266: Ding dong, your resume has been submitted.

A wisp of pure divine power overflowed from her fingertips, enveloping the White-Haired Loli's entire body and protecting her heart vessels.

She also sealed the depleted energy center, preventing this troublemaker from acting recklessly and worsening her injuries.

Having finished this, Meng Jiang's divine sense phantom began to fluctuate slightly, clearly not intending to stay long.

"Waaah X﹏X, My Lord..." Cries filled with sobbing echoed out one after another.

Feng Xi scrambled and crawled toward Meng Jiang's avatar phantom, falling to her knees with a "thud" and slamming her forehead onto the scorching scorched earth with a muffled sound.

"Lady Meng, I beg you, please take in the Grass Spirit Dog Clan. We will be your slaves or servants, plant flowers or grass—we'll do anything."

"The Demon... the Demon is no longer a place where we can survive, My Lord!"

Meng Jiang's phantom paused.

Feng Xi's tearful "moral kidnapping" caused her to instinctively frown; a flicker of offended irritation had just surfaced when it was "snapped" away by another thought.

[Grass Spirit Dogs, the heaven-chosen Spiritual Plant Masters. They are a hundred times more useful than clerical ghost emissaries—practically living Druids.]

That bit of displeasure vanished instantly, replaced by a secret joy she could hardly suppress.

[Top-tier gardeners delivered right to my door, and they even come with innate farming talents.]

But her face remained as calm as a still well, her divine sense fluctuations stabilized, and she maintained the air of a deity, her voice carrying a perfect touch of detachment.

"Those who are not of our kind must have a different heart," Meng Jiang spoke, each word striking Feng Xi's tightrope-walking expression.

"Since you have the mind to submit to the Underworld, you can be considered one who understands the times."

Feng Xi's heart leaped into her throat, her claws digging into the scorching earth.

"Take care of the Prefecture City God first." Meng Jiang's phantom tilted her chin toward the unconscious Chen Yu on the ground.

"Care for her with all your heart. When she wakes, everything will be decided."

She paused for a moment, the fluctuations at the edges of her phantom quickening slightly, as if she were in a hurry to withdraw.

She added another sentence: "In the future... Underworld Ghost Emissaries will naturally come to examine your character."

Feng Xi looked up, sparks of wild joy exploding in her puppy eyes.

[She didn't refuse, and there's an examination—this is the chance.]

"Thank you, My Lord! Thank you for your grace, Lady Meng Jiang!" She kowtowed twice more with a "bang bang," her forehead covered in charred soot and dust.

"As long as the Lord Prefectural City God is in the Demon, this small Demon will do her utmost to protect her and ensure she remains unharmed. If anything goes wrong, I will present my head to you."

Meng Jiang's divine sense phantom nodded, or perhaps it was just an illusion of light and shadow. Her indigo-purple skirt swayed without wind, and her solid figure suddenly became thin and transparent.

"Remember your words." These last three words were like a faint echo, dissipating into the demonic qi filled with the scent of burning and blood.

The purple phantom vanished completely, and the divine pressure withdrew along with it.

Feng Xi maintained her kneeling posture until she was certain Lady Meng had truly left. Only then did her body relax, and she slumped onto the ground.

She gasped for air, the vines on her back soaked with cold sweat, yet her face was filled with the excitement of having survived a disaster.

"It's done, there's hope," she murmured, turning her head to look at the unconscious White-Haired Loli on the ground, her gaze so fervent it almost seemed to burn.

"Quick, quick, quick!" Feng Xi scrambled up and shouted at her clansmen, who were also slumped on the ground.

"Lift the Lord Prefectural City God up. Be gentle! Use the softest hay for bedding. Go open the clan treasury; the best stuff is there, and..."

She thought of the barking and the locust tree hollow, and her pretty face darkened. "Send two squads of clansmen—no, send three."

"Go to the Old Locust Tree Hollow and bring back the Iron-Haired Dog pack, the Young Clan Leader, and the hidden traces moss wine. Bring them all back to this Clan Leader!"

The Grass Spirit Dog clansmen woke as if from a dream, scrambling to their feet to take action.

A few Demons lifted the feather-light Chen Yu almost reverently and rushed toward the back of the village. Another two squads pounced aggressively toward the location of the old locust tree.

Feng Xi stood in place, rubbing her palms together excitedly.

She looked down at her fingernails stained with soot and green blood, then at the scorched pit blasted into the ground by lightning fire, and finally toward the direction where Chen Yu was being carried.

"Lord Prefectural City God, please, whatever you do, don't cause any trouble!" she muttered under her breath, as if praying.

This unconscious little ancestor was now the golden nugget holding the fate of their entire Grass Spirit Dog Clan in her hands.

Before the scent of blood had fully dissipated, the dispatched Grass Spirit Dog clansmen returned, dragging the "thieves" with them.

For a moment, the scene was extremely chaotic.

Over a dozen Iron-Haired Dogs were tied up with vines like zongzi and tossed haphazardly onto the ground.

Big Dog's belly was bulging, his snoring was loud enough to reach the heavens, and his mouth was dripping with saliva and suspicious dark green wine stains. In his sleep, he smacked his lips from time to time.

The other Iron-Haired Dogs were also stumbling about, reeking of alcohol, their fur matted into clumps. Three Iron-Haired Dogs with low cultivation were even twitching unconsciously.

And surrounded by them in the center was an egg stained with dark green wine marks.

The eggshell was intact, but the strong smell of alcohol could be detected from a great distance.

"Young Clan Leader." Feng Nuo carefully picked up the egg and handed it to Feng Xi.

Feng Xi took the alcohol-reeking egg, her arms trembling. This was her only cub! The old mother's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally half-settled back into her chest.

She hurriedly used the softest vine leaves to wipe the stains off the eggshell, her movements as gentle as if she were holding fragile glass.

"Where's the wine?" Feng Xi suppressed her heartache for the egg and looked up, her tone carrying a hint of hope.

"The hidden traces moss wine—how much is left?"

The Grass Spirit Dog clansmen carrying the dogs let their tails droop, their eyes darting away, not daring to look at the Clan Leader at all.

One of them steeled himself and pointed to the shards of wine jars on the ground, which had been licked clean until they shone.

He said in a voice as thin as a mosquito's buzz, "Clan... Clan Leader... it's... it's all here. Fifty-two jars... not a single... single drop is left."

The demonic qi suddenly fell into a deathly silence. Feng Xi's relief at having just secured a powerful patron instantly shattered into countless pieces.

She lowered her eyelids, looking at the egg in her arms that smelled of wine, then slowly raised her head, her gaze sweeping over the drunkenly passed-out Iron-Haired Dogs on the ground and landing on the bare wine jar shards.

"Fif... Fifty-two jars!" Feng Xi squeezed the words through her teeth.

"Over a thousand years of collection."

It felt as if her chest had been struck by a heavy hammer; her vision went black, and the world spun. The lingering scent of the thousand-year wine was still at the tip of her nose, but before her eyes were only broken jars and drunken dogs!!!

"Ugh..." A whimper of extreme pain escaped her mouth as she stumbled back repeatedly, her right hand clutching her aching chest.

She wanted to scream, to curse, to tear these Iron-Haired Dogs to shreds. She wanted to pluck out their fur hair by hair and force them to spit out all the wine.

That was the Thousand-Year Spiritual Wine she hadn't been willing to touch even when facing the danger of clan extermination, originally intended for her daughter's hatching baptism.

It was the clan's last resort; how could it be given to dogs to drink like 'water'?

Rage burned Feng Xi's eyes crimson, and her canine teeth ground together with a clicking sound.

But in the next second, she pinched the vines on her other arm hard; the sharp sting allowed Feng Xi to barely regain a shred of sanity.

Her gaze swept over Big Dog's fat neck.

"Whew... To beat a dog, one must look at the master."

[He is the Underworld's dog; I cannot kill him, I cannot touch him.]