Chapter 68: Do Me a Favor

Seeing that most of the comments were joking around, Jiang Qin realized that a beastman swallowing an optical computer was no big deal.

Reassured, Jiang Qin exited the livestream.

Then she checked the updates from the Ancient Culture Research Institute, which she had anticipated.

Quite a few noble families in the Federation preserved ancient artifacts from the past, including books treated with special preservation methods.

Three thousand years ago, a large number of cultural relics were unearthed, but not a single one of those books had survived.

Consequently, a vast amount of historical records had been lost.

Therefore, the ancestors of three thousand years ago, determined to ensure their history could be passed down to future generations, specifically developed a special chemical solution.

Applying this solution allowed books to remain unweathered for thousands of years.

Thus, even though many relics and books were lost back then, it was impossible that none survived at all.

It was more likely that the people holding onto these items were simply unwilling to bring them out.

After all, no one wanted to be at a disadvantage.

Exposing the items rashly could easily attract covetous eyes, and worse, they might be forcibly confiscated and handed over.

Therefore, no one wanted to expose them; they only wanted to keep them hidden.

However, once the contents of those items were made public, the original artifacts themselves would no longer be quite as intensely coveted.

After all, the fragments they held in their hands were merely incomplete pieces.

Yet someone else's mind held the complete picture.

They only needed to submit a copy to fully satisfy the official institutions, freeing them from the burden of contributing to Federation history and the threat of forced confiscation.

After all, while a single individual could be pressured, when it came to a large group of people, even the Federation Marshal wouldn't dare to demand them publicly.

By submitting just such a fragmented copy, they could acquire the pieced-together data and information compiled from numerous households.

This completely satisfied their curiosity about history.

Of course, Jiang Qin didn't pin all her hopes on the Ancient Culture Research Institute and those private collectors.

She merely thought official endorsement carried more persuasive power.

If their verification failed to materialize, she would prove her words herself.

Fabricating a fragment of history was one thing, but fabricating thousands of years of coherent, successive history—nobody believed anyone could pull that off.

All she needed to do was lay out a history spanning eight thousand years, and her deep understanding of history would naturally be proven.

After all, if she had the capability to fabricate eight thousand years of history, whatever she did would make her immensely successful; why on earth would she waste time fabricating history?

Fortunately, the Ancient Culture Research Institute had stepped up to verify it for her, saving her the grueling effort of reciting history entirely from memory.

Nevertheless, she would still restore them one by one afterward.

Well, she could start by producing television dramas.

For instance, her first project could be *The First Emperor through the Ages: Ying Zheng*.

***

Apart from the Ancient Culture Research Institute's post trending on the hot search list, two or three other trending topics were related to Jiang Qin.

#Jiang Qin Dressed as a Classical Beauty is Slaying Tonight#
#Want to Listen to Stories at a Bar? The Kind That Brings Instant Thrills and Screams#
#A Conscientious Bar Where You Can Find Solace, Listen to Songs, and Hear Stories#
#[The most important thing is that Moonlight is so popular now, yet it still hasn't raised its prices, charging a cover fee one hundred star coins cheaper than other small bars.]#
#[I've always felt the bar owner is just here to do charity.]#
#[According to the bar staff, their boss went out to work and make money just to support them.]#
#[Ahhh, what is wrong with Azure Star? Don't they know how popular Moonlight Bar is?]#
#[Why haven't they approved a larger venue for them yet? One that can hold tens of millions of people, for instance?]#
#[They really have no business sense at all.]#
#[Exactly, exactly. I've always wanted to travel to Azure Star specifically for Jiang Qin, but seeing so many people lining up takes away my courage.]#
#[Don't come, you won't get a spot in line...]#
#[It's true. Today, just to secure a spot in line, some male actually started playing mind games and tried to trick us into leaving the queue.]#
#[Ha, someone as smart as me isn't going to fall for that. When that male failed to trick anyone, he vanished in no time.]#
A battered and bruised Qiutian Xiangye thought: *Right, go ahead and slander me like that...*

#[By the way, the Ancient Culture Research Institute has already spoken out, so how much longer is the Gene Research Institute going to take?]#
#[Have they figured it out yet or not?]#
#[Chances are they haven't. Has anyone else noticed that Jiang Qin's soothing ability is a bit too powerful...?]#
#[I noticed. It's probably because every time she performs a deep-level soothing session, the energy concentrates and yields stronger effects.]#
Most people thought this way, while a small minority didn't doubt it either, merely wondering if Jiang Qin might have used some banned stimulant.

As for suspecting that her spiritual power rank had actually increased? That was completely out of the question.

Every interstellar citizen's talent was fixed the moment it awakened at age three.

While there had been cases of people upgrading their spiritual power, such instances were extremely rare and always erupted through a breakthrough at death's door.

Furthermore, the prerequisite was that his or her baseline spiritual power level was already at the absolute peak of that tier.

The gap to the next tier was merely a matter of a single final step.

Leaping straight from C-rank to A-rank had never once occurred in interstellar history.

Even in the era of ability users, only combat abilities were enhanced; one's innate potential could never be elevated.

Jiang Qin cautiously scrolled through several pages of comments without seeing a single guess pointing in that direction. Instantly, she breathed a sigh of relief, her resolve to keep her secret hidden growing even firmer.

At any rate, she had no intention of undergoing a spiritual power test in any setting.

***

Beep, beep—

Suddenly, a message arrived on her optical computer.

The sender was Lan Yuyan.

[Miss Jiang, could you please do me a favor?]

Jiang Qin pursed her lips in thought and replied, [Tell me what it is first, and then I'll consider it.]

[Do you know about the program *Interstellar Composer*?]

She did not.

So Jiang Qin chose to search for it immediately.

She learned that it was a livestreamed competitive program hosted by the Empire, held once every three years, which issued challenges to all ten thousand races before each season began.

Indeed, it was that arrogant.

The top three entertainment companies in the Federation all received invitations, alongside various non-human races.

Aside from composition competitions, subsequent segments featured box-office film competitions, mecha combat, barren planet development competitions, and more.

In every single competition, the Federation had never won a single time...

It was utterly absurd.

After reading those reviews, Jiang Qin felt as though the sky was falling.

Could they win even just a single category?

No, not a single one!

What was even more absurd was that if anyone asked her to name a single prominent trait of the Federation, only one thing came to mind: sheer willpower.

Defeated again and again, fighting again and again, never losing heart. Even though everything they used was essentially scraps discarded by the Empire, they had never surrendered.

Relying solely on studying the Empire's obsolete cast-offs, they had somehow managed to narrow the gap between them.

The Empire didn't bother taking them seriously, and finding them too insignificant to eliminate, tacitly allowed the Federation's development.

From time to time, they would even banish individuals with impure bloodlines to live in the Federation.

Many famous figures in the Federation had once been abandoned children of the Empire.

That's right; many of the Empire's cast-offs who came to the Federation had risen to prominence.

Which only gave the Empire more reason to mock them as being the tail of a phoenix in the Empire, but the head of a chicken in the Federation...