"Something's happened." Zhu Yan said.
The man finally turned around.
He had an extremely refined appearance, with sharp lines to his brows, eyes, lips, and nose, and a slight bend in the bridge of his nose.
A monocle was perched in his sunken eye socket.
The thing would fall off at the slightest change of expression, which meant this... well, whatever it was—puppet or not—seemed extremely deadpan.
He listened carefully to everything Zhu Yan had to say.
"...Oh, I see, so you want me to craft a counterfeit—no wait, a high-quality replica good enough to pass as the real thing—and it also needs to have some practical functionality, so that even if those resource-brokers take this blade into a dungeon in the meantime, they won't notice anything off?"
That was a very comprehensive summary, fully matching what Zhu Yan had in mind for the blade.
"Correct." Zhu Yan looked at him very earnestly.
Dragonfly—no wait, the man—exploded.
"Why don't you just kill me?"
Was it really that hard?
Zhu Yan's heart gave a little lurch.
The man—no, Dragonfly—went off like a machine gun, his tone completely at odds with that refined, bookish face.
"Friend, why would you torment a poor dragonfly like this? Do you have any idea how difficult these requirements of yours are?"
"You want me to add temporary functionality to this thing, I'll need a whole bunch of high-end components, including a built-in function timer!"
"Right now I have zero creepy-crawlies available to supply that to me, so I'd have to handcraft it for at least two hours, and that's not even counting the other materials."
The man glared at Zhu Yan furiously, and with the exaggerated play of his expressions, his monocle went clatter as it hit the floor and shattered into pieces.
Zhu Yan couldn't care less at this point.
Scared the hell out of me—the moment he heard that first line, he'd thought this guy couldn't actually build it.
Dragonfly had a certain fondness for bone-gold coins, and Zhu Yan knew that well.
And he knew even better that Dragonfly liked vacations more than the coins.
As long as Dragonfly could produce the blade, money was no object.
He could afford to spend another 400 bone-gold coins just to buy a few more days of its precious time off.
"Also," the man was absolutely livid, "do you have any idea what your dear roommate did?"
He pointed into the empty glass counter.
"A whole bunch of weapons missing! Blessed Land, I barely got through handling Ji Xiting, sacrificed one of my best puppets to do it!"
"And I come back to find my shop robbed! Do you know how much worth of stuff they took?"
Oh, right.
He vaguely recalled Yang Zhanbai mentioning taking some painkillers from the [Lazy Handicraft Workshop].
And that silver pistol Yang Zhanbai had pointed at him—he hadn't paid attention at the time given the rush, but now that he thought back, its origin was highly suspicious.
"...How much worth?" Zhu Yan asked.
He was just asking.
No intention of paying that bill.
"250 bone-gold coins." The silver-haired man laughed coldly. "Yeah, you know what? That 250—perfect match for their brains."
Zhu Yan nodded. "I couldn't agree more. So, what would you charge for me to get such a weapon, plus a decent imitation of [Demon Cloak], and I need it by dawn tomorrow?"
The silver-haired man gaped. "Are you saying I don't get to sleep?"
"Correct."
"150 bone-gold coins." The silver-haired man wilted. "You'll cover the extra 90."
Zhu Yan said, "I'll give you 110 more on top of that, rounding you up to 200. I have two questions for you."
Dragonfly's complaining had him a little uneasy.
Better to sell Dragonfly a favor and soothe things over... after all, from what he'd seen, this was one of the few creepy-crawlies in [Carnival Paradise] that was easier to get close to as a player.
Besides, judging by how things looked now, he'd probably rely on Dragonfly far more going forward.
Building a good rapport would only help—no harm in it.
The man's eyes lit up. "Ooh! Two days' worth of vacation money!"
He rubbed his hands together, which gave Zhu Yan a brief flashback of Dragonfly rubbing its little bug-feet.
"Hehehe, I do appreciate a generous man like you. Your character suits your fate—you're bound to do well."
"I can have it done by half-past ten tonight. I'll even set up a bed right here so you can sleep over!"
The man's mouth turned sweet as honey in an instant.
"Go on, go on, little [Hunter]. What do you want to ask?"
...
"Tampering with memories? Or masking real ones?"
The silver-haired man leaned lazily against the glass counter.
If he was still in his dragonfly form, his tail would definitely be curled up right now, limp as can be.
But, having shifted into his humanoid shape, there was now a strange, lazy elegance about him.
"I don't have anything like that. But hold on—there's a high-level [Witch] I get along with... well, because I can help inlay silver ornaments into her face."
He grabbed the phone on the counter and quickly dialed a number.
Zhu Yan waited anxiously nearby.
After a series of explanations and brief replies of "yep", "yes", and "alright", the man set the receiver down and nodded at Zhu Yan.
"She can brew a potion that temporarily alters memory. You take it and it takes effect the next day. Side effect is you'll be dead asleep for a solid ten hours."
"Price is fifteen bone-gold coins a bottle."
"...I don't think you'd mind that, little Hunter."
Well, that was a deal too good to refuse.
What kind of idiot would complain about extra sleep?
"You'd better come pick up the potion and the instruction sheet before five in the afternoon... then go to sleep at six, and wake up at four in the morning to pick up the completed weapon from my place."
That worked too.
In that gap, he could make a run to [Carnival Paradise], hit up [The Pulpit], then throw on his new cloak and restock at [Demon Emporium].
As for [Fangcun Mountain], that could wait until after tomorrow's meeting.
Zhu Yan paid without hesitation.
"My second question is about Ji Xiting."
He made no move to leave, continuing to describe the clearly abnormal broadcast he'd heard earlier today to the silver-haired man.
"...Why do you say he's a player? Can he really disguise himself as one?"
This time, the silver-haired man's face took on the same meaningful expression that Dragonfly's would have.
"Ooh, Hunter."
"This question involves a bit of private information..."
Then he pivoted: "However! When Ji Xiting orders me to make things, he has never once paid me a single coin—not even one bone-copper. So he doesn't count as my client!"
Dragonfly never leaks a client's privacy—but non-clients' privacy is free game.
Zhu Yan had to give him credit for that.
"He died a year ago." The silver-haired man gave an eerie smile. "Mhm, and his father died only a month after him. Oh, if we're going there, that's quite the amusing little story!"
Zhu Yan found the remark highly unusual.
"You specifically mentioned his father... Did his father also become a creepy-crawly?"
The silver-haired man nodded, a glint of anticipation in his eyes.
"For your level right now, this information isn't important."
"However, I have a feeling it will come in handy one day—maybe to help you do in Ji Xiting."
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
his freshman year, Su Bai accidentally bound the "Indulgence Tycoon System." 【Sleeping in? Reward: +$1,000】 【Spent $288 at a street barbecue stall? Cashback: +$2,880】 【Dropped $14,396 on in-game skins? Special reward unlocked: A brand-new Porsche Panamera!】 Luxury cars, penthouses, corporate shares, financial empires… College life was all about living freely and doing whatever he pleased! … When the adorably naive academic genius faced family medical bills and financial struggles, Su Bai waved his hand dismissively: "Your future is on me." "Wuwu~ Big Brother is so good to me! I’ll become a scientist to repay you!" When the genius girl got bullied by a shady professor? Su Bai casually dropped a billion-dollar investment, forcing the university to grovel and beg for her return. A company’s funding chain collapsing? Su Bai smirked—cash was the one thing he’d never run out of. Years later, when people traced the rise of the AI prodigy beauty, who was the man behind her success? Not just that—Su Bai also became the tsundere campus belle’s unattainable dream, the contrast senior’s daily necessity, and the beautiful counselor’s emotional anchor…
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
