’ve fought in a dinner feast! What else did he say?”
Qianye smiled bitterly, “He said… that I am a bastard of the slums.”
“This is…” Qiqi was a little puzzled. It was just a common swear phrase, so why had Qianye reacted so strongly towards it?
After a moment of silence, Qianye said, “I grew up in the landfill. I never knew who my parents were.”
Qiqi’s smile was immediately withdrawn. Then, it slowly spread out once more like a blooming spring flower as she said with a smile that was not like a smile, “Never mind. You have made me very happy tonight, so you will have a reward. Close your eyes!”
Qianye closed his eyes in puzzlement. A whiff of fragrance entered his nose, and he felt a soft and wet touch on his left cheek. He was given a kiss!
This little interlude during their return journey was quickly put at the back of Qianye’s mind. He was no longer surprised by this Miss of extraordinary behavior, hobby, and even sexual orientation no matter what she did.
A Miss of her status had obtained everything too easily, so people like her often had strange eccentricities in the pursuit of excitement. However, Qianye did not think that her private hobbies have anything to do with him. What he needed to do was to complete his mission well and be worthy of the generous reward he received.
Qianye spent four days to complete the basic training of etiquette in advance. Since Qiqi had not given him any new orders, he then split his everyday time table into two major categories, cultivation and battlefield analysis.
During the later days, Qianye spent all of the medicines, but found himself still a distance away from officially breaking through to rank five. During this time, Qianye had only seen Qiqi once. She had suddenly asked him whether he needed more medicine, either because she noticed that he had not ignited a new origin node despite using a sufficient amount of medicine or randomly bringing up a topic. However, Qianye turned her down because he did not wish to receive too many things that he should not have received.
During the time beyond cultivation, Qianye continuously read up on a bunch of intel and quickly formed a rough understanding of the surrounding area of Xichang City.
Near noon today, Ji Yuanjia arrived at Qianye’s dwelling and invited him to have lunch together.
Qianye was just thinking of understanding the contents of Qiqi’s examination mission better since he was already planning on going to the battlefield. Therefore, he gladly agreed to the situation and followed Ji Yuanjia to the restaurant “Copper Peacock Terrace”.
This was a retro building of impressive grandeur. The terrace was around thirty meters tall, and there were five floors on top of it. The window corners and door rails were inlaid with brass strips, and it shone brightly during the brightest moment of the sun, afternoon.
The two sides of the tall terrace were wide and fit for the descent of small-sized airships. Beneath the terrace, the river water was stored into the sky pool at the top floor through secret channels before sprayed from the side walls up to the sky, forcefully recreating the magnificent view of a showering waterfall. It was said that the cooks and many food ingredients of this restaurant were transported from the upper continent, and its prices were even more expensive than at the upper continent.
After parking the keep, Ji Yuanjia led Qianye towards the entrance while smiling, “Here, you can find the true quality of the upper continent. Of course, that includes the prices as well. Therefore, please don’t eat all you want, or I will not be able to foot the bill.”
Qianye smiled slightly and felt a bit more good will towards Ji Yuanjia. He enjoyed interacting with people who speak frankly.
The duo chose a table near the window where the flowing waterfall was right in front of them. Since the soundproofing of this place was well designed, they could only hear a faint rumbling sound that seemed to come from far, far away. It both created an artistic conception and did not interrupt the guests from conversing with each other.
After the waiter had presented them with the menu, a casual flip told Qianye exactly how expensive this place was. Even the cheapest meal at this place cost at least a gold coin, and the expensive ones rose straight up to three figures. That was to say a single big meal would cost a lieutenant colonel more than half a year of salary.
Qianye only selected two of the cheapest dishes before putting down the menu. On the other hand, Ji Yuanjia was in fact a lot more generous than he said himself to be, ordering three or four specialty dishes into the mix. This meal would definitely eat up a month of his salary.
After the food were put on the table, Qianye experienced what the so-called upper continent quality meant. The amount of food on each dish were so few that it was unimaginable, but they were also so exquisite that it was unimaginable.
The main dish was actually a fish, but it was made into the shape of a dragon’s head. Meanwhile, the dish plate were decorated with thousand miles of cloud sea. This was an absolutely genuine hand drawn cloud sea painting of ink art style. Even a person who knew nothing about art like Qianye could see that its composition and brushwork were extraordinary. Based on this alone, he could tell that the person who decorated this dish plate was an artist of great attainment.
“What do you think?” Ji Yuanjia asked with a smile.
“I think that the decoration on this plate is more expensive than the meal itself.” Qianye said honestly.
Ji Yuanjia laughed and said, “I thought the same as you at the beginning, but it was only later that I find out that the meal is actually slightly more expensive.”
As Qianye looked at the dishes that looked like paintings and calligraphies, he smiled bitterly and said, “Now I know I can’t eat to my heart’s content. This bit of food can’t even fill my bottom.”
Ji Yuanjia laughed even more jubilantly as he said, “To people like us, coming here is just for the experience. The experience of having eaten is more important than how the food actually tastes. At the very least, we would not be ridiculed in the future for being ignorant.”
“Why would be ridiculed?” Qianye was a little puzzled.
Ji Yuanjia said with slight self-depreciation, “It’s because I come from a poor and humble family, whereas you are a commoner. Although a family like mine is slightly better than commoners, in the eyes of landowning households, we are all the same. To those landowning households, the way they evaluate a person is very simple: There is up, and there is down. Those up there needs to be curried favor with, and those down there could not compete with them. Therefore, in their eyes there is no difference between a poor and humble family and a commoner, because we are both incomparable to landowning households.”
This was a powerful logic that gave Qianye the feeling of having his horizons widened.
“Do you know why i invite you here for lunch?”
“It’s because that punch of your during that day’s feast was too f*cking beautiful!” even the usually gentled and cultivated Ji Yuanjia had broken into a rare curse.
“Did that person share a grudge with you?” Qianye asked in puzzlement.
Ji Yuanjia exhaled heavily before saying, “It’s not at the level of a grudge. You’ll understand in the future just how disgusting those people are. Come, let us drink first!”
The two served each other wine, and they quickly finished a bottle of alcohol. Qianye’s face was slightly reddened, and his movements were obviously a little sluggish. Meanwhile, a flush of redness had also appeared on Ji Yuanjia’s face. It would appear that his capacity for drinks wasn’t very good.
Ji Yuanjia shook the emptied wine bottle before calling out, “Give me two more!”
The waiter quickly served them their wine. The rice wine of this place really was pretty good, and even rarer was the fact that they were not expensive. A gold coin a bottle at this place was a ridiculously fair price.
“Qianye, did you have a girl?” Ji Yuanjia suddenly asked.
“No, why?” Qianye asked with a little bit of confusion.
“Ah, nothing. I’m just asking.”
Ji Yuanjia botched the subject with a random excuse. At first, he had wanted to introduce a few good young girls to Qianye. As Qiqi’s true aide, naturally he knew that Qianye’s lover identity was fake.
But just as he was about to say it, he suddenly recalled seeing that unusually prominent lip mark on Qianye’s cheek when he got off the car. It was a faint blue color that was slightly heavier on the purple side, and it was a special color that Qiqi loved the most. There was no way Ji Yuanjia could have missed it.
When he thought up to this point, Ji Yuanjia could not help but feel a twinge of pain and twisting feelings in his heart. He then immediately suppressed this tiny bit of discontent and tossed it along with that lip mark into a corner at the bottom of his heart.
However, this revelation also cleared up his mind a little. Although it was possible that Qiqi had simply found a temporary, fresh toy that she would toss away after a while, before the novelty had faded from her mind, there was no way Ji Yuanjia would do something as stupid as introducing girls to Qianye.
Qianye looked with slight puzzlement at Ji Yuanjia, who had suddenly grown absent-minded.
“Qianye, Qiqi is the kind of woman that deserve the biggest cherishment. If you even have the slightest bit of chance, you should do everything in your power to win her over. Do you get what I mean?” this time, Ji Yuanjia’s words were unusually frank.
Qianye frowned slightly and said, “This is just a mission to me, plus the status quo between her and me is just too far apart. There is no possibility between the two of us.”
“You’re telling me that you’re someone who cares for the status quo?”
“Yeah.”Qianye smiled.
Ji Yuanjia shrugged. If Qianye truly minded the status quo, he would not have punched right into that noble brat’s face during the dinner feast. That being said, for many people marriages that were too good to be true was an impassable hurdle. He himself was just the same.
“Aha! Guess who I found? Isn’t this Miss Qiqi’s new pet?” said an eccentric voice that came from the side.