“Where’s Jin? Wasn’t he the one to come up with the idea to always eat dinner together no matter how busy we all get?” Qiu Yue asked as she packed her items that were scattered all over the table for Lynn to place the dishes she had just cooked.
Ever since Qiu Yue had joined the gang as a Sub System User, Jin had decided to impose a rule to the Sub System Users.
To always eat together like a family.
Jin’s rationale was that it was an informal way to discuss the things that happened over the day as well as a daily meeting to know what was going on with the other two. He also used that opportunity to explain any future changes he was planning for the store to the other two Sub System Users so they could give him some feedback.
Often times he would ask the bellators to join just for the fun of it or when there were certain things that he needed their advice on. Thus, the dining table had never been as empty as today ever since he implemented that rule. Not to mention, Lynn was always cooking something new for them as part of her training. It was basically a fantastic treat before returning back to work in the evening.
“Oh, Yun told me that he left a message saying that he would be away for some secret training and won’t be able to come back for a few days.” Lynn answered as she took the lid off for the stew to cool down.
“So, it’s just us, huh? Well, that’s a first. Itadakimasu!” Qiu Yue said as she thanked Lynn for cooking in her native language and quickly dug into her food.
“Unless I’m mistaken today should have been the day you returned to your office, right?” Lynn asked, happy to see Qiu Yue enjoying the food she cooked.
“Yeap, I did. I needed to go to the Ministry to free up my office space and ‘fulfil my contractual obligations’. Well, that’s the official reason.” Qiu Yue explained that she needed to pay the compensation for breaking her contract she was serving. While she thought she was liable for some other compensation, her supervisor, Yi San, had been able to step in and help her.
————-
Unlike the past, with that lecherous boss of hers disappearing out of nowhere, Qiu Yue’s supervisor had been appointed as the interim boss to lead the team. Entering her former workplace, she found her supervisor in the middle of a stack of papers. She knocked on the door and entered to pass a cheque with the amount she owed the Ministry.
“Be sure to come and visit me at Tiangong District, whenever you are free!” Qiu Yue told Yi San who seemed to be way happier than ever despite the increased workload.
“Wait, you are working for that Dungeon Supplier in the Tiangong District?!” Yi San asked with a bewildered expression.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, no. Definitely not! I just always pictured that when you get headhunted, it would be to join some other private company. It surprised me that you get employed for the Dungeons and Pandas! Though maybe it shouldn’t surprise me that much.” Her supervisor stopped her worked and decided to accompany Qiu Yue to her table.
“I vaguely remember a night out when a certain someone told me about her ex boyfriend, who always wanted to be a dungeon supplier. Wasn’t that your initial plan then? Congratulations on fulfilling it. I heard that it is currently the most popular and most trending dungeon supplier to go to for cultivation training!” Yi San as if she wished to try one of such instances one day.
“You should! Come visit us and see for yourself. I’m sure I can make Jin give you some sort of employee and friend’s discount. Maybe you can even bring your kid in the future. Hahaha, it’s supposed to be a secret, but we have some plans to teach kids the way of cultivation at a young age. You know how that it’s currently very popular for parents to train their kids to learn some cultivation style so they can study longer and harder for exams.” Qiu Yue gossiped a bit with Yi San about one of the possible future developments for the Dungeons and Pandas.
“Hahah, then all the more you have to work hard. I read in the news that it was getting more and more difficult to get the Education Licence for Cultivation from the government after there had been scams of such cultivation teachers, causing the kids to corrupt..ermm no erm.. break their dantian early?” Yi San said as she helped Qiu Yue to pack her stuff. A trait which no boss would ever do and the employees around her respected her for that.
“Oh…I did remember reading something on the news about that. Because they had yet to cultivate to Grade 1, their dantian broke, and they became commoners that could die from any incident without any possibility of resurrection. For some reason, they cannot learn magic too.” Qiu Yue recalled the news Yi San was talking about.
“Yeah, fortunately, such an incident was discovered early and the guy was put in jail for ruining the future cultivation path of five children. They are actually even worse off than commoners. As a commoner, you may not have a talent for cultivation, but all of them did and lost it to a fraud. Since then, the government is extremely cautious about handing out that education license.” Yi San replied while opening another cardboard box for Qiu Yue’s belongings.
“I bet you can imagine and empathise the concerns of the parent’s kids.” Qiu Yue remarked.
“I read in various forums that the parents were so heartbroken and worried for their kids that they sued the government for being so irresponsible, and the government quickly caved in, and providing them with a hefty sum of insurance that their kids’ health would be covered for life. Some even called it hush money to stop such news from circulating.” Yi San noticed that Qiu Yue still kept a keychain which she had given her when she first started work.
“Baahh! It’s not as if right now that when people die, they are resurrected immediately. The process is getting more and more expensive to the point that the government now just keeps a hold of the dantian of the dead until the relatives come and either pay for the treatment or sign a waiver form to crush the dantian, ensuring that the dead would never be able to return ever again.” Qiu Yue said as she folded her arms being a little mad about it.
“Effectively they are making it so that eventually only the rich will be allowed to resurrect.”
“There is no choice, it’s the only way to maintain the balance. At least, for now, they don’t plan on abandoning the guaranteed resurrection of any victims in criminal cases. However, resurrecting everyone who ever dies wouldn’t be too good too. Else there will be too many still living, straining the planet’s resources.” Yi San stopped for a while too and conversed with Qiu Yue. Even though she had a pile of work, she figured spending a bit more time with her former coworker would be a better alternative than trying to conquer the never ending work amount.
“Besides, this had been the natural course of life for ages before the inception of resurrection. It made the world a liveable place compared to what we had learnt in history. It has already shown that it does not allow us humans to live that long as we could previously since we lived till most 100ish. And that is assuming we have the cultivation to suppress cancer and other diseases. Also just imagine feeding billions of people with the majority older than that because we decided to be a pacifist with the advent of modernisation.” Yi San continued.
“No, no, no. Just think about the logistical workload, new Boss. Development in the urban area would be a major headache for you.” Qiu Yue laughed upon saying it which made Yi San roll her eyes.
The Red Panda Cultivator finally finished packing her stuff after another 10-20 minutes, and she returned back to her home to have lunch with her parents and spending some time with them.
————-
“However, there is something that is bothering me.” Qiu Yue said as she picked a piece of omelette mixed with meat and egg. “That broken dantian incident. I’m afraid it may be something like Yun’s case.”
“You mean that whoever was responsible had something to do with the Banned Emperor Assassination which Jin told us about?” Lynn asked as she munched on her food while comfortably talking to Qiu Yue.
Food and familiarity had made Lynn and Qiu Yue be less hostile towards each other. They even began to share ideas to help each other work out. (Maybe they might have forgotten the challenge they tried to make someone solely theirs.) (On second thought, Nope! Highly doubt so!)
“Yeah. People might think its an isolated case but given that the incident was less than six months ago, in addition to the attempted assassination which was kept a secret by everyone involved…I think there might be more to it.” Qiu Yue deduced as she accidentally let out a small burp.
“But it’s not like we can do anything about it. The most we can do is aid Jin and hope that the Banned Emperor thing might blow over. I mean they had threatened to take down the Royal Zodiac Tiger Clan’s Head. Surely the Royal Zodiac Clans will do something about it. “
“You mean like them torturing the assassin to get as much information from him?” Qiu Yue asked and Lynn gave a disgusted facial expression.
“Speaking of torture, I remembered Kraft did boast that he managed to get some information from that assassin, but he refused to reveal anything, not even to Jin.” Qiu Yue quietly snatched the last piece of pork from the delicious stew.
“You got him to talk it to you?” Lynn assumed Kraft and Qiu Yue had to be close since her the latter had been brutally honest to admit that she had asked the former to permanently get rid of her boss in front of the whole table.
Jin was not too pleased, but he figured if it made Qiu Yue feel safe and as long as it was untraceable, he was willing to close an eye to the situation. The crafty fox meanwhile had continued to casually enjoy the food, as if that whole situation had nothing to do with him.
“Nah, he was extremely tight lipped about it. He said it was not time for Jin to meddle with this kind of stuff yet. Being so serious for a second and the very next moment, he proceeds to bully Jin again.” Qiu Yue shook her head when she recalled the scene.
“Actually, I was thinking more of like…erm we should do our own training too.” Lynn proposed to Qiu Yue when she meant how to aid Jin.
“Hahaha how? We spar against each other? Well… That would be interesting.” Qiu Yue said after a bit of hesitation as she wiped her mouth and also thanked Lynn for the food once more. She then proceeded to take a can of beer for both her and Lynn.
“Nah, something more productive. Want to go …food hunting?” Lynn asked after taking a gulp of beer. She was nervous when she suggested that idea to Qiu Yue.
“I think that would make me more fat. Do you plan to make Jin yours, by making me round? No thanks.” Qiu Yue made a frown after drinking a sip of her beer.
“Hahaha, sorry I did not make myself clear. I meant monster hunting. Getting their tasty parts as food for my restaurant’s cooking.” Lynn clarified herself.
“Oh? Which world? Goblin World or the Farming World?” Qiu Yue seemed to be more interested in the monster hunting aspect. Besides, she had been feeling a bit guilty that Lynn was always the one cooking the dishes for the three of them. If this monster hunting could assist her and thereby alleviate some of that guilt, Qiu Yue would be more than happy to lend a hand.
“None of those. It’s a world which Jin hasn’t visited yet.” Lynn was proud to say it out loud since the Sub System had allowed her to travel alone when it recommended that place to her.
“You had my curiosity, but now you have my full attention!” Qiu Yue leaned forward to hear more juicy details.
“Giant World. As the name depicts, the creatures there are all gigantic in size!” Lynn shared with a wide smile on her face. “Although there are varying sizes of giants, there was one that I saw which could feed thousands of people.”
“Wait wait wait! The one you saw?! You went in there yourself?!” Qiu Yue could not believe it when Lynn nodded her head in reply.
“It was for a quest by the Cooking Sub System. Coincidentally it’s also the place my penguins come from there. Oddly enough, they seem to be the only species that do not grow to the size of giants.” Lynn cheerfully remarked as she remembered visiting a village full of Peggies the last time she visited the place. “I have another quest that I received so I was wondering if you would like to come along, that way we can practice and perhaps surprise Jin too.”
“Not a bad idea at all! So we go there, hunt some monsters, get food and complete your quest?” Qiu Yue confirmed the stuff that needed to be done.
“Yup! But don’t you dare even thinking of conquering the Penguin Village! I want them to live freely!” Lynn warned Qiu Yue about her odd obsession of collecting kingdoms under her belt.
“Damn, you caught me. Fine, Fine! I promise I will leave your Penguin Village alone. But if there are other villages out there like that, don’t blame me for trying!” Qiu Yue said as she helped Lynn pick the dishes up and bring them to the kitchen’s dishwasher.
“So meet you in 10 minutes at the backyard?” Lynn asked but Qiu Yue disagreed with it.
“In an hour’s time. I need to delegate some work to Moloch and oversee some construction tasks before I can leave in peace.” Qiu Yue replied and Lynn agreed to it. “Oh, but drag me out if I take more than an hour. Sometimes, I just lose track of time.”
“I get that feeling all the time.” Lynn gave an okay sign to her and clear the rest of the dishes.
