Chapter 148: Fortune

Copper Fortress.

Lin Zhongqing frowned as she looked at a letter of complaint.

The letter accused Lin Zhongshi of abducting a respectable woman, citing his ruined morals, and demanded that she expel him from the Stellar Chamber of Commerce...

"What utter nonsense, and they expect me to deal with it," Lin Zhongqing tossed the letter aside with a deep sigh of frustration. "I am already agonizing over how to handle potential future dangers, yet they—barely settled—have already begun infighting."

"Such is human nature; without conflict, there is no progress," Dongfang Yitong remarked calmly from the side.

He kept his eyes closed, continuing to absorb the power of the Ethereal Realm. Before him, a small mountain of spiritual cores had already piled up.

Judging by sheer quantity, it rivaled the loot dropped by monsters previously. Of course, this was due to the system's efficiency; no human could ever achieve such a feat.

"Forget it. I'll let Stone handle it himself. He could never do anything so disgraceful; there must be another reason. It's just that these people, unable to defeat me in martial might, have resorted to underhanded tricks."

Lin Zhongqing saw right through the ruse. This was merely a probing test by the lurking factions to gauge how she intended to rule this world.

Would she be brutal and tyrannical, or calculated and methodical? Would she favor her own blood, or consider the greater good of the realm?

A single letter revealed it all.

Who on earth had come up with this idea?

The image of a middle-aged man flashed in her mind. Could it be him?

Neither Lin Zhongshi nor Hou Xiaopang, the new president of the Nanling Chamber of Commerce, was anything more than a pawn dragged into this.

Hou Xiaopang had played the coward for so many years; he would never dare to push himself into the spotlight.

Lin Zhongqing relished the feeling of standing at the pinnacle, bathed in the flattery and reverence of others, and she loved the passion of battlefield combat. Naturally, she detested dealing with these trivial chores.

In her eyes, aside from wasting her precious time, these matters offered zero benefit.

She summoned the silver-haired butler and handed him the letter.

"Investigate this thoroughly and handle it justly. Do not show favoritism just because Lin Zhongshi is my brother, nor should you wrong him for the same reason," she instructed.

"Understood, Madame President." The silver-haired butler glanced at the letter and immediately understood what needed to be done. To him, such matters were trivial and effortlessly managed.

The only things that troubled him were tasks of extreme difficulty; by contrast, he never feared complexity.

Lin Zhongqing nodded, signaling him to withdraw.

Once the silver-haired elder had departed, she spoke up, "Brother Dongfang, nearly two months have passed, and we have already prepared our escape route. Why haven't those fellows shown up yet?"

"Perhaps their perception of time differs somewhat from ours," Dongfang Yitong replied. "They are clearly immortals; in a mere two months, they are likely still discussing the matter casually."

"I hope so. The more time we have, the surer our footing. Ideally, we can bar them from entering Earth altogether," Lin Zhongqing said, her voice filled with hope. "If they arrive even half a year later, I have the confidence to pull it off. I only wonder if we will have that much luck."

Over the past two months, she had fully experienced the true privileges of being the Master of Earth.

Ordinary citizens remained oblivious to the shifting tides, but the major merchant guilds and the powerful factions backed by influential patrons all knew who truly held the reins of power now.

The gifts collected in just two months were enough to fund the operations of the Stellar Chamber of Commerce for a hundred years!

This was the terrifying allure of authority. No wonder ancients pursued scholarship and officialdom with single-minded devotion while viewing commerce as a humble trade.

It wasn't until modern times, with scientific advancement and the rise of industry, that commercial prosperity surged, making trade the central nexus of human destiny.

Yet the era had shifted once more. Individual might had risen above science, industry, and commerce, rendering political power scorching hot once again.

Amidst such circumstances, she naturally harbored the desire to maintain her grip on power long-term; nobody willingly relinquished such a position once attained.

Fortunately, this was an era dominated by individual strength. In the past, stepping down would never have been her choice to make—once ascending to certain heights, descending again was exceedingly difficult.

Things were different now; she could flee through her prepared escape route at any moment.

Yet a hidden danger remained, one she refused to voice aloud. Voicing it would solve nothing, only dragging Brother Dongfang down into her worries.

After a long pause, Dongfang Yitong replied, "The harder one tries, the luckier one becomes. For only through effort can an opportunity be seized and transformed into fortune rather than regret."

***

Meanwhile, far away in the Ethereal Prime World, the very people Lin Zhongqing feared were currently on their way.

"There's no need to rush. What of it if a place of exile has been usurped by local natives playing the master? Such trivialities scarcely warrant haste."

A cyan tiger walked leisurely through the gray-white world, accompanied by a white fox—though this particular fox possessed three tails.

"These natives possess some tricks. According to the exiled fellow's confession, it took them less than a year from displaying their power to defeating him. Clearly, they acquired power through alternative channels," the three-tailed fox shook its head and said.

"Alternative channels? Unlikely. That is an extremely remote frontier. It was sheer coincidence that we found it in the first place. Why would anyone else care for such a wasteland, especially after that exile had already rendered it nearly devoid of life?" the cyan tiger scoffed in disbelief.

"If it were merely them, it would be simple. What worries me most is if it's someone else entirely," the white fox frowned.

"What is there to fear? No matter how powerful their strength, they must ultimately parasitize the material world to survive. When the time comes, I'll simply obliterate their planet and see how they manage to live then," the cyan tiger said viciously, its sharp teeth gleaming as if eager to tear something apart. "They need to be taught a simple truth: even an exiled criminal is not to be slaughtered by mere natives. To think they rose up in rebellion just because they mastered a sliver of power—what a joke. Mere primitives from a desolate backwater daring to offend us!"

"I truly detest you brutes who favor sheer violence. It would have been entirely possible to let those natives happily provide us with spiritual sustenance, yet you insist on turning everything bloody," the white fox toyed with its claws. "In that regard, I much prefer the Merciful One. Her methods are exemplary; she never requires us to clean up messes."

"Hmph, why extend courtesy to creatures like them? Letting them live is the greatest mercy imaginable; do they expect more? They ought to count themselves fortunate to have crossed paths with us—at least they still hold some value as crops to be harvested. Had they encountered a purely technological civilization, they would have been blown to dust by a single cannon barrage long ago. Who would deign to care about their material wealth and labor?" Disgust flashed across the cyan tiger's face.

"On that point, I cannot refute you. Indeed, they are exceptionally lucky. Pity that human nature is insatiable; they are never content," the white fox sighed.

"They will be content very soon. I shall make them realize that driving away that useless exile was the gravest mistake they ever made." The cyan tiger gazed into the distance; the teleportation portal was already within sight.