Staking Every Asset to Gamble on Chen Fan's Death

"I see." Chen Fan gave a slight nod, furrowing his brow. "You mean you're about to shed your scales. You did agree to lend him a few, but only after you shed them, not for him to take a chisel and pry them off right now." Hearing this, Weiwei nodded vigorously, its eyes rimmed in red and brimming with tears. Finally, someone understood. It felt so wronged! It had been basking happily in the sun on a full stomach when someone suddenly ran up with a chisel to pry off its scales. Do you have any idea how much that hurts? Why didn't you go pry off your own! Standing nearby, Zhao Shengping's apprentice stared in utter bewilderment. How had Chen Fan gathered all that information from a sequence of nods, shakes, and nods? Why couldn't he see any of it? "You're about to shed your scales?" Chen Fan looked at Weiwei, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. Then he pointed to Qi Yue, who had rushed back alongside him. "Like him?" "Roar." Weiwei nodded heavily, letting out a few excited low growls. "Impressive." Chen Fan couldn't help but chuckle. Didn't this mean Weiwei's strength was about to take another leap forward? "Is there anything I can do? Do you need any heavenly materials, earthly treasures, pills, or the like?" Sprawled on the ground, Weiwei shook its head, then rolled over playfully. "You don't need anything, just need to eat your fill, right?" "Alright." Chen Fan turned to Qi Yue with a serious expression. "It'll be hard work for you over the next few days." "Understood." Qi Yue nodded in agreement. Fan Domain was facing a severe shortage of ghost creature corpses. Almost all the carcasses obtained during the rainy season had been fed to Weiwei, leaving very few for the sacrificial tower. That structure hadn't been activated in a long time; ghost corpses could be offered up there in exchange for unique treasures. Unfortunately, the pelts from the flesh worm ghost tide didn't count as corpses, or they would have been much better off. Now that the rainy season had passed, ghost creature corpses were even harder to come by. Ghost creatures simply wouldn't enter the camp's boundaries, meaning people had to venture past the perimeter into the darkness to hunt them. Under those circumstances, cannon towers and other defensive structures couldn't hit anything. Because of that, Fan Domain had recently relied on two methods to acquire ghost creature corpses. The first was mass-producing ground spikes and burying them along the coast in front of Nameless Mountain. Every day, they yielded a fair number of ghost corpses and ghost stones, but the harvest had gradually dwindled recently. It was hard to tell whether the ghost creatures in the area were running out or if they had simply grown clever enough to avoid the traps. The second method was purchasing them. Now there was a third method. Having broken through to Martial King, Qi Yue could actively venture into the Eternal Night to hunt ghost creatures. Of course, he could only hold out for an hour before his spiritual energy ran dry, forcing him to retreat to camp. While Weiwei loved human food, such as roast pork, it was nothing more than a snack to the beast. It couldn't fill its stomach. Only gorging on ghost creature corpses truly satisfied it, and breaking through also required drawing energy from their remains. Just then, Zhao Shengping slowly stirred awake. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Chen Fan. With tear-filled eyes, he cried out aggrievedly, "Domain Lord, it really agreed! That's why I started prying!" "You misunderstood it." Chen Fan patted Zhao Shengping's shoulder and sighed. "It's going to shed its scales in a few days. Forge the night-travel suit after it sheds them. For now, forge the daggers first. You should consider yourself lucky that it can heal its wounds now, which makes it less guarded. "In the past, if you had dared pry at its scales, it would have swallowed you alive. "You're truly something. "Where did you find the nerve to charge up with a chisel and pry off someone's scales? Do you have any idea how much that hurts?" Zhao Shengping nodded aggrievedly, but his excitement soon returned. "Domain Lord, I never imagined our Fan Domain possessed a Heaven-Swallowing Crocodile. Even across the Guanxi Plain, they are exceptionally rare exotic beasts. Once they reach natural maturity, they boast remarkable combat prowess—a purely combat-oriented exotic beast. "Both their defense and attack are formidable." "Oh?" Chen Fan raised a brow, keenly catching the underlying implication. "A combat-type exotic beast? You mean the Heaven-Swallowing Crocodile has no other abilities?" "None at all." Though Zhao Shengping couldn't understand why the Domain Lord looked perplexed, he answered nonetheless, "We artifact refiners know many exotic beasts very well. After all, the scales, claws, and parts of many exotic beasts make top-tier forging materials. "The scales of a Heaven-Swallowing Crocodile couldn't be more suitable for crafting armor. "They are both light and resilient. "Exotic beasts fall into many categories, and the Heaven-Swallowing Crocodile is an exceptionally pure, textbook combat-type." Chen Fan's expression turned slightly odd as he looked at Weiwei, who lay sprawled on the ground, staring back at him with wide, innocent eyes. *A purely combat-type exotic beast?* He clearly remembered this fellow slapping down the legacy projection left by the Immortal Heavenly Master along the coast and swallowing it whole. Originally, that projection had been meant to soar into the sky, inviting everyone nearby to participate. Instead, Weiwei's single slap had turned it into a private server just for Chen Fan. Later, in the ancient ruin, it had been the same story. Chen Fan hadn't even needed to clear the trials; Weiwei had slapped them down one after another, making the entire ruin his. That was clearly a special ability specifically targeting formations. Yet that wasn't an inherent ability of the Heaven-Swallowing Crocodile? *Could it be...* He began to grasp the truth. The crocodile's original inability to heal its wounds might not have been an illness at all, but a genetic mutation. It had mutated from a purely combat-oriented exotic beast into one with weakened combat strength but extraordinary effectiveness at destroying formations. The inability to heal had merely been a side effect. Then, after consuming the Snow Lotus, the side effect had vanished. Now, it had become a Heaven-Swallowing Crocodile that excelled at shattering formations while also possessing immense combat power. Chen Fan silently patted the crocodile's head. "It's fine now. Go play." He suddenly realized he was surrounded by valuable treasures. If he had to put a price on Weiwei, it would be worth at least a million ghost stones, wouldn't it? In the future, whenever he visited ancient ruins or similar sites, bringing Weiwei along would turn any so-called ancient ruin into his own back garden. With a single slap, every formation would shatter to pieces. "Domain Lord," Zhao Shengping gazed yearningly in the direction Weiwei had gone. "Very few factions possess combat-type exotic beasts of this caliber. Such beasts are notoriously short-tempered. Domain Lord, just how did you tame it?" "If you knew it was short-tempered, why did you go pry off its scales?" Chen Fan said, somewhat exasperated. "It nodded back then!" Recalling the incident, Zhao Shengping felt wronged all over again. "I'm well into my seventies and eighties. The moment I went flying, I was already drafting my own eulogy." Chen Fan glanced at Zhao Shengping and dropped the subject. He could see that this man possessed a rigid adherence to agreements, believing that once both sides reached an understanding, it had to be carried out. Such a disposition made him ill-suited to manage an organization, but as a technical specialist, he was perfectly fine. "Even exotic beasts know to roost in fine trees," Chen Fan remarked. "You're a rank-9 artifact refiner, and there isn't a single rank-9 artifact refiner in all of Jiangbei, yet didn't you join Fan Domain too?" "Fair point." Zhao Shengping nodded thoughtfully. After comforting both Zhao Shengping and Weiwei, Chen Fan headed toward Fan City once more. This had been Weiwei's first incident of harming someone. Even before Fan Domain arrived, Weiwei had never harmed the villagers. Clearly, Weiwei had held back. Otherwise, forget a Death Roll—if it had unleashed the same ferocity it used against a ghost king, a single lash of its tail would have pulverized Zhao Shengping into a mist of blood. *** On the walls of Fan City. Chen Fan stood atop the ramparts, looking down at the merchant caravans coming and going, and let out a soft sigh. "Why hasn't anyone come to assassinate me?" Qi Yue served as his personal bodyguard, free of any other duties, responsible solely for his safety. Chen Fan genuinely wanted to see the true strength of a Martial King who had achieved complete body tempering unleashed at full power. But without an assassin, there was no opportunity for a display. He had tested Qi Yue against the city wall; against an ordinary rank-3 wall, Qi Yue could inflict a trace of damage. As for the wall inside the camp, which had absorbed a great deal of ghost blood, he was helpless. Even so, that was already terrifying. Inflicting damage on a rank-3 wall through sheer human strength was an extraordinary feat. It could be said that from a Level 10 Martial King onward, one entirely transcended the realm of ordinary mortals. *** The Dead Sea. Mankind's exploration of the ocean remained at an extremely rudimentary stage. At the very least, humanity still had no way to ensure a vessel could survive a single night on the open sea. Without that capability, long-distance voyages were impossible, and without long voyages, exploration could progress no further. In a region far from the mainland sat a solitary island. It was a rocky isle rising over ten meters above sea level, ringed on all sides by near-vertical, sheer cliffs. Reaching the island or descending from it required ropes—a natural barrier. Though it lacked a single wall, ghost creatures found it exceedingly difficult to scale. Its area was modest. This was the headquarters of the Wind and Rain Tower. If one used a bone boat, it would take at least a full day's voyage from the mainland to reach this desolate rock. It was a place virtually unreachable by other factions, somewhere outsiders would never even discover. An absolutely concealed, thoroughly secure sanctuary. Inside a building on the island, three elderly men sat gathered around a brazier, feeling the scorching heat radiating from the coals. After a long silence, the lead elder spoke in a raspy voice. "Over the past few days, eight of the secret strongholds Wind and Rain Tower established across various cities have been eradicated. The losses to our organization are catastrophic. Ground markings and command tokens left by Fan Domain's Dark Pavilion were discovered at the scenes. "This is Fan Domain's retaliation for our failed assassination attempt. "What do you two think?" "My view is to hold the Young Master of Wind and Rain Tower accountable," the white-haired elder seated on the left said expressionlessly. "If he had activated the Heart-Devouring Child Gu just a bit faster back then, so much intelligence wouldn't have leaked. That Chen Fan wouldn't have known which faction tried to kill him, and he wouldn't have known whom to retaliate against." The elder on the right said nothing, keeping his head bowed as though he had no intention of speaking. The lead elder's brow furrowed, his voice dropping low. "Now is not the time to assign blame. After all, it was his first mission; it's only natural he hesitated to make the final move. We must give the young generation opportunities to temper themselves. "The three of us are already old. "The future belongs to the young, after all." "How amusing. Using the lives of Wind and Rain Tower's core members to temper your son—why not just say you want to leave everything to your own flesh and blood?" the white-haired elder on the left sneered. "What do you mean by that!" The lead elder's face darkened, his words clipped and cold. "When the three of us founded Wind and Rain Tower, we stated clearly that the Tower would continue to be governed by three Tower Masters, and that our children would jointly take over. "Neither of you has a son; only I have one. What is wrong with having my son take over the Wind and Rain Tower?" "Is it that neither of us *had* sons?" The white-haired elder on the left slammed the table and rose in fury. "Over the years, our sons kept dying on missions due to all sorts of 'accidents'! Two of my sons are already dead! Damn it all, I've wanted to ask for a long time—did you murder both of my sons?!" "Bullshit!" "You're spouting slander!" The lead elder also rose in anger, snapping back, "If I ever did such a thing, may my line be cursed! Going on missions inherently carries the risk of death! If they were to govern Wind and Rain Tower in the future, venturing outside the Tower to gain experience was mandatory! "Fate is beyond mortal control; when they died, whom could you blame? "Besides, the last time your son went out on a mission, weren't you the one in full charge? Can you blame that on me too?" The white-haired elder on the left grumbled under his breath, his momentum deflating slightly as he sat back down. "You're the Grand Tower Master. You tell us—how do we handle this Chen Fan situation? If we don't clean it up thoroughly, Wind and Rain Tower won't be taking any more contracts. Our outside strongholds have already been stripped bare. "Planning another assassination? "The odds of success will be even lower. The other side will certainly be on guard. Furthermore, a batch of our core members died last time. Every core operative requires an immense amount of time to train; losing even one is a tragedy. "Normally, an Earth-rank mission only requires a single core member to lead the team. "Last time, we designated the assassination of Chen Fan as a Heaven-rank mission. A squad leader personally led dozens of core members, planned by the Young Master himself, with external personnel assisting inside Fan City. "And it still failed. "How many people do you plan to deploy this time?" The lead elder took a deep breath, looking at the two men, and rasped, "This time, I plan to mobilize everyone. Every single core member of Wind and Rain Tower will deploy, and the three of us old bones will step out to stretch our limbs as well. "We will stake every asset we have to gamble on Chen Fan's death. "We cannot afford a war of attrition. "If we drag this out, we won't even have the standing left to make a desperate stand. While our foundation remains unbroken, we must wager everything to nail Chen Fan down in a single blow. "This time, I will plan it personally. I already have a rough idea. "Didn't we recently scout an ancient ruin? One related to architects. We will spread word of it. As an architect, Chen Fan will undoubtedly lead people there. Inside the ruin, his buildings won't function, and his dragon carriage won't fit through the entrance. "That will be our best chance to strike. "Once Chen Fan is dead, "we will immediately storm Fan Domain and seize everything of value." As the words fell, the elder on the right finally raised his head slowly, a glint of interest flashing in his eyes. The plan sounded sound, with a high chance of success. *** Meanwhile, beneath the rocky island. Shao Qiu floated in the sea, gripping a protruding ledge of rock tightly to keep from being swept away by the waves. A dagger gleaming with cold light was held firmly between his teeth, his expression calm and patient. Dusk had just fallen. He had to wait until the dead of night, until most people on the island were fast asleep. This spot was a blind angle; anyone leaving or entering the island would never take this route. The rock face curved inward here, so even someone peering down from the edge above could not spot his silhouette. The icy winter seawater made his already pale face turn even paler, yet his eyes remained exceptionally tranquil. Void of all emotion. He simply waited with patience. On an assignment, one's heart could not harbor the slightest emotional ripple. Following the clues gathered from the seized intelligence in the shops over the past few days, he had finally located the headquarters of the Wind and Rain Tower. And what he had to do next... Was to make the name Shao Qiu resound across Jiangbei after tonight.