Chapter 362: Troubles One After Another

"Where did you get all this money?!"

Zeng Qing stared at the Eerie Silver stacked like a wall inside the room. Mao Si sat in front of it, hands steepled and expression profound. Her eyes bulged like saucers.

"That's a secret."

Yan Jing shot her a sharp look.

"Cut the bullshit—"

Zeng Qing was genuinely shocked, especially when Yan Jing handed her a card.

It held a full 800,000 Eerie Points—roughly 40 million surface coins.

"It's just liquid capital. Take it."

At this moment, Yan Jing was playing the part of the nouveau riche to absolute perfection.

Zeng Qing looked at the card in her hand, took a deep breath, and then took another.

She knew now that this man really hadn't come to the Peace Heavenly Kingdom just to make money.

Otherwise, why bother setting up a damn company?

Wouldn't it be easier to just squeeze Mao Si dry?

Where else could you find a project with such a high return on investment?

"How much more of this foreign currency do you have?" she asked in disbelief.

She remembered this was a foreign currency called Eerie Silver, which carried an exchange rate of roughly one to ten against Eerie Points. One Eerie Silver equaled ten Eerie Points.

"You mean this wall?"

Yan Jing pointed at the "silver wall" beside him.

"There's roughly seventy or eighty thousand Eerie Silver left."

To be honest, he hadn't expected to have this much, either. This hadn't even drained half of Boss Bai's funds, and he hadn't even touched the stash from the abbot of Feinan Temple.

"How did you do it? Can you bring me in?" The very first thing Zeng Qing wanted to do after recovering from her shock was get in on the action. Fuck, she and Luo Sheng had worked themselves half to death these past few days and only made around four or five hundred thousand Eerie Points. After deducting the bribes for the councilors and the operating funds for the company, they'd be lucky to see a hundred-odd thousand Eerie Points in their own hands for a month's work.

And that was only because their business was just getting off the ground. With the current suppression, they'd be lucky not to lose tens of thousands of Eerie Points a month.

Yet here Mao Si was, casually whipping out a cash flow of over a million Eerie Points.

"How did I do it?"

Yan Jing raised an eyebrow. "Let's just say only illegal deeds make real money."

He was telling the truth. Minhu, with its flawed legal system, was clearly much easier to profit from than the Heavenly Kingdom.

No fucking shit. Zeng Qing was utterly speechless. Anyone looking at this mountain of foreign currency would know it definitely wasn't earned through legitimate means.

"How much did you lose in the exchange?" she asked, looking at Yan Jing.

There was absolutely no way to exchange this much foreign currency through official channels.

"About thirty percent." Yan Jing shrugged.

Zeng Qing's heart bled at the thought, but she quickly nodded in excitement.

"With this money, those two companies won't be able to drag us down. Don't worry, I'll complete our restructuring as quickly as possible."

With such a massive cash flow, those sanctions were a load of bullshit. So what if they didn't turn a profit right now? For the first time, a new thought sprouted in Zeng Qing's mind:

We wouldn't make much anyway.

Let them sanction us. The people who are truly anxious behind the scenes will make their move eventually.

How much did their operations even cost anyway? This was the true definition of a petty nuisance being hard to shake.

Time flew by in a flash.

Four days later.

Listening to her subordinates' reports, the Rabbit Woman's face was as cold as frost.

The other side seemed completely unaffected. To her, this wasn't a major issue; they were definitely just holding out by burning through their own funds.

After all, it had only been four days. Even the employees' payroll cycle hadn't hit yet, so this proved nothing.

The real problem was that voices of discontent had already begun to surface from the higher-ups, expressing dissatisfaction with the actions of Nuochen Biotech and the Song Wang Group.

Though they were hailed as financial monsters, they weren't without enemies. On the contrary, they had made plenty of foes over the years.

They weren't the only plutocrats in the Peace Heavenly Kingdom.

She needed to speed things up.

She dialed a number.

The call connected.

A thoroughly frivolous man's voice sounded from the other end.

"Gorgeous, what can I do for you?"

"How are things on your end?" the Rabbit Woman asked coldly.

"How do you think?"

The man chuckled. "Those old fossils handed down a task and demanded we finish it, but the moment we face any external resistance, they just dump all the pressure on us."

"Why haven't they retired yet? What era do they think this is? Heh."

The man spoke without restraint, yet subtly kept it within bounds. Even if these words reached the ears of those big shots, given his status, he would be reprimanded at most.

"It's not easy on my end either," the Rabbit Woman said. Her situation was far worse than the man's.

Although the Peace Heavenly Kingdom had long since achieved "true" gender equality, the titans of society enjoyed incredibly long lifespans. As the saying went: "They are the innovators, and they are the conservatives."

The people at the very top easily lived for centuries, which meant their mindsets evolved far slower than the world outside.

Because she possessed female biological traits, the resistance she had faced over the years was far greater than it appeared.

Sometimes she even considered gender reassignment, but she simply couldn't get past that physical hurdle.

The ancient biological genes had granted her power, but they had also burdened her with indelible "weaknesses."

"So you want to speed things up?" the man asked with a smile.

"Yes."

The Rabbit said, "It might look ugly to the outside world, but as long as we keep it brief, act fast, and hand out some compensation afterward, it shouldn't be a big problem."

"True," the man agreed.

"The masses are just pigs and dogs anyway."

He smiled.

"Let's do it your way."

Having secured the man's promise to cooperate, the Rabbit felt her heart settle. Soon after, the front-page headlines of every major news website were refreshed.

This time, the headlines read:

"Nuochen Biotech and Song Wang Group Jointly Release Inspection Report: Outer Domain Wilderness Enters Unstable Period"

The articles stated that the Wasteland had recently entered an unstable period, rendering all ores and biological gene residues useless for mechanical production and Gene Potion manufacturing.

The moment this news broke, almost every active adventuring team ground to an immediate halt.

They barely made any money to begin with. If no one was going to buy what they dug up, why the hell should they keep digging?

They called it quits.

But this spelled misery for companies like the one run by Yan Jing and Zeng Qing.

Without the adventuring teams, there was no way to purchase goods. And without goods, what the hell kind of business could they run?

Even if Zeng Qing mobilized her own exploration and archaeological teams, the volume wouldn't be nearly enough. Furthermore, with the joint declaration from the two titans, no one dared to buy anything from the Outer Domain anyway. Prices had been suppressed to absurd lows; they wouldn't even be able to recoup their costs.

Even the underground market refused to buy.

Left with no other options, Zeng Qing could only track down Yan Jing once more.

However, unlike last time, she appeared far calmer.

"Let's suspend operations," she said.

"We have plenty of cash flow. Even without laying anyone off, we can comfortably sustain ourselves for a few years. As for the deficit, we can cover it with other industries, or just declare bankruptcy halfway through."

"They won't be able to hold out. In a month or two at most, they'll have to announce that the unstable period is over."

Unexpectedly, Yan Jing leaped onto the table, raising a cat paw high as his eyes gleamed.

"Makes sense."

"But I don't think we need to be in such a rush."

"This is an opportunity. A very good opportunity."

With that, he smiled faintly, baring his sharpest tooth.

"Don't worry about it, Zeng Qing. Just focus on restructuring as quickly as possible—it has to be fast. We need a mouthpiece. Since they want to use civilized methods to kill us, we'll use civilized methods to strike back."