Chapter 58: Boss Qiu Appears

Before flying to City Y, Yun Zhi took a moment to put herself in Boss Qiu's shoes and consider what choice he would make.

While the treasures in his old lair were certainly important, he possessed a spatial storage artifact, meaning his most precious items would undoubtedly be carried on his person. If she were in his place, she would never return to the lair.

According to the intelligence gathered when Qi, Liu, and Li had huddled together to plot against her—a prime target blessed with supreme fortune—after finishing their official business, the three of them had spent at least an hour drinking and complaining about Boss Qiu's dictatorship. Half of the fortunes harvested from the lower levels through various schemes were taken away by Boss Qiu.

This meant that Boss Qiu placed an extremely high value on fortune. Because he was already over two hundred years old, maintaining his physical vitality and youthful appearance required consuming a vast amount of fortune. Furthermore, the few disciples he had painstakingly cultivated had recently accumulated quite a bit of fortune themselves. Naturally, Boss Qiu was tempted. However, staying in City X to act for the sake of fortune was far too dangerous; it was simply too close to Ming Su. Once Ming Su finished dealing with the second, third, and fourth disciples and recovered slightly, she could rush right over to find him!

Therefore, he would abandon the idea of plundering the fortunes of the disciples currently in City X. The only one left in City X was Su Man, who had lost Dou Wanqin, relied on Liu Yuxuan to sustain her youth and beauty, and possessed very little fortune of her to begin with. Perhaps the elusive fourth disciple, a master hacker, was also in City X, but given that person's unique skills and the difficulty of finding a reliable replacement, Boss Qiu likely wouldn't discard them lightly.

As for the other three disciples, the eldest, Qi Yue, was a senior executive in the entertainment industry; the second, Xu Jiao, was a second-tier female celebrity; and the third, Wu De, was a well-known entertainment manager. Tonight, all three of them were in City Y attending a charity gala!

By the time the gala ended, it was already very late, and the celebrities and wealthy tycoons who had traveled from out of town were staying overnight directly at the venue—that five-star hotel. As noted before, a gathering of handsome men and beautiful women in the entertainment industry, surrounded by wealthy elites and socialites, formed the circle with the most concentrated and prosperous fortune. A massive batch of prime targets ripe for fortune-harvesting had gathered together in one place.

According to Qi Xingxue, absorbing fortune required a lengthy process. It demanded the setting up of numerous talismans and restrictions, combined with the mother-and-child fortune-plundering Gu worms painstakingly cultivated by Boss Qiu, in order to maximize efficiency. Wanting to strip away all the fortune and lifespan of a single person in one go wasn't entirely impossible, but it would cause massive waste, leaving less than ten percent intact.

Yet, since Boss Qiu was already desperate and running for his life, how could he possibly have the patience to play a long game? He was already targeted by the Dragon Group, and being hunted down by them was the worst possible outcome. He no longer feared making a big fuss or provoking severe consequences.

If she were Boss Qiu...

Inside the safety of her spatial sanctuary, Yun Zhi couldn't help muttering to the chat group system: "If I were Boss Qiu, I would definitely rush to City Y first, strip the fortune from the first, second, and third disciples—who know the most of my secrets—and then kill them all! After that, I'd harvest everyone in the entire hotel whose fortune looks decent!"

"Before anyone discovers me, I'd immediately use disguise techniques to assume a new identity and blend in among ordinary people! I'd escape amidst the chaos!"

"Once the incident in City Y blows up, Ming Su will definitely rush there, while Boss Qiu could slip back into City X overnight disguised as an ordinary person."

"First, I'd find an opportunity to kill the second, third, and fourth disciples, who also know many of his secrets, before the City X Special Management Bureau has time to thoroughly interrogate them!"

"I might even kill the people from the Special Management Bureau just to make Ming Su regret provoking him!"

"Then I'd flee immediately! Find some deep mountain or remote forest to hide in. After all, this massive wave of harvested fortune will be enough to sustain him for a very long time."

"When things quiet down in the future, I'd find an opportunity to alter my appearance with a fake identity, or sneak across the border and smuggle myself out of the country."

"His old lair is the last place he would return to—at least, not right now."

"Compared to minor artifacts, artifacts that are too cumbersome to move, and a massive surge of fortune, fortune is naturally far more important."

The chat group system popped up an animated sticker of a kitten shivering in fear.

"Host, your deduction is terrifying! Good thing you aren't a villain; if you ever turned bad, you'd probably be even more ruthless and thorough than Boss Qiu!"

Yun Zhi rolled her eyes. "I'm just putting myself in his shoes for a logical deduction."

"I might not be a saint, but I would never choose to be a villain. Because villains, even if they temporarily escape the punishment of the law, find that the heavens themselves do not stand on their side. Once they die and become wandering spirits, they will likely suffer endless torment to repay the sins they committed in life."

Since she now possessed the ability to transcend the ordinary, being a good person offered a much better return on investment. She could earn money with integrity, build a solid reputation, accumulate merit, and steadily elevate her strength step by step, rather than running about frantically for a century or two like Boss Qiu and his ilk, only to end up with an empty basket in the end. No matter how high their cultivation realm, it was merely rootless duckweed with a fatal flaw, scattered by the first passing wind.

The chat group system breathed a sigh of relief. "Regardless of your reasons, as long as you're willing to be a good person, that's fine. We judge by actions, not thoughts, hehe."

Yun Zhi couldn't guarantee her deduction was entirely correct, but just to be safe, she grabbed a large handful of attribute-less energy stones to serve as power, and her spatial sanctuary traveled in a straight line at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour.

Half an hour later, at 1 AM, she arrived quietly at City Y's most famous five-star hotel.

Her spiritual sense extended outward, scanning downwards from the most expensive presidential suites.

Before long, she located Qi Yue in a certain presidential suite, along with the second disciple Xu Jiao and the third disciple Wu De.

The good news: they were still alive and kicking, all three of them brimming with vitality.

The bad news: inside all three rooms, she witnessed scenes that burned the eyes.

Yun Zhi quickly withdrew the perceptual side-effect that allowed her spiritual sense to see the images clearly. She had no choice earlier; without scanning and merely listening to the sounds, how could she know which rooms belonged to Boss Qiu's three disciples? As for their photographs, she had learned their names and searched for them online during the car ride over.

Qi Yue was a public figure, quite handsome, and enjoyed considerable popularity online. The thing he was most famous for was keeping himself clean and never engaging in messy romantic entanglements with the pretty female artists in his company.

Yun Zhi was utterly speechless. Ah right, he didn't mess with female artists—instead, he messed with wealthy heiresses and rich wives! Furthermore, his third junior brother, who served as a manager, frequently used the excuse of being Qi Yue's cousin to prey on female artists. As for the second junior sister, she possessed charm-based supernatural abilities and operated a vast fishpond, welcoming all comers.

Perhaps Yun Zhi had arrived too quickly, and Boss Qiu hadn't shown up yet. Or perhaps her guess was wrong. Yun Zhi decided to wait and observe for a moment.

Absurdly, while Yun Zhi was waiting outside the hotel, Qi Yue finished serving wealthy wife A, excused himself under the pretext of having matters to attend to, and slipped into the room of wealthy heiress B next door...

The wealthy heiress whined, "Brother Yue, what took you so long? Did that seductive fox of a stepmother hook you and make you forget all about me?"

Qi Yue replied smoothly, "How could I dare? I was just thinking about how to win her over so she'll voluntarily leave your father, and then all your father's wealth will belong to you. As for me, I know my background is ordinary, and I'm not getting any younger, so I'm not worthy of marrying you. I don't care about a title, as long as you remember that after you marry, you still have a Brother Yue whose heart beats entirely for you."

Yun Zhi: ...

Damn it, her ears felt dirty too.

She could only say that he truly deserved to be a man who could mingle among socialites and wealthy wives for twenty years without ever capsizing his boat.

Fearing she might see or hear anything else unsuitable, Yun Zhi simply withdrew her spiritual sense entirely and focused her undivided attention on monitoring the hotel's various entrances and its perimeter.

Just when Yun Zhi began to think her deduction was flawed and that Boss Qiu hadn't come here at all, but had instead returned to his lair or gone elsewhere, the chat group system suddenly popped up a light screen:

"A level-six peak spiritual fluctuation is rapidly approaching! The level-seven spiritual defense barrier has been activated! Host, please be careful!"

Fearing the system might misjudge, Yun Zhi urged, "You might as well turn on the level-eight defense barrier for me! I still have plenty of attribute-less energy stones anyway. Safety first!"

The chat system replied, "Understood, upgraded!"

Sheltered by the system's level-eight spiritual defense barrier, Yun Zhi spotted a... charming woman wearing flawless makeup?

Upon approaching the hotel, she slowed her pace and walked leisurely toward the front desk. The woman looked to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a graceful, slender figure, dressed in a form-fitting dark purple long qipao. It revealed very little skin, yet exuded intense sex appeal.

There were extremely subtle traces of disguise on the woman's face; had Yun Zhi's spiritual perception not been enhanced, she truly wouldn't have noticed. Moreover, a faint energy fluctuation characteristic of a level-four supernatural being emanated from "her" body—except for the chest area, which showed zero energy fluctuation.

—These were fake breasts!

She was utterly numb. Even though she had known in advance that Boss Qiu excelled at disguise and possessed countless false identities... upon knowing that Boss Qiu was an unquestionable man, an old geezer over two hundred years old, who would ever connect him with the sexy beauty standing right before her?

It seemed he had arrived a little later than Yun Zhi anticipated precisely because he had taken the time to change his appearance and disguise himself.

After recovering from her shock, Yun Zhi checked that her signal was still normal, quickly dialed Ming Su's number, briefly explained the situation, and hung up.

It would take Ming Su about an hour to get here. If Yun Zhi did nothing in the meantime, the opportunity would slip right through her fingers.

Fighting him head-on was out of the question. For a novice supernatural user in her early twenties to confront a two-hundred-year-old veteran head-on was a terribly unfavorable match-up.

Her only option was to rely on the power of array formations, just as she had done against the second, third, and fourth disciples. Fortunately, she had already replaced the spirit stones in her formation disks earlier and reduced their coverage area, which would greatly increase their destructive power—making them comparable to a level-four array.

The impeccably disguised Boss Qiu quickly checked in at the hotel front desk, requesting a room on the 28th floor.

In other words, the exact floor where Qi Yue was staying!

It seemed Qi Xingxue's guess was spot on: among all his disciples, Boss Qiu held the deepest murderous intent toward Qi Yue. After all, Qi Yue had seen his true face, whereas the other two likely had not.

Still, given enough time to commit his crimes, Boss Qiu wouldn't let the others off either.

Taking advantage of the elevator ride up to the 28th floor, Yun Zhi hurried ahead to set up three sets of formation disks near the 28th-floor elevator lobby. Because the floor wasn't bare earth, the disks were difficult to conceal. Once activated, she placed one on a fire hydrant, one inside a trash can, and the most crucial one—the Heart-Inquiring Illusion Array—right above the doorway of the stairwell separated by a door.

Yun Zhi had barely finished arranging the formation disks when a ding rang out, and the elevator carrying Boss Qiu arrived at the 28th floor.

He stepped out of the elevator with a swaying, graceful gait. Just as he was about to take another step and enter the dual domains of the trapping and maze arrays...

Boss Qiu let out a light chuckle, his voice shifting into a soft, melodious female tone: "To think someone is actually waiting here to ambush me? Quite a clever mind, but unfortunately, a mere level-four array is far too weak!"

With that, a strange awl-like artifact appeared in his hand, and he stepped directly into the array.

With a series of sharp cracks, both the trapping array and the maze array shattered simultaneously.

It was a level-six spiritual sense utilizing the special power of the array-breaking awl to directly destroy the formation runes inscribed on the two disks!

Seeing that he was about to turn his attention to the Heart-Inquiring Illusion Array disk next, Yun Zhi had no desire to suffer unnecessary losses, so she immediately used telekinesis to retrieve the illusion array disk back into her space.

Since the array trick had failed, she figured a level-two supernatural attack would likely be easily evaded by him as well.

What should she do now? Watch helplessly as he went on a massacre throughout the entire hotel? Impossible!

Right, Boss Qiu wasn't entirely without weaknesses; his greatest fear was lightning talismans!

However, she couldn't strike him with lightning directly inside the hotel, as it would easily harm innocent people. Fortunately, right outside this five-star hotel lay a garden and an artificial lake landscape.

Yun Zhi decided to take a calculated risk.

She manifested at the stairwell exit, deliberately leaked a trace of her energy fluctuations, and then instantly ducked back into her spatial sanctuary.

Sure enough, this successfully caught Boss Qiu's attention: "Oh? A level-two supernatural user, and she even possesses a rare artifact capable of completely shielding her own aura! Her fortune... is simply supreme!"

Though Yun Zhi was safely inside her space, she intentionally projected her spiritual sense to leave a clear trail, reappearing once more by the artificial lake behind the hotel.

Caught between Qi Yue and a brand-new, fortune-blessed prey with a wealthy background... Boss Qiu decisively chose the latter!

He slapped a flight talisman onto his body, leaped straight out of the 28th-floor stairwell window, and charged directly toward Yun Zhi at flying speed!