Pow!

The person Long Chen slapped appeared to be a Confucian scholar in his thirties. He carried a folding fan in his hand and truly looked scholarly.

He was in the midst of walking down the road and admiring the scenery when Long Chen’s slap struck him across the face.

The scholar blasted into the distance, and a clear handprint appeared on his cheek. His face even deformed.

“Bastard, why would you hit me?!” roared the middle-aged scholar.

This caused quite a disturbance. Even some of the city guards came over.

Currently, Long Chen was not that far from the imperial city’s entrance. That was a restricted area, limited to the royal family. Normal people weren’t allowed to approach.

For them to cause a ruckus in front of the imperial city, the city guards were just about to scold them when they saw Long Chen’s face. They hastily shut their mouths.

Last time, Long Chen had cut off Li Wanji’s head in the imperial palace, and that had shaken all of Grand Xia City.

Within Grand Xia City, only a few people didn’t know who Long Chen was. Thus, seeing that it was him, those guards acted like they didn’t see anything.

“Did no one ever teach you it’s rude to curse at people?!” Long Chen also roared back at this person.

The scholar almost coughed up blood. “You’re the one who hit me out of nowhere!”

“I hit you so you think you can curse me? Completely unreasonable!” shouted Long Chen.

“You…!” The scholar didn’t even know how to retort to that. He had never seen anyone so unreasonable as to declare a person couldn’t curse back when someone hit them. His face was swollen like a pig’s.

“You’re a Confucian scholar, making you a disciple of Confucius, a model for etiquette, an embodiment of morality and virtue. Even if I hit you, you should have asked me why, to determine the truth of the matter rather than instantly cursing me. Understand?” sneered Long Chen.

In truth, this fellow was no Confucian scholar. His cultivation base was hidden, but he couldn’t hide his hostile aura from Long Chen’s senses.

For this person to have put on such a meticulous disguise, he was clearly here to spy on him. So Long Chen had directly slapped him to test it out.

As a result, Long Chen found that this person was a Soul Transformation expert, a person on the level of a Hall Master.

Although he had done his best to disguise himself, at that moment of life and death, he had reflexively defended.

The power of Long Chen’s slap could kill a King if they were caught off guard. But this person was only left with a handprint. His status was instantly exposed.

The scholar then roared back at Long Chen, quibbling over whether he had a right to curse him. He hadn’t even noticed that he had already revealed himself.

Long Chen was full of disdain. For such an idiot to still be alive was a miracle.

“Why did you hit me?!” demanded the scholar.

“Don’t try such useless things on me. Go back and tell your master that I’ll be busy for the next few days, and I’ll handle them when I have time! Scram!”

Long Chen once more slapped the scholar. He was still shocked over how he had been recognized when he was struck, and as a result, he was once more sent flying.

This slap was even more vicious, and the scholar shot out like a shooting star, crashing into a wall. That wall let out a light barrier, causing him to rebound.

The scholar vomited a mouthful of blood. Within it were also dozens of teeth.

Just at this moment, the scholar’s aura was fully released. Everyone was shocked to find that he was actually a Soul Transformation expert.

He had no choice but to unleash his aura, as that slap from Long Chen had almost killed him. If he continued to hide his cultivation base, he’d be killed.

He rapidly retreated, on guard for Long Chen’s next attack. A bright sword appeared in his hand, and Sword Qi wrapped around him.

His expression was solemn. This was his first time encountering such a powerful slap. He was preparing himself for a mighty battle when he suddenly realized Long Chen’s figure had vanished.

“There’s no need to look. He already left. You should hurry up and scram. Your little cultivation base isn’t worth a second glance in my Grand Xia,” said one of the city guards disdainfully. Thinking about it for a moment, he couldn’t help but add, “Soul Transformation experts as weak as you are truly rare. It’s my first time seeing such a thing. Can I ask, how did you possibly survive to this point through the cultivation world’s struggles?”

The scholar’s expression sank. He left without a word. With his status exposed, he had no choice but to leave.

Long Chen didn’t kill him, because he wasn’t even worth it. He was just a spy, with an ordinary cultivation base and weak combat power. He was clearly just an errand boy, and killing him had no meaning.

Most likely, such a person would only be able to suck up to others for the rest of their life. Their true power was pitifully weak, and Long Chen couldn’t be bothered to kill him.

Long Chen simply wanted to use him to pass on the word to the Pill Tower. It was unlikely he came from the ancient races, because the ancient races disdained to work together with other sects. Only those people who wanted to suck up to the Pill Tower would act as errand boys.

Long Chen was warning the Pill Tower. They wouldn’t dare to enter Grand Xia City because the Wine God Palace was there. When the Wine God Palace had expelled Pill Valley’s experts back then, they had said that Pill Valley’s subordinates were not permitted to set foot within the Grand Xia.

The Wine God Palace was a mysterious existence. No one knew their true power. But Pill Valley truly hadn’t dared to start any conflicts with them in the past few years.

So within Grand Xia City, Long Chen was definitely safe. As for why he was warning the Pill Tower, he was intentionally infuriating them to make this matter even bigger.

Long Chen continued forward. Suddenly, he felt someone pull on him. He was startled and he followed him into a winehouse.

“Seventh Elder, what is it?” whispered Long Chen after they found a table to sit at and ordered a few wines and refreshments.

“I heard you’re in trouble? Do you need my help?” asked the Seventh Elder.

The current Seventh Elder looked like a traveling wanderer. His face had been transformed. But Long Chen instantly recognized him through the specific aura of the original devil race.

“I’m fine. It’s just some insignificant trouble I can handle. Seventh Elder, let me offer you a cup!” Long Chen poured out two cups of wine and offered one to him.

The Seventh Elder smiled and drank the cup. But his expression quickly changed. “What fine wine!”

Of course it was fine wine. This was the wine made by the Wine God Palace’s disciples. The Seventh Elder had never drunk such wine before.

“I’ll give you a few jars. How is the development on your side?” asked Long Chen as he poured more wine for the Seventh Elder.

“Everything’s going smoothly. But the more we grow, the more we find that we don’t have enough money. Many of my Skyscraping World’s resources cannot be taken out and sold openly. We can only grow slowly,” said the Seventh Elder.

The original devil race had been gathering all kinds of resources. But as they expanded, their wealth was unable to keep up.

After all, developing a business required capital. That took time to accumulate, but they were all in a race against time. Time was pressing. The Martial Heaven Continent had countless resources, but the original devil race could only gain through their regular channels, as they didn’t have special connections. Hence, their progress was slow.

Furthermore, the original devil race had to be extremely careful. Any clue might expose them, and then it would be extremely troublesome.

“A horse only gets fat by eating at night, and only a person that adapts and goes beyond conventional means gets rich. As I see it, you should see if you can form a connection with the ancient races. One reason is that they have plenty of money and a huge amount of resources. And the other reason is that I have a ‘good’ relationship with them. In the future, I’ll be able to ‘cooperate’ with them many times. I’ll plunder them, and you sell the things back to them. Use their own money to make money,” said Long Chen.

“Do… do you really think that’s a good idea?” The Seventh Elder was shocked. Long Chen truly had guts. After taking what was theirs, he wanted to sell it back to them? That was too evil, as well as too dangerous. It would raise suspicions.

“Hehe, Seventh Elder, have you not heard of money laundering?” Long Chen smiled.

“What are you talking about?”

“Hehe, it’s something that can’t see the light of day. After reselling something several times, it’ll become true gold. To put it more simply, first, you have to shock the ancient races with your power, making them feel like you aren’t easy to provoke. You will buy a few treasures of the ancient races from a mysterious underground organization, and then you will sell them to the ancient races. They will definitely have suspicions, but that’s fine. The cultivation world has many black markets. Some people will obtain objects from the Corrupt path even from the Righteous path’s hands, and then they’ll stealthily sell those things to the Corrupt path. This is a common occurrence.

“The ancient races’ items are also sold on the black market, but for their face, the ancient races will always disguise themselves as another power when they buy them. That’s why you need to form another underground power, so you will be able to work on this from two angles. Furthermore, that underground organization must be vicious. It would be best to immediately snatch some of the property of some other underground powers to intimidate them. It’ll be difficult at the beginning, but if it succeeds, the profits will increase by tens of times. Only by making money from both the open market and the black market is it possible to quickly accumulate wealth,” said Long Chen.

Right now, this was the only way to accumulate wealth quickly. Long Chen’s target was the ancient races, because he had quite a few things from the ancient races in his hands. Those three spatial rings from the three ancient race geniuses were filled with treasures.

But those things were mostly only useful to the ancient races. Furthermore, many of them were marked, and selling them openly would be a slap in the ancient races’ face. In this case, any open sellers would be hunted down.

But it was also true that these were things that ancient races needed. They knew the black market had sellers of these things, so they always had people stealthily buying them in the black market. Things sold on the black market were all normally at least thirty percent cheaper than at the open market.

“Alright, since you think this is possible, I’ll go gather a few experts and establish an underground power.” The Seventh Elder wasn’t able to resist this enticement in the end.

“Don’t worry, Seventh Elder. As long as this is done properly, it’ll definitely make a killing. After all, the things you’re selling came to you for free.” Long Chen handed over three spatial rings.