“This way, please.”
President Song led Qi Yuan into the depths of the corridor, then he pushed open the door to the last private room.
“Brother Xiong, Anzhi, take a look what a fine day it is today, we have a distinguished guest visiting.”
Wu Xiong and Kong Anzhi put down their wine glasses. The two of them got up to greet the guest, but their expressions froze for a moment when they saw who it was.
“What a rare visitor indeed.”
“I’ve long heard of your great deeds, and today I finally get to meet you.”
“Still, they didn’t say anything specific. Why did Qi Yuan come to see them?”
Big talkers, little doers.
Qi Yuan nodded calmly in greeting, “Sorry to disturb you two.”
“No, not at all.”
The two of them smiled brightly, but their eyes drifted toward President Song.
“Old Song, what’s going on?”
Song Jing shook his head and said, “Come, let’s sit and chat.”
“We wouldn’t dare accept such an honor.”
The three men were well informed. Things went smoother than imagined, and Qi Yuan didn’t want to waste time or interfere with their business.
Keep a line open for future relationships.
He had just sat down when a glass of wine was placed in front of him. Qi Yuan quickly waved it away, “No need, I’ll only take a few minutes of your time to say what I came here for, then I’ll be on my way.”
They came from the same family, but Qi Yuan’s emotional intelligence was still a bit higher than the rest of his family. He knew how to make small talk, but he reacted poorly in the moment, otherwise he wouldn’t have just parroted his teacher’s words.
Moreover, he had always believed in a simple truth: Proper socializing benefits you, excessive socializing harms you.
He could make others more comfortable, but why make himself exhausted?
Finding a balance where both sides could save face and move on.
That's good enough.
These three reacted quickly as well. To become local overlords, they knew how to match their words to each personality.
Since the Golden Eyes wanted to be brief, they wouldn't insist on being annoying hosts. All three put on listening faces.
Wu Xiong, as representative, said "Please go ahead."
“Thank you. Let me ask, were the Hibiscus Noodles your own research product, or did someone else sell it to you?”
Qi Yuan cut straight to the core without beating around the bush.
“This...”
The three men's faces didn’t look good. The beauty salon was just investigated by the Patrol Team, and now Qi Yuan showed up at their door. Anyone could guess the connection.
They respected the strong, but that didn’t mean they’d smile after being slapped.
No matter if it was true or not, Wu Xiong immediately denied it and brushed it aside.
“You jest. Hibiscus Noodles are mutated plants, they have no relation to human bones.”
“Yes, we’ve sold a lot of Hibiscus Noodles with no problems at all.”
“And we’ve never fed any corpses.”
President Song and Kong Anzhi chimed in to add details.
After speaking, they were certain Hibiscus Noodles couldn't be implicated.
This was a big deal, so the alertness of the Patrol Team and Golden Eyes was understandable. Since it wasn't a deliberate targeting of them, the three let go of their earlier displeasure for now.
Qi Yuan remained silent, quietly listening to their thoughts and piecing together useful information from the fragments.
The atmosphere chilled again. Wu Xiong and the others grew somewhat uneasy.
Unlike earlier when they had taken the initiative to demonstrate their power, this time they were passive.
A few awkward glances were exchanged in the silence.
Under the tense atmosphere, they also started reflecting whether they had overlooked any suspicious points, or if there was anything off about the Hibiscus Noodles.
So they discovered in horror that there were indeed many questionable things.
Fan Gu, the supplier, had said the delicate flowers needed professional care. They needed to provide Fan Gu with customer lists for home visits and maintenance.
Additionally, Fan Gu mentioned that to protect trade secrets, they would need to provide transportation channels for him. Thinking carefully, these channels included hospitals, funeral homes, and routes in and out of the city.
They had coveted Fan Gu's trade secrets before, but failed in their attempts to steal them several times. His strength was considerable.
Now in retrospect, with such great power, why didn't he cooperate with officials?
Instead he approached them specifically.
For certain reasons, mass production of the plants was not possible. But what were those reasons?
And so on. The three felt chills down their necks.
They had been living well as local emperors in Qipan City. Raising monsters brought them no benefits, only harm.
Getting involved in something this big meant they couldn't even keep their Esper identities.
Dragon Country had zero tolerance for raising monsters.
They could investigate this matter later, but for now they absolutely could not admit to anything.
However, Qi Yuan leisurely spoke words that made their hearts tighten.
“The intel I received said that you provided them a route including hospitals, funeral parlors, and exits from the city. And you say there's no problem with this?”
It was intel he just received, so Qi Yuan used it directly.
These people still wanted to conceal information and sever ties, unlike him pretending to be arrogant. They really saw themselves as ancestors.
Qi Yuan found his own mentality wasn't as good as he thought.
The three were crafty and still didn’t plan to cooperate even after he pointed out the problem. They just wanted to shift blame.
Initially he had only come to gather some information without risk, and now he was certain something was wrong.
Qi Yuan didn't want to beat around the bush with them. He said it straight: “Report it now. If there really is a problem, you can redeem yourselves. But if you delay and cause serious losses, I will report you to the Patrol Team.”
After speaking, Qi Yuan realized he was getting carried away and not being rigorous enough, so he added, “Of course, it would be best if there is no problem.”
Having obtained the information, he had shot his mouth off. What was he waiting for if not a quick escape to seek the authorities’ protection?
After he left, Song Jing and Kong Anzhi looked to their big brother, waiting for his decision.
Wu Xiong was silent for a long time. He picked up the wine bottle on the table and chugged half of it, then smashed the bottle down.
“Find Guo Bureau!”
“Brother Xiong, should we really do this?”
“Yes, the Patrol Team must be even more anxious than us. We can still negotiate if we drag our feet.”
Wu Xiong raised his hand to stop their words: “The Eldest Young Master Qi already found out about our transportation route with Fan Gu. Do you still want to cling to false hopes and cut off your own retreat?”
President Song and the other opened their mouths to speak, but were interrupted by Wu Xiong again.
He pointed at the table, breaking down his concerns for them to understand.
“Young Master Qi came today to remind us to cooperate properly, redeem ourselves, and they’ll let us off easy afterwards. Losing face is a small matter, think carefully, if something really happens, even if we run away, can we defend against the Qi family taking revenge?”
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
shall grant"] ["Inscribing the glory of our race upon tombstones"] ["All that is threatened, I shall protect"] How his younger sister sees her brother: A brother who only makes eye contact once a day, mostly fading into the background as he tinkers with who-knows-what in his room all day. Their life paths should have remained largely separate. Until one day. Su Qi created an equipment card for his never-met "online girlfriend." His sister fell into silent contemplation upon receiving the "white stockings." [Card can be upgraded] [Upgrade by fulfilling any of the following conditions] [Condition ①: Consume one hundred higher-tier cards] [Condition ②: Complete one 'Heart-Pounding Adventure'] What constitutes a Heart-Pounding Adventure? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Beginner Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to admire it.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Easy Level): Equip the card, invite 'Su Qi' to touch it, and analyze the equipment's texture.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Entry Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to...] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Challenge Level): Freely combine the words 'Brother' 'Out' 'Brother' 'Me' 'Please' into a complete sentence...] "Please help me analyze both teams' mistakes in this match, brother..." His sister exhaled in relief—surely... surely there couldn't be anything more difficult? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Suicide Mission Level): Sneak a peek at the names of the galgames in 'Su Qi's' hidden E-drive folder]
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
n Our Village Many years later, Xiushui Village had transformed from a remote, impoverished hamlet into the renowned and flourishing Xiushui City of the Shifang Continent. All of this, solely because it was the birthplace of the Shifang Continent's number one sect—the Lingxian Sect. This is the story of a group of village youths, family, and friends, building a sect and growing together. Lin Xiao: As the sect master, my days are filled with countless tasks. Cultivating really gets in the way of building the sect. System: Received. Understood. Arranging it immediately. [Ding—Congratulations, Host, on successfully activating the Auto-Cultivation Function] Lin Xiao: Oh no, we're out of spirit stones. System: Received. Understood. Arranging it immediately. [Ding—Sect Mission issued. Mission Reward: Spirit Stones xN] No one loves their host more profoundly than this System!
