Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1218: Chapter 59: A Road Unexpectedly in Harmony

There’s class first thing on Monday morning, and it’s even the first period.

Because of the gloomy rain, the lights in the classroom were on… It wasn’t as dark and cold as outside, but the old professor’s droning lecture still made the room feel stifling and soporific.

I wonder what my sister is doing at home.

Because of the rain, Zhang Xiaoqin chose to rest at home today. Constant training needed rest too—only with a balance of work and rest could she recover better.

Thinking about his sister in the classroom, Zhao Le suddenly felt a sort of limitation that humans had—one of perspective.

Not being able to know what the people you care about are going through in different places at the same time always left a faint uneasiness… and unfortunately, that was often when bad things happened.

Yes, the world turns every minute; every moment, those related or unrelated to you are going through their own motions… and what exactly are their eyes falling on?

Maybe they’re watching the same TV drama.

Only then could that latent unease in one’s heart be reduced to the minimum… because you could overlook the entire plot, because you weren’t confined to a single character’s perspective… because you had God’s perspective.

And also because… nothing beyond your ability would appear.

Unknowingly, Zhao Le was already spacing out, his soul wandering the void, thinking of all sorts of scattered things… A rainy, stuffy classroom really was the best incubator for wild imaginings.

—You’ve been to the scene.

Chen Mingming’s words suddenly surfaced in Zhao Le’s mind out of nowhere, yanking his drifting thoughts back into this silent classroom in an instant.

He abruptly broke out in a cold sweat and instinctively glanced around him… but didn’t see Chen Mingming’s figure.

So he really isn’t coming back to school anymore.

Zhao Le propped up his textbook, lowered his head, and stared at his phone—the social app stored the account of a very special person… someone whose profile picture was completely blank.

That person had said that unless something special happened, it would be best not to have any further contact, and definitely not to try to meet. If he wanted to maintain his own life, he should act as if nothing had ever happened.

Zhao Le had always followed this rule. For the past few months he hadn’t tried to contact the other party at all—the one exception was when he inexplicably received a silver handgun.

And the other party had only replied with two words: No idea.

By instinct, Zhao Le didn’t really believe that answer… His own life had always been very calm; he lived strictly by the rules. Only that man had crossed paths with him, in a very particular way, at a very particular time.

Because that man was the only one who knew about his other side.

In the end, he still couldn’t stay calm after talking to Chen Mingming last night and once again broke his promise to the other party.

—I heard the police found the place that sold the freezer. There’s a good chance they’ve already got a lead.

This was the line Zhao Le typed out, but he didn’t send it… He hesitated for a while, quickly deleted it, and then typed another line instead.

In fact, after asking about the silver handgun last time, Zhao Le had felt a bit of regret. He didn’t know if words like that would leave some kind of trace online.

So this time he was even more cautious.

—How have you been lately?

After a brief wait, Zhao Le finally received a reply… and the reply left him momentarily stunned.

—Who are you?

Seeing this answer, Zhao Le was taken aback for a moment, but then thought that the other party was probably even more cautious than he was… Maybe the guy was even under some kind of surveillance?

“Who are you?” looked like simple confusion, but it could very well be a signal from him: Don’t try to contact me?

After pondering for a moment, Zhao Le opened the spam texts on his phone, copied one of them, and sent it over.

—Successfully predicted “Tiger” on Saturday, (33). Shishi lottery/PK 10 plans + add lil’ sis on WeChat: 34132512

After waiting again for a moment, there was still no response from the other side.

When Zhao Le copied and sent the same message again, it showed that the message failed to send: you have not added this person as a friend.

Could he really already be in danger?

In that instant, a wave of unease rose in Zhao Le… because of perspective, his eyes could not reach every person connected to him.

He couldn’t help worrying.

—You’ve been to the scene.

In his mind, that sentence Chen Mingming had spoken under the streetlamp, like a ghost in the night, echoed once more.

Would he tell anyone what happened last night?

His father was surely involved in investigating this case too… What should he do?

All kinds of thoughts crowded into Zhao Le’s head. In this dank weather, beads of sweat appeared faintly at his temples… The bell rang to end the class, the lecturer and students left one after another, and Zhao Le failed to notice any of it.

Only when the classroom manager came to lock the door and patted him on the shoulder did he come back to his senses as if waking from a dream, his face even a little pale.

“Student, are you okay?”

“N-no… I was just thinking about something, sorry, I’ll go now.”

Only then did Zhao Le hurriedly pack his stuff and leave the classroom.

…

…

“I’m serious!! Do I sound like I’m joking?!”

Luo Qiu rarely received calls from Ren Ziling in the morning—but he got one this morning.

On the other end of the line, Chief Editor Ren was chattering nonstop, sounding nothing like someone sharing good news, more like a guest who’d been pranked on some hidden camera show, yelling and screaming.

Probably Song Ying pulling strings behind the scenes…

Luo Qiu thought that with the way Ren Ziling worked, never mind getting a promotion; just keeping her current job already required the blessing of the heavens, right?

Connecting it with how the Song Family had recently started pumping investment into the locale, Luo Qiu easily figured out the link in between—this kind of thing certainly wasn’t worth buying information over.

Besides, just giving Ren Ziling a promotion so she could do what she wanted to the greatest extent hadn’t exceeded Luo Qiu’s limits… In fact, it hadn’t disrupted her life at all; if anything, it allowed her to enjoy her life even more.

She was really being thoughtful… Luo Qiu smiled faintly.

“Brat, are you even listening to me! I said I got promoted!”

“Congratulations.”

“That’s it??!”

“What do you want to eat tonight?”

“Eat… what else, obviously we’re going out! Come on, call You Ye too, your mom’s taking you two out for a good meal tonight! It’s settled, happily decided!”

And it was indeed happily decided—because the call hung up in an instant.

Luo Qiu shook his head, casually set down the phone, then, like switching off a TV, shut down the light screen before him—the last frame was the image of several police officers in a conference room discussing the case.

Boss Luo went up to the second floor, to the room that doubled as the server room for the “Main God Project.”

The maid, who had always had a habit of changing outfits, was now dressed in a gray-black business suit and skirt, with a white blouse underneath with a lapel flower; sheer, gossamer-thin stockings wrapped her perfect calves, now pressed neatly together and slanted to the side.

Her golden hair was done up, and the lenses of her rimless glasses constantly reflected the floating windows on the screens—her ten fingers were flying rapidly over the keyboard.

Just like how she would put on a white lab coat as a researcher whenever she entered the lab.

“How’s the progress?”

Luo Qiu walked up beside the maid and casually sat on the edge of the desk, smiling as he asked—Adam, the intelligent mechanical assistant beside them, rose to his feet at this moment, but the boss waved a hand, and he sat back down again.

“Still designing the map of the new world. About ten percent is done.” You Ye pushed up the edge of her glasses.

“No need to rush.” Luo Qiu turned the screen around. Looking at the design on it, his gaze couldn’t help but show a trace of admiration… this really was designing the full terrain of an entire world, and much of it was in a fantasy style.

The upcoming ‘Main God Project’ would be an upgrade in the true sense of the word. It would no longer be attached to any single game, but become completely independent—a real world with a world fragment as its core. Everything inside would no longer be just a pile of data.

The boss suddenly had an idea at this moment, so he said, “For this new game world, as for these NPCs, I don’t plan to make them through programming.”

OL You Ye said, “Is Master planning to let customers also reincarnate as story NPCs?”

Boss Luo said, “No, story NPCs are very limited in their development, and they’re restricted to certain places, certain maps… I want to use False Souls.”

“False Souls?”

Luo Qiu nodded and said, “World fragments are sections of history cut out and then left to evolve on their own anyway. When I bought this world fragment, the timeframe taken was the middle to late period of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. It already comes with all the figures of that era. Rather than forcibly arranging these people into plotted storylines, I might as well pick some out as standalone story NPCs… I also want to see whether among these False Souls, there will be any that successfully rise up and become True Souls.”

“I see…” OL You Ye fell into thought, and before long came up with an idea. “Abruptly switching the main theme of the entire game world would be too strange. How about we just put the players who have broken through the first region of Demon King’s Castle and entered the second region into this place?”

“Turning the second region into the new storyline… that works too.” Luo Qiu nodded slightly.

He suddenly recalled a cartoon he’d watched as a child, in which the protagonist piloted a Divine Dragon fighter and fought his way up Creation World Mountain layer by layer, and every layer of Creation World Mountain was a small world cut away, each with a different background.

“Mm, we can keep adding regions afterward.” OL You Ye continued to propose supplementary plans. “That way, whether it’s you wanting to experience different styles of worlds, Master, or the playability of the game world itself, both will be enhanced.”

Luo Qiu said softly, “That’ll make you work too hard.”

OL You Ye replied gently, “This is going to be your most important revenue project going forward, Master.”

“Use this to do the calculations, then. It’s not of much use just sitting in my hand anyway.”

Luo Qiu opened his palm and released a golden light sphere.

This was precisely the Book of Araiye he had obtained in the Penglai Treasury—of course, only a part of the complete Book of Araiye, yet it already possessed the terrifying effect of directly rewriting the memories of living beings in a Sub-world and twisting history, and it also had extremely powerful computational ability.

The thirty-year reincarnation he gave to Mo Mo back then had been derived using the predictive ability of the Book of Araiye.

This portion of the Book of Araiye was not the payment made by a customer for a deal, so Luo Qiu was no longer bound by the three-day limit to decide whether to put it into storage or sacrifice it, which would apply to traded items. He had kept it with him all this time, and now it could finally be invested into the creation of a new world.

Weighing this portion of the Book of Araiye in her hand, OL You Ye suddenly said, “Why not just use it directly as the world’s core? That way its function can be maximized. It’s just a pity it isn’t complete. If it were, it might truly be able to directly create a full Sub-world.”

The world fragment Luo Qiu had provided was, after all, only a shard cut from a Sub-world. It was merely the background of an era within a Sub-world, so the degree to which space could expand naturally had its limits. It couldn’t truly evolve into a space as large as Earth—just like the Yan Wuyue World from back then, which had only the insular country as land. Everything around it was Ocean, and the Ocean had an edge. Although there were sunrises and moonsets, in essence it resembled more closely the ancient Chinese cosmology of a square earth under a round sky.

A complete Book of Araiye possessed the ability to elevate a world fragment into a full Sub-world… With that in mind, Luo Qiu suddenly figured some things out.

There was clearly more than one Book of Araiye. Every Sub-world should have its own Book of Araiye, just like they each had a numbered Araiye.

The many Sub-worlds were all incubators for nurturing a perfect world.

Those many Sub-worlds were probably all raised up from world fragments cut out of The Primordial World with the help of their respective Books of Araiye!

Mm… It seemed he had, without realizing it, been doing something similar to the entire Araiye System.

“Master?”

The maid’s voice broke off Luo Qiu’s train of thought. He smiled faintly, not minding it, and instead reached out to take off the maid’s glasses. “Come have dinner with me tonight. A bit of work-life balance, how about it.”

“Is it Ms. Ren’s invitation?” The maid’s eyes brightened slightly as she said softly, “Then I’ll have to prepare properly…”

Ever since that unknown ascension, the holy Soul sealed within the maid’s body had also begun to stir in a strange way, little by little.

“Just come as you usually do.” Luo Qiu smiled gently. “If you go too heavy, you’ll scare her.”

“Mm.” The maid nodded lightly.

Only, as she nodded, her movements suddenly became a bit stiff… there was even a faint sound like gears grinding.

Looks like it’s time for oiling.

“I’ll do it for you.” Luo Qiu said softly.

…

…

“So, how is it, feeling any better?”

In the bathroom, white mist slowly overflowed from the bathtub and then sank down, soon spreading over the bathroom floor… In the tub, the little butterfly monster who had taken off all her clothes was sitting cross-legged as Long Xiruo instructed, actively starting to cultivate her own demonic power.

Spiritual Energy was erupting from the Mount Tai earth vein and now filled the Divine Land; its density would keep rising day by day, until it returned to the level of the ancient era when Dao Monsters and Transcendents flourished.

People who started cultivating demonic power now, or those on the Taoist path cultivating Mana, all felt the benefits of it.

You could say that during this period, most Taoists or monsters had shut themselves in, wholeheartedly enjoying the perks of this new era.

Word was even the usually lively Elysium Pub had gone quiet lately. Even that wild monkey drunkard Sun Xiaosheng had miraculously started secluded cultivation, and was even planning to go back to the place where he first gained sentience, to properly break through to the realm above huge powerful monsters—the Demon King realm.

Of course, Long Xiruo didn’t care about any of that; what she cared about was whether Luo Pianqian could restrain her instinctive mating desire right now.

“No good… my body is still so hot…”

The little butterfly monster pitifully raised her head. The dry ice thrown into the tub was evaporating at a crazy speed, and her body was clearly getting hotter and hotter.

“Tsk… look at you, acting all innocent usually, who knew your libido was this big! Are you secretly a perv?” Long Xiruo clicked her tongue, sneaking a glance at this busty cow-butterfly’s chest and finding that the two scarlet tips were indeed swollen, like two grapes—ripe and temptingly plump.

“Sister Long, how can you say that about me…” Luo Pianqian looked even more wronged.

Long Xiruo shook her head and said, “Just hold it in for now. Your body’s been remodeled by that brat Su Zijun and mutated. Even I don’t know how long this heat is going to last. It’s your first time too, of course you’re flustered. But don’t worry, I definitely won’t let you go around doing it with just anyone.”

Luo Pianqian had no choice but to nod.

Long Xiruo said, “Here’s what we’ll do: I’ll go get some liquid nitrogen first and see how that goes. If that still doesn’t work, I’ll head into the Xuanyuan Palace Secret Realm and fetch some Nine Heavens Cold Pond Water for you… Remember to calm down and cultivate. Even though being in heat feels terrible, if you can suppress your instincts and keep cultivating, it’s actually a good thing for you—your demonic power will definitely soar.”

But she wanted to read, okay… The adult college entrance exam was coming up soon!

Seeing how pitiful Luo Pianqian looked, Long Xiruo didn’t want to stay any longer, afraid she’d go soft-hearted… But if even the Nine Heavens Cold Pond Water from the Xuanyuan Palace Secret Realm couldn’t suppress this little butterfly’s heat, then what?

Just knock her out and wait for the heat to pass on its own?

Or just follow nature’s course and find a male butterfly to mate this busty cow-butterfly with?

But Luo Pianqian’s species seemed to be on the verge of extinction; for the moment even Long Xiruo had no idea where to find another one—and a male, at that.

And given Luo Pianqian’s personality, she probably wouldn’t accept a mate like that either…

The Godly Land true dragon suddenly felt a headache coming on.

A fight? No problem—just rush up and smash whoever looks annoying!

Underhanded schemes? Also no problem—just rush up and smash whoever looks annoying!

But when it came to someone being in heat…

“Why the hell do I even have to deal with this kind of thing?!”

Seemed like after that trip around the snow peak, the true dragon still had plenty of fire left to vent.

Long Xiruo let out a breath, yanked open her own collar, and started fanning herself with her hand… Which was weird, come to think of it. As China’s true dragon, unmatched in this era, forget immunity to heat and cold—she could dive into the molten core of the earth and it’d just feel like swimming. So why did she feel so stiflingly hot?

Long Xiruo only felt that she herself was starting to heat up a little too, and there was a restless energy in her body rising up from her lower abdomen…

“What the hell, why am I also…”

Long Xiruo was dumbfounded. She wasn’t some rookie like Luo Pianqian going into her first heat; she understood her body condition in an instant…

She suddenly shivered, then noticed that some places in the bathroom seemed to be dotted with tiny sparkling specks… She walked over to the bathroom wall and reached out to touch it, and her fingertips instantly picked up some glittering powder.

Tracing it back to the origin, Long Xiruo was shocked to find that these faintly glowing specks were actually shedding from Luo Pianqian’s colorful wings on her back…

“Luo Pianqian, and you still say you’re not a secret perv!!!”

In the bathroom, the roar of the Godly Land’s true dragon suddenly exploded!