Cultivation Kill

After a moment of silence, Supervisor Chen's expression changed from anger to a smile: "Boss Shen, you're quite skilled. She's just a little beggar girl. Zeng Shu, drag this guy with the broken leg away and then go to the stone warehouse to bring the little girl here."

Supervisor Chen gestured for the shifty-eyed fellow to leave.

“You trash, you only talk properly when you have to fight,” Shen Zige said. “I came here with the intention of peaceful negotiation.” He was not going to give Supervisor Chen a pleasant look. If he hadn’t been certain that Supervisor Chen couldn’t make decisions on this matter at the True Artifact Pavilion, he would have already taken him down.

"Mr. Shen is right. My subordinate is ungrateful. How can he talk to a customer like that? You've done a good job of teaching him a lesson!"

Supervisor Chen endured humiliation and sought to make peace. He was just an ordinary person, only with a better family background than the thugs. However, his martial arts skills were not as good as the thugs'. He could bully ordinary people at the bottom of society, but when facing a master, he could only be beaten.

"I've been asked to ask Mr. Shen to go somewhere." Supervisor Chen had to say it, otherwise he wouldn't be able to get things done properly and he'd be in trouble. "It's in the reception room of the Star Realm Company in this city. It's not a dangerous place."

Shen Zige pondered: "The people in charge of the Star Realm Company have to abide by the company's rules. No matter how capable the True Artifact Pavilion is, they wouldn't dare to cause trouble in the Star Realm Company. So there's really no danger. Let's see what the people from the True Spirit Pavilion have to say. At worst, we can just ignore them, and there's nothing they can do about it."

After waiting for a moment, Zeng Shu dragged a crying little girl upstairs. The little girl's clothes were made of various fabrics and had many patches.

"I don't want to go with you! You're all bad people!" The crying girl came upstairs and saw Meng Bao standing next to Shen Zige. She immediately shouted, "Brother Meng, what are you doing here? They're all bad people! Run!"

Meng Bao went over and hugged his younger sister, comforting her, "Don't cry, Xiao Yu, brother will take you home." Meng Bao didn't have much affection for his mother who abandoned him when he was a child. If his mother had been captured by the three major gangs, he would likely have fled the city and ignored her. But he really liked this younger sister.

Meng Bao still remembers the first time he met Liu Yu a few years ago. She was small, her head barely reaching his shoulder. She was carrying a broken bowl and following behind her mother. Although she was rummaging through the trash, her eyes were clear and bright, unlike the cloudy eyes of other beggars.

After Liu Yu's parents were driven out, the original owner carved the words "exiled servant" on the back of their identity plaques. When other wealthy families saw these two words, no one was willing to accept them, and they suffered neglect and insults in the city.

At first, Liu Yu's father was secretly doing jobs that didn't require an identity card. Later, he was discovered by the three major gangs in the city. These gangs were actually thugs for the city's nobles. How dare he find work without their permission? So they beat Liu Yu's father up, blinding him in one eye. Liu Yu's father was left with no choice but to beg for food.

"Boss Shen, when would you like to set off?" Supervisor Chen asked.

"Let's go now," Shen Zige said. "Lead the way."

“Brother, I don’t want to go home. There are centipedes under the wooden bed at home, and I’m scared. Besides, I won’t get enough to eat at home. I want to go begging for food,” Liu Yu said.

Her home was a makeshift thatched hut built haphazardly under a stone bridge, with absolutely nothing inside.

Meng Bao was in a dilemma. He himself often went hungry, and if he were to take his sister along... "Okay, Xiaoyu, come with your brother. I won't let you go hungry." He had made up his mind that even if he had to steal or rob, he would make sure his sister was fed.

After Shen Zige saw Supervisor Chen and Zeng Shu come downstairs, she secretly tossed two spirit stones to Meng Bao.

"Don't make a sound. Take the spirit stones and your sister, then take the teleportation array to 1219 City. Go to the shop opposite the Wuding Immortal Cultivation and Killing Experience Center. The shop manager is Zhao Shi. Tell him that I sent you here and ask him to arrange a job for you two."

Shen Zige spoke very softly. If others heard her, Meng Bao would probably have his spirit stones stolen before he even left the city.

The laws in the Ninety-Nine Cities are lenient; robbery and fraud only result in a few days of imprisonment before release. For members of the three major underground factions, being imprisoned is equivalent to going on a few days' vacation.

Shen Zige thought that every city in the Bamboo Kingdom had its own laws. If they were too strict, merchants and ordinary people would leave; if they were too lenient, dark underground organizations would proliferate. It was difficult to strike the right balance.

These are not things he should care about; they are things that the officials of the City Lord's Mansion should consider. What does it have to do with him, a contestant from the Star Realm Company?

Meng Bao pulled his sister down to kneel, and kowtowed three times to Shen Zige.

"You are my and my siblings' savior, and you will be our master from now on!"

"Get up, it's nothing."

Shen Zige thought that since his shop was still profitable, it would be good to help some people. Of course, he would only help people if he was destined to. He would not go out of his way to help those beggars he did not know. Those were matters for the monarch of the Bamboo Kingdom and had nothing to do with him.

Shen Zige walked down from the observation tower, with Meng Bao and Liu Yu following behind. They parted ways at the street corner and headed towards the teleportation array.

Supervisor Chen kept turning back every ten steps, afraid that Shen Zige wouldn't follow. Shen Zige quickened her pace and walked to a position next to Supervisor Chen.

After walking for ten minutes.

The Star Realm Corporation's branch office building in this city came into view.

The building has twenty floors and stands out like a crane among chickens, surrounded by two- or three-story buildings.

In the plaza in front of the Star Realm Building, there are more than a dozen statues of cultivators with different shapes. The statues depict the high-level administrators of the Star Realm Company in Wenxing. Each statue is three stories tall and lifelike, undoubtedly the work of a master sculptor.

People heading to the Star Realm Company chatted and laughed as they walked past the statue's feet. Shen Zige glanced at them and estimated there were about 120 people in front of the square.

In large cities like this, the Star Realm Company sends representatives who are at least at the Core Formation stage, equivalent to the level of the Bamboo Kingdom's monarch.

Supervisor Chen and Shen Zige entered the lobby, took the magic array elevator, and arrived at the twelfth floor, where the meeting room they had rented was located.

"On the right side of the corridor, there's a sign that says 'True Artifact Sect Meeting Room,'" Supervisor Chen pointed to Shen Zige. "I'm just dropping you off here; I can't enter the meeting room given my status."

Although she was certain that the True Artifact Sect wouldn't dare to cause trouble at the Star Realm Company, Shen Zige still used her divine sense to investigate first. After finding no danger, she slowly walked over.

Pushing open the door, Shen Zige immediately saw seven people sitting inside. Teacups were placed on the long sandalwood table, filled with hot tea. Four people sat on the right side of the table, and three sat on the left side, clearly separated.

In the middle of the row of three people was a middle-aged man with a short beard and a stern expression; to his left was a woman in a white silk robe who looked to be about thirty years old and was holding a jade ruyi; to his right was a man Shen Zige recognized—the old shopkeeper who had given him the 10% discount card on the second floor that day.

"You've arrived. Please sit in that row." The woman pointed to the long table where the four of them were sitting.

Shen Zige sat down and looked at the four people next to her. They were all of Eastern appearance, including a woman.

“Everyone’s here. Let me introduce myself first.” The middle-aged man with a short beard said, “My name is Liu Gui, Gui as in precious. I am the manager of the artifact storehouse of the True Artifact Sect and I am in the early stage of Foundation Establishment.”

Shen Zige knew that Liu Gui deliberately shouted out the last four words to intimidate the five of them—"If I, a Foundation Establishment cultivator, don't give me face when I negotiate with you low-level Spirit Condensation cultivators, be careful you don't pay an unbearable price!"