"I'm not interested in any of this, and I'm sure Zhuang Wugou has no interest in these power games you're talking about either."
Lin Hao looked at him with disdain.
"Stop looking at me like that!"
Yan Xing pointed at him angrily, his spittle almost spraying Lin Hao's face.
"I hate hypocrites like you the most, stop pretending to be righteous! Building such a large base, isn't it just to step on everyone else and enslave them?"
He raised both hands in a gesture that suggested he had them all figured out.
"You can go ask Zhuang Wugou yourself, oh wait, you probably don't dare to. Just use those dog eyes of yours to see clearly - has Zhuang Wugou ever taken any personal advantage from those ordinary people?"
"He lives even more modestly than the common people in the base. Go look at his office, see what time he wakes up and what time he goes to bed."
Lin Hao looked at him with pity, clearly Yan Xing had fallen into some kind of delusional power game of his own imagination.
"I..."
Yan Xing, seeing Lin Hao's expression, was like a cat jumping on hot bricks. He wanted to argue back, but the words died on his lips.
Because everything Lin Hao said was true. In this base, perhaps anyone else could be accused of exploiting the common people below them.
But not Zhuang Wugou. He was always busy in his office, always worried about the base, and no one had ever seen him indulging in pleasures.
The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became, because this was supposed to be his chance to mock Lin Hao, whom he saw as a thorn in his side.
But now Lin Hao had left him speechless.
After a while, something suddenly occurred to him, and his frustrated expression vanished, replaced by a sinister sideways glance.
"Fine, fine, what you say is true, but what does it matter? You're destined to die here today."
He seemed to have finally found the key to victory, as that contemptuous smile reappeared on his lips.
"Did old Zhuang order you to deal with me? He knew what I was doing all along?"
Lin Hao wanted to know how and when he had been discovered.
"Hmph, the backdoor you left in the machines, the serum you were secretly researching without reporting - he discovered it all long ago."
This time it was Yan Xing who looked at Lin Hao with pity, but Lin Hao didn't seem angry at all.
"However, he still wants to know why you did this? I'm curious too. Why would you ignore something so within reach and instead do things that harm the Ark?"
As Yan Xing spoke, he raised his hand.
There seemed to be a subtle movement in the room, as countless metal blades floated up from the side, hovering around him.
"Why didn't he come to ask me himself? Why send you..."
Lin Hao asked, but suddenly stopped when he saw Yan Xing's movement, his expression freezing.
"You've become an Awakened? How is this possible? This method wasn't..."
Yan Xing seemed to relish Lin Hao's shocked expression. The blades danced around his body, jubilant, as if each one had its own soul:
"He doesn't have time to deal with you, so he let me send you on your way, but..."
He brought his face close to Lin Hao's and threatened:
"You'd better confess your purpose honestly, or else..."
A blade whooshed past Lin Hao's side, cutting a hair-thin wound on his arm.
The wound was extremely narrow but deep enough that while it was invisible to the naked eye, blood soon began seeping from the line-like cut.
Lin Hao immediately clutched the cut area in pain.
"I'll let you experience what it's like to be alive, no, to wish you were dead."
Another blade immediately sliced across Lin Hao's cheek, making him squint in pain on that side.
It seemed that if Lin Hao didn't talk, Yan Xing planned to cut him slowly, one slice at a time, torturing him until he confessed.
The situation was dire, and Lin Hao's mind raced, trying to fabricate an explanation to appease him.
However, he had reason to suspect that even if he did talk, he would still not escape Yan Xing's torture, given the hatred burning in his eyes.
He really didn't understand why there was such intense hatred between them when they had no deep grudges against each other.
Suddenly, Lin Hao's pupils contracted slightly, as if he had noticed something.
His expression suddenly relaxed, as if he hadn't heard Yan Xing's threats, and instead continued asking:
"Why did you become an Awakened? Isn't the serum still harmful to ordinary people?"
He knew how to get Yan Xing talking, so he put on an envious expression, as if he really admired Yan Xing.
Seeing Lin Hao's expression, Yan Xing forgot his earlier questions in his pride.
Since Lin Hao was already a dead man in his eyes, he didn't care about revealing these things:
"There's so much you don't know!"
Yan Xing, finally feeling superior, grinned and unbuttoned his research uniform, revealing shocking surgical scars underneath.
Lin Hao stared at the numerous suture wounds on his body, where some kind of mechanical device seemed to be operating, with light flickering through Yan Xing's skin.
"Cybernetic modification?"
Lin Hao seemed to have figured out what this was, remembering mention of this procedure in the T-virus serum metadata recordings.
"Oh? Seems you know quite a bit."
Yan Xing raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised that Lin Hao knew about this situation.
"As long as you cybernetically modify some core parts, you can make the awakening speed faster than the T-virus's corruption rate. I went through quite a lot of suffering..."
Looking at the numerous scars on his body, Lin Hao understood that the cybernetic modification he had undergone was probably still immature and unstable.
It was only then that Yan Xing suddenly came to his senses. He buttoned up his clothes and looked down at Lin Hao on the ground:
"Alright, now it's time for you to confess honestly. You're not thinking of trying any tricks, are you?"
With a wave of his finger, a circle of blades began spinning around Lin Hao's body, and he could feel their cold, deadly presence.
"I have one last ques... Ah!"
Two more blades sliced across Lin Hao's shoulder and calf before he could finish speaking.
"You ask too many questions. I'm out of patience!"
Yan Xing's expression turned ice-cold.
"Talk! Or I'll torture you until you do."
But just as he bent down, he felt a strong killing intent from behind him, making his very soul freeze.
"Who's there?!"
He whirled around, all the blades following his movement and gathering around him like a shield.
But there was no one behind him - nothing but the lamp used for illumination, not even a fly.
However, when he looked back at Lin Hao, he discovered that the man who had been on the ground had completely vanished!
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
