Daily Survival After Inheriting a Harem (GL) - Chapter 20

Both of them were hot contenders for the Oscars’ Best Actress award. So when they woke up early the next morning, their way of interacting returned to natural, as if that little “friction” from yesterday had never happened. Life still seemed as “peaceful” as before.

“My lord, it is time to get up.”

Pei Yuqing pushed the door open and entered from outside. Qiu Qi, who had been pretending to sleep, immediately sat up straight by conditioned reflex the moment she heard the sound. The pair of beast ears on her head instantly flattened into airplane ears from fright.

Noticing the fear Qiu Qi could not hide, Pei Yuqing smiled at her.

“My lord, I only came to bring you congee.”

“Oh, okay.”

Qiu Qi stiffly reached out and took the bowl. After taking one spoonful, she found that it was actually a familiar taste.

“This congee…?”

“It was made using my lord’s method. Does it suit your appetite?”

The airplane ears trembled and suddenly stood upright. Qiu Qi nodded, then tilted her head back and drank it in big gulps.

“It’s delicious. Madam’s cooking is really good.”

Pei Yuqing only smiled without speaking. She quietly waited until Qiu Qi finished eating, then began speaking of business.

“Steward Yan submitted this. It is this month’s account book.”

Qiu Qi wiped her mouth and found it strange in her heart. She remembered that the account books had originally always been entirely handled by Yan Wan. There had not been a habit of showing them to the original body every month.

“All right, I’ll take a look.”

After all, she had to support such a large household. Qiu Qi felt that she still needed to have some understanding of her own finances.

She directly flipped the account book to the last page.

Monthly expenses: 3006 gold, 02 silver, 63 copper

Remaining amount: 136 gold, 88 silver, 32 copper

Qiu Qi checked countless times to see whether the remaining amount was missing a zero. After being forced to accept reality, she collapsed into the chair.

Someone, bring me a ventilator!

“How can I be this poor?”

Clearly, just a few days ago, Yan Wan had said she still had one thousand gold. Even after deducting the extra 250 for the additional purchase, there should still be 750 left. How had it become only a little over one hundred in the blink of an eye?

Qiu Qi clutched her chest, unable to accept for a moment the reality that a Beast God could actually be this poor.

“No, I can’t be depressed. The most important thing right now is earning money, earning money! How did we earn money before? We’ll just contin—”

Halfway through asking, Qiu Qi remembered it herself.

Continue earning money. Easy to say. But where had the original body’s money come from before?

—Of course it had been robbed!

If not for that, how could her little treasury still seem bottomless even after being repeatedly squandered?

But could Qiu Qi go rob people? Even if she had the heart, she did not have the guts. Even if she had the guts, she did not have the strength. Besides, as a good citizen who had received nine years of compulsory education, there was no way she could do that kind of thing.

Pei Yuqing clearly did not need to hear the second half of Qiu Qi’s sentence to understand what she meant. She even took the initiative to point out a clear path for her.

“The Green Island Guild established by the human Saintess released a notice last week. If one completes the task on the notice, one can receive a bounty of ten thousand gold.”

The Green Island Guild had only been established for a short three years, but because it had solved strange cases one after another, it was naturally greatly valued by the human imperial family. Along with that, the weight of its bounties also doubled.

The bounty notices issued by the guild could be accepted by anyone regardless of race. As long as Qiu Qi did not care about lowering her status, there was no psychological burden in taking this ten thousand gold.

“H-How much?”

“Ten thousand gold.”

Qiu Qi sucked in a breath.

“The human race is this rich? They can casually offer ten thousand gold as a reward?”

Pei Yuqing said, “This case is rather special. Its internal rank is S. It is only natural for the bounty to be higher. It is just…”

“Just what?”

“It is just that if one wants to accept the task, one must sign a life-and-death agreement with the guild. Any safety accidents that occur during the mission will have nothing to do with them, and they will not take responsibility.”

Qiu Qi tactically leaned back.

In the end, they still want my little life.

Big liars. QAQ

But after thinking about it, Qiu Qi felt that this matter was actually not very suitable for her to begin with. With her personality, she was suited to staying at home. The closest she had ever gotten to reasoning and adventure was watching a few episodes of Conan as a child because everyone else was watching it.

Besides, she currently could not control the Beast Core Pearl. Her spiritual arts were only half-baked. She had not even flipped to the second page of the weapons guide. If one insisted on talking about progress, then her wok-tossing skill for fried rice had improved.

With her own safety already hard to protect, who would still have the leisure to do this kind of helpful deed?

“I see. This matter is fairly important, so we should still discuss it at length.”

Qiu Qi placed her right fist by her lips and coughed once, planning to first ask clearly about the remaining balance.

“Can you call Steward Yan over? I want to ask about the account book.”

Pei Yuqing nodded.

“All right.”

Yan Wan arrived late. The moment Qiu Qi saw her, she went straight to the point and asked where the missing six hundred-plus gold had gone.

Yan Wan bowed slightly.

“My lord, I have recorded every expense in detail. You may examine it.”

Qiu Qi took her record book and began flipping through it with trembling hands.

The front was still fine. It was all scattered small expenses of only a few copper or silver. Then she reached the middle.

Monthly salary for each madam: 999 × 1 gold

Seeing that number, Qiu Qi’s hands practically shook into Parkinson’s on the spot. Even if someone really put her on a ventilator, she could not be saved.

One gold was five thousand yuan, and she was giving it to 999 people every month. Her body could not manage to “share favor equally,” but her actions were doing quite well. : )

And this was only the basic salary of the 999 consorts. For those who had served in bed and had already “left,” Yan Wan still had to pay their families a comforting fee of 10 gold each. Then there were people like Zu Mianmian and Xiao Chu’er, who had been given orange plaques by the original body and received an extra 5 gold salary every month. Calculating it all together, it was already no small amount.

Then Qiu Qi’s eyes shifted to the line below, where the number was especially shocking.

Guluo Sacred Water: 500 gold
Soft Hedgehog Armor: 100 gold
Grade-A storage sphere: 70 gold

These three expenses added together were a proper negative example, teaching her that impulse shopping never had a good ending!

Next time she ran into that “livestream shopping host” surnamed Lu, she absolutely had to stay far away!

Qiu Qi smoothed her breathing and continued flipping down. But even after the shock from the previous expenses, when she saw the line for Steward Yan’s wages, she still could not hold back a deeply emotional “holy shit” from the depths of her throat.

Yan Wan’s salary: 500 gold

“Steward Yan.”

Qiu Qi opened a pair of unfocused eyes and looked toward Yan Wan at a sorrowful forty-five-degree angle.

“Why are you… so expensive?”

Yan Wan curved her lips into a smile.

“It is because my lord appreciates me. Back then, I was only an unknown little employee of the Green Island Guild. It was my lord who was generous and paid a heavy price to hire me. Only then did I follow my lord and live a life where I could eat my fill.”

Qiu Qi laughed dryly twice without any emotion. Inwardly, she thought, 500 gold is only enough for you to eat your fill? Then you can eat even more than I can.

No. You must be strong, she told herself.

Qiu Qi wiped away tears that did not exist and, holding on to a lucky mentality, flipped through the previous months. Maybe if she saved a little from now on, she could still get by. But very quickly, reality dealt her an extremely painful blow.

She discovered that even without the sacred water and Yan Wan’s money, the average monthly expenses of this courtyard were at least two to three thousand gold. It was not that she had squandered everything in these past two days.

Closing the account book, Qiu Qi felt half her soul leave her body. She finally understood why the original body had committed bad deeds so frequently. Even if one robbed money, one had to rob diligently. Otherwise, there really was no way to support such a large household.

If one coveted beauty, one had to pay the price of coveting beauty.

But why did these 999 prices have to fall on her head?!

“Steward Yan, can you help me call everyone to gather?”

Qiu Qi put down the account book and sighed, rubbing her aching temples.

Steward Yan answered and went out to call people.

“Ah… why am I so poor… I want money, I want money. I want to get rich overnight!”

Qiu Qi spread both hands and lay on the tabletop, muttering quietly.

“I finally became a Beast God. Surely I can’t still rely on restricted comics to earn money, right?”

Pei Yuqing stood diagonally behind Qiu Qi. When she lowered her eyes, she could see the two drooping beast ears at this moment. That small back was filled with the pitiful aura of poverty and destitution. Yet Pei Yuqing increasingly wanted to laugh, and even wanted to reach out, grab that lifeless furry tail, and give it a tug.

“Eh… right!”

Qiu Qi jumped up. Her tail also swayed back and forth in the air, looking as if she had come up with a bad idea.

“Why can’t I use this to earn money? What a great way to make money!”

Even if she had never eaten pork, had she never seen pigs run? In those transmigration novels, didn’t the protagonists rely on their unique skills to live gloriously in another world? Why couldn’t she do the same?

Thinking this, Qiu Qi impatiently lifted her head and asked Pei Yuqing,

“Madam, around here, where’s the place that sells erotic art?”

Author’s Note:
Make money, make money.