Scourge Messenger

Chapter 45 Genius among Geniuses
At the Mansu Forest Camp, in a house that looked like a giant mushroom, Jie Yuanshao was sitting and talking while Jie Zilong was standing and writing.

Jie Yuanshao finished describing what she had seen and heard in the Mansu Forest, and waited for her uncle's follow-up questions. However, Jie Zilong said nothing, only looking at what he had drawn on the blackboard, and suddenly circled a few words.

Shelter, buildings, resources, next wave of attack, durability...

Jie Yuanshao didn't see anything at first glance, but slowly began to frown, his thick eyebrows squeezed together.

"Do you see anything?"

"These words feel... a little strange."

"Because these words are both new and old," Jie Zilong said with a smile. "They are new to us. When I was young, I traveled to the Three Kingdoms of Liang, Zhou, and Qi, and I also frequently visited foreign countries, but this kind of words is new to me. At the same time, they are also old. There are no unfamiliar characters in them, so even if we see them for the first time, we can still understand their meaning."

"Compared to Jiang Shi's performance in the Mansu Forest, the 'specialness' she conveyed in her words was even more intriguing."

"For example," Jie Zilong circled the word 'Blade Warrior'. "If you saw the Twin Blades General for the first time, would you give it this name?"

Jie Yuanshao thought for a moment and shook his head decisively: "No, its greatest features are its twin blades and heavy armor. Compared to the Blade Warrior, the Twin Blade General undoubtedly better summarizes its characteristics."

"Yes, the Double Blade General is the nickname we gave it based on its characteristics, and Blade Warrior... might be its real name."

"Name." Jie Yuanshao murmured the word softly, as if chewing on its meaning: "Name..."

"Yuan Shao, you know that the humanoid demons in certain secret realms can communicate to a certain extent, and there are even some readable tomes. Our exploration of secret realms and our understanding of tokens are basically extracted from the demons' words and secret realm tomes. Therefore, our understanding of secret realms and tokens is quite superficial. For example, three years ago, when the royal family was clearing out the Fire Phoenix Scattering Secret Realm, they accidentally triggered a hidden mechanism, resulting in the appearance of a demon king in the secret realm. As a result, heavy casualties forced everyone to evacuate."

Jie Yuanshao immediately recalled the funeral that had rocked Jiangnan City three years prior, and asked in surprise, "Could this be the death of the King of Kuaiji? He didn't die of illness?"

"He escaped and died of serious injuries." Jie Zilong said, "At least the token was saved."

"Not only have we not fully explored the secret realm, we may not even truly understand the token—did you know that our family has a third-level rare token, and we still haven't fully explored all of its uses. We don't even know how to use it."

"You could even say that most of the tokens you and I know of are nicknames we've agreed upon, not their real names."

Jie Yuanshao faintly heard the subtext of his uncle, and his expression became more and more serious: "Do you think Jiang Shi..."

"A genius is someone exceptionally gifted, possessing abilities, opportunities, or secrets that distinguish them from ordinary people. There are many geniuses in this world, some skilled in battlefield combat, others in strategic planning, and even those skilled in taming demons and beasts, or mastering the five elements," Jie Zilong said. "But the ultimate genius is always one kind—those who excel at exploring secret realms. They plumb the depths of secret caves, possessing extraordinary intuition, unraveling hidden information, and even seeing the true nature of secret realms directly. Compared to them, we are practically blind."

"Jiang Shi is a genius among geniuses."

……

...

Led by the servant, Qian Gongyu walked up to the second floor of the merchant's carriage, feeling inexplicably excited - not only because she could visit the interior of the carriage, but also because she was brought in by the merchant's servant under the gaze of many people!

She could see Luo Weijin's expression twisted, and those who had looked down on her family in the past also had extremely ugly expressions. To be able to become a good friend of the fourth daughter of the Shang family, even if she was only from a blue ribbon family, she was the emperor among blue ribbons!
"Xiaoyu, you're here." Shang Xinlei put down her pen and paper, came over and pulled her to sit in the living room, "How's the food from my kitchen? I quite like today's huge head prawns."

"That's too much." Qian Gongyu smiled and said, "There are only three of us in my family: me, Jiang Shi, and Uncle Lin. Besides you, Fourth Miss Shang, Miss Jie also sent us food. Even if Jiang Shi ate a full half, we still had a lot left."

"Jiang Shi ate half?" Shang Xinlei was stunned. She gestured at her waist and said, "I remember Jiang Shi's waist was a little thinner than mine—she ate half?"

Qian Gongyu blinked and said uncertainly, "It seems like...some of the food disappeared in her hands."

Shang Xinlei's expression changed slightly, and she said seriously, "If you don't want to harm Jiang Shi, it's best not to leak this news. And you'd better persuade Jiang Shi not to expose it to outsiders. Jie Yuanshao probably thinks that Jiang Shi's storage ability is only effective in the Mansu Forest. What if others find out that Jiang Shi has such a large storage token..."

She paused, then shrugged helplessly, "But Jiang Shi is already in a very difficult situation, so a little more attention like this won't matter."

Qian Gongyu was a little restless, clutching her skirt tightly with both hands.

"Is it... that serious? It's just a high score—"

"It's much more serious than you might imagine," Shang Xinlei said. "It's true that Liang State didn't value the Mansu Forest before, but that was based on the premise that 'Mansu Forest's returns weren't high. Now that we've achieved such a high score, the individual treasure chest rewards at settlement will naturally be much more generous. This will also lead to a corresponding increase in the rewards for the ten treasure chests nine days from now."

"This is just the change brought about by the four of us. What if dozens of people can get high scores? What about hundreds of people? The Mansu Forest is a very special secret realm. It has no limit on the number of participants, and no entry threshold. This means that as long as the court is willing, it can mobilize tens of thousands of people to participate in the Mansu Forest at any time. By then, the combined rewards of everyone will probably reach a level that will force Qi and Zhou to unite and besiege Liang."

Qian Gongyu's legs suddenly began to tremble violently, his teeth chattering, and his voice trembled: "Is this, really that serious?"

Shang Xinlei looked at Qian Gongyu's expression and couldn't help but burst out laughing while holding her stomach. Qian Gongyu's face turned red with laughter. She bit her lower lip and stood up to protest, "Fourth Miss Shang, if you are so disrespectful to me, there is no need to continue our relationship!"

"No, no, it's my fault. Sit down first." Shang Xinlei pulled her back. "How about this, just consider it an apology. From now on, you can just call me Xinlei instead of calling me Fourth Miss Shang, which is so distant."

Qian Gongyu's eyes lit up, but she hesitated: "This is not good, I'm just a blue belt..."

"There's nothing wrong with that. Jie Yuanshao and I are on a first-name basis. Besides, I don't have many friends, and I'd love to be friends with someone as interesting as you, Xiaoyu." Shang Xinlei said with a smile. "Am I interesting...?" Qian Gongyu was a little confused, but immediately accepted the explanation, her lips curled up: "So I am interesting!"

"Xinlei, are you telling the truth about what you just said? Or are you just trying to scare me?" She looked at Shang Xinlei suspiciously and said angrily, "I'm from Baiyun, don't lie to me."

Shang Xinlei was having a really hard time holding back her laughter. She waved her hands and said with a smile, "Of course I'm trying to scare you. Although Jiang Shi didn't reveal anything, I can see that when Jiang Shi upgraded the shelter—or so she seemed to say—she didn't use any props or spells. She seemed to be able to see things that we couldn't. This is an ability that is unique to her. I don't think it can be copied or promoted."

"Jiang Shi is certainly extremely valuable, but not to the point of starting a war."

After a pause, Shang Xinlei continued, "Her beauty could actually spark a war—even when she's serious, she's breathtakingly beautiful. It's hard to imagine how stunning she is when she smiles. I don't even want to stand next to her."

Qian Gongyu nodded in understanding: "Yes, yes, it's too stressful to stand next to her. Sometimes when I can't help but feel jealous of her, I forget that I'm jealous of her when I see her face."

"But I think Jiang Shi is impossible to copy. Others may not think so." Shang Xinlei said: "The Jie family may not think so either."

When Qian Gongyu mentioned the behemoth Jie family, she opened her mouth, speechless. Two days ago, she hadn't even had the right to say a single auspicious word to anyone in the Jie family, let alone have any dealings with them. But now, the Jie family had proactively sent a luxurious feast prepared by their kitchen to her door—Tian Lian could see that the table in her carriage couldn't even hold all that food.

Qian Gongyu naturally knew the reason for these treats, but she had no idea how to respond. The Jie family was too big, and she was too young.

"Oh right," she suddenly remembered something, "Yesterday Miss Jie mentioned the punishment for Jiang Shi..."

"Forget it, no one cares about this anymore. Didn't you notice that Luo Weijin has gone into hiding in shame?" Shang Xinlei waved his hand casually, picked up a box on the desk and placed it in front of Qian Gongyu.

"open to take a look."

Qian Gongyu opened the box, and her pretty face was instantly enveloped by a green light. Inside the box, she saw five strings of spiritual jade, each one stained dark green. It was six strings of Hundred Jade!

Lingyu has a very wonderful feature, that is, when a large number of Lingyu falls to the ground, they will merge and stack up, and will not occupy space indefinitely. According to the number of stacking, the green color of Lingyu will become deeper and deeper. When it is stacked to the limit of one hundred times, it will turn into dark green Baiyu.

Ten jades per string, six strings of one hundred jades equal six thousand spirit jades, a small secret realm's net profit for a few days. For the Qian family, who had never truly mastered the secret realm, this was an unprecedented sum of money. Qian Gongyu's account book assets, at most, had only a few hundred spirit jades.

Looking at this huge sum of money that could allow her to have a good new year, Qian Gongyu looked very conflicted. After hesitating for a long time, she closed the box and pushed it back to Shang Xinlei, lowering her head and saying, "I'm sorry, I can't make a decision for Jiang Shi. I can't accept this money, but I can help you, Xinlei, and give you a word of advice!"

Shang Xinlei blinked and asked, "What do you think this money is?"

"Isn't this Jiang Shi's buyout money?"

"come here."

Qian Gongyu sat down obediently, and then Shang Xinlei pinched her face and rubbed and kneaded it.

"It's fine if you look down on Jiang Shi, but how can you look down on merchants? You actually think I'm so stingy that I only want to buy Jiang Shi for such a small amount of money?!"

"I'm wrong, I'm wrong—"

"This is a spiritual jade for you. I noticed you stopped replenishing your spiritual energy at the end of the Mansu Forest. I thought you might not have brought much spiritual jade with you, so I'm giving you some for emergencies." Shang Xinlei said, "Don't overthink it. This is so you can make better use of your investment tomorrow. If you can suppress a few more demons tomorrow, I won't lose anything."

"It's that simple?"

"It's that simple."

"No other requirements?"

"No other requirements?"

Qian Gongyu held the box carefully, "Is there anything else?"

Shang Xinlei waved her hands: "There's nothing else to do, you can go back."

Qian Gongyu walked to the stairs and couldn't help asking again: "Really not——"

"I changed my mind. I want you to stay and belly dance tonight—"

"See you tomorrow!"

Shang Xinlei opened the window and watched Qian Gongyu happily return to her carriage, chattering with Jiang Shi who was practicing footwork beside the carriage. She shook her head and smiled helplessly.

"I thought I could make her feel ashamed..." She muttered to herself, "It seems that her acquaintance with Jiang Shi is not just luck... He is indeed an interesting person."

(End of this chapter)