The North American Gourmet Demon Handbook

However, people with higher "time value" can easily sell one hour of their own time in the time bank, and then purchase several hours of time debt mortgaged by others and use it for their own benefit.

It is worth mentioning that the value of time is different for each person at different stages of life.

Those who control capital can always mobilize astronomical resources, and even if they grow older, the impact they will suffer is minimal.

But it is different for ordinary workers. The peak period for an ordinary worker to create labor value is only a few years. When he gets older and his physical functions decline, he can no longer lend much money through time lending.

Olivia Crestol became so excited that she began to talk incessantly, and she even forgot that she was trapped in the interrogation room.

Judging from her aura, she seems to be in a high-end investment bank on Wall Street, pointing at the PPT and painting a rosy picture for all investors.

As for the financial instruments she mentioned, such as causal bonds, national destiny futures, time credit default swaps, time subprime loans, and launching wars to short time bonds, etc. Li Shanze, who lacked financial knowledge, could not understand those vague words at all.

"Alright, alright, Miss Klesto," Li Shanze said, trying to shake off this terrifying blueprint of time capitalism. "Whose genius idea is this?"

Olivia Crestow, who was beaming with joy, obviously didn't realize the irony in Li Shanze's "genius idea".

"Of course it's the Grand Wizard of our Brotherhood of Time, Mr. Dillon McGee! He's even expected to be elected as the next Chief Wizard of the Federation based on this contribution!"

When Li Shanze thought that the last justice in this world - time and death - might be deprived and trampled upon by this group of time wizards, he regretted it. Why the hell did he let that old guy McGee get away?

"Mr. Dillon McKee, is he a Jew?"

"Of course! Who else but the Jews could have such a brilliant idea!" Olivia Crestow looked proud. "How did you know?"

Nonsense, apart from the Jews, who else is so immoral and smokey... Although the British are immoral, their immorality does not require technical skills, and they cannot think of such immoral methods.

Li Shanze didn't say anything about this, which seemed to violate the highest order of the United States. He changed the subject and continued to ask, "Have you put this time bank plan into practice?"

"No, not yet. It's still in the planning stages... But we spread the word about this plan through Robert Stroman, and from what we've heard so far, it seems like everyone is very interested."

America's financial capital beats up real capital. I've seen this episode before, so there's nothing new about it.

Li Shanze was not surprised at all.

Compared to working hard to research immortality, how could it be more convenient to squeeze time out of Kuhaha to achieve immortality directly?

Author's words: Thanks to Brother Fenghua for the monthly ticket

Thanks to the recommendation votes of Original Soundtrack Chicken and Polar Bear

I worked overtime late last night, so there is only one update today. Please forgive me.

141 Annihilation

For Li Shanze, there is another problem with this narrative.

This wicked and smoking project is so wicked that anyone can tell at a glance that it will bring endless profits.

So, why would the Shi Hai brothers be willing to release the information through industrial espionage?

"What's the trick here? Don't try to fool me with some stupid talk about finding someone to share the risk. Dillon McGee is Jewish! Jews are turtles! They won't let go of anything they bite!"

Under Li Shanze's questioning, Olivia had to tell the truth.

"Mr. Dillon McKee actually wasn't optimistic about this time bank project... It was originally intended to deceive the party that planted the spy and to investigate who had planted the spy."

However, because the prospects of this project were so grand and the benefits were so considerable, after the news leaked, no one knew what happened, but the entire Eternal Life Technology was alarmed.

Even now, the bigwigs who know about the Time Bank project are no longer limited to the wizard group of Eternal Life Technology.

Thus, under the "attention of all", the fake project had no choice but to become a real project.

Li Shanze felt that what Olivia Crestow said was not entirely true and that many details were unclear.

However, even Li Shanze and Kate's repeated questioning failed to obtain more detailed information.

Li Shanze guessed that it was probably because Miss Crestor's rank was not high enough - if she was not in charge of combating "commercial espionage", she would probably have no way of knowing these inside stories.

But no matter what, the prospects of this project are too terrible. Although he doesn't care much about the lives of Americans from another world, he still wants to ruin this project out of human instinct.

"So have you invested all the resources of Eternal Life Technology?" Li Shanze asked.

Since we want to sabotage this project, the first thing we need to do is to identify who are our friends and who are our enemies.

Under Li Shanze's questioning, Olivia Crest chose to tell everything she knew.

"No, because the Time Bank is primarily about time-based sorcery, the Time Corpse Brotherhood is still the leader. Other schools have limited input into this project, and the Seattle branch is relatively indifferent and simply hasn't gotten involved..."

"Didn't you say you were interested in all aspects?"

"Hmph, it's hard to tell whether they are interested in this great project or in destroying it."

After Miss Crestow's explanation, Li Shanze finally understood that although all parties were interested, there was also a dispute over the route involved.

Both the material fundamentalists and the consciousness perpetuationists have invested a lot of resources in research. In this process, countless small interest groups and factions have emerged. Path dependence itself is not so easy to get rid of.

In addition, the Time Bank concept of the Brotherhood of Time simply bypassed everyone - this concept was almost entirely based on time witchcraft, leaving out other schools.

Therefore, most of the senior wizards and great wizards who know the inside story are in a contradictory state of mind.

They are jealous of the potential benefits of eternal life and time banks, but are also worried that the Time Brotherhood, which leads this project, may reap too many benefits.

Originally, due to the difficulty and danger of time-based witchcraft, the Time Skeleton Brotherhood was the smallest and weakest school among the nine major schools.

But after Dillon McGee came up with the idea of ​​the time bank, the Brotherhood of Time suddenly grew much stronger, attracting young wizards who were not yet tied to other schools to join.

For other schools, being swallowed up by the Time Skeleton Brotherhood is also an existential crisis.

As for how many of these young wizards are undercover agents from other schools, and how many of them have ambitions to replace Dillon McGee, it is unknown.

After hearing this, Li Shanze always felt that things were not that simple.

Kate also noticed the problem. She asked, "How can you attract so many young wizards all at once? Are they simply attracted by the prospects of the project? Or do you use other means?"

"Well, it's because Mr. McKee spread the word..."

"What's the news?"

"Mr. McKee said that the time magic involved in this project is too complicated, so a young and talented wizard is needed to lead the project."

"This selected young talented wizard will receive more resources and is expected to be trained to become the future Chief Wizard of the Federation."

Hearing this, Li Shanze smiled.

Isn't this so-called Chief Wizard of the Federation the pie that Dillon McGee came to paint for Charlie?

Li Shanze originally thought that Dillon McGee's behavior of finding Charlie was a bit abrupt, but now it seems that this old guy is making such promises to every wizard.

This also made Li Shanze temporarily relieved.

It seems that this old guy had no good intentions in spreading the news through industrial espionage.

This time bank project is probably just a bluff PPT, purely used as a smokescreen.

"So, this time bank project is just a scam, right? Miss Crestow?" Li Shanze asked with a smile.

Unexpectedly, Miss Crestow became very emotional and her face turned red with anger.

"A hoax?" Her voice suddenly became sharp.

She tried to stand up, and the handcuffs on her wrists glowed with magical light. Then, the metal handcuffs became rusty under the rust of time, and were easily broken open by her slender hands.

"You short-sighted people! You have no idea what a great idea this is!"

She pointed at Li Shanze and yelled at him.

She acted like a fanatic whose faith had been insulted.

After all, witchcraft is essentially idealistic. Once it comes to the origin of witchcraft, it is no different from faith itself.

The witchcraft fluctuations from the furious Olivia Crestor had covered the entire interrogation room, but this was not voluntary, but a loss of control caused by rage.

Kate noticed that the paper of the interrogation record was decaying in the waves of time, slowly degenerating into medieval parchment, while the ink was reorganizing into Gutenberg's movable type lead plate.

Then Olivia Crestow's body shook violently, and she spat out a mouthful of blood with a wow sound. Then, she sat back in the interrogation chair with a tired look on her face.

"You! Who are you? Why is the long river of time always disturbed by you?" She looked at Li Shanze with a pale face and horror.

As she finished speaking, the skin on her left side became as tender as a baby's, while the skin on her right side aged rapidly, looking as withered as a hundred-year-old woman.

Her body now became the temple where Genesis and Revelation battled.

What shocked Li Shanze the most was her face torn by time.

Her left eye shines as brightly as a sapphire in the sun, and her eyelashes are thin and lively.

His right eye became cloudy and lifeless, like a dead fish that had been frozen in a cold storage for half a year.

She was trembling, and her voice seemed to come from two different bodies, one half was as loud as a baby's first cry, and the other half was as weak as an old woman on her deathbed.

"Haha, hahahaha! The end of Time Corpse, the end of Time Corpse——"

Her words stopped abruptly, and then the sound of an hourglass breaking was heard.

Olivia Crestol's body was completely torn into two, and then it fell apart into ash fragments, leaving no trace of flesh and blood.

"She wanted to cast a time spell on you, but it was interfered with. As a result, the spell backfired on her and she died."

Kate sighed, then turned her head to look at Li Shanze, as if she wanted to see her master clearly again.

"Why can you interfere with time spells?"

Maybe it’s because I come from a different time and space, so I naturally interfere with their originally smooth river of time.

Li Shanze had a preliminary guess in his mind.

But he just shook his head and didn't express his immature speculation.

"Who knows? It seems we need to find a new way out... As for her son, Jimmy Crestol, we can't really send him to the Catholic Church for foster care, right?"

At this moment, the one-way glass behind the two of them was suddenly knocked.

"Little Jimmy suddenly disappeared!" Charlie rushed in. "He was reading a fairy tale book right in front of me, and then he just disappeared like that!"

Author's words: Thanks to Cloud Tower for the monthly ticket

Thanks to Polar Bear and Original Soundtrack Chicken for their recommendation votes

142 Tracking

Just as Charlie had said, the six-year-old child suddenly disappeared without a trace.

On the floor lay the copy of Alice in Wonderland in which he had disappeared.

"He just suddenly disappeared from my sight!" Charlie gestured. "I didn't detect any magical fluctuations!"

Whether it was checking surveillance footage or asking people from the Philadelphia Police Department, there was no sign that Jimmy Crestow had left.

The six-year-old child just disappeared like that, as if he had never existed.

Li Shanze frowned. "What's going on? Could it be that Olivia's annihilation caused her childbearing to never occur, and her son's timeline was automatically corrected due to the 'grandfather paradox'?"

He recalled the science fiction films he had seen before and started thinking.

But Li Shanze quickly denied his guess: "That doesn't make sense. We all remember his existence. If the timeline is automatically corrected, then Jimmy Crestor probably never existed at all, right?"

At this moment, Kate sat in front of the computer and said, "Come and look at this."

Li Shanze and Xia Li walked over when they heard the sound, and Kate turned the screen towards them.

"Jimmy Crestow, six years old... What is this?" Charlie asked curiously, looking at the records on the screen.

"Medical records." Kate pointed at the screen. "These are all. Jimmy Crestow was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of three..."

"Yes, the condition is very serious. The doctor diagnosed that it would be difficult for him to live beyond the age of five. It is a miracle that he can live to the age of six." Li Shanze sighed as he looked at the diagnosis on the screen.

"W-What do you think?"

Kate first subconsciously looked at Li Shanze. Facing Li Shanze's gaze, she felt a sense of emptiness in her heart for no reason.

So she quickly looked away again and looked at Charlie.

Charlie didn't notice Kate's strangeness. She frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "I'm thinking, maybe that time bank is more than just a blueprint?"

Li Shanze nodded and confirmed, "Yes, large-scale time lending and setting up time financial instruments may be troublesome, but these time-based wizards will always find a way to use witchcraft to extend the lives of those close to them."

"Although the 'time bank' is a large and complex project, it has been underway for nearly two years, so I don't think there will be no progress at all. Even if it's just a pie in the sky, it has to look convincing enough to deceive investors."

"I guess Olivia Crestor used some kind of 'time loan' to transfer her own time to her son, which allowed little Jimmy to survive."

"But when she was annihilated by the backlash of time sorcery, her time loan naturally expired, and Little Jimmy had to repay it, which is why she disappeared so completely."

"This also explains why Olivia Crestow was so enthusiastic about the Time Bank project. Perhaps, in her view, it was the only way to save her terminally ill son."