"Why!" Yaxiu's eyes went wide. "Leaving Lisi aside, we finally get an employee benefit... No, wait, for an assignment this important, I have to advance and retreat together with my companions! How could I let them fight alone while I sit on the sidelines and reap the rewards?"
"You're too famous," Annan said with an open-handed shrug. "You're the top-ranked subject of the Art Board, and right now you're wanted across Gospel Country. Countless Red Hats are just waiting to use your head for a promotion and a raise.
"If you show your face on the second board as well, I can't even imagine what kind of chaos that would stir up."
"Speaking of Red Hats, I've had a question all along—are we really safe here?" Igola asked. "Both the Family Harmony Agency and the Azula Red Hats know we're in Fanmula. Can Sennheiser really hold them off? Not to mention Fanmula has five other major families..."
"So far, the only person with an actual bounty is Yaxiu. As long as Sennheiser stands firm and insists they know nothing about him, it's impossible for other factions to openly invade Fanmula."
Annan continued, "As for underhanded means... Unfortunately for them, Fanmula's near-bloated clan structure has squeezed the underworld so tightly that criminal syndicates have no room to exist. The sewers here contain only mermaid fish-mint and not mermaid criminal organizations running illicit operations. On the contrary, Sennheiser even has a few sirens on its side."
Igola posed a pointed question. "What if Qinna hands us over? Do you really think a Contract can bind her?"
"I don't think she will." Seeing that Igola was about to speak again, Annan added, "And you'd better pray she won't. I'm just a very pretty agency director, so don't assume I can cover every single base. If I had a one-hundred-percent success rate in everything I did, why would I need you all as cannon fodder? Come on, hold out your hands."
Once everyone extended their palms, Annan produced a seal and stamped the back of each person's hand. The imprint was dark green, depicting an elf woman cradling a tree sapling.
"This is the Sennheiser family crest. When the crest warms up, it means the family reincarnation dreamscape has opened. Press down firmly on it and you'll be able to enter. Sennheiser's dreamscape usually opens every night around eight o'clock."
Annan looked toward Yaxiu and Lisi. "I don't have performance requirements for the two of you, but you still have to go into the family reincarnation dreamscape. Otherwise, the toxins accumulated from the Beauty Mist will destroy your emotional thresholds. Lisi is a minor, so she can only stay in the solo dreamscapes. As for Yaxiu, I couldn't care less what you do, but you don't look like someone skilled at romance anyway. If you can make the board just by casually flirting around, I'll take it as a miracle."
"I have another question," Yaxiu asked. "Why would romancing your mom... romancing Qinna guarantee victory?"
Annan glanced at him. "It's quite simple. If you date anyone else, you're merely seen as possessing the potential to build a family. But if you can win Qinna's favor, the Gospel will judge you as possessing the matriarchal caliber to govern millions of people.
"To use a game analogy, ordinary people are just minor mobs, whereas Qinna is Fanmula's ultimate demon king. Beating a mob makes you an ordinary adventurer at best, but conquering the demon king makes you the savior of the world."
"In other words..." Lisi chimed in, "if we don't do anything, Big Sister Qinna will probably be on the second board?"
Annan said, "She would have been originally."
Igola asked, "Originally?"
"After seeing the war-torn future depicted on the Art Board, do you really think Fanmula will be spared?" The young mistress sneered. "Who knows if Sennheiser will even exist in the future.
"Don't be fooled by Qinna's domineering attitude. In truth, she's more anxious than anyone. Chaos is the natural enemy of clans, and war is poison to legacy. She has to find a way for Sennheiser to survive the coming turmoil, and right now, Doran is the only lifebuoy within her reach.
"If your involvement with her helps Sennheiser carry on, she'd likely be grateful to you—and might even be willing to turn fiction into fact."
Yaxiu understood, but still felt something was off: It would be one thing if someone else suggested this, but Qinna was her biological mother. Treating her own mother so clinically as a conquest target...
Looking around the room, however, Yaxiu realized he seemed to be the only one who felt that way.
Leaving Annan and Banjie aside, Igola and Harvey were from the Blood Moon and possessed no concept of bloodline ethics whatsoever. As for Lisi... though Yaxiu hadn't asked, if Lisi had parents, she wouldn't have ended up crossing realms into another country (Lisi's current cover identity was still that of an orphan from another realm).
When everyone else was indifferent, caring about it only made you the odd one out.
And so, Yaxiu quickly accepted the premise. Then, a sudden spark of inspiration struck him.
"Then could we just tell Qinna about the plan?"
Drawing everyone's gaze, Yaxiu said excitedly, "We could tell her something like, 'In all probability, Sennheiser won't survive the future. But if you agree to date me, maybe the Gospel will spare Sennheiser because of me. And if I secure the divine wish, I won't mistreat you either'—or something along those lines..."
As Yaxiu spoke, his voice grew quieter and quieter.
Igola could not resist clapping his hands. "Splendid! As expected of the Savior of Sin who led our band of scoundrels out of prison! To think you could come up with such a despicable plan to use the clan's name to coerce the beautiful elf matriarch into submission so quickly!"
Harvey crushed out his smoke and said, "My apologies, Yaxiu. I used to wonder if you were just playing innocent, but looking back, I was the one who was too naive."
Seeing the disdain in Annan and Banjie's eyes as well, Yaxiu quickly scrambled to explain: "I didn't mean it like that—"
"I believe in Daddy! He definitely didn't mean that!"
Touched, Yaxiu took Lisi's small hand. "When it counts, my good daughter is the most considerate after all!"
"From my experience playing games with Daddy, he always takes what he wants and then breaks his word," Lisi declared with absolute certainty. "So after Daddy uses Big Sister Qinna, he'll dump her on the spot! He won't let Big Sister Qinna become my stepmother at all!"
Yaxiu's face instantly darkened. "You're dead meat. In the future, I'm going to find you a petty, jealous stepmother who abuses you all day long."
"I don't mind if you want to tell Qinna the plan," Annan said leisurely. "But I value my life, so I won't be going. You can go by yourself."
Yaxiu said, "Igola, you're good-looking. Qinna won't hit you in the face."
Igola said, "Harvey, you love sleeping in coffins so much. Here's your chance to earn the right to lie in one legitimately."
Harvey said, "She's too old. I'm not interested."
Everyone blinked. Yaxiu asked blankly, "Harvey, isn't your hunting range from eight to eighty...?"
Harvey nodded. "It is. But I can tell just by smelling with my nose that Qinna falls outside that range."
Yaxiu was baffled. "But she's an elf! Her appearance is that of a dazzling, youthful, yet mature and charming woman in her twenties or thirties!"
"I don't care about appearance," Harvey said flatly. "Once dead, everyone is just a heap of rotten meat. For day-to-day companionship, I prefer younger souls..."
Annan patted Igola on the shoulder. "Either way, the second board rests entirely on you."
Lisi had minor-protection mechanisms, Yaxiu was best kept off the field, and Harvey was useless. Annan suddenly realized she had only one person under her command she could actually use.
Yet Igola's expression did not look good either. "But I..."
"What is it now? Don't tell me you have a condition where you'll die if you fall in love?"
Igola hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm just worried there won't be my type in the family reincarnation dreamscape."
"Utterly impossible!" Annan said. "Tens of thousands of handsome men and beautiful women across all sorts of races and types. There's bound to be one you like. Unless you have an irreplaceable 'white moonlight' buried deep in your heart, making it hard for you to feel desire for anyone else... You don't, do you?"
"Don't worry, Young Mistress," Yaxiu chimed in. "He's an irresistible male Veela adored by everyone and everything, so charming even coffins pop open for him. Beneath his pursuit of power lies an ingrained arrogance toward all living beings. Playing with people's feelings is as effortless to him as breathing. How could he possibly have someone he genuinely likes? Forget about a couple of romances—by the twentieth, his girlfriends could probably be classified into an entire leaderboard of their own."
Based on their time together, Annan agreed that Igola was indeed a cold-blooded, heartless emotional swindler. Reassured, she summoned the maid to serve dinner.
Igola took the opportunity to excuse himself to the washroom. Inside a stall, he opened the Book of Gospel.
*Can dating someone for whom I have neither desire nor affection be judged by the Gospel as romance?*
The Book of Gospel: *No (consumed 5 Gospel points).*
*Oh boy. We're done for,* Igola thought to himself. *Annan picked up four deadweights this time.*
Chapter 330