328: Unsatisfied

For the first time, she was pinned down on the couch by three women who were stripping her clothes—how scandalous. "I am the Netherworld Empress. If you want to attend to me in bed, you have to come one by one. Do you understand how to queue?"

Ling Qi was pinning down those flailing arms. Upon hearing this, her elegant brows furrowed behind her gold-rimmed glasses.

A Ning's words were purely adding fuel to the fire; she was clearly not in her right mind. This was absolutely not something the solemn, dignified, and meticulous Empress would say in front of others.

Nether Crane increased the pressure on the back of Shang Wan Ning's neck. Her crimson-gold vertical pupils drew closer as she carefully scrutinized the depths of Shang Wan Ning's eyes.

"Queue my foot. Shut up and let me see what kind of flesh and blood power that madwoman Sabrina forced into you."

The divine sense of a Rank Nine powerhouse was incomparably overbearing as it forcibly entered Shang Wan Ning's spiritual consciousness.

Ling Qi's fingers didn't stop, untying the ribbons of the inner garment... exposing more skin as she carefully checked for any remaining runes or flesh and blood power.

She was calm enough—it was professional instinct.

But the slight tremor in her wrist couldn't hide her worry. A Ning was acting extremely abnormal, especially her almost paranoid attitude toward the Elf Goddess.

Sister Meng condensed a speck of golden light of reincarnation and tapped it onto the Yongquan point on the sole of Shang Wan Ning's foot to probe her meridians.

Shang Wan Ning was both ashamed and annoyed, squirming desperately. "Mmgh, let go! There's nothing wrong with me. I've just been driven mad by the three hundred billion incense offerings budget!"

"Ling Qi, you're annoying òᆺó! How dare you call for backup."

Nether Crane's divine sense circled Shang Wan Ning's spiritual consciousness several times; it was perfectly clean, without even a trace of the sulfurous scent from the Gray Mist Territory.

Her heroic brows furrowed deeper; the result was unexpected.

Ling Qi also stopped.

Shang Wan Ning's skin was like jade; forget any evil marks, there wasn't even a single unsightly mole.

The doubt in her heart deepened. Could she really have misjudged? But A Ning had been irritable and erratic lately... Meng Jiang's golden light flowed through the meridians without obstruction, the spiritual power circulating smoothly... [Hmm? Wait.]

Her fingertip paused.

The golden light stopped near Shang Wan Ning's lower abdomen, around the energy center, sensing a faint but strangely familiar cold heat.

Nether Crane noticed it too.

A flash of realization crossed her crimson-gold vertical pupils, followed by a sense of absurdity.

The Rank Nine powerhouse's divine sense silently withdrew.

=͟͟͞͞=͟͟͞͞(●⁰ꈊ⁰● |||)

Ling Qi and Sister Meng's movements also froze.

Three pairs of eyes simultaneously looked at Shang Wan Ning on the phoenix couch, her clothes half-stripped, her hair disheveled, and her eyes red with anger.

The sleeping palace fell into a dead silence, as if time itself had frozen at this moment.

Only the Empress's heavy breathing remained.

"Mmm~ Mmm~ Mmm-na~"

Nether Crane slowly released her grip and straightened up.

She smoothed out non-existent wrinkles on her black martial outfit, her crimson-gold vertical pupils filled with the speechless frustration of being overqualified for this, along with a hint of disdain.

She glanced at the dazed Ling Qi, her voice carrying the lazy directness characteristic of a Rank Nine powerhouse.

"Tsk, Ling Xiaoqi, you call this 'not right'?"

Ling Qi was still in a straddling position, her gold-rimmed glasses sliding to the tip of her nose, her eyes behind the lenses uncharacteristically wide, screaming "impossible."

Her fingers were still clutching the collar of Shang Wan Ning's torn inner garment.

Meng Jiang silently let go of the Empress's ankle, and the golden light at her fingertip "whooshed" back.

She looked at A Ning's lower abdomen, then at the Empress's face filled with shame and indignation, her lips twitching.

Shang Wan Ning took the opportunity to sit up, grabbing her torn phoenix robe to wrap herself. Shamed and furious, her phoenix eyes blazed with fire. "Have you seen enough? Are you done checking?"

"Which part of my body says 'possessed'?"

Nether Crane crossed her arms, her mature face calm and indifferent. "Possessed? Bullshit. It's just that the Yin energy in the Underworld is too strong, and the wangchuan water flowed backward, stirring up your... well, 'unsatisfied desires.' You've just been pent up with a bit too much fire."

The Rank Nine powerhouse spoke nonchalantly, settling the matter with finality.

"To put it simply..."

Nether Crane glanced again at Ling Qi, who was still frozen atop the Empress, her crimson-gold vertical pupils full of playfulness.

"Your Her Majesty the Empress always has a few days a year when her temper is bad."

"A few days of intimacy will restore her."

Boom!

Ling Qi's face turned beet red instantly.

The heat spread from her ears down to her neck. She sprang away from Shang Wan Ning as if struck by lightning, her movement so fast it left an afterimage.

Her legs went weak when she landed, nearly causing her to crash into a nearby screen.

"Your... Your Majesty, please forgive me." The Secretary-General's voice cracked, her head buried low, wishing she could vanish on the spot.

"This Subordinate was momentarily negligent and will go receive punishment now." She turned to flee.

"Stop."

Shang Wan Ning wrapped her robe tighter, her tone cold enough to drop ice shards. "Sec-re-tary-Gen-er-al Ling."

Ling Qi's back stiffened, and she froze in place.

The Empress smoothed her disheveled hair, her cheeks still flushed with a lingering blush, but her gaze cut toward Ling Qi like knives.

"Trespassing into the sleeping palace, tearing my phoenix robe, and even riding on top of me..."

"AQi, you've gone too far."

With every sentence, Ling Qi's shoulders trembled.

"Very well."

Shang Wan Ning curled her lips into a smile that looked dangerous no matter how one viewed it. "Your year-end bonus is forfeited. For the next year, all dividends and overtime pay are confiscated."

Ling Qi looked up, her eyes behind the lenses filled with disbelief: "Your Majesty!"

"One more thing," Shang Wan Ning added leisurely.

"Take Leah's 1.3 billion incense offerings operation report and hand-copy it a hundred times for me. Have it on my desk by tomorrow morning."

Ling Qi: "..."

The Secretary-General's vision went dark, feeling her ghost life turn bleak. A 1.3 billion report, hand-copied a hundred times.

She would rather go to Meng Pos Shop and pick a fight with Sister Meng.

Nether Crane watched the drama with great interest. Her mature figure flickered and shrank back into a little tot clutching a storybook.

Standing on her tiptoes, she patted Ling Qi's stiff leg and added in a milky voice: "Little Qi Qi, just accept your fate. Who told you to be so fast at stripping the Empress's clothes?"

"I didn't even have time to stop you."

Meng Jiang suppressed a laugh and tried to smooth things over: "Cough... A Ning, since everything's fine, Nether Crane and I will head out first? The wangchuan water is still brewing..." She grabbed the little tot Nether Crane, who was enjoying the spectacle, and slipped away quickly.

The palace doors closed, leaving only Shang Wan Ning and the deathly pale Ling Qi.

The Empress, wrapped in her torn robe, stepped barefoot onto the cold floor tiles, approaching step by step.

"AQi~" Her voice was drawn out and soft, with a hint of hoarseness from the recent spat.

Ling Qi's scalp tingled, and she instinctively took half a step back.

Shang Wan Ning stopped extremely close, her warm breath brushing against the Secretary-General's crimson earlobe.

"Next time you dare bring people to strip my clothes..."

Her slender fingertip lightly tapped against Ling Qi's heaving chest.

"I will personally teach you what 'attending to me in bed' truly means."

"The kind where you queue."

Boom—!

The string in the Secretary-General's mind snapped completely. She shoved away Shang Wan Ning's hand and scrambled toward the palace door.

"This Subordinate takes her leave. I will copy the report tonight."

The door slammed shut with a "clatter," shaking down a few wisps of dust.

Shang Wan Ning looked at the empty palace and pulled her torn collar together. The shame and annoyance on her face faded, leaving only a hint of fatigue and an unnoticed loneliness.

She walked to the window and looked toward the direction of the Wangchuan.

A three hundred billion budget... battle-damaged elves... The Empress gave a cold laugh.

"Heh."

Her fingernails instinctively scraped across the window lattice, leaving a faint, imperceptible mark.

"great host, for the sake of happiness, you should cut your nails." Xiao Si hopped out from the System Space.

"Shut up. Without money, how can I have time for intimacy?"

"Don't I want to lie drunk on a beauty's lap!"