Chapter 290: Our Objective Is To Oppress All Single Dogs! (2)

That night, the Shen family ate out for dinner before the siblings sent their elders off to the airport. They'd just reached home when Shen Jingbin received a call from Zhao Chengning.

When she fished out her phone, she'd inadvertently allowed Shen Jingchen to see her caller ID. Upon seeing who it was, he gave a tsundere-like grunt before he spun around and walked off. He even gave an earth-shaking slam of his door when he entered his room.

Shen Jingbin was left scratching her head. What was up with him? Why was he so pissed off?

But, he was shunted out of her mind the next second, and she happily received her call from Zhao Chengning.

"Are you back home yet?" She'd told him that she was going to send her family off at the airport, so that was the very first thing he'd asked as soon as she picked up the phone.

Shen Jingbin sandwiched her handphone between her neck and shoulder while swapping her shoes. "Mm, I just reached home."

"Alright, then come online. I've got something I want to give you."

"Mm? What sort of thing?"

Shen Jingbin heard him chuckle. "It's a New Year's gift. You'll know what exactly it is when you come online."

"Okay, I'll log on."

After hanging up, Shen Jingbin made her way up to her room. She knocked on Shen Jingchen's door when she passed by, but didn't receive a reply. It looked like he was either having a bath or he'd already logged into the game. She heaved a sigh of resignation and continued making her way towards her room.

Shen Jingbin opened her friend list the moment she logged into the game.

She didn't have many friends in-game, but all of them were online. Were they the type of people who didn't go visiting on New Year's day?

Shen Jingbin sent Shen Jingchen a message when she found his name.

"Where are you? Hurry up and come find me!"

Time passed, and she didn't receive a reply. Instead, she got a party invitation from Quiet And Steadfast. Shortly after forming a party, she saw him descending from the sky on Sheng Huang.

When he touched down, Quiet And Steadfast handed her a gilded gift box with dragon and phoenix motifs printed on it.

Shen Jingbin took the gift box from him and eyed it curiously. "What is it?"

"You'll know when you open it," Quiet And Steadfast answered mysteriously.

Shen Jingbin glanced at him before slowly opening the gift box. When the box was completely opened, the sky began to surge like a gathering storm, and eye-catching golden words burst forth from within the box.

"Player Nutjob has opened player Quiet And Steadfast's gift of the Dragon and Phoenix Gilded Gift Box. A golden light flashes by to reveal [Mount: Great Sage's Child] resting within it. What an act of true heroism!"

When the announcement had passed, Quiet And Steadfast scratched his head and looked at her. "Happy New Year. I've heard that this mount is favored amongst women, so I decided to exchange one for you."

"This… weren't the event items for this event really hard to collect?" Shen Jingbin looked at the chibi stuffed toy of the Great Sage, the Equal of Heaven, and suddenly thought back to when Black Kite was complaining in the guild about how the event items were both difficult to get and impossibly expensive.

"It was ok. Earning them wasn't that bad, but they were indeed expensive… However, I did use the five General's Directives that you gave me. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have been able to collect the required amount so quickly."

"I've got Mascot already, so why would I need another mount? You're too wasteful," She said in a small voice as she clutched the gift box.

Quiet And Steadfast smiled. "Mascot wouldn't be happy with you treating him in such a way. You should let him take a break every now and then. Also, a specialised mount like this is different from a pet. It doesn't have as many limitations, and, when the need arises in the future, you can escape on it while Mascot provides cover."

"Wouldn't Mascot be even more unhappy this way?" Shen Jingbin thought to herself.

For players, both specialised mounts and pets could be used as mounts, but the speed of pets might not be able to match up to that of a specialised mount. (Of course, to a Divine Beast like Mascot this wasn't a problem!) In addition, having a specialised mount meant that players could issue instructions to their pets while they were mounted. This was a significant point.

Since Quiet And Steadfast had already given it to her, there was no way she could return it. She quite liked this mount as well, so she decided to keep it. Speaking of which, Quiet And Steadfast had prepared a New Year's present for her, but getting one for him had utterly slipped her mind.

Regardless, this wasn't something that she'd tell him.

She quietly lifted her head and cast a glance at the expectant look on his face. She gritted her teeth and began to flip through her inventory in the hopes of finding something that she could pass off as a gift to him.

She'd give him a proper present when she had one ready for him!

Don't ask why she didn't come out and tell him the truth. This was their very first New Year spent together as a couple, and he'd spent so much time and effort to come up with a present for her. Just imagine how much of a blow it'd be to him if he'd found out that she hadn't prepared anything for him in spite of everything he'd done!

She'd been far too careless this time around and had completely overlooked getting him a present!

Thankfully, heaven never bars one's way. Her desperate struggles bore fruit, and she found the Divine Weapon for Liches that Pure Crane had refined! Due to that incident with Qi Mu, she'd forgotten to give it to him.

But, since this wasn't something that she'd refined, she felt a little bad about passing it off as a present. Still, she ended up handing it to him after mulling it over for an extended period.

"This is for you, happy New Year. Although I wasn't the one who refined this, I did open the furnace… If you're not happy with your present, I could give you another one later on," She said in a whisper.

Quiet And Steadfast's eyes lit up the moment he laid eyes on the dagger. Truth be told, he'd only been staring at her out of habit and wasn't expecting anything from her. While she didn’t refine the Divine Weapon, and it was more than likely that she'd just pulled it out as a stopgap present, the fact that she was willing to reciprocate his gift was all that mattered.

Who knows; he might even be able to make use of her guilt to tease her a little.

With that thought in mind, his smile became even more dazzling, and he felt the urge to kiss her.

However, when he turned his gaze to her lips…

Mm, he'd be better off waiting till the next time they met in real life! Otherwise, she might claim that his sense of aesthetics had gone to the dogs once again!