Chapter 13 What a Coincidence

[Today's Debt: 27 Joy Coins, one Holographic Projection Player, seventy-two decorative rivets, two navel piercings, three earrings, three ass rings, one high-end genuine leather belt, one exquisite lining, one advanced lighter.]

[Signature: Mu Liang.]

Lan Yuzai, clutching this IOU, nearly burst into tears.

This is just a bit!

This is ten million points!

Was he being robbed?

He was sure he had been stripped bare, right?

If his tattoos could be peeled off, would they also be taken out to trade?

After taking off the excessive decorations, Lan Yuzai, now looking more serious, stood in the corner of the 46th-floor shopping street holding up his pants.

He turned to look at the excited Mu Liang, bogged down with bags of items, wanting to speak but unsure how to start mocking.

Right... he had been caught by this boss and had been subdued... The boss stripped him and took him to be sold as a piglet; according to the rules of the Lower City and their gang's domain, it was reasonable.

Lan Yuzai silently looked up at the ceiling, and tears streamed down his face.

"Let's go!"

Wang Jixuan tossed him a nylon rope he had found by the roadside:

"Go find a place to stay, a cheap inn will do."

Lan Yuzai scampered to follow.

He distinctly felt that, after his huge sacrifice, the boss's attitude towards him had softened!

Learning skills was just around the corner!

"Boss, what's an inn?"

"It's... a hotel."

"Both of us staying in a hotel? Isn't that a bit intimate? Hey hey hey, boss, don't hit me, I know I misspoke, I misspoke!"

A few minutes later, Lan Yuzai, with a dark patch under his eye, dejectedly led Wang Jixuan to a cheap hotel he had stayed in before.

Lan Yuzai was beginning to suspect;

This boss just wanted to keep beating him, venting his anger, retaliating for the past six months when he and his guys stole his food!

The problem was...

Why did the boss seem so easy to bully before?

Lan Yuzai found this hard to understand and, as he walked into the cheap hotel, instinctively puffed up his chest.

The old man behind the counter instinctively clutched the handgun on the table, then smiling warmly, he greeted:

"One room, three nights, one Joy Coin, Joyful City's cheapest rates are right here. Each room is equipped with high-strength alloy doors capable of withstanding rocket launcher blasts.

"Each room has no spare keys!"

Wang Jixuan took out two thumbnail-sized coins he had exchanged at the store.

The old man happily accepted them.

"Two rooms or one? One, okay... Here are a few reminders, all the appliances in the room require coins to operate, here's your key."

Lan Yuzai rolled his eyes and muttered 'crook' under his breath.

Wang Jixuan hadn't thought much of it until he saw the bathroom corner of the suite partitioned for electrical appliances, and the automatic flushing tank, his forehead lined with black furrows.

Cunning merchants.

...

The 46th floor was two-thirds occupied by the Joyful City gang;

[Joyful City]this gang was said to have deep connections, backed by Upper City forces, and had a good relationship with the Silver Party on the same floor. The Silver Party would even actively offer protection and supply combat personnel for Joyful City.

To create a stable and entertaining environment, the public safety in the areas occupied by Joyful City was generally good. The large entertainment venues in the fortress were broadly divided into these areas: Gambling District, Dance Hall District, Shops District, Abnormal District, and Convalescence District.

Wang Jixuan and his company were currently located on the border between the Gambling District and the Dance Hall District.

The emergency food they had brought was enough to support two people for four to five days; the Joy Coins that Lan Yuzai had saved up could also buy a substantial amount of survival resources.

—The most expensive here was the entertainment service.

Safely settled for the meantime, Wang Jixuan began making talismans immediately.

To keep his secret safe, he purposely created a simple compartment with wooden boxes.

He didn't limit Lan Yuzai's activity within the room, but asked him to keep quiet and not to leave the room randomly.

Then... Wang Jixuan began to suffer from Lan Yuzai's snoring.

'How can this guy be sleeping! Isn't he supposed to be a hostage!'

Wang Jixuan silently shook his head.

Fortunately, talisman making was going smoothly.

Paper sheets soaked in Deactivated Blade Beast Blood for a few hours then dried were now usable as basic talisman paper.

Blade Beast Blood, simmered to a thick concentrate on an alcohol lamp, turned into basic Spiritual Liquid.

Wang Jixuan dipped his finger in Spiritual Liquid and hurriedly wrote the first talisman on the long-striped pink Spiritual Paper.

Blast Fire Talisman!

A single stroke completion!

The newly made talisman started to flicker faintly, drawing weak strands of spiritual energy from the air into the marks of the talisman.

The talisman slowly rose, gently shook, and was then pressed down by Wang Jixuan's palm.

A whiff of inner energy circled around it, sealing the gathered spiritual energy, which allowed the paper talisman to last for about a month.

This talisman could be attached to various objects to trigger an explosion or thrown to produce a fireball. As the spiritual energy in the air was sparse, Wang Jixuan was unsure of the specific power of the talisman.

He glanced at Lan Yuzai, who had started picking his nose while standing on his head in the corner...

Although Wang Jixuan wanted to continue taking revenge for Mu Liang, he had already disciplined Rotten Fish quite a few times, so he decided to spare him this time.

Wang Jixuan made twenty-four talismans in one go, stopping only when his body's qi was more than half depleted.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, embracing the prime and preserving the one.

Wang Jixuan began to meditate to quickly restore his inner energy.

In this cycle of consumption and recovery, his inner energy's total volume had been slightly increasing, while his meridians were continually being expanded.

Wang Jixuan felt fortunate that the Primordial Yang of this body was still intact, which significantly accelerated his cultivation speed.

He needed at least five days to produce two hundred talismans, mainly focusing on Godspeed Talismans, Blast Fire Talismans, Vajra Talismans, Slow Power Talismans, blood-stopping charms, and others that might be needed such as Evil Avoidance Talismans, Water Avoiding Talismans, Fire Extinguishing Talismans, exorcism charms, etc., and he needed to prepare a few for self-defense.

In this fortress where day and night were indistinguishable, three days had virtually blinked past.

Lan Yuzai finally couldn't resist asking, "Boss, what are we actually doing here?"

"Preparing for the fight," he replied.

Wang Jixuan looked up at him.

This guy really... apart from eating and sleeping, was either lying in bed daydreaming, perfectly embodying a fish's life principles.

Lan Yuzai rubbed his chin, mumbling softly, "Boss, are you really going to take revenge on the Black Fire Gang?"

"Before I came to find you, I took out two ruffians from the Black Fire Gang. I snatched this pistol from them," Wang Jixuan said as he shook the pistol in his hand and continued organizing the completed talismans.

He had sewn extra pockets into the lining himself, categorizing the talismans to make them easy to access.

Wang Jixuan continued, "Before I go to find them, I'll lock you up somewhere and leave you with enough food for a few days."

"What?" exclaimed Lan Yuzai as he widened his fish-like eyes:

"You're really going to fight the Black Fire Gang? Damn, boss, you're awesome! The Black Fire Gang has over a thousand underlings! They might not have the largest number of members among the Seven Great Gangs, but their business is the biggest, they have deep connections, are ruthless, and their territory even has those laser cannons you see in movies!"

Wang Jixuan became interested and smiled, "What's a laser cannon?"

"It's... my physics is terrible, boss!" Lan Yuzai said with a bitter smile:

"Not to mention, there are snipers who can blow a person's head off from hundreds of meters away, and each of the Seven Great Gangs has a few of them. They are known as gods in Lower City, the true weapons! The kind of pistol we can get is inaccurate beyond ten meters, jams if not well-maintained, and can't even penetrate regular Bullet-Proof Vests... it's really not the same."

Wang Jixuan countered, "If they want to kill me, why can't I kill them?"

"How far can you throw your bolt cap?"

"Thirty yards... about a hundred meters, and it can penetrate a thick wooden board within that range," Wang Jixuan explained simply.

His cultivation level was too low now; if it were any further, the trace of Qi attached to the bolt cap would dissipate.

Lan Yuzai asked, "Then, boss, how many can you throw continuously?"

"Thirty or forty."

"So you can deal with only thirty or forty people at most!" Lan Yuzai said with a bitter smile:

"It's hard to counter four hands with two fists, no matter how powerful you are, you're still one man. But speaking of which, if the Black Fire Gang wants to kill you, you really have no place to run… how about this, boss? Why don't you just let me turn you in? Then I can claim the reward, hehehe."

Wang Jixuan's eyes grew colder, and he slightly bent his finger.

Lan Yuzai, out of habit, crouched beside the bed and hurriedly said, "It's a joke! Just a joke! I'm your little brother now! How could a little brother betray his big brother?"

Wang Jixuan snorted, his gaze fixed on the pistol as he began to ponder deeply.

What he needed might not just be talismans but more of these clever gadgets.

Lan Yuzai quietly added, "And it's not just guns; they have a lot of bombs, which are really powerful."

"Bombs?" Wang Jixuan murmured quietly.

As they were talking, the window behind him, blocked by a metal plate across two-thirds of it, was illuminated by light.

Suddenly, a ball of fire appeared in the corner of the window, speeding towards them and landing in the street outside!

Lan Yuzai's eyes widened and his mouth opened, but before he could speak,

Boom!

The glass in the room shattered instantly, the barrier was pushed sideways, and a surge of hot air rolled in.

The explosion had occurred right on the street outside!

Lan Yuzai was struck in the face by flying glass, screaming in pain. Before he could cry out more, he saw a figure flash before his eyes, then felt his arm being pulled as a sharp ringing filled his ears.

Gunfire crackled like frying beans outside the window!

Slap!

Lan Yuzai was slapped back to his senses.

He shook his head and, using the emergency light in the bathroom, stared blankly at Wang Jixuan in front of him.

At this moment, Wang Jixuan was unharmed; the compartment he had made earlier had blocked most of the glass shards, though he was unavoidably dirty and disheveled.

Master Wang frowned as he pulled the glass out of Lan Yuzai's face. Without waiting for Lan Yuzai to scream, he quickly touched a spot and pulled out a blood-stopping charm to apply to Lan Yuzai's neck.

Lan Yuzai suddenly felt his wound become very warm.

"Boss... the gangs have started fighting... let's run..."

"They are using firearms outside," Wang Jixuan said, "It's still relatively safer here. Don't move; I've already stopped the bleeding."

"Okay, okay..."

Wang Jixuan stood up and walked into the room. Due to the explosion on the street, the power was out, and the place was a mess.

He picked up the pistol from the shattered glass, checked the remaining five bullets in the magazine as he had learned over the past few days, and glanced at the street, which was still echoing with 'tat tat tat' gunfire.

Wang Jixuan sighed slightly.

'External demon beasts, yet internally tearing each other apart.'

He was just about to leave when he heard someone shouting through a megaphone in the street:

"Black Fire Gang! Have you lost your minds? Captain Zhou is here to negotiate with you! This is Joyful City's territory!"

Black Fire Gang?

Captain Zhou?

Infinite Heavenly Venerate.

Master Wang moved to the window to observe for a while, hesitated briefly, then attached two Godspeed Talismans to the outsides of his thighs, and leapt down from the third floor!