Chapter 68: The Cost of Building the Research Facility (Phase One) is Secured

Deputy City Lord Qin was dumbfounded, still clinging to his last hope. “Immortal Master Ning, I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“‘One Dream to Huaxu’ is a remarkable product. In small doses, it heals injuries and sickness. But taken in excess, it fosters dependence. If I’m not mistaken, the pill you were about to take just now was only a quarter the size of the ones sold to the people of Ye Province, wasn’t it?” Ning Mingmei remarked. “How generous of you. You take the small dose while selling the large ones to the common folk.”

Deputy City Lord Qin slumped back into his chair, his entire body limp. “How much do you know?!”

Ning Mingmei replied, “More than you think. For instance, the imperial court discovered Ye Province’s mines four centuries ago. They realized that the metals from certain mines were particularly effective for making weapons. Unfortunately, the Li tribe considered those mountains sacred, worshipped nature, opposed mining, and possessed witchcraft that prevented the court from fully exploiting them.

“Fortunately for the court, the Li tribe’s witch priest followed the general into battle. There was already resentment against the witch priest within the military. Using Deputy General Jiang’s hand, they eliminated the witch priest. Then, they wiped out the Li tribe. From that moment on, the mines belonged entirely to the court.

“After the war ended, the imperial court continued mining, digging deeper and deeper, and discarded the waste into the rivers. The two rivers, especially the one to the east, suffered the most. Years later, strange illnesses began to appear frequently in Ye Province. The officials suspected it was the witch priest’s curse before he died or perhaps they had unearthed something from the mines that should have remained buried… So, they sealed off the mines and abandoned Ye Province.

“After the mines were sealed, the Liu family secretly continued mining. As a result, they were affected by the ‘evil energy’ within the mines. The adults died from illness, their descendants perished young, and the pollution in Ye Province only worsened… Don’t rush to deny it. I found the account books in the Liu family’s residence.

“Then, a few years ago, you stole a prescription from a cultivator but were unable to refine the pills because you lacked a few essential spiritual herbs. You’re sitting on a mountain of gold but unable to touch it, how frustrating that must have been. Fortunately, a few years later, you found Physician Wu and asked if he could help you refine the pill from the prescription. Physician Wu agreed and developed what is now known as ‘One Dream to Huaxu.’”

Deputy City Lord Qin’s face turned ashen.

Ning Mingmei continued, “You recognized the commercial value of the medicine and weren’t content with keeping it for yourself. However, mass-producing it was a real hassle. Fortunately, in addition to Physician Wu, you found Hu Yang, the deformed man who lives near the mass graveyard. Despite being a recluse, Hu Yang had a talent for mechanical design. And after all, he was a descendant of the Hu family. The Hu and Qin families were once comrades-in-arms and in your childhood, you had some connection. Back then, he even called you ‘Uncle Qin.’

“So, you had an idea to let him collaborate with Physician Wu. Together with a few people from the Qin family, you finally established a production line. From then on, ‘One Dream to Huaxu’ spread throughout Ye Province. Strangely enough though, Physician Wu never sold the substitute medicine in his own clinic. Perhaps to avoid suspicion or perhaps due to some deeper personal conflict.”

Deputy City Lord Qin stammered, “You—how can you say this was my doing? This was all…”

“Do you think that bringing an unfamiliar medicine from mass production to widespread distribution in Ye Province could be accomplished with just ordinary financial power? And if it weren’t endorsed by someone ‘highly respected,’ who would dare consume it? Don’t ask such foolish questions again.”

Ning Mingmei even added a critique.

Deputy City Lord Qin murmured, “Sect Master Qi said you were in seclusion for years… Have you really been in seclusion? In just a few days, how have you uncovered everything so clearly? It’s as if you’ve lived in Ye Province all along!”

Ning Mingmei replied, “Because human greed is the same everywhere.”

Deputy City Lord Qin was completely speechless. After a long pause, he finally shouted, “So what? This is Ye Province’s internal affair! Even the imperial court doesn’t interfere… What does this have to do with the Supreme Clarity Sect?”

He had been cornered and was now making a desperate struggle.

Ning Mingmei remained composed. “This has nothing to do with the Supreme Clarity Sect but it does concern one of my subordinates. The prescription you stole belonged to him. For years, you’ve been profiting immensely from selling a pirated version of his prescription. Did you ever ask for his permission?”

With a sudden wave of his hand, the doors of the study shattered into pieces. The blatant display of power terrified Deputy City Lord Qin. He finally remembered that no matter how elegant and refined Ning Mingmei appeared, he was still an immortal!

An immortal capable of splitting mountains and parting seas!

Ning Mingmei said, “Asking you to hand over all your earnings from these years to my subordinate is not too much, right?”

Deputy City Lord Qin’s voice trembled. “Not… not too much…”

Ning Mingmei continued, “Asking you to compensate him for the psychological damages caused by the theft of his prescriptions is not too much, right?”

Deputy City Lord Qin’s voice shook even more. “Not… not too much…”

Ning Mingmei said, “You were the mastermind, while Physician Wu and Hu Yang were accomplices. Surely handing them over to us for punishment is not too much either.”

Deputy City Lord Qin: “No…”

Where did that last sentence come from?

“The imperial court doesn’t interfere with you simply because they don’t know. But if they did…”

Deputy City Lord Qin hurriedly said, “I—I—this medicine does relieve pain! It’s not harming the people!”

Ning Mingmei replied, “You secretly sold medicine, so did you pay the full taxes to the imperial court? That’s millions in taxes. Did you pay them? If you’re arrested for tax evasion, you have to pay ten times the original amount. Can you afford that?”

Who cares about the people here?

Deputy City Lord Qin fell completely silent, collapsing into his chair.

Ning Mingmei said, “Deputy City Lord Qin, please. Hand over your private account books and then we’ll talk about the curse.”

“N-No…”

“No what?”

“The prescription… I got it from a fiend cultivator, I didn’t steal it…”

Ning Mingmei immediately caught the inconsistency in his words. “You got it from a fiend cultivator? What happened to him?”

How could an ordinary mortal like Deputy City Lord Qin have simply ‘got’ something from a fiend cultivator?

Which meant that the fiend cultivator must have suffered some kind of misfortune.

“I—I wouldn’t dare do anything to him! How could a mere mortal like me provoke a fiend cultivator? He was already injured and dying when he arrived here. He collapsed near the mine and only then did I dare take the things from his body…” Deputy City Lord Qin explained.

Gui Ruoxue had mentioned that the little thief was gravely wounded while escaping. If Deputy City Lord Qin had simply taken advantage of the situation, it made sense.

But still… Ning Mingmei frowned.

Why had the fiend cultivator come there in the first place?

Ning Mingmei didn’t believe in coincidences. Behind every so-called coincidence, even if there was no elaborate scheme, there was always a Markov chain of cause and effect.

With Ning Mingmei’s overwhelming presence, Deputy City Lord Qin, despite his reluctance, had no choice but to fetch the money for him.

At that point, it was no longer a negotiation. It was a matter of who held the knife and who was the meat on the chopping block.

For an entire day and night, Ning Mingmei sat there, watching as Deputy City Lord Qin calculated his wealth, and got a full grasp of the Qin family’s treasury.

In the end, the Qin family’s total wealth amounted to more than twenty million!

Twenty million!

It was the first patent fee Ning Mingmei had ever collected since arriving in the cultivation world!

With twenty million, plus his previous savings and the bone token for the imperial demon tomb… If he estimated optimistically, the imperial demon tomb probably contained at least another ten million.

In total, he now had forty million!

Ning Mingmei could finally afford to build the research facility (phase one) that he had been longing for!

From that moment on, Ning Mingmei completed the first stage of his capital accumulation.

No longer would he have to personally take on freelance projects. He could stay within his peak, exploiting students, publishing research papers, and establishing a patent office…

His ultimate form would be lying at home, doing nothing, while new money, new patents, new honorary papers, and new disciples flooded in on their own.

That was how one climbed to the top.

After that, Ning Mingmei would become a fully automated money-making machine.

Ning Mingmei said, “Knowledge is wealth.”

The system: …

Someone, please tell Ning Mingmei that the reason he made money wasn’t knowledge but robbing the robbers.

Deputy City Lord Qin’s face was full of unwillingness but he still held onto a sliver of hope as he asked, “Peak Lord Ning, so the source of Ye Province’s corruption is indeed the mine, right? Could you…?”

Ning Mingmei replied, “Not necessarily. With a mine full of radiation, a fiend cultivator who suddenly dropped dead, the Liu family secretly mining the mine, you selling counterfeit medicine, and an environment polluted beyond recognition, Ye Province is indeed a land blessed with extraordinary people and spiritual energy. Perhaps the witch priest’s curse really does still linger.”

A land blessed with extraordinary people and spiritual energy.

Even more blessed than Gotham.

For every gain, there is a loss.

Who was to say that Ye Province’s current corruption wasn’t connected to the witch priest’s massacre all those years ago when the Royal General and his forces suddenly swept through like an unstoppable storm?

Perhaps, four hundred years ago, the witch priest hesitated to cast the curse. Until he was tied to the stake, witnessing the very people he had once blessed spitting at him, demanding his death by fire.

Somehow, he survived the burning. The young witch priest no longer wished to descend the mountain with others, nor did he desire to save the world anymore.

He just wanted to go home, to return to being the insignificant witch priest of the Li Village, to play the xun on the hillside and watch small flowers drift from the treetops and fall into the earth.

People are born, grow old, fall ill, and die. The witch priests too could suffer misfortune. It was all normal, just a small episode in life.

But when he returned to the Li Village, what he saw was not the familiar little village but a land of scorched earth.

The heads of the women, children, and elders of the Li tribe were piled up at the mass graveyard west of the city. Some carried their heads on the tips of their blades, taking them back to camp to claim rewards.

Just as they had once carried the heads of enemy soldiers back to camp. And back then, the witch priest had even worried about their safety. At that time, he had felt only a slight pity for those severed heads.

Why did the people I saved kill my loved ones?

To them, were my loved ones no different from the enemies they once fought?

Why did I help them while they were killing others, believing myself to be on the side of justice?

Why?

A witch priest should not kill. A witch priest should not take life. It was an iron rule passed down through generations of witch priests in the Li tribe. When I descended the mountain, I upheld this principle. I did not kill anyone, nor did I curse them. No matter how they reviled me, I healed them.

But perhaps, even then, I had already become an executioner in the eyes of their enemies.

Because the lives I saved eventually went on to take other lives… to take the lives of my own kin.

From that moment when I followed them down the mountain and healed them, had I already lost the right to be a witch priest?

Perhaps, it was then that the witch priest truly cast the curse they had longed for.

Since you all so eagerly awaited it.

Then, let him grant their wish.

From that moment on, the glory of Ye Province drained a thousand years of its fortune. No one would ever walk out of Ye Province alive again.

Because Ye Province was destined to perish in that war.

***

Deputy City Lord Qin hesitated and said, “Peak Lord Ning, so the curse is indeed inside the mine? Look, I’ve lost all my money, so could you possibly…”

Ning Mingmei sipped his tea. “I suppose I could make a trip.”

The mine was a place he intended to visit anyway.

Mere mortals couldn’t withstand the radiation and had to cease mining there. But Ning Mingmei was a Divine Transformation cultivator!

He needed to study how radiation’s effects on the body diminished with increasing cultivation. If he confirmed it was harmless, then the mine would belong to him.

Ning Mingmei said to the system, [Eliminating a public threat while achieving a win-win situation, my reputation has grown even grander.]

The system: […What win-win situation?]

Ning Mingmei: [I took all of Deputy City Lord Qin’s money and secured an entire mine. Isn’t that a win-win?]

A mine was worth far more than twenty million. With it, the funds for the second phase of his laboratory’s expansion were secured.

This time, Ning Mingmei demanded upfront payment. Apart from the immovable properties, he took every bit of wealth he could from the Qin family’s residence. Amusingly, after everyone in the Liu family’s household perished, the Qin family seized all of their remaining assets, something Ning Mingmei made sure to uncover as well.

All in all, Ning Mingmei’s total assets now stood at forty-five million.

As he left Deputy City Lord Qin’s residence, the sky was thick with dark clouds. Ning Mingmei glanced up and said, “It’s going to rain.”

Chewing on a mint leaf, he sent a message through the palace bell, “Take half the disciples and leave the City Lord’s mansion. Go to the mountain and destroy the counterfeit medicine production base… Hmm, no need to destroy everything. You have a spatial storage bag, right? Take the valuable equipment with you.”

Gui Ruoxue sounded even more excited than him. “You don’t need to remind me… Wait, someone wants to talk to you.”

Ning Mingmei: ?

“Immortal Master Ning, can I come along? I can help! I’m really good at this kind of thing.”

Ning Mingmei: …

It was Lian Chengyue volunteering himself.

Gui Ruoxue said, “You weren’t here for the past two days but he’s been behaving really well. Following your disciples around, studying, serving tea, running errands, and even helping Ren Miao. It’s honestly a bit surprising.”

Where did the sudden change in attitude come from?

Surprisingly, Ning Mingmei said, “Alright. Take him and Ren Miao with you.”

Gui Ruoxue: ?

What’s going on here?

Ning Mingmei said, “As for the other disciples, have four of them go around the city and confiscate all the pills. There are only about twenty clinics in the entire city, so it’ll be quick. Keep the two at the peak stage of the Foundation Establishment realm. They’re still somewhat useful.”

He didn’t mention what he planned to do.

Gui Ruoxue asked, “What riddles are you talking about?”

“I have a feeling they might have some last-ditch tricks up their sleeve,” Ning Mingmei said. “I can’t quite explain it. It’s just my intuition.”

Gui Ruoxue: ?

“But this is a risk we have to take,” Ning Mingmei continued. “What, do they expect me to stay here working for them my whole life? They might as well just kill me.”

He stashed the palace bell and continued walking toward the City Lord’s mansion.

The system asked, [Why are you going back there now?]

Ning Mingmei replied, [There’s something I need to ask Wu Yun.]

The sky was leaden gray and a torrential downpour was imminent.

At that moment, someone found Hu Yang, who lived behind the mass grave and whispered a few words into his ear.

***

By the time Ning Mingmei arrived at the City Lord’s mansion, the sky was fully overcast. The place was eerily silent and everywhere he looked, people were sprawled haphazardly on the ground.

He checked their breathing.

They were all asleep.

There was only one person who could have done this.

Inside the City Lord’s chambers, the air was thick with an overpowering, cloying scent. Before even reaching the gauzy curtains, Ning Mingmei saw Physician Wu standing outside them.

He wasn’t wearing a mask and his medicine box rested on the ground. He gazed at the space beyond the curtain with a calm expression.

Behind the curtain, someone was writhing on the floor, letting out pitiful, animal-like howls.

“Immortal Master Ning,” Physician Wu said. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

Ning Mingmei replied, “Yes, what a shame that we had to meet under such circumstances.”

Physician Wu said, “Looking at him now, don’t you think it’s pathetic? Back then, he abandoned me and the Li tribe for the sake of his grand plans. And now, here he is, crawling on the ground like a dog, begging me to save him. The brilliant mind he once had is now muddled and he can’t go a day without me.”

Ning Mingmei said, “Yes. As a leader, what happened back then can’t simply be brushed off as an ‘accident.'”

There was no such thing as ‘I didn’t have time to stop it.’ Only ‘I chose to turn a blind eye.’

Physician Wu lifted his gaze. His once striking blue eyes were gone.

For the first time, Ning Mingmei got a good look at his skin. It didn’t look human. It looked like that of the living dead.

“The rain will start soon,” Physician Wu said. “Before it falls, let me tell you a story, Immortal Master Ning.”

Ning Mingmei replied, “Go ahead.”

The two of them sat beneath the eaves, watching the dark sky. The wind rustled the leaves in the courtyard and the sound continued much like it had always been.

The system: …

Could you two at least pay some attention to the former general writhing and twisting on the floor behind you?

Sure, he wasn’t a threat but having a conversation with that scene in the background wasn’t unsettling at all?

“This story starts with a bone token,” Physician Wu began. “That bone token was a treasure of the Li tribe. But a thousand years ago, it was a gift from a great demon to the witch priests of the Li tribe… Funny, isn’t it? Witch priests have always fought demons to protect humanity.

“But this,” he continued, “was a demon’s gift to mankind.”