Can I Become Emperor by Being This Lazy? - Chapter 60

Chapter 60

Xu Mao rushed frantically into the mountains, her ears filled with the pounding of her own heartbeat as an ominous premonition swirled in her mind.

The group hurried anxiously toward the source of the loud explosion. As they approached the cave entrance, a pungent odor hit them from afar, making Xu Mao’s heart sink.

Just as everyone prepared to investigate inside, a surprised female voice called out from behind: Marshal!

Xu Mao turned to see none other than Wang Xingzhu, who was dressed simply with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, looking completely organized yet utterly astonished at the crowd.

Wang Xingzhu, what’s going on here? Xu Mao asked bewildered, half-turning her body to point toward the cave.

She had assumed Wang Xingzhu was recklessly conducting Elixir Crafting or gunpowder experiments inside the cave without realizing the danger, and had rushed over intending to rescue her.

Wang Xingzhu exclaimed excitedly: Marshal, what brings you here? Your timing is perfect! This subordinate has discovered a new method for praying for rain—using Elixir Crafting to induce heavenly showers. I’ve tested various elixirs one by one, and aside from the Longevity Elixir which tends to cause Furnace Explosions, none of the others worked well. Today’s test indeed successfully caused an explosion!

Xu Mao couldn’t muster a smile. With a stern face, she said gravely: Such dangerous activities require more personnel around. Moreover, furnace explosions release tremendous force—what if you got injured?

Noticing Xu Mao’s anger instead of approval, Wang Xingzhu awkwardly suppressed her joyful expression. Hearing the concern in Xu Mao’s words, she whispered: The Marshal is absolutely right. But please rest assured, this subordinate understands the risks involved. I’ve been extremely careful—I immediately retreated after igniting the furnace in the cave and emerged completely unharmed.

Xu Mao glanced back into the cave. The deep interior was pitch black, making it impossible to see inside. But judging from Wang Xingzhu’s description, it seemed to be just ordinary elixir crafting rather than the high-tech disaster she had imagined, and she suddenly breathed a sigh of relief.

Considering the possibility of secondary explosions from incomplete combustion, she decisively ordered: For safety reasons, I’ll seal this cave entrance first and post guards here. No one is permitted to enter to prevent accidents. We’ll clear the aftermath tomorrow after the hazards are eliminated.

Wang Xingzhu, come with me and explain everything. Who told you about this elixir-crafting rain prayer method?

Xu Mao directed several soldiers to guard the cave entrance and temporarily control the situation while quietly observing the surrounding terrain. She prayed the conditions here were insufficient for rainfall today, then turned her attention back to questioning for crucial information.

Thinking she had done something wrong, Wang Xingzhu trembled fearfully, her face drained of color. Shrinking back hesitantly, she said: Marshal, this subordinate read about it in Ugly Niang’s Diary. She recorded an account about a Taoist crafting elixirs by a pond when unexpectedly his furnace exploded, bringing a sweet rain that saved drought-stricken common people. He achieved merit and ascended to immortality. But Ugly Niang noted this seemed to be some form of Artificial Rainmaking.

Marshal, this subordinate didn’t know this was heretical! I never intended to practice any Evil Art—please believe me!

Wang Xingzhu answered urgently. Seeing Xu Mao’s unpleasant expression, she mistakenly thought she had dabbled in some sinister magic that displeased the Marshal, hence her frantic explanation as she revealed everything to prove her innocence.

When Wang Xingzhu uttered these words, Xu Mao felt as if struck by lightning, standing frozen in place with pupils trembling slightly.

Artificial rainmaking?

The game isn’t online—how could such specialized modern terminology appear here?

She couldn’t quite figure it out—was it some hidden dark humor by the development team, or was the game glitching?

After pondering for a long while, Xu Mao placed a hand on Wang Xingzhu’s shoulder and reassured her, Don’t worry, I’m not blaming you. I’m just concerned for your safety. Next time, don’t disappear without a word to do something so dangerous.

Tears welled up in Wang Xingzhu’s eyes as she looked at Xu Mao with increased reverence and guilt, regretting how she had lost her mind in the past and committed those foolish acts that nearly harmed the best person in the world.

Not only that, but due to her own lack of consideration this time, she had made the Marshal worry about her. Wang Xingzhu vowed in her heart not to repeat such behavior.

She must strive to handle every matter properly, sparing the Marshal from worry, reducing burdens, so the Marshal wouldn’t have to clean up their messes anymore.

Xu Mao looked up at the sky, observing the weather conditions. It didn’t seem like rain was coming, so she suppressed her anxiety and brought Wang Xingzhu back to the Jin residence.

On the way back, Xu Mao requested to borrow Ugly Niang’s Diary from Jin Feiyu. She wanted to study it carefully, distinguishing between usable and unusable parts to prevent Wang Xingzhu and others from reading it and suddenly unlocking their Governing and Conception Vessels one day, potentially backstabbing her deeply.

Jin Feiyu had no objections—the diary was originally meant for Xu Mao anyway. Since Xu Mao had come in person, it saved her the trouble of packing and shipping it to the Jin Province Prefect’s office.

Upon returning to the Jin residence, Xu Mao jumped off the carriage, ready to head straight to the study, when she heard a shout: Marshal—

Xu Mao stopped and turned toward the voice—it was a messenger who happened to arrive just then.

The messenger tightened the reins to control the horse, quickly dismounted, and presented a letter. Xu Mao accepted it and discovered it was from Wang Xingzhu.

Due to bad timing, the letter had arrived in Jin Province after she had already departed for Baoping and then proceeded to Yanlin. The messenger had no choice but to return it.

After receiving Wang Xingzhu’s letter, Xu Mao went to the study. Before opening Ugly Niang’s Diary, she first read the letter’s contents.

Wang Xingzhu had carefully described the contents of Ugly Niang’s Diary to her, including some excerpts. As Xu Mao read, veins throbbed at her temples. She quickly tossed the letter aside and opened Ugly Niang’s Diary.

The pages rustled, and a red light flashed before her eyes.

[Warning: System operation error. Undergoing maintenance. Please upload error logs and wait patiently.]

A series of system warnings popped up. Xu Mao suddenly realized the severity of the situation and hurriedly clicked the button to upload the logs.

[Upload failed. Please try again.]

Xu Mao’s fingers trembled slightly as she clicked several times, but the result remained the same—upload failed. She quickly switched pages to contact customer support for assistance.

However, the customer service page was also filled with red exclamation marks. Xu Mao’s heart raced wildly as she anxiously tried to contact customer service again.

Failure. Still failure.

An hour passed, and the customer service chat window still hadn’t appeared.

Cold sweat poured down Xu Mao’s forehead. Faced with life safety concerns, credibility points meant nothing—deduct them if they must. If she couldn’t participate in the closed beta, she could wait for the open beta. It would just take longer. Given the game’s production quality, it should be officially released.

After playing so many rounds and collecting different endings, to suddenly give up and have her quit the beta test—Xu Mao bit her lip lightly, her finger hovering mid-air, feeling somewhat unwilling.

After a long while, Xu Mao adjusted her breathing, closed her eyes, and pressed down.

Forced exit.

Sorry, your credibility status is good, and your physical condition is normal. You cannot force an exit at this time. If you have any questions, please contact customer service or reread the detailed terms of the voluntary beta participation agreement.

Xu Mao was dumbfounded.

What did it mean that she couldn’t force an exit because her credibility was good? If her credibility was good, she couldn’t force an exit, but if it was bad, she could? That was backwards!

Xu Mao felt a surge of frustration welling up in her chest. She pulled out the agreement she had signed earlier. At the time, she had only skimmed the beginning and hadn’t read it carefully. She had no idea there was such an absurd requirement for forced exits.

Article 31 of the agreement stated: To jointly maintain a good gaming environment and provide players with a better experience, during the first ten rounds, players may choose whether to force an exit, with corresponding credibility points deducted, which will be regarded as forfeiting beta eligibility. After ten rounds, the System will automatically lock the player’s credibility score. If the player’s physical data is normal, forced exit is not permitted.

Xu Mao gritted her teeth and slammed the table. All that internal struggle for nothing—it turned out she never had a choice in the first place.

She was so angry she felt dizzy.

Only then did it dawn on her that she seemed to have lost contact with the real world, trapped in the game with no way out.

And of all times, it had to be right at the eleventh round—no forced exit allowed—and she had run into a major bug. The System kept reporting errors, and customer service was unreachable. Talk about luck—bad luck!

Xu Mao closed the System, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed glowing words floating above Chou Niang’s diary, about to fade away. She widened her eyes to look.

Maintenance personnel Yu Yan has completed data collection and corrective repairs. Requesting elimination of Chou Niang’s identity and return to the real world. Reporting again: Xu Heng’s data shows severe leakage and has repeatedly attacked mission executors. Recommend immediate cleanup to stabilize this world.

Xu Mao froze, feeling as if she were hallucinating.

If she wasn’t mistaken, those two characters were indeed Xu Heng. Was this a log left by the game development team while fixing bugs?

Xu Mao took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, and slowly pieced together the meaning of the text.

A member of the development team had entered the game in the guise of Chou Niang to perform maintenance and intentionally left a diary to provide technical support, resources, and a Golden Finger to the player.

But her younger sister, Xu Heng, had developed a problem—data leakage—and had attacked the maintenance personnel. The development team wanted to delete this character?

So that was why Xu Heng’s health points were unstable. Xu Mao suddenly understood. If not for this bug revealing the maintenance personnel’s log, she would never have known about these behind-the-scenes events.

No, I can’t let the development team delete Xu Heng.

A sense of urgency suddenly gripped Xu Mao. She had to exit the game as soon as possible, contact the development team, and strongly demand that Xu Heng be preserved.

Just as she was thinking this, a loud clap of thunder roared outside the window. Xu Mao’s thoughts were jerked back, and her heart trembled instinctively. She stood up abruptly and hurried over to push the window open.

A cold wind rushed in. The sky was covered with dark clouds, the light dim, and purple lightning flashed within the clouds. Xu Mao inwardly cursed her misfortune.

It’s raining, it’s raining!

Numerous exclamations reached Xu Mao’s ears. Standing by the window, she heard the pattering of rain begin immediately. The cold wind whipped tiny raindrops against her face, leaving traces of moisture behind.

Xu Mao forced a smile uglier than crying and sighed, The Golden Finger given by the production team is really useful—it works instantly.

Marshal, it’s raining! Our crops are finally saved. We’ll surely have a good harvest next year! Wang Xingzhu rushed in ecstatically to report the good news.

Genuine smiles of relief spread across everyone’s faces. They laughed until tears streamed down, clutching their sleeves while weeping and howling. Cursing the heavens for bringing rain only now, they dashed about like madmen, alternating between sobbing and laughter as they spread the news.

Had everyone been waiting for this rain for so long?

Xu Mao was momentarily stunned. Withdrawing his gaze from the crowd, he fell into thoughtful silence.

Wang Xingzhu stated matter-of-factly, Of course. Crops need water—even if we were dying of thirst, we’d have to prioritize the crops first. If the crops wither, we won’t survive either.

Xu Mao’s expression turned complicated. Facing Wang Xingzhu, he couldn’t help but feel ashamed.