NOVEL NEXT 151: Food Puns
Lin Songmei didn’t have much to say about Gluttony. She had braced herself for a long, torturous ordeal after hearing what happened with Lust; however, the conversation she and Yan Mingqing had with Gluttony proceeded... buttery-smooth.
Gluttony pledged to help in any way he could. Confused as to why he was so agreeable, Songmei and Mingqing had poked and prodded a bit before Gluttony shrugged and came clean.
As it turned out, the vast majority of Gluttony’s business relied on the stream of cultivators coming and going year after year. Without the cultivators, the restaurant business would go under in a matter of years.
Explaining their plan to try and gather their efforts and base their operations around Wrath’s base, Gluttony assented without too much of a fuss. In fact, because he didn’t know Wrath too well, Gluttony asked for Wrath’s number, wanting to schedule a time to visit her in the hospital.
What an agreeable man...
If Songmei had to take issue with anything, if she had to needle something out, it’d be Gluttony’s lack of ability to help. Gluttony, with one of the largest territories out of all the underworld leaders, naturally, had one of the largest organizations under him.
Songmei and Mingqing had hoped he could offer a lot of his people to help, but due to the nature of his work, Gluttony scratched his head and apologized. With so many restaurants, Gluttony spent the vast majority of his manpower staffing regular patrols and watch posts to ensure the restaurants stayed out of any conflict.
It was too bad, but it was understandable.
Sighing, Songmei grabbed Mingqing’s hand, beginning a stroll back to their apartment. “What now? We’ve... again... finished before the other group.”
“I have no clue either, I mean, it certainly helped that we lucked out, getting the easier side of things, but maybe we’re just better,” Mingqing tapped her chin with a smug grin. “I guess we go back and chill? If the other three manage to convince Sloth, the real stuff starts tomorrow after the underworld leaders temporarily work from Wrath’s base.”
“Yeah... but it just... feels too relaxed,” Songmei stared off into the sky with a groan. “The mayor’s side is just laying low while we scramble to try and assemble some allies. How are we even going to solve this issue?”
Squeezing Songmei’s hand, Mingqing raised it to give it a light kiss. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s talk more once we get back to our apartment. We’ll figure it out somehow, I promise.”
A faint pink climbing onto her cheeks, Songmei pursed her lips and looked away. “Since when have you been so optimistic... isn’t that my job...”
“We can always rotate~” Mingqing teasing voice sang, pulling Songmei along as she dragged her feet.
With Songmei trying her best to tease Mingqing back, the two continued on their little stroll, climbing up the bridge to return to the Central District sat atop the floating island. Making their way through the now familiar streets, the two continued their conversation, raising their eyebrows in surprise as Han Youhong, Wang Taigang, and Zhao Liying proclaimed the completion of their business as well.
Back in the apartment, Songmei and Mingqing belly-flopped onto different couches. Songmei, with her drive gone, raised her hand, twirling a small piece of crystal into existence to fidget with. “Want to discuss a little? Brainstorm a little? While we wait for the others to return?”
“Sure...” Mingqing’s muffled voice groaned from her facedown position on the couch. “Well, I think we start from where we kinda... thought to yesterday. What would we have to do to say the situation is resolved? Then we work backward from there...”
Pushing herself upward with a groan, Songmei stared out the huge window making up one wall of their apartment. “So... what did we say again... Either we have to install a new mayor.”
“Which is really hard,” Mingqing sat up with a grimace. “But it’s the preferable solution. Just that we have to win over the general populace of Westriver. And... They kinda all don’t like us right now. Or, at least they are ambivalent towards us.”
“And the other solution is that we make the current mayor take back what he said.” Songmei pinched her cheeks, glaring at the buildings outside as she mulled over the problem at hand.
“Which is also really hard,” Mingqing added again, shifting her seat to sit next to Songmei as the door cracked open.
Taking a moment to catch Youhong, Taigang, and Liying up to speed, the five of them sat around in a loose circle, spread across several couches.
“Yeah, so the problem with making the mayor take back what he said is we have to... convince the mayor. Which I don’t really see happening. After all, this... plan, I guess... seems to have been in the works for quite a while now.” Youhong pressed his palms together, sitting in a cross-legged position. “Also, on a personal level, I’m sure we’re all more biased towards the first plan than the second.”
With murmurs of agreement coming from everyone else, Songmei leaned forward, propping her chin in her hands as her elbows sank into the couch in front of her crossed legs—a casual show of flexibility to say the least. “Mingqing and I were talking today, but it’d honestly be really nice to have Wrath become the mayor...”
“Ohhh... yeah, I saw that part in the notes you sent over.” Taigang laughed, raising a finger and shaking his hand. “We still haven’t organized our notes neatly, but there isn’t too much to say. We can just verbally catch each other up after this. Let’s just have a concrete plan with some overarching objectives first, then we can sort out the fine details. Anyone want to add to the... truly barebones plan we have so far?”
“Okay, I have some ideas,” Liying started with a gleam in her eye. “Trust this older sister, mhm. So, I was thinking-”
“Wowwww, what a rare occurrence!” Youhong raised his eyebrows as a devious grin sprouted onto his face. “Anyway, continue.”
Giving Youhong the middle finger, Liying ignored, turning to look at the others. “So, no matter what it’s going to end up in a big fight. I feel like, given who has the power here, if we manage to beat and capture the mayor, we’ll be good, we’ll just have to... not look like massive villains.”
“So we have to do a marketing campaign?” Youhong snorted, shrugging though as he recognized Liying’s point. “I mean we just have to make the populace lose faith in the mayor. So dragging it out helps us in multiple ways. For one, we can continue cultivating. For another though, it looks bad for the mayor when the thing he swore to enact has had no results.”
“Well, he’s already captured a bunch of people.” Mingqing pointed out, getting up to get a glass of water from the kitchen.
“So... we gotta rescue them, step one, I guess?” Taigang proposed as he turned to ask Mingqing for a glass of water as well.
““““Yeah.””””
