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Chapter 1775: Blackmail and Extortion
“I’m here to do business, of course!” Lu Feng jiggled his leg and waved three glittering talismans around with a grandiose flourish. “These pretty little ladies are gonna be deader than a doornail after you get involved. Therefore, I need to strike while it’s hot and get some money outta them while they’re still alive.
“How about it, pretty little things? There’s no chance of you surviving once you start fighting Chen Xiao. These three talismans can save your lives, but only your lives! I can’t do anything about escaping from him.” Lu Feng cocked his head with thought and grinned broadly. “One heaven and earth ancestral vein for one talisman, you can buy as many as you can afford. Chen Xiao’s bored to hell keeping you under guard here, so you might as well come up with a few extra lives for him to play with!”
The three young girls who’d actually been alive for countless eons shuddered with horror. Chen Xiao himself hadn’t issued any threats; it was Lu Feng’s words that raised the hair on the back of their necks.
“Who are you?!” the girl in green demanded. A genius who could modify the Lifeline Talismans was no ordinary person, and he seemed to be very familiar with Chen Xiao.
“Can’t you tell?” Lu Feng’s grin turned into a smirk. “I’m a spacetime traveler too.”
A spacetime traveler!
Bizarre beings who weren’t subject to the confines of space and time. They could appear in any space and any time, and they were the only instance of their existence no matter where they appeared. Whether in the past, present, future, or any plane of existence—they were the one and only.
In a place like the Land of Reincarnation in which Lu Yun experienced thirty-three loops, there should’ve been thirty-three Chen Xiaos, Qing Buyis, and Lu Fengs. But there wasn’t because they were spacetime travelers. There was only one of them, so Lu Yun hadn’t seen them elsewhere and thought he’d overlooked their presence. He didn’t see them in all of the loops to begin with, and if he had, it would’ve been the only time period that they went to.
Legends of spacetime travelers ran rife in the chief worlds and the only confirmed ones were Chen Xiao and Qing Buyi. Now there was a third.
Lu Feng.
……
“Oh no no, don’t be so scared,” Lu Feng chuckled as he took in the aghast expressions on the girls’ faces. “I’m not the same as those two crazies, I’m just here to sell my talismans. Do you want them or not?” he remained merry. “One heaven and earth ancestral vein for one talisman is a great deal.”
“No!” the girl in green snapped out. “We’re leaving!”
They lost their appetite for a fight the moment Chen Xiao created a sword of time. This was beyond their capabilities and they didn’t even want to linger around anymore after seeing a second spacetime traveler appear.
As lovely as treasures were, one needed to remain alive to enjoy them.
“Wait just a second!” Lu Feng’s face darkened upon seeing that they wanted to leave. “I heard there’d be a great show here and traveled a hundred million kilometers to do business. You don’t want to buy them after all?? Do you think you can play me like that?!”
He waved numerous glittering talismans into existence; they fell down through the void and sealed off the space around the three girls.
“I have one hundred single-use Lifeline Talismans here… One heaven and earth ancestral vein for each, pay up!” He bared his teeth in a savage grin.
“Are, are you forcing us to buy from you?!” The three girls shook with rage. Compared to Lu Feng, Chen Xiao was a more reasonable sort. They couldn’t break the encirclement that Lu Feng had set up—none of the spacetime travelers were to be trifled with!
Chen Xiao stared covetously at them from the side, what if he took advantage of this to attack them?!
“Fine, we’ll buy them!” The girl in green almost ground her teeth to dust. “But I don’t want the single-use ones! I want the multi-use ones that you modified!”
“Don’t got any,” Lu Feng shook his head. “I was in a hurry and only brought these.”
“You had them just now!”
“Not anymore,” he responded with all seriousness. “And the price has gone up. Two heaven and earth ancestral veins for each talisman, so five hundred talismans means one thousand veins!”
Chen Xiao’s eyes went wide and he stared incredulously at Lu Feng. The latter’s nose was up in the air and he didn’t bother looking at Chen Xiao.
“Lu Feng! You’re absolutely forcing your wares on others! Aren’t you afraid of ruining your reputation?!” The girl in green stomped her foot with anger.
“Hmm.” Lu Feng nodded and thought carefully. “Ten heaven and earth ancestral veins for one talisman. I’ve got one thousand talismans now, so that’ll be ten thousand veins.”
“Big sis!” the girl in purple interrupted when she saw that the speaker in green was about to argue back again. “We’ll take them! Here’s ten thousand veins!”
Her heart clenched painfully from the expenditure. Heaven and earth ancestral veins weren’t on the same level as the enigma stone veins that Chu Xingran had given Lu Yun, the two were incomparable!
Enigma stone veins were just mines of naturally occurring enigma stones—there was no other significance to them. Heaven and earth ancestral veins, on the other hand, were born out of real worlds and contained the complete will of heaven and earth.
One world could nurture only one vein, and not even powerhouses beyond sequence owned such treasures. Only when someone reached a cultivation level similar to these three girls did they have a chance of refining it from a world.
Ten thousand veins was a sum that even the supremes couldn’t imagine!
This was blatant blackmail and extortion! An ordinary Lifeline Talisman could be had for enigma stones in the chief worlds, but these young girls beyond supreme had no choice but to capitulate to Lu Feng’s demands.
Chen Xiao showed signs of going on the offensive. If the two acted in tandem, the girls really would perish here. The ten thousand heaven and earth ancestral veins weren’t for the talismans, but payment for their lives.
“Alright alright, now get out of here.” Lu Feng undid the spatial encirclement with a casual wave; the three girls immediately vanished without a backward look.
“I wouldn’t have scared them if I didn’t come off so strongly.” Lu Feng caressed a minor world in his hand—there were ten thousand heaven and earth ancestral veins sealed inside. It was probably the sum of the girls’ collective fortunes.
“They’d already be dead if you didn’t stick your nose in things.” Chen Xiao glared at him.
“Oi oi oi, do you have your head on straight?” Lu Feng widened his eyes at him. “They’re Yun Yi’s concubines! If you kill them, he’ll personally come for your head.”
“Yun Yi?” Chen Xiao curled his lip. “You keep yourself so busy making money in the chief worlds these years that you don’t even know the seed of nothing’s evolved into a world and is slowly growing.”
“Huh??” Lu Feng treated the revelation with disbelief. “Impossible, it was still lying inert in the heart of the ancestral planet last time I saw it. How has it evolved into a world?”
“It’s combined with the ancestral planet, or rather, the ancestral planet grew from it. Tsk tsk tsk, the ancestral planet is the home of your ready-made little brother and my brother-in-law. If those three went to the ancestral planet…” Chen Xiao clucked his tongue and Lu Feng couldn’t help but tremble.
Rumble—
The Sanguine Hell and the Ruina associated with it suddenly vanished from the other side of the void. Another rumble later, the Nihil Hell—last of the four—and its Ruina also sank into the void without a trace.
Lu Feng shook again and he murmured, “He’s collected all four hells… If his temper really flares, all of the chief worlds might tremble at his name.”
“The chief worlds? Tremble because of him?” Chen Xiao chuckled. “That’s not happening. Only if someone takes the ancestral planet and turns it back into a seed of nothing will Lu Yun transform all of the chief worlds into hell, even with his dying breath.”
“W-why do I feel like I’ve just saved all of existence?” Lu Feng stammered.
“Save all of existence? You?” Chen Xiao snorted. “If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve already taken care of the future danger.”
Lu Feng had no response to that.
“And aren’t you worried about wrecking your reputation after letting them go?” Chen Xiao smiled condescendingly at him.
Lu Feng curled his lip. “How about this, I’ll announce throughout the chief worlds that I’m not selling talismans anymore because of those three. Wanna bet that someone will deliver them to me tomorrow tied up like chickens?”
Chen Xiao blinked.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from that brother of mine, it’s the many ways to win hearts. The difference between us is that he’s too weak and attracts only hatred and envy. I’m different, I’m strong enough that they have to curry favor with me.”
Swish!
He snapped open his gilded fan with extreme arrogance.
“Well, you’re right. No one views you as a threat given how money grubbing and completely unserious you are,” Chen Xiao grumbled.