At first, Xu Mu thought it was a prank. He looked toward Ye Tong and muttered,
"I really have nothing to do with her."
"I don't care." Ye Tong smiled faintly.
"Xu Mu, did you hear me clearly?" the deep voice on the phone repeated.
"Your lover, Feng Yue, is in our hands. If you want her alive—pay 100 billion."
" 100 billion? How much is Feng Yue per kilo, exactly?" Xu Mu said into the phone.
"She's your woman, of course she's expensive. If you don't pay, we'll just kill her."
"Oh. Then kill her," Xu Mu replied.
"…What?"
"I said kill her."
And with that, he hung up.
Whoever that was had to be brain-damaged—threatening him with Feng Yue?
If she'd been kidnapped, what did that have to do with him?
Did they really think he was still the old villain Xu Mu, her loyal lapdog?
"Isn't that a bit cold?" Ye Tong whispered. "I mean… that woman does sound pitiful."
Xu Mu paused, then unlocked his phone and logged into the cloud server.
Ye Tong's words reminded him—Meng Wanyue had once hidden a bug under Feng Yue's sofa.
Meng Wanyue had said its battery could last a week. Maybe it still had power.
He checked the device's status—still active.
So he replayed the recording from that morning backward. If the kidnappers had just called, the capture must have been recent.
Rewinding to the previous night, the truth surfaced.
Exactly as he'd expected — Lin Yan again.
The incident had wrecked Lin Yan's finances; now he was enraged.
Unable to crush the Xu family through business, he was turning to violence.
"We should call the police," Ye Tong urged.
"No. If we report it, they'll investigate the illegal wiretap we installed in her private property."
Xu Mu shook his head and pinched her cheek with a smile.
"Leave this to me."
"Alright," she said softly—
and text floated above her head: [Favorability +10].
Xu Mu stopped thinking about Feng Yue and opened the system's lottery interface.
He'd saved up 3,000 Fate Points, enough for three ten-draw spins.
The wheel began to spin; rewards flickered one after another.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained 10 Attribute Points]
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained 20 Cultivation Points]
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained 30 Cultivation Points]
…and so on.
All low-tier drops. Xu Mu sighed — so much for his "lucky timing."
Eleven draws and not a single good hit. Unbelievably unlucky.
He started the second round.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained 20 Cultivation Points]
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained Grade-1 Beauty Pill]
"A beauty pill? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?" he muttered.
Ye Tong and Ye Yu were already stunning — none of them needed help.
And a mere Grade 1 pill was hardly impressive.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained Yellow-Rank Technique: Mountain-Breaking Palm]
Xu Mu shook his head. He'd grown picky — a Yellow-Rank technique was barely worth a slot.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained Yellow-Rank Heart Method: Mountain-Breaking Palm Manual]
"What the—again?" He stared blankly. The system had actually rolled a duplicate. What a rip-off.
Everything else was junk. He decided to pause and review his loot before continuing.
After washing up, he went downstairs and opened his storage space.
He intended to take out the Beauty Pill — but noticed something new inside:
a rusted bronze slab, about the size of a textbook, covered in tiny script. The title read Mountain-Breaking Palm.
"I get it!" His eyes lit up.
Obtaining a technique and obtaining its heart method were different.
The former let him practice it himself; the latter was a teaching manual he could gift to others.
"Now that's useful."
A Yellow-Rank manual might be low for him, but for many hidden clans it was a treasure.
He put the bronze tablet back and examined the Beauty Pill.
According to its description, the Grade-1 pill balanced hormones, beautified skin, and cured acne —
a universal problem for young people everywhere.
Even after the acne faded, scars and pockmarks often remained.
He licked the pill lightly and, using his Pharmaceutical Mastery, analyzed its ingredients.
No rare materials — just common Chinese herbs!
That meant his family's pharmaceutical company could mass-produce it.
A smile crept across his face. This pill could be a future hit.
Feeling better, he started the final ten-draw on the living-room sofa.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained 20 Attribute Points]
…
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained Storage Expansion]
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained 30 Cultivation Points]
…
[Ding! Congratulations, Host obtained Lost Long Sword]
Nothing special again, but at least a few useful items.
He opened his inventory and found his storage space had expanded — now as large as three refrigerators.
Big enough to store a bicycle or even a motorbike easily.
He pulled out the pure-black long sword — its crossguard shaped like demon horns, quite intimidating.
He tapped the blade with a finger; the metal gave a deep note, but he couldn't identify the material.
Cool as it looked, it was basically a display piece — his Desert Eagle was far more practical right now.
This session had yielded 350 Cultivation Points and 160 Attribute Points.
Lately, he'd noticed he was getting far more cultivation than attribute points.
Without hesitation, he dumped all the cultivation points into his body.
Warm energy surged through his meridians — and then text appeared before his eyes:
[Congratulations, Host has entered the Early Stage of the Gang Qi Realm.]
Xu Mu clenched his fists, a spark of light in his eyes. Finally — he'd reached the Gang Qi Realm.
In the martial world, that made him a true expert.
The main difference between Gang Qi and Hidden Force was that Gang Qi could be projected outward.
It was essentially Internal Energy — a refined, externalized Qi.
Where Internal Force and Hidden Force required physical contact, Gang Qi could strike from a distance.
After investing the attribute points too, his body felt stronger still.
A fight was coming — he could feel it.
Lin Yan was furious, and if the Feng Yue kidnapping didn't work, he might target the people around him next—
Ye Tong, Ye Yu, and the others.