We agreed on the twelve zodiac animals, but you've transformed into the Monkey King?

Editor-in-Chief Zhao instinctively caught the few slips of paper that had fallen, looked down, and gasped in shock.

Three bearer drafts from Citibank. The zeros on them were enough to buy half of the villas on Hankou Road.

"This is my clean private account, I didn't touch a single penny of the foreigners' money." Shelly's voice wasn't loud, but it shocked the entire hall into silence. "This money is enough to buy out all the machine wear and tear and paper consumption you had last night. By the way, I'll also buy out your ridiculous 'objective reputation' today."

Editor-in-Chief Zhao's hand trembled as he held the promissory note, a gurgling sound escaping his throat, yet he couldn't utter a single word in rebuttal. Faced with the absolute crushing power of capital, his pitiful intellectual pride shattered into nothingness.

Shelly bypassed the group of silent executives and went straight to Wen Xiao's side.

She glanced at the dried bloodstains on the man's body, frowned almost imperceptibly, but quickly concealed it.

Shelly then turned to face everyone in the hall, including the shocked students.

"Starting from eight o'clock this morning, I, Xue, have personally invested in this newspaper."

Shelly looked around.

"Editor-in-Chief Zhao, I don't interfere with how you usually manage your abacus beads. But—"

Her gaze, sharp as a tangible blade, pierced the faces of those executives: "If these kids want to send out any information, who dares to stop them, who dares to use some bullshit 'reputation' to shut their pens... I'll make sure they can't even beg for food in the entire Far East financial circle."

The hall was deathly silent, save for the faint rustling of the few Citibank drafts in Editor-in-Chief Zhao's trembling hands.

Wen Xiao leaned against the iron fence, quietly watching Shelly.

Watching this powerful woman, dressed in a haute couture trench coat and high heels, use her most elegant demeanor and domineering presence to shatter the last shackles for him and for these passionate students.

In this absurd Sumeru space-time, he is a desperate outlaw with a life-or-death trump card.

But in that long, dark night when there was no system, no miracles, no way out, and no "Miss Xue" using huge sums of money to fight against power and capital... how much blood did those predecessors, who were just as young and sincere as the students in front of them, bleed and how many teeth did they grit to break through, so that they could use their frail flesh and blood to smash a ray of light into this airtight iron house?

The two gazed at each other from afar, separated by the swirling dust in the hall and the morning sunlight.

Wen Xiao's pale lips twitched slightly.

I really enjoyed eating this gigolo's rice today.

But it's fucking heavy.

[Main Quest: You have captured the Declaration Hall, Earthly Branch Authority Node: 4/6]

Current Sumeru Points Balance: 124

……

Meanwhile, at the Hongzui Japanese Trading Company, the Black Dragon Society's underground secret dojo was located.

Deep inside the temple, there were no electric lights, only a few dim charcoal fires burning.

Colonel Uchiyama, dressed in a loose kimono, knelt quietly on the tatami mat.

On the wooden shelf in front of him lay a scabbardless nodachi. Its surface was covered with black forging patterns that meandered like human veins.

"Colonel..."

Outside the paper door, a Black Dragon Society agent in charge of intelligence knelt on the ground: "The assassination squad on Hankou Road... was completely wiped out. Wen Xiao is not dead, but Zhang Sulin has been completely turned against by public opinion. Now the entire city of Shanghai is cursing our empire..."

The agent closed his eyes tightly, awaiting his superior's thunderous wrath.

However, Colonel Uchiyama did not get angry.

"Understood. The standard chessboard has been overturned; the fault lies with you. You may leave." Colonel Uchiyama's voice was unusually calm.

The agent, feeling as if he had been granted a pardon, scrambled out of the room.

Colonel Uchiyama stood up. He walked to a corner of the dojo where a man covered in blood was chained up.

A spy who attempted to infiltrate the Black Dragon Society to gather intelligence was captured.

The scout looked at Uchiyama approaching in terror, whimpering and begging for mercy.

Colonel Uchiyama didn't look at him, but simply drew his nodachi from the shelf with one hand.

"The era of mortals is ultimately limited."

Uchiyama sighed softly and stepped forward.

"Pfft."

The knife tip pierced the scout's chest. But no blood spurted out; instead, a chilling "gurgling" sound came from within.

The scout's eyes bulged instantly as he watched helplessly as the blood in his body flowed wildly from the wound into the nodachi.

The black vein patterns on the blade glowed with a blinding scarlet light, as if they had come to life, emitting a "thump-thump" sound similar to a heartbeat.

In just three seconds, a strong adult man was sucked into a skin-and-bones desiccated corpse by this demonic sword.

Clang.

The iron chain, attached to the desiccated corpse, slammed to the ground and shattered into pieces.

Colonel Uchiyama drew his demon sword, staring intently at the crimson aura flowing across its blade.

He turned around and looked at the thick shadow in the very center of the dojo.

"After observing for so long, what do you think of this prey, Hanzo?"

As Uchiyama finished speaking, the shadows in the corner of the dojo began to distort like boiling water.

A man wearing a hideous Hannya mask, like a ghost, was forcibly "stripped" from the two-dimensional shadow into the three-dimensional reality.

The Shadow Squad's strongest weapon, Ghost Hanzo.

"Colonel, your military's toys and those gang thugs can't handle him."

Hanzo flicked his finger, and several blurry black-and-white photos fell onto the tatami mat. They were snapshots of Wen Xiao fighting warlords in Nanshi.

Because it was taken on a rainy night with high-sensitivity black and white film, the photo is full of rough grain. But in the photo, Wen Xiao's eyes appear as a pure white exposure spot, as if the film has been burned through, and his body is even surrounded by a ring of distorted afterimages caused by the air currents generated by his high-speed movement.

Hanzo's tone was excited: "An ordinary flesh and blood body could not possibly leave such a godlike energy field on the film. I smell the scent of 'my kind'."

"That's right." Colonel Uchiyama's eyes blazed with fanatical greed. "Bring his body back, and our Shadow Group will prosper forever, even able to perform the Three-Phase Reincarnation Ritual in batches!"

"Even a lion needs its full strength to hunt a rabbit. Let alone an ancient beast disguised in human skin." Hanzo's voice was devoid of any emotion. "I'm not foolish enough to go and fight it head-on in the bustling streets of the concession."

"Colonel, there's an old saying among the people of the Central Plains. Wild animals are most dangerous in the mountains and forests, but as long as you grab their cubs, they will obediently walk to the guillotine on their own."

Hanzo turned his head and looked at an intelligence file on Uchiyama's table. At the very top of the file was a photo of a girl smiling innocently—Aman.