Donggua's expression was displeased as she looked at Cui Hao, who lounged about as though this place were his own home.
The situation was no longer what it had been. She was no longer the badly injured Donggua who could only order Cui Hao around.
Though her wounds had not fully healed, she no longer had any reason to fear Lin Luoyu.
Moreover, at this point, even if she turned hostile, the people under her command could simply overwhelm the two of them through sheer numbers.
Donggua suppressed the various frustrations churning in her heart.
After all, compared to the subordinates she used to have — the ones who could not follow a simple instruction, who dropped sesame seeds when told to pick up watermelons, who headed off to eat when told to use the latrine — Cui Hao was the first person to let her experience the joy of being a hands-off boss.
No need to check in. No need to intervene. She only had to listen as good news streamed in, while the people and money under her command steadily grew.
No matter how grating Cui Hao could be, the benefits he brought were more than enough to smooth over every irritation.
Besides, for her, this was the most critical moment.
Through Cui Hao's relentless efforts, they had finally built enough of a reputation that the higher-ups had re-established unilateral contact with Donggua.
The message that came contained no words of comfort, no support of any kind — just more assignments.
But at least the higher-ups knew that Donggua was still useful.
She had not yet reached the point of being discarded.
Donggua's tone was calm as she asked.
"How is the matter I assigned you last time coming along?"
Cui Hao spread his hands, his expression relaxing.
"I took a few days off to unwind. I did not do a thing."
"You did nothing?" Donggua frowned, her tone sharp. "Then why did you come back? Since when do you dare ignore my orders?"
Cui Hao did not answer the question. Instead, he asked one of his own.
"What is my cultivation level?"
Donggua scoffed. "A piddling Foundation Establishment."
"You know it too!" Cui Hao slammed the table, his voice rising with theatrical outrage.
"There is a Nascent Soul blood-qi evil cultivator out there who sliced an entire watermelon in half and nearly turned you from a winter melon into a loofah!"
"If I — a Foundation Establishment nobody — go over there and get glared at twice, I will probably end up dead on the spot."
"You open your mouth and send me on a suicide run. What am I supposed to do? I may be good at getting things done, but I am not a Tribulation Transcendence cultivator. I am not invincible!"
"Besides, what is the point of deliberately provoking him? Our experiments are proceeding normally. If you want revenge, do not use me as the sacrifice."
Donggua fell silent at these words. The blood-qi energy still lingering in her body flared up with pain once more.
In truth, she had not told Cui Hao the whole story.
The actual expert was a Unity Realm blood-qi evil cultivator — not merely Nascent Soul.
But this was a mission handed down from above. It was not something she could simply refuse because it was difficult.
Looking at Cui Hao, who seemed ready to drop everything and walk away at any moment, she swallowed her pride and softened her tone.
"It is not about petty revenge. It is an important step in our plan."
Cui Hao raised his eyes, his expression saying: Go ahead, make something up. I will pretend to believe you.
Donggua sighed. "I will be joining this operation personally."
Cui Hao finally responded at that.
"What good is you coming along? To finish what they started and turn me into a loofah?"
"Cui Hao!" Donggua shot to her feet, her voice hostile. "Have I been too good to you lately?!"
"You are the foolish one. I have successfully completed so many tasks to prove that I am no fool, and now you are busy proving that you are." Cui Hao rose to his feet as well, meeting her gaze without an ounce of deference.
"Ever since you had me relay that message, it is as if your brain has shrunk. Everything you have done since has had absolutely nothing to do with our actual goals."
"This tells me there is someone above you pulling the strings. Doing pointless busywork is one thing. But now your superiors give you orders, and you pass them straight down to me — you open your mouth and send me to die?"
Donggua felt her breath catch. Her expression remained calm, but inwardly she was weighing whether Cui Hao could still be kept around.
The smarter the person, the harder they were to control.
Her tone was even. "Then what do you want?"
"If we keep operating like this, ten lives would not be enough. Right now, I am going to teach you how things should actually be done." Cui Hao's gaze shifted toward the door.
"Half a Watermelon! You two are in this together — come in and tell her whether I am right or wrong!"
The words had barely left his mouth when Xigua silently appeared leaning against the doorframe.
She looked at Cui Hao with a complicated expression, looking even more half-dead than before — wearing the resigned face of someone who knew they were about to die.
Cui Hao rapped the table hard.
"When you run into something difficult, do not just keep your head down and charge at it alone. Especially when there are people above you."
"Your superiors do not treat your life as something that matters — after all, it is not their life on the line. But do your own lives mean nothing to you either?"
Donggua felt a bitter taste in her mouth at these words, but she could only respond with a flat tone.
"So what if they do not care about us? What can we do about it?"
"Make them care, obviously." Cui Hao's voice turned grave. "All they have to do is talk. They pay nothing. Even if you get turned into a loofah, they will not feel they have lost anything."
"Because you were always expendable to them — or more accurately, you have already been written off. They are simply squeezing whatever use they can out of you."
Donggua paused, the meaning sinking in.
"What is your idea?"
"Make them pay an additional price." Cui Hao tapped the tabletop lightly. "Not for their own sake — for ours. The more expensive we are to them, the less likely they will be to discard us."
Donggua did not even bother to lift her eyes, as though she had just heard something hilarious.
"Make them pay a price for us?"
Cui Hao gave her a look of pure disdain.
"You need to learn to reframe things. If they pay a price for the tasks we accomplish for them, that is the same as paying a price for us."
Donggua scoffed and opened her mouth to speak, but Cui Hao cut her off.
"I know what you are about to ask — what gives us the right to make them pay a price?" He shook his head slowly, looking at Donggua with a hint of pity.
"The answer, naturally, is that we paint them a picture. We make them a promise. As long as the potential reward is great enough — so great that they cannot bear to let it slip away or fail — they will be willing to pay that price."
"And do not ask what happens if there is not actually that much reward on the table. The answer is simple: you lie. You lie and make them believe it exists."
"As for the final outcome — as long as their superiors see a positive return, they will not dig too deeply. But in the meantime, we will have built enough real strength to avoid many unnecessary losses."
"That is the positive feedback loop."
Cui Hao paused, then looked toward Xigua.
"Half a Watermelon — you are smarter than Donggua. You speak."
Xigua stepped into the room at that.
Cui Hao's operational ability was plain for all to see. This speech of his also laid bare his working style — bold and attuned to human nature.
If you looked only at the big picture and ignored the individuals involved, Cui Hao's proposal was worthless.
But applied to the actual people whose lives were on the line, it was without a doubt an incredibly tempting — perhaps even optimal — plan.
At the very least, Xigua found it deeply persuasive.
Was this not simply a technique of division?
The sort of thing that should have been discussed privately with Donggua — not spoken aloud by Cui Hao, whom Xigua had always regarded with suspicion.
Xigua was still trying to figure out how to phrase her response tactfully, hoping to first send Cui Hao away.
But before she could, Donggua's face lit up with sudden realization.
"There is no need for Xigua to say anything. Cui Hao — you may have low cultivation, but you truly have a gift for this. Do not worry. When this is all over, I guarantee your share of the credit and rewards will not be short by a single fraction."
Xigua watched Donggua's expression and could not help but let her hands fall in defeat.
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