Chapter 36

Xia Hao remained silent for a long moment, a cluster of doubts swirling in his mind. Having served by the Prime Minister’s side for many years, he knew the man’s temper better than anyone—he was always ruthless and would never stop until his goals were met. Since the Prime Minister was determined to see Chu Tiankuo dead, why, knowing he was on Lotus Island, had he taken no action for over a month?

"Really!" Yun Haotian’s eyes lit up. He followed Shui Yiyi, glanced at Qin Feng and then at Manwu, and a moment later, he smiled.

The incredibly familiar silhouette caused Zhuang Mingting to relax his guard, though concern and urgency immediately took its place.

The man beside her reached out to help with her heavy bag, but she waved him off, hoisting it onto her own shoulder and carrying it to the weighing station.

The vast swaths of black mist, crazily attempting to breach their defensive barrier, were instantly swallowed by an erupting sea of flames, which carved out a path of fire by sheer force.

So, one might say that material conditions are not truly that important; to maintain family bonds, one must communicate more.

"You!..." Ling Zhen was rendered speechless by Shui Yiyi’s merciless words, so infuriated that she gripped the whip at her waist.

Rong Xi shrugged helplessly: "Where are they?" She sounded as if she were being accused of actually having a lesbian inclination.

Cheng Xian swayed as he looked at the scene before him, gazing at the full moon outside, unable to keep himself from wondering: Where is Mu Tong now? Is she doing well? Has anyone been bullying her?

Qianye paid no mind to the shifting expressions of the two. After delivering that line, he walked straight toward his courtyard with Shaohua in tow. His aloof and elegant demeanor made it seem as if the sight of him chatting idly with the servants just moments before had been nothing more than a hallucination.

"A skilled mechanic? I do know a very talented shipwright named Tom, a bull-horned fish-man, though he lives on Water 7," Brook said after giving it some careful thought.

When Yang Huaiyuan jolted awake from his sleep, he realized that his good brother, Chen Kaixin, had long since woken up.

***

She was still admiring the scene when she felt her world turn upside down. The heavens shifted, and suddenly it was broad daylight. Mo An’an stared at everything before her in disbelief—was this all just a dream?

Refusing to give up, he got out of the car and searched it thoroughly, inside and out, front and back, but still found nothing. Not only was the key card gone, but his phone had vanished as well.

The two traded over two hundred blows before finally calling it a halt. Seeing that it was getting late, Zhang San invited everyone to take their seats for a meal. As he looked around the room, he realized Yan Qing was missing and immediately whispered to Zhang Yuanba to go fetch him.

This, unexpectedly, served to bolster Wang Ying’s reputation. Local thugs, repeat offenders, scoundrels, and village bullies all vied to join him, and his influence grew by the day. Yan Shun, watching Wang Ying assemble over a hundred men, had no choice but to start a large-scale recruitment of his own, expanding his own ranks to over two hundred just to keep Wang Ying in check.

Zhou You was filled with mockery. The meaning of this ridiculous "talent," when it came down to it, was merely to fetch a higher price. More cruel than being reduced to a commodity was the abuse that followed.

Mo An’an was shoved into a chair. Stunned by the force of his push, she hadn't yet caught her breath when she looked up at him, only to find Tang Mochi’s gaze as cold as frost.

Tang Mochi dressed in a rage and headed downstairs, his expression so cold it could have been chipped into shards of ice.

Early the next morning, Zhang San took five sacks of copper coins from the accounting office, loaded them onto a cart, and dispatched a carriage with Hou Zi and five accountants to the newspaper office. After giving instructions and leaving four sacks of money for their use, Zhang San loaded the final sack and called for Zhang Zeduan to head toward the southern part of the city.

This symbolized the formidable nature of the Confucian tradition; it was not just the Wang or Xie families, or the four great clans of the south—most Confucian scholars had mastered this technique.

Because the greatest characteristic of antimatter is that it undergoes annihilation the moment it touches normal matter.

Ye Kun was stunned. He truly had not expected Tantai Qingxue’s imagination to be so vivid; she could invent such a plot out of thin air, leaving him no choice but to admire her.

Grey Stone desperately wanted to refute Seler by citing the incident where wild spirits attacked the town, but by then, the nobles were no longer the top brass of the Alliance and lacked any persuasive power.

***

This afternoon, Tang Yunxian and Elder Tang also left the capital to return to Pingjiang. The family recognition banquet had ended, but since her father and grandfather were still around and she had mostly been at home, she only headed to the studio to handle some matters after they left, which naturally kept her late.

"Look, you only mocked me, but you didn't deny me, which means everything I said is the truth," Future said with a shrug, feigning ease. Indeed, she looked much more pleasant when she smiled.

However, a problem arose. For some reason, despite being a decisive and efficient person, she was deathly lazy in the mornings. It was fine when her mother was there to wake her, but now, a simple alarm clock wasn't enough to stir her. Though her younger brother was there, due to an unknown, intimidating aura from Hashimoto, he would retreat in total defeat after just a single glare.

Yes, despite looking like she was only in her twenties, Xiu Yu was actually well into her thirties, more than a decade older than the eighteen-year-old Song Ye, and of the same generation as Song Ye’s father—she just didn't look it.

Future had already received n+1 guesses from Asuka regarding the "Mountain" group, ranging from digging up mountains and moving earth to zip-lining between peaks—she had guessed every possible and impossible scenario.

As a result, Ye Kun felt quite favorably toward Sun Changfeng. Such a senior brother was simply a model among senior brothers.

"I want you to perform ability tests on them and make them into ability users!" Luo Yuan said in a flat tone.

She remembered getting into a van arranged by Nangong Lin in the restaurant parking lot with Chu Yu. She had thought that beast would negotiate with them face-to-face, but she never expected that as soon as they boarded, they would be double-crossed. After inhaling a strange, foul odor inside the carriage, they both fell into unconsciousness.