Gamers Are Fierce

"How do you know that?"

Li Ang's eyes bulged as his palm continuously pulled out all sorts of sundries from the void and placed them on the table: clothes drying racks, meat hooks, black kitchen trash bags, disposable rubber gloves, disinfectant fluid, dental floss sticks, and red wine.

There was even a loudspeaker commonly used by street vendors—if the script's world didn't ban electronic products, it would shout the advertisement, "It's 9.9! Everything for 9.9! For 9.9, you can't go wrong! For 9.9, you won't get ripped off!"

Considering that anything could happen in the script's world, Li Ang had indeed stuffed almost half a shop's worth of 9.9-priced bargain goods into his Automated Pet Box's storage space, just in case.

"Should I praise you for being a Doraemon with a four-dimensional pocket?" Wanli Fengdao's eye twitched. He glanced at the bottle of red wine with the English label and grimaced. "Putting everything else aside, can this wine also be 9.9?"

"Why not?" Li Ang said casually. "The cost price of many goods in the real world is appallingly low. Of course, this 9.9 stuff is just a blend with artificial coloring. Better-quality wine costs about thirty to forty to produce and can be sold for two hundred and fifty online.

"One unscrupulous way to make quick money is to take boxes of cheap bottled wine from factories on the city outskirts, pay a small fee at a shopping mall, and set up a temporary stall for a promotion. You list the original price as two hundred and ninety and the discounted price as ninety-nine. If you're not afraid of crowds and dare to hawk your wares, moving from mall to mall to scam, with good luck, you can make thousands or even tens of thousands in net profit a day. You could make enough for a down payment in two months."

"There are such tricks?" Wanli Fengdao was dumbfounded, then he looked at Li Ang with a flickering gaze.

Li Ang waved his hand. "Don't look at me like that. I would never do things that harm others for my own benefit."

Wanli Fengdao chuckled awkwardly as Li Ang added, "That way of making money is too low-class and too slow, and it's not legitimate. Most likely, it will end in disaster. The business model for truly lucrative gray-area ventures is often so mind-numbingly simple it makes you exclaim, 'This thing can actually make money?'"

Wanli Fengdao and Xing Hechou had no particular feelings about these words, but Liu Wu Dai, the Liu Family's daughter, was stirred. In the business world, she had heard of many who suddenly became wealthy overnight through gray-area profit projects—of course, these people used methods that were too wild, standards too low, and their level too unprofessional, making their success hard to replicate. Only a very few Lucky Ones could move out of the gray area, start managing industries, get in touch with the outer circles of Yin City's business community, and transform into portly, respectable businessmen of high society, barely worthy of reaching the soles of the Liu Family's feet.

Upon remembering some of the shrewd maneuvers she saw when teaming up with Li Ang, Liu Wu Dai thought to herself, Meticulous in thought, outwardly kind but inwardly shrewd, and ruthless in his methods. If he were to enter the business world, he would definitely be a skilled player...

"Anyway," Li Ang put away the red wine and other items on the table, tapped the white banner in his hand, and said earnestly, "I'll go prepare around the Shu Palace first."

Xing Hechou asked, "Aren't you coming with us?"

Li Ang shook his head. "No, my Vest as Xi Menzi Daoist has been too popular lately; being together will just attract trouble. In any case, we have Soldier Bees for remote communication, so any information can be passed on through them."

As if responding to Li Ang's call, the Soldier Bee that had been resting on the table stopped wiping sauce from its forelegs and buzzed its wings. Although the Soldier Bees couldn't understand human speech, they could vibrate their wings to transmit sound messages at specific frequencies. These messages were sent to a Brain Worm flying high in the sky, which then used prayer to the Deity to remotely convey the information to Li Ang.

Li Ang left the tavern, relying on the white banner of the Plain-Clothed Prognosticator, blended into the crowd, and disappeared around the corner. He separated from his team both to reduce the risk of his identity being exposed and attracting the prying eyes of native Cultivators, and because some of the preparations he needed to make were somewhat clandestine...

South of Lvzhou City, a certain post station.

This was a guest room that had been temporarily converted. All the furniture had been removed, leaving only the spotlessly clean wooden floor. The doors and windows of the room were nailed shut with wooden planks, leaving no gaps. Not a single ray of light could penetrate; the room was pitch-black, so dark one couldn't see their hand in front of their face.

Seven monks with dark, lean complexions sat cross-legged on the floor, forming a circle. In the center of this circle, a giant iron cage stood quietly, two people tall and covered with several layers of thick black cloth.

"If one grasps these four matters without loss, the heart still unattached to color, scent, taste, and touch. How can any demonic matters arise? If there are persistent habits one cannot eradicate..."

The seven monks from Annam chanted the scriptures with their eyes closed. Buddhist chants echoed in the sealed room, and the once stagnant, murky air seemed to fill with a misty fragrance, influenced by the power of their recitation.

However, amidst the solemn Buddhist chants, a very faint rustling sound was always present. The sound was like clothes rubbing against skin, like fingertips across a wooden table, like a large mouse climbing along the corner of a wall, like a centipede skimming over mossy stones, like the fluttering wings of mosquitoes, moths, and flies.

Faint yet pervasive, it seemed ready to enter through the monks' ears, burrow into their brains, corrode their flesh, and erode their sanity.

The subtle rustling became louder, clear and distinct even amidst the Buddhist sounds.

The eldest monk, sitting directly opposite the door, remained unmoved, neither sad nor happy. He could hear the armored guards patrolling downstairs, their footsteps echoing on the floor. He could feel the donkeys and horses in the stables nibbling at their fodder. He could even sense a West Factory tracker hidden in the forest behind the post station, slapping a mosquito on his face and wiping the dead insect on the dry bark next to him.

Naturally, he also noticed that the young monk sitting opposite him was already overwhelmed—the young monk continued to recite the scriptures, but his voice trembled, his eyelids quivered, and his slightly open eyes were a spiderweb of bloodshot lines.

The old monk sighed inwardly. Without opening his eyes, he silently increased the volume of his chanting and gently tapped the ground with his knuckles.

The young monk opened his eyes, glanced at him with gratitude and guilt, stood up, bowed slowly, then turned and staggered towards the corner of the room, pushed open a hidden door, and left.

After a good while, the demonic sound abruptly stopped. From within the iron cage covered with heavy cloth, a hoarse, deep voice grated like metal scraping, "Lvzhou... we're almost there, right?"

The old monk's eyelids were low, his wrinkled face contorted, its expression unreadable—neither sorrow nor joy. "Two more days."

The demonic voice fell silent for a moment. "Two days, huh..."

The demonic voice faded away, but the Buddhist chants continued.