Chapter 2296 - 871: A Familiar Name

Cunlü was actually pretty calm about there being a traitor inside the Proud Sky Alliance.

She herself had wavered before, hadn’t she!

Of course, she was also very clear that the person Ji Lanyuan was talking about was absolutely the earliest betrayer... no, or rather, in a sense, had been their person from the very start.

The one who made a certain Wenjian Clan young master feel absolutely confident he could take down the Proud Sky Alliance, and secretly picked her, Cunlü.

And, of course, the owner of Cloud House.

And... the schemer hiding behind that Young Master, probably planning to be the final winner.

Honestly, with things having gotten to this point, Cunlü really didn’t believe that kid could handle the fallout anymore.

So, if the one paying the price was him, did that mean she might be able to grab a handful of victory in the end?

Cunlü doubted it, but if that person chose to show up directly at this moment, then odds were it wasn’t.

At best, some trash with no real power but a lot of darkness festering inside.

Still, even though the reason they’d called her over was to let her meet this person, and they wanted her to take orders from this guy later on... that’d only be if they’d decided Cunlü was completely broken and had given up struggling, right?

As long as she still refused to accept it in her heart, wouldn’t she immediately blow his name wide open?

The Young Master was definitely raging right now, maybe even purging everyone who looked suspicious!

What the hell was Ji Lanyuan thinking, tossing this person out there at a time like this?

"Ji Lanyuan!" Sure enough, a figure burst out of the little white building behind her.

Cunlü glanced over.

She couldn’t remember the name, but she felt like she’d seen the face before.

He should be from Youth Journey of the Wenjian World.

Then she immediately started recalling in her head... the Wenjian Clan was huge, bustling and lively, like a marketplace.

Which meant that if they hadn’t talked much, hadn’t done quests together, she wouldn’t find his face familiar at all.

She wasn’t like Old Age Striking King, whose friends were all over the world and who would play with anyone he liked the look of.

So this guy must have spent time with their Black Rose people... only in that case would Cunlü have had dealings with him.

Her mind was running in a hundred tangled threads, but on the surface Cunlü only looked blankly at the man.

Sure enough, Ji Lanyuan, who kept looking back, suddenly turned and fixed her gaze on Cunlü.

Then she showed a soft smile: "You don’t recognize him? This guy used to be Proud Sky Alliance too."

"Proud Sky Alliance has tens of thousands of official members!" Cunlü said calmly. "He’s not Black Rose, so I have no reason to care how other people live."

"Heh~" Ji Lanyuan chuckled. "True, you’re not that friend-collecting guy Old Age Striking King."

"Looks like you miss her quite a bit." Cunlü gave her a smile in return.

"Truly the sort who forgets people easily." The man dressed like a Male Mage said darkly. "I even did raid runs with you before!"

"Then you must be some unlucky bastard’s crappy friend." Cunlü shot back without mercy. "I’m a High Priest; clan members are constantly begging me to carry people.

Who’d care about the add-on to an add-on?"

The Male Mage let out a cold laugh. "Hope you can keep that tough mouth of yours."

"What am I supposed to be afraid of?" Cunlü snorted. "Worst case, we split and go our own way.

Hard Wind and I at most miss out on work; it’s not like we’re going bankrupt.

Your so-called skills are nowhere near enough to override Alliance law!

What?

Hoping I’ll file for citizen protection with the Alliance?

Sure, doing that’s a bit embarrassing, but... heh~ as long as I feel you’re threatening me, it counts."

The Male Mage was instantly at a loss for words, not daring to keep provoking this very impulsive Female Priest.

Among the famous female members of Proud Sky Alliance, not a single one was known for being gentle, considerate, or reasonable.

And that list included Paintbrush and Ji Lanyuan.

Though they themselves drew clear lines between each other, to outsiders... they were basically the same.

Some people chose a path and stubbornly charged down the wrong direction.

Some were still walking on the normal road.

But their shared trait was having hard heads—once they made up their minds, they never turned back.

So even though they’d forced Cunlü to come here, they didn’t dare act too overbearing.

After all, this was still in-game.

They couldn’t actually do anything to her.

However, trying to meet in reality would make it far too easy to trigger the Young Master’s attention... Once he was sure someone was messing with him, with that Wenjian Clan young master’s capabilities, he would undoubtedly have already launched all-round surveillance.

They were reasonably confident, figuring that young master wouldn’t focus on them this early... but none of them wanted to gamble on that one-in-a-million chance.

Stirring up trouble behind the scenes is one thing, but standing up front against the Young Master... when the other side isn’t being aggressive, and when there’s no way to stir up public opinion to shelter them, they actually don’t dare.

Another thing: Cunlü herself is firmly unwilling.

She won’t even pick up their calls.

All contact with her either has to leave no trace at all, or... it has to be fully logged and archived.

How would they dare choose the second option?

So they can only try every possible way to meet her in the game.

Even if that might expose some things, it’s still better than showing up in front of Cunlü with their real faces and getting recorded by her.

That’s why they chose to have Ji Lanyuan, who’s somewhat dissatisfied with them over certain matters, be the one to receive Cunlü.

Even though the two women used to be enemies, given how well their strategist knows these two... as long as Ji Lanyuan doesn’t provoke her, the two of them might actually be able to talk.

And lately, Ji Lanyuan has been getting more and more impatient with them, doesn’t even feel like talking to them; compared to making trouble for Cunlü, she’d definitely rather complain to her about the sins of these people.

She’s really a damned weird woman.

In Zhu Meili’s words, Ji Lanyuan has that whole pack of toads’ style... deranged yet confident, arrogant yet conceited.

But she’s hard to deal with, and really hard to kill.

Having been taken for Slaran, Ji Lanyuan instead inexplicably focused on Cunlü’s statement: "Applying for citizen asylum means being under the Alliance’s AI surveillance from morning till night. Can you really handle that?"

For someone who pursues absolute freedom, that really is a painful thing.

But for someone like Cunlü, born into an ordinary family who has only ever seen the Alliance’s protection of common people, it is indeed a guarantee of safety.

Though troublesome, it lets her hold on to her dignity and stay alive, and lets her child live without being pointed at and judged because the parents did something wrong.

Cunlü answered with unusual calm: "Between freedom and life, I choose my life and my child’s.

As for you... heh~ I think you’re just too well-fed and living too good a life.

Why doesn’t your family throw you onto Free Star for a few days?

Speaking of which, doesn’t Paintbrush know people from Free Star~

And from the upper echelon, at that!"

"I was the one who introduced them to her." Ji Lanyuan answered frankly. "I did think about going to Free Star, but life over there is too poor, I’m not used to it."

This time Cunlü’s mouth really twitched: "Do you know what you’re saying?"

"That’s why in reality, I’ve never shouted ’Long live freedom, freedom above all!’" Ji Lanyuan said very sincerely. "But in the game, you can’t expect me to give up the pursuit too, right?

Otherwise, what am I playing the game for?!"

Cunlü took a deep breath and shifted her focus to the Male Mage who was now completely bewildered by such explosive remarks: "What did you call me here for, exactly?"

The Male Mage snapped back to himself and said with a smile, "Lady Cunlü, let me introduce myself first. I’m Pitaya."

Cunlü’s expression went blank, her eyes full of confusion.

But inside, her heart was already surging like stormy seas.

Even though there are countless factions in Youth Journey of the Wenjian World under the Young Master, the ones who like to use fruit names as their game IDs are all from the first batch of people who followed him into the game, and eighty percent of them are from music academies.

This is just... really... way too interesting.

She almost immediately thought of Mango, the first secretary the Young Master ever had.

But that girl barely stuck it out for long before she went off to play on her own... to put it bluntly, the Young Master’s style in this game isn’t much better than Snow Cloud Peak’s.

So everyone understood why she came, why she left, and nobody had any complaints.

Then Cunlü quickly ruled Mango out as a suspect.

That girl gave up pretty decisively... when Two Lines of Bamboo showed up.

Despite having Mango as a pursuer, the Young Master went and chose someone like Two Lines of Bamboo... even if the main purpose was to have that woman do the work of a general assistant, for a girl with strong self-esteem, that already counted as a humiliation.

And Mango had a very devoted admirer, who’d already climbed the ranks quite early on.

A girl who can pick things up and put them down that cleanly wouldn’t still be stirring up trouble after all this time.

Unless some huge conflict of interest had arisen between her and the Young Master.

But as far as Cunlü knew, that girl should be from a musical Noble Clan; it’s hard for her to ever clash with a family like the Young Master’s.

As for a threat from the Young Master himself... that’s something to revisit in a hundred years.

"As expected, Lady Cunlü has absolutely no interest in the other clans!" Pitaya said with a squinting smile. "I’ve been a clan member since the very founding of Youth Journey of the Wenjian World.

Back then, Wenjian only had a few hundred players in total."

"Mm... if it weren’t for Two Lines of Bamboo, I wouldn’t even have much of an impression of the Young Master himself." Cunlü answered bluntly.

"Ah... really now, something that long ago, why bother remembering it?" The Mage Pitaya, who’d been watching Cunlü’s expression, smiled faintly.

In that instant, Cunlü suddenly remembered.

Wasn’t Mango’s boyfriend called Passion Fruit?