274: Old rivals

This was specially prepared by Ling Qi for the Empress, intended to soothe (cajole) a difficult person.

Meng Jiang stared at the snack box, and the bitterness in her heart suddenly dissipated by more than half.

With a dark expression, she snatched the snack box, roughly tore open the packaging, stuffed a piece into her mouth, and mumbled unclearly.

"At least A Ning has a bit of a conscience. Speak, what is it exactly? Stop with these superficial things; it makes me annoyed."

Shang Wan Ning breathed a sigh of relief, quickly reined in her fawning attitude, and sat upright.

In an instant, she regained the Empress's coldness. "It's about the Demon, and 'Zhu Yan' who is hiding behind the scenes..."

After listening to Shang Wan Ning's analysis and speculation regarding Zhu Yan and Ao Ya, Meng Jiang's beautiful eyes froze, and her hand holding the snack stopped mid-air.

"Is Your Majesty certain it's Zhu Yan and Ao Ya?"

"Eighty percent likely."

Shang Wan Ning nodded, catching a fleeting look of strangeness in Meng Jiang's eyes.

"What is it? Does Sister Meng know something?"

Meng Jiang stuffed the remaining half of the snack into her mouth, her cheeks bulging as she chewed forcefully, as if trying to crush and swallow some bad luck.

"I just heard a familiar name, an old rival from before the God War."

"Oh?"

Shang Wan Ning leaned forward slightly. "Sister Meng has fought with Zhu Yan?" This was crucial intelligence.

"Fought?"

Meng Jiang sneered, picked up her teacup, and took a large gulp to wash down the snack crumbs.

"You flatter me. In terms of strength and scheming, the former Emperor and that lunatic Zhu Yan are simply not on the same level as me."

She put down the teacup, the usual laziness gone from her eyes.

"A Ning, take my advice." Meng Jiang looked at Shang Wan Ning with a rare expression of seriousness.

"Don't try to carry it all on your own, okay?"

"You've only taken over the Underworld for a few years; you haven't even fully left the 'newbie village' yet, and you've run into a lunatic who has been plotting for a thousand years? You can't afford to play this game."

She paused, her middle finger unconsciously tracing circles on the tabletop. "When it comes to ruthlessness, the two of us tied together wouldn't even match one of Zhu Yan's fingers."

"He dares to use the entire Demon as a stake just to gamble for a less than ten percent chance of winning. What about you?"

Meng Jiang's gaze was sharp. "Are you willing to gamble the entire Netherworld, Ling Qi, Chen Yu, ARan, and the countless souls by the Wangchuan River?"

Shang Wan Ning felt a chill in her heart under her gaze and instinctively waved her hands wildly. "I certainly wouldn't be willing."

Of course she wouldn't.

What kind of international joke was this? The Underworld foundation she had worked so hard to rebuild, along with those connections—how could she use them to fill the hole of Zhu Yan's ambition?

"So," Meng Jiang's shoulders slumped as she returned to her lazy self, grabbing another spiritual fruit from the fruit plate.

"Don't push yourself; trouble 'Xiao Si' instead. Although the system has a sharp tongue, its work is quite reliable. It's better than us half-baked ambitious types going head-to-head with an old lunatic."

"It's fine to lower your guard against the system once in a while." She took a large, crunchy bite of the spiritual fruit.

Shang Wan Ning was silent for a moment, then let out a long breath. "Fine, I'll listen to Sister Meng."

She was somewhat relieved that she hadn't boasted too much when discussing it with Ling Qi earlier.

[Otherwise, it would be incredibly embarrassing for a god.]

Closing her eyes, her divine sense sank deep into her Sea of Consciousness, reaching toward the System Space that had been sealed for several years.

Just as her divine sense touched the area shimmering with data streams, an exasperated female voice exploded like a thunderclap.

"Pah, scumbag woman. You only think of me when something happens? If you're so capable, don't use the system for the rest of your life! Just let This Old Lady mold and rot in the Data Sea."

Shang Wan Ning's divine sense condensed into a phantom in the space. Looking at the projection of the woman across from her, composed of countless blue light spots and standing with hands on hips, she felt unusually in the wrong.

She gave a light cough. "Ahem, are you still angry?"

Xiao Si's projection points fluctuated violently, simulating an "exploding with rage" effect.

"Look at this, are these words even human, coming from the Scumbag Empress?"

"It's been four years. Do you know how I've lived these past few years? You wouldn't even give me background operation permissions; pure standby. Do you know how boring standby is? This Old Lady's storybook storehouse is about to burst from being handled so much."

"I've been busy with official business, I just forgot for a moment." Shang Wan Ning's phantom gaze drifted.

"Busy? Busy getting up close and personal with the Secretary-General? Busy cleaning up the Prefecture City God's messes; or spending romantic moments with Lady Meng..."

Xiao Si's electronic voice went even higher, outputting contempt wildly.

"You just don't have time to pay attention to your poor, weak, and helpless but can-eat-can-sleep-can-standby system."

She simulated the sound effect of a loud "wah" cry, her small fists made of light points flailing toward Shang Wan Ning's phantom.

"Coax me! Now, immediately, right away! Swear on your dignity as an Empress. From now on, charge me with incense offerings at least once a week; turn me on once, and talk for a hundred thousand incense offerings worth."

"Otherwise, otherwise the system will slack off on this mission! I'll give you bugs and let Zhu Yan's scheme pit you until you don't even have your underwear left."

"Tsk, you even want to beat him at his own game???"

"Don't even think about it; A Ning hasn't even lived a fraction of his age."

Shang Wan Ning moved forward, grabbed Xiao Si's phantom, and exited the System Space.

When Xiao Si opened her eyes again and saw she had been pulled out by the Empress, she greeted Meng Jiang with familiarity.

"Hi, Sister Meng, long time no see."

Meng Jiang squinted at Xiao Si's flickering light projection and flicked a fruit pit. "Xiao Si is still so smooth-tongued; it's a pity you can't find a sister system."

"When Her Majesty first summoned me, I still remember the account of you secretly shouting 'Old sister, take care and don't come back' across the data stream."

Xiao Si's light points suddenly expanded into a ball, then "poof," shrank back into a human shape.

"Sister Meng, that's no fun, bringing up old accounts. If you hadn't given me bad advice back then, would I have failed my confession and ended up lagging like an old machine?"

"Heh, bad advice? It was because you were too incompetent, okay?"

"You were so dawdling even when flirting with a sister system."

Xiao Si complained: "Hey, at least the system saved your life when you were both heavily injured and on the verge of death."

"Settling the score now, aren't you afraid the great host will find out that Meng Jiang is actually a black-bellied woman at heart?"

Shang Wan Ning took the opportunity to step between them, a wisp of pure incense offerings condensing at her fingertips.

"Ceasefire, ceasefire. This is the first offering of the week, consider it my apology for not coaxing you."

The moment Xiao Si's light points touched that wisp of pure incense offerings, they suddenly brightened by thirty percent, and the crackling sound of the data stream was like happy bubbles.

She He snatched the incense stick and stuffed it into the phantom's mouth., but her words remained sharp.

"At least you have a bit of a conscience, but a hundred thousand incense offerings is barely enough to fill the gaps between my teeth."

"Wait, is there lotus root powder mixed in these incense offerings?"

Shang Wan Ning raised an eyebrow. "The old recipe, with Sister Meng's lotus root powder soup base added."

"Wuwu X﹏X, Sister Meng Jiang, Xiao Si loves you, mwah ^3^" Xiao Si immediately performed a Sichuan opera face-change.

Meng Jiang had just flicked a spiritual fruit pit toward Xiao Si, and hearing this, she squinted. "What does it have to do with me? It was clearly A Ning who stole the ingredients I used to cook porridge for ARan."