Above Destiny

Chapter 580 Job or No Job
And so, the good days began.

Ji Jue only needed to occupy the top eight floors as a temporary workshop to focus on his research, but with dark circles under his eyes, he had a lot more things to do than hang up walls and apply white paint.

Old Gou has even more to do.

Working from dawn till dusk every day, spending money hand over fist, after more than half a month of hard work, he finally finished cleaning up another factory area despite the cold stares and rejection from many people.

Everything is ready; all that's left is to wait for the right opportunity!
Just when everyone was on guard against Ji Jue causing trouble, Ji Jue suddenly became well-behaved, spending his days doing research and staying in his office building, never stepping out.

He completely ignored what was happening outside, acting as if he had no choice before but now wanted to be a good craftsman, leaving everyone wondering what this scoundrel was really up to.

Should we launch another attack, encircle and suppress HaiChao Military Industry, to weaken it?

Soon, they discovered... there was nowhere to snipe, surround, or weaken them.

In fact, they couldn't even figure out what that bastard Ji Jue was thinking.

Under Lao Gou's management, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) plant on the coast finally got on track and started operating, albeit with some stumbles and difficulties.

Then, amidst much anticipation, Coastal Industries officially launched its flagship product in China!

--【lighter】!
I'm out of work, everyone. I'll make you all a lighter instead...

Now, not only were his colleagues, who were still shaken and looking for some sense of security, dumbfounded, even Dugu Ming, who had been gritting his teeth and lying in wait to teach Ji Jue a lesson.

I sat in the office all night, holding a plastic lighter made by Coast in my hand, looking at it over and over.

No matter how you look at it, this thing just looks like a lighter!

And it's ridiculously cheap, with quality so poor it matches the price, and for a company the size of Coast, there's practically no profit to be made...

Dude, what are you after?!
For a moment, everyone was bewildered, their vision blurred—you arrived in Middle-earth and immediately created an atmosphere of fear, a lightning whirlwind killed that bastard Mudakhka, and now you're ambitiously heading towards the Middle-earth racetrack, acting like anyone who gets in your way is doomed. Everyone thought you'd come here to make your mark…

The results of it?
So all you're doing is selling these cheap lighters to me, which cost two cents each wholesale and only eighteen cents in bulk?!

You should have told me earlier!

If you had said so earlier, this mess wouldn't have happened!
In just over half a month, the story progressed from "The Monster from the Tide Military Industry Lands at Yuanshan Port" to "The King of Lighters, Ji Jue, Arrives at His Faithful Tower City".

Amidst the shock, stunned silence, and bewilderment, everyone suddenly felt that Mudakhka's death was somewhat unjust...

So much so that, in the silence, everyone looked at each other, each with their own thoughts.

Sniper?

What the hell is this sniping?!

Do you want me to go down to the same track to give Ji Jue a lighter?

forget it.

Take a look first.

Dugu Ming did not let his guard down and remained highly vigilant. He even instructed his subordinates to keep a close eye on Ji Jue's every move and to report to him immediately if there was any disturbance.

As a result, his time in jail began... After half a month, Ji Jue didn't make a single unusual move, and as a result, he almost knew the entire lighter market in Tacheng like the back of his hand.

Every day when I open my eyes, I'm protected from seasonal dogs; when I close my eyes, all I can dream about is this stupid lighter.

His complexion grew increasingly pale, and the blood vessels in his eyes became more and more prominent.

Even though the entire city of Tacheng was peaceful, orderly, and stable, why did he feel... that he couldn't live like this anymore?
A person can be without work, but a person absolutely cannot be without a lighter!

If you delve deeper, you'll find that... the poorer the guy in the most dire situation, the more he needs this thing.

At the same time, no one is unable to afford a lighter.

Even if you're so poor you can't even afford a lighter, wouldn't you still touch someone else's?

Even if caught red-handed, you can confidently turn the tables and question them – we're buddies, what's wrong with taking your lighter? Why are you being so stingy?

Then continue next time.

make persistent efforts!

To be fair, if the sole purpose was to make a name for himself, Ji Jue's move was a stroke of genius. However, the key point is that from an advertising and publicity perspective, it turns out to be completely ineffective advertising and investment.

Because lighters are so cheap that the upper class in Tower City doesn't even bother to look at them, the middle class doesn't care, and the lower class, even if they know about the coast, what can they do?

Unlike the poor garbage collectors in the Commonwealth Wilderness, in this godforsaken place of Middle-earth, people are truly so poor that they have to sell their pants and go hungry for nine meals in three days!

Let alone off-road vehicles, even small tricycles require loans. If a dozen or so people pool their money together, they might not even be able to afford the down payment!
A week has passed since its release, and only a few hundred have been sold in the center of Tacheng, mostly leftover stock in convenience stores. It has spread widely in the densely packed slums outside the center of Tacheng, but what is the point?
To put it bluntly, even though this place is nominally part of Tacheng, in reality, the creatures here don't even have human status in the eyes of the local lords!

When you're collecting trash and burning cow dung, do you really care what brand of lighter you're using?

Nobody cares.

Only the local lighter manufacturers, who were completely bankrupted by Ji Jue's devastating attack, were left with nowhere to turn for help.

No, there's no need to cry. Because they've all switched to agents.

Making lighters yourself is time-consuming, laborious, and expensive, and you don't even make much money. Why not come and sell them to our coastline? The profit margin is even higher than if you made them yourself!
We'll sell it at your price.

Don't ask why. The answer is that we're here to do charity. The answer is that Mr. Ji is kind-hearted and can't bear to see people suffer. Just tell us if you're willing to sell or not!

Thus, the business of the King of Lighters unfolded vigorously right under everyone's noses.

In less than half a month, he had completely monopolized the low-end lighter market in the entire city of Tacheng, and the King of Lighters ascended his useless throne.

Enjoying oneself.

They didn't care at all about what other people thought.

Even if someone observes it frame by frame with a magnifying glass.

Look, look, take your time. I'd like to know what you can figure out.

From beginning to end, Ji Jue never forgot his purpose in coming here—to find a place in the city to settle down, and then, to set up shop...

—Let's start looking for the wolves!
Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!
The destruction of Tacheng has nothing to do with him; he's looking for the wolf!
Ji Jue's mind is now filled with wolves, and Chun Jun is on his mind 24 hours a day. He is isolated from the outside world and is only worried that his intentions are too obvious and his schemes and targets are too direct, which may cause the wolves hiding in the dark to sense something.

It should be noted that a truly perceptive monstrous wolf can detect even the slightest malice directed at it from a thousand miles away.

However, this is not a problem for Ji Jue.

Because no matter how much Ji Jue targets wolves, he can't match the intensity of the hunters from the White Deer lineage. In terms of malice and killing intent, he's not even in the top tier.

Besides, he had no ill intentions towards wolves.

He just wanted to catch up with his old friend Sheikh...

Thanks to the massive shipment of lighters, the density of the Fly King's Plague in Tacheng increased several levels in just half a month. At this moment, in the Fly King's observation, the slums were densely packed with tiny dots.

Compared to being truly airtight, it's still far too sparse.

After all, with so many people watching, Ji Jue couldn't possibly stuff a King of Flies poison into every lighter; otherwise, he would have been exposed long ago.

In reality, the real plague of the fly king is planted in the scraps that are recycled and reused. In the process of production, massive amounts of waste are gradually turned into cheap lighters.

It's perfectly normal for a few of them to occasionally be entangled with remnant spirits!
Normally, if you go to a secondhand market and buy a piece of clothing that's still covered in blood, the remnants of spirits clinging to it are probably more valuable than this broken lighter...

Because the signals were so weak, they were also so easily extinguished. Of the signals that Ji Jue received through the mechanical spiders scattered in the sewers, more than 99% were false alarms, and the remaining 1% were of dubious authenticity.

He wasn't in a hurry at all.

To hunt wolves, you need composure. Even fishing requires waiting for the right bite. You can throw out handfuls of King Fly Plague and eventually get one or two wolves dyed.

He has been finding more and more traces lately.

Based on those footprint-like marks, he was absolutely certain that there were wolves in Tacheng!
In fact, not just one...

On the surface, Tacheng appears calm and orderly, but in reality, it's a powder keg churning with undercurrents, and Ji Jue feels like he's about to find the fuse.

Like a spider silently spinning its web, gradually drawing the entire slum into its trap, layer by layer.

Ji Jue is waiting.

At the same time... that doesn't stop him from continuing to roll!

Snapped!
It was like a burst of lightning.

Inside the workshop of the Doomsday Express, in Ji Jue's hand, under layers of spiritual binding and suppression, a wisp of bronze light rose and changed like a living thing, constantly shifting and moving.

Just maintaining the lockdown is already exhausting Ji Jue's resources.

There was no way around it; the nature of this sliver of light was too sensitive, and its changes were too rapid. If one wasn't careful, it could slip away through any tiny, imperceptible crack.

Even the smallest cracks that cannot be found under a microscope are like wide-open doors to it.

Once it escapes from the closed environment maintained by Ji Jue's spiritual essence, it will immediately dissipate into the mortal world and never be seen again, thus all previous efforts will be in vain.

Previously, tasks requiring absolute stability were always handled by Isis with assistance. Now, Ji Jue has to take matters into his own hands, carefully maintaining the process until it is sealed in a special container.

Right before him, five spiritual crystals lined up in a row displayed dazzling gold, radiant silver, weathered bronze, simple iron gray, and even almost invisible transparent colors.

Five ever-changing, shimmering lights, like lightning, leaped and raced within the crystal, subtly resonating with each other, converging in the same direction despite the crystal's barrier.

"Finally, it's done..."

Ji Jue wiped the sweat from his forehead and sighed softly. After working non-stop for more than half a month, he was exhausted.

This is the result of the material being purified to its extreme, the limit of the activity of metallic properties, after consuming countless materials, and through the continuous torment of fluid alchemy day and night, finally being extracted and completed.

So-called the finest of metals!

(End of this chapter)