This unexpected scene caused the imposing atmosphere of the three men to falter.
Liu Zheng froze on the spot. He had prepared a bellyful of arguments, but the other party opened by firing three sugar-coated bullets.
Three zongzi sat on a plate, still steaming hot.
Liu Zheng immediately forced a laugh and said, "Happy Dragon Boat Festival."
Lin Mo turned back into the kitchen, brought out three small saucers and three pairs of chopsticks, and arranged them one by one.
After doing all this, he unhurriedly pulled over a computer chair, sat down opposite the three, and pointed at the zongzi on the table with his chin.
"Eat while it's hot. And while you're at it, tell me, what brings you three here?"
Dongfang Shuye gave Liu Zheng a look.
Liu Zheng cleared his throat and decided to explain step by step. "The matter in Pengcheng has come to an end, and the Ning family has been brought to justice."
He deliberately emphasized the words "brought to justice," trying to create an atmosphere of official seriousness.
These two simple sentences implicated thousands of people.
However, Lin Mo just tilted his head.
"That's it? Couldn't you have just called to tell me?"
Liu Zheng froze for a moment. "This matter is very important, and..."
He stammered on "and" for a long time but couldn't come up with a reason.
The atmosphere in the room instantly dropped to the freezing point again.
Wen Tonghai reached out and unwrapped a zongzi as if he were in his own home.
Lin Mo also got up to fetch the trash can.
After all, zongzi leaves shouldn't be thrown just anywhere.
When he placed the trash can next to Wen Tonghai, Wen Tonghai even nodded and said softly, "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Lin Mo waved his hand.
However, Dongfang Shuye took a deep breath and took the initiative to speak.
"Lin Mo, we didn't come up here today for the Ning family's matter."
"Actually, we came mainly because you previously destroyed the USB drive containing the ability-transfer technology, and also regarding the fact that Perfected Beixuan can extract other people's abilities."
Hearing this, Lin Mo's face remained calm.
His divine sense had already heard their little argument downstairs loud and clear.
"I destroyed that USB drive precisely to prevent the technology inside from spreading."
Lin Mo's gaze bypassed Dongfang Shuye and landed on the old man who was slowly and methodically eating his zongzi.
"I said long ago that this kind of technology is extremely easy to abuse. Which of you can step forward and give me a one hundred percent guarantee?"
Wen Tonghai seemed not to hear him, still focused on the food in front of him.
He used his chopsticks to finely cut the snow-white zongzi into small pieces. The sticky rice clung to the tips of his chopsticks, but with a gentle shake, it fell back onto the plate. The entire process was unhurried, as if he were performing a sacred ritual.
Dongfang Shuye took a deep breath. "But wouldn't Perfected Beixuan's method of extracting abilities also be abused?"
So that was what they were worried about.
Lin Mo laughed. "What, do you think my Wind Spirit Moon Shadow Sect is some demonic path that would run around the world extracting people's abilities for fun when we have nothing better to do?"
His fingers tapped rhythmically on the table, making a soft sound.
"Put it another way. If the one who possessed this ability today was the Celestial Master of Dragon Tiger Mountain, would your Yanhuang Awakening also send people to their door to demand they hand over their inheritance?"
The zongzi on Wen Tonghai's plate was being eaten bite by bite.
Dongfang Shuye grew increasingly anxious. He could feel that he did not have much time left.
"No, we just wanted to say, what if..."
"You want to say, what if the Master becomes a great villain, what should you do then, right?"
Dongfang Shuye knew that phrasing it this way was already very disrespectful.
These words were extremely blunt, almost tearing away all pretense of cordiality to their faces.
Dongfang Shuye's face turned pale and green in turns. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the last bite of zongzi on Wen Tonghai's plate. Steeling his heart, he could only bite the bullet and speak.
"As long as your esteemed sect is willing to hand over the method for extracting abilities, I can guarantee in the name of Yanhuang Awakening that the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow Sect will be listed as a top-tier friendly sect, enjoying all..."
Before he could finish, Lin Mo stood up.
He walked straight to the refrigerator and pulled the door open. A cold white mist billowed out.
He took out a bottle of iced cola from inside, which let out a hiss when he twisted it open.
Lin Mo tilted his head back and chugged more than half the bottle. The ice-cold liquid poured down his throat, washing away the heat and irritation in the room.
"Burp—!"
A loud and hearty burp echoed in the quiet living room, seeming particularly abrupt.
Lin Mo wiped his mouth and waved his hand.
"Forget it, I can't reason with you. Go back. The Master really overestimated the intelligence of you people."
Right at this moment, Wen Tonghai set his plate down heavily.
Then, he slowly pulled a neatly folded, snow-white handkerchief from his pocket and meticulously wiped the corners of his mouth, as if there were some grease stain there.
Only after doing all this did he raise his eyelids and look squarely at Lin Mo for the first time.
"That kind of technology, I can guarantee one hundred percent that it will not be abused."
"As long as I, Wen Tonghai, draw breath, it will not be."
Oh ho.
This pompous ass finally spoke up.
Lin Mo retorted unceremoniously, "Old man, you're almost dead. You have at most a dozen years left to live. What happens to everyone else after you die?
Besides, what are you using to make this guarantee? You can't even guarantee that there are no traitors within your own ranks, so how can you guarantee that this technology won't be abused? And you still want my sect's secret method? What a joke."
These words were heart-piercing, no different from publicly tearing off Yanhuang Awakening's scabs and viciously stomping on them.
Hearing this, Wen Tonghai's face instantly darkened so much it looked like water could drip from it.
The muscles on his weather-beaten face twitched slightly, and the aura around him changed completely.
He spoke pausing at each word, his voice sounding as if it were wrapped in ice shards:
"You are truly unteachable. If this old man says I can guarantee it, then I can guarantee it."
Lin Mo completely ignored him. Instead, he turned to the other two and spread his hands. "Does he usually talk this much nonsense?"
Dongfang Shuye and Liu Zheng's faces were deathly pale. They shook their heads frantically at Lin Mo, their eyes filled with pleading, signaling him not to add fuel to the fire.
Wen Tonghai, as a founding elder of Yanhuang Awakening, naturally possessed formidable strength.
He possessed the ability to control magnetism. His greatest battle record was intercepting a high-speed missile and throwing it right back at the enemy.
In terms of strength, he was absolutely much stronger than Blood Spear and Shadow, whom Lin Mo had killed directly.
In their eyes, if Elder Wen got angry, the consequences would be unimaginable!
But Lin Mo acted as if he didn't understand and continued speaking on his own.
"Old man, what you say doesn't count, and what I say doesn't count either. But objective data proves that your Yanhuang Awakening is riddled with holes. Your guarantee cannot convince me."
After saying that, Lin Mo unhurriedly placed the half-empty bottle of iced cola back into the refrigerator.
These words completely ignited Wen Tonghai's fury.
Right at this moment, everything in the entire house seemed to tremble.
Hum!
An invisible pressure instantly enveloped the whole room!
The surrounding metal, the pots and pans in the kitchen, and Lin Mo's highly treasured amplifier and speakers all began to move.
Dongfang Shuye and Liu Zheng reacted as if facing a mortal enemy, roaring out almost at the same time: "Elder Wen! Don't!"
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
