After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

Bai Xuan remained silent.

The dewdrop slid down the folds of the mushroom cap and made a shallow dent in the soil of the flowerpot.

Zhou Ran stared at the pit for a long time without moving.

Water droplets landed, dust settled.

Bai Xuan's statement implies tacit agreement.

He got up and walked to the window of the greenhouse.

The Purple-Gold Demon Eyes are activated.

The night view of the entire river city has been stripped bare.

Gray threads grow upwards from the ground, passing through reinforced concrete, asphalt roads, viaduct piers, and every lit window.

At the tip of each thread, a flickering point of life light is held.

Some are in the bedroom.

Some are at the end of the hospital corridor.

Some are at their desks late at night.

Zhou Ran counted the number of items within a one-kilometer radius of the manor.

Seventeen.

There wasn't a single one when he left four days ago.

The collar moved slightly, and the black-gold dragon poked its head out, exhaling two streams of cold air from its nostrils.

Dragon's eyes were vertical, fixedly aimed at the direction of the East City.

Zhou Ran smelled it too.

The scent wafting from the east had nothing to do with yin energy, demonic energy, or anything he had encountered during his cultivation journey.

decay.

Rotten to the core.

Something that shouldn't exist in this world.

The mycelium of the white mushroom shrank back in the flowerpot, and the whole mushroom plant shrank half an inch into the soil.

"Scared?"

The cap of the white mushroom swayed from side to side.

That was disgust.

A disgust that rises from the very marrow of my bones.

Zhou Ran withdrew his demonic gaze, turned around, and walked out of the flower room.

Li Zhiyao stood at the end of the corridor, the black and gray of her cheongsam gleaming dimly in the moonlight.

Did you hear that?

"You stayed in the greenhouse for six minutes."

Li Zhiyao leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

"Although Bai Xuan's intelligence is unstable, its judgment has never been wrong."

Zhou Ran didn't reply.

Li Zhiyao stared at his profile for two seconds.

"When do you plan to make your move?"

"What's the rush?"

"The Heavenly Corpse's heart is recovering, the gray lines are spreading, and the Yin Realm's river closure won't last more than a few days."

Li Zhiyao's tone was so flat that no emotion could be discerned.

"You can't sit in the greenhouse for six minutes without having time to chat with the mushrooms."

You're figuring out how to clean up both the mess in the mortal realm and the underworld at the same time.

Zhou Ran turned to look at her.

"You've been following your brother for four thousand years, and you've learned mind-reading skills?"

"No need to read it."

Li Zhiyao lowered her head and brushed the dust off her sleeve.

"Every time you think about killing someone, your left index finger rests on your middle finger."

Zhou Ran glanced down at his left hand.

The index finger is indeed pressing down on the middle finger.

He put his hands in his pockets.

"Take care of things in the living world first."

"The Holy Radiance Consortium?"

"They built equipment underground in the East City that can receive the fluctuations of the Heavenly Corpse."

Zhou Ran walked towards the main building.

"The Heavenly Corpse eats fear, and the Holy Radiance Consortium creates fear."

"If this line isn't severed, even reinforcing the seal a hundred times won't help."

Li Zhiyao followed, neither too close nor too far.

"How do you plan to pinch me?"

Call them?

"Too slow."

"That?"

Zhou Ran pushed open the side door of the main building, and the corridor lights came on.

"I need money."

His phone rang.

Caller ID: Unknown number.

Zhou Ran paused in his steps.

Li Zhiyao's expression also changed.

Her Yin Spirit immediately enveloped the phone, detecting the source of the signal.

"You're being way too paranoid."

She frowned.

"This phone call had no spiritual energy fluctuations, no yin energy, it was just a normal telephone signal."

Zhou Ran answered the call and held it to his ear.

The person opposite had a deep voice, but a strong voice, each word delivered with commanding presence.

"Young friend Zhou Ran, my surname is Xu, and I am the master of Penglai Pavilion."

Zhou Ran's face didn't move.

"I am calling to tell you that the rule you sealed in the underworld will not last more than seven days."

The corridor fell silent.

Li Zhiyao's lips moved, but no words came out.

Penglai Pavilion?

Zhou Ran leaned against the wall and switched hands to hold the phone.

How did you get my number?

There was a chuckle on the other end of the phone.

"I know more than you think."

You altered the Book of Life and Death in the Third Hall, sealed the River of Oblivion with the power of the Divine Transformation Sword, and destroyed the Fusion Armory in the City of the Wrongfully Dead.

Penglai Pavilion has witnessed all of this.

Zhou Ran's left index finger touched his middle finger.

"I saw it all, but I didn't offer any help."

"The time is not right."

"At what time?"

There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

"If three more gray lines spread out from your body, we will naturally appear."

The phone hangs up.

Zhou Ran stared at the homepage that popped up on the screen, his thumb lingering on the call log for a moment, but he didn't call back.

Li Zhiyao's words came from behind her, spoken in a very low voice.

"Penglai".

"Um."

"They were the ones who quelled the rebellion in the underworld hundreds of years ago."

The leader of the Nascent Soul stage cultivators wielded a bronze ruler.

Zhou Ran nodded and put his phone back in his pocket.

"Aren't you going to return the call?"

"Since he took the initiative to come to us, he won't just target this one."

He continued walking towards the conference room.

"Seven days."

Li Zhiyao followed behind.

Is he telling the truth or not?

"unimportant."

Zhou Ran pushed open the conference room door; the light flickered twice before settling on steadily.

"Whether it's seven days or three days, my plans won't change because of a phone call."

He pulled out a chair and sat down, placing his hands on the table with his arms crossed.

"Call Chen Ya over."

Li Zhiyao glanced at him, then turned and left.

Three minutes later, Chen Ya pushed the door open and came in.

The bandage on my left arm has been changed, but my complexion is still poor, and the dark circles under my eyes are impossible to suppress, although my steps are steady.

She was holding a folder in her hand and placed it on the table as soon as she entered the room.

"The things you requested were started being prepared four days ago."

Zhou Ran opened the folder.

A map showing the distribution of Sheng Hui Group's assets in China, a list of partners, tracking of fund flows, and bank records for Marcus's personal account.

Each data point is accompanied by its source and credibility rating.

Zhou Ran's finger stopped on the third page.

"This shell company."

Chen Ya bent down and leaned closer, pointing her fingertip at the line of words.

"Registered in the Cayman Islands, with a capital scale of US$35 billion, the actual controller is a trust fund under Song Zhentian's name in Liechtenstein through seven layers of nominee shareholding."

Zhou Ran looked up.

"Money from the dead?"

"The Legacy of the Black Dragon Society"

Chen Ya straightened up.

"Seventy percent of the funding for Shenghui Group's 50 billion yuan medical center project came from this source."

It's essentially money laundering.

Zhou Ran closed the folder.

Is the chain of evidence complete?

"I had the legal team check it three times."

I have bank statements, shareholding traceability documents, and scanned copies of nominee shareholding agreements.

"It meets the criteria for filing a case."

"This amount is more than enough."

Zhou Ran leaned back in his chair.

"Then there's no rush to hand it over to the authorities."

Chen Ya paused for a moment.

"Use it as a knife first."

Zhou Ran's eyes were fixed on the relationship network diagram on the wall.

"Call Lin Qingxue and Xiao Hongli here at seven o'clock tomorrow morning."

"What are you doing?"

"kill."

He stood up and stopped at the door.

"Kill with money."

The night wind blew in through the window.

In the direction of Dongcheng, that stench of decay, which seemed to belong to another world, grew even stronger.

The black-gold baby dragon huddled inside Zhou Ran's collar, letting out a very low whimper from deep in its throat.