Chapter 179: Truly Real

"Even those fragile commoners will harbor hostility toward things different from themselves. Our abilities are too powerful—so powerful that they terrify them. In turn, this only makes them hostile toward us," said Lord Dragon slowly.

"Before our army of calamity is fully established, we must endure in silence. Only when our army of calamity takes shape will we have the opportunity to usurp this city and become its masters."

"I understand," said Lord Snake, and hung up the phone.

"Hmph!" Lord Snake first sneered with a sinister expression after ending the call, then muttered with disdain, "The old man is truly getting old; his courage shrinks by the day. What an absolute embarrassment!"

"We were born wolves, meant to feast on sheep. Why should we fear those weak and powerless commoners? Are you kidding me? Have you ever seen a wolf afraid of its own food?"

...

Today, Zhao Dasheng headed home from work just like any other day.

By his side, three things were never absent: beautiful women, cigarettes, and luxury cars.

True to form, the moment he stepped out of the Zhao Group building, Zhao Dasheng turned and hopped into the Rolls-Royce he had bought just the day before, looking utterly dashing.

Sitting beside him in the luxury vehicle was that alluring beauty in a cheongsam.

Lately, the affection between the two had been heating up rapidly.

And the reason for this... all traced back to the brutal beating Zhao Dasheng had suffered last time.

Chang Yu: *Could it be that I actually did a good thing?*

Perhaps due to their shared misery, or perhaps out of a sense of shared hatred against a common enemy, the two people with identical experiences began to grow much closer.

In short, after surviving the life-threatening ordeal in Songjiang, their relationship had escalated to the point of being inseparable.

Just as Zhao Dasheng was about to tell the driver to move, a pale, ghostly hand suddenly pressed against the car window beside him.

The hand lacked a trace of color, as white as the skin of an albino.

Zhao Dasheng was startled. If it weren't the broad daylight, when ghosts supposedly didn't roam, he would have thought he had encountered a specter.

"Brother, looking for some discs?"

A shifty-eyed fellow edged closer, speaking to Zhao Dasheng in a furtive manner.

Zhao Dasheng: ???

Had he... just run into a pirate DVD peddler?

The problem was, what year and age was this? Why were there still people selling discs?

It reminded him of his youth, an era when DVDs and VCDs reigned supreme and bootleg discs flooded the market.

Back then, in the prime of his youth, his favorite pastime after getting off work was strolling through the roadside disc stalls, hoping to score a satisfying movie.

Yet, with the passage of time, DVDs and VCDs had long been swept away in the river of history. Nowadays, hardly anyone bothered watching discs anymore.

Acting on an inexplicable impulse, Zhao Dasheng asked, "Hey, are your discs legit?"

Hearing this, the disc peddler immediately flashed a lewd, seasoned grin.

"Legit, completely legit!"

"My discs are as legit as they come!"

With that, he pulled a disc out of his trench coat pocket and gestured with it toward Zhao Dasheng.

In a flash, Zhao Dasheng vaguely caught sight of Teacher Sora's graceful figure printed on the cover—and it appeared... she was wearing a swimsuit.

Thus, the corners of Zhao Dasheng's mouth curled into an understanding smile.

It had been quite a while since he last watched a disc, Zhao Dasheng thought to himself.

Seeing that disc brought back memories of his youthful prime years.

Back then, he hadn't yet made his fortune; he was just an ordinary child from a wage-earning family without much financial breathing room, forced to pinch pennies every time he wanted to afford a disc.

Never had he imagined that so many years would fly by in the blink of an eye.

That once-burning heart, as age crept up on him, had long since grown powerless and weary.

"Fine, I'll take one," he said. "Consider it a tribute to my departed youth."

"Alrighty then, five bucks a disc, thanks for the patronage!" With lightning speed, the peddler shoved a disc into the car, his movements as fluid as flowing water.

"Driver, pay him." Zhao Dasheng gazed at the disc pressed into his arms, and after confirming it was indeed the very same Teacher Sora he had just seen, he nodded in satisfaction.

After paying the man on Zhao Dasheng's behalf, the middle-aged driver was just about to step on the gas when the peddler shouted out to Zhao Dasheng once more:

"If Boss Zhao finds this disc to your liking, you can always give me a call. I offer home delivery anytime."

"My phone number is printed right on that disc. If you're interested, feel free to contact me anytime~"

Watching the Rolls-Royce pull away and vanish into the distance, the peddler suddenly broke into a triumphant smile, like an operative who had successfully completed a mission.

"Hey, Boss, I've delivered the disc to that Zhao Dasheng fellow." He pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

"Very good." The voice on the other end was magnetic, sounding remarkably like the leader of the cultists from earlier in the day. "Keep a close eye on Zhao Dasheng these next few days. Don't let a cooked duck fly away."

"Understood!" the peddler replied.

Meanwhile, the Rolls-Royce was already far down the road when Zhao Dasheng suddenly slapped his forehead in a moment of sudden realization: "Did that guy just call me Boss Zhao?"

"Strange, I never told him my surname was Zhao. How did he know?"

"Whatever! That doesn't matter. What matters is the disc in my hand... I'll have a good look once I get back."

He glanced down at the disc in his hand, then cast a mischievous grin at the cheongsam-clad beauty beside him, instantly surging with high spirits.

As soon as they arrived at his sprawling villa, an eager Zhao Dasheng pulled the cheongsam beauty onto the sofa with him.

Slipping the disc into the optical drive, Zhao Dasheng turned on the television and waited quietly for the tempestuous storm of a scene to unfold on screen.

Instead of waiting for Teacher Sora's lovely visage, however, he found himself staring at a bizarre scene of sweating, burly men huddled around a young man, bowing and roaring wildly.

Well, no matter how one looked at it, it resembled a cult holding a mass gathering to practice their rituals.

Actually, his assumption wasn't far off.

The footage on the tape had been recorded by a camera during the "Twelve Zodiacs" Holy Grail ceremony.

The reason the peddler had shown this to Zhao Dasheng was in the hope that, after viewing the footage, he would develop a certain understanding and yearning for the "Twelve Zodiacs" organization.

"Is that it?" The cheongsam beauty looked at the giant screen, feeling rather disappointed. "You must have been scammed. These days, there are plenty of people selling fake discs; if you aren't careful, you get taken for a ride."

"Damn it." Zhao Dasheng felt as though he had swallowed a fly. "Ruined my good mood for nothing. What a buzzkill!"

Watching the screen as a group of brawny men drew daggers and prepared to slash their own arms, the cheongsam beauty closed her eyes in fright.

"Oh my god, this is too terrifying!"

"Why are they pulling out knives out of nowhere?"

"Director Zhao, why don't we stop watching and turn off the TV?" pleaded the cheongsam beauty in a pampered, trembling voice.

"Then let's not watch it." Zhao Dasheng picked up the remote control and clicked the television off.

As far as he was concerned, the contents of this disc held no substantive value whatsoever, and watching it was just a waste of time.

Assuming the disc peddler and the cult leader had racked their brains, they never could have imagined that the disc they pinned such high hopes on had completely failed to serve its purpose, and instead ended up being utterly despised by our national entrepreneur, Mr. Zhao Dasheng.

Zhao Dasheng stood up from the sofa and retrieved the disc from the player.

Gazing at the phone number printed in small text on the front of the disc, Zhao Dasheng let out a scoff of ridicule.

"Even a bootleg disc peddler dares to print his phone number on the cover? Talk about having some nerve."

"I bet this number is fake too, just there to fool people. Otherwise, someone would have reported him ages ago."

With that, he snapped the disc in half with his bare hands and tossed it straight into the trash can.

Had the disc peddler and the cult leader witnessed this scene, they undoubtedly would have wept as they told him:

Teacher Sora is fake, but this number is real—real, truly real!

Zhao Dasheng had thrown away the video disc painstakingly prepared for him by the "Twelve Zodiacs."

At this moment, he still had no idea that the most crucial part of this disc was precisely the phone number printed on its cover.

Alas, our national entrepreneur, Mr. Zhao Dasheng, failed to appreciate the painstaking efforts of the "Twelve Zodiacs" in the slightest.

A week passed by just like that. During this week, Chang Yu's life was as tranquil as still water.

He woke up early in the morning, made breakfast for Yangyang, and sent him off to school.

Upon returning, he would seclude himself in his room and cultivate using the spirit stones from his storage bag.

After cultivating throughout the entire day, he would pick Yangyang up from school in the evening and whip up dinner along the way.

Such a lifestyle... tsk tsk, remarkably routine.

Much like those parents who settled down and had children early in life, Chang Yu found himself repeatedly struggling on the verge of a breakdown, his days dull and tedious.

Poor young Chang Yu, who hadn't even experienced the true joys of marriage, was already the father of a child.

Sigh, what a headache!

Until this very day, when Chang Yu's phone suddenly received a text message.

Its contents were as follows:

[XX Bank] Your account ending in XXXX has received a payroll deposit of RMB 25,000, with a balance of RMB 235,836.

"Is this... my salary for this month?" Chang Yu was utterly dumbfounded after reading the text.

"Didn't they say the monthly salary was only 5,000 yuan? Why is it 25,000 yuan?"

"Where did the extra 20,000 yuan come from? Did the bank make a mistake?"

Harboring a tense heart, Chang Yu got dressed and walked downstairs.

"Katerina, Katerina!" Chang Yu knocked on the door downstairs. "Are you home?"

Within moments, Katerina opened the door and appeared before Chang Yu.

"The salary was just deposited; are you here about this?" Even from a distance, Katerina guessed what was on Chang Yu's mind.

"What I want to know isn't whether the salary was deposited," Chang Yu replied. "I want to know where the extra 20,000 yuan came from!"