As soon as they met, the leader of Puntland Guard said very respectfully, “Hello, Sir. My name is Sheck. I’m the leader of Puntland Guard...”The five-star general from Ten Thousand Armies had a blank expression on his face as he said, “I don’t care who you are. I just want to know what is your ulterior motive since you, as a pirate, actually dared to take the initiative to ask to meet up with us?”Sheck hurriedly said, “The leaders of the other pirate organization and I myself know of Ten Thousand Armies’ reputation and prestige. We have the utmost respect for Ten Thousand Armies, and we also welcome Ten Thousand Armies to the Gulf of Aden. The reason why we would like to meet with Your Excellency is because we want to have a friendly negotiation with Ten Thousand Armies to determine if both of our sides can coexist peacefully in the Gulf of Aden in the future...”The five-star general said coldly, “Ten Thousand Armies will not cooperate with pirate organizations like yours in any
When Sheck brought this news back to the Gulf of Aden, the pirate organizations in the Gulf of Aden were all completely relieved. They also felt as if they had gotten a new lease of life.What they were initially most afraid of was that Ten Thousand Armies was going to drive them to extinction and cut off all of their financial routes completely. However, what they did not expect was that Ten Thousand Armies did not intend to monopolize the armed escort business in the entire Gulf of Arden. This way, there would be ample room for their survival.Everyone quickly came to two consensuses with great joy. The first one was that all speedboats should rest, and no one should go out to sea to hijack any merchant ships before Ten Thousand Armies’ armed escort website went online so as to avoid offending Ten Thousand Armies. Secondly, after Ten Thousand Armies’ armed escort website was launched, the armed escort website should be used strictly as an action guide, and no one would be allow
Most of these people were here for the Apothecary Restoration Pill.As the originator of all this, Charlie had not paid any attention to this matter at this time.What he was truly concerned about was the auction for the Rejuvenating Pill that would be held soon.It could be seen from the relevant Ten Thousand Armies’ intelligence network that the Rejuvenating Pill already had a certain influence amongst the top European and American crowds. Although it was not as well-known as the Apothecary Restoration Pill, to those top powerful people, it was much more significant compared to the Apothecary Restoration Pill.Now, many of the top powerful people in Europe and the United States were also trying their best to inquire about the Rejuvenating Pill, but they could not find any substantial clues at all because the Rejuvenating Pill was simply too mysterious. At this time, Charlie was still confirming all the details with Isaac and Jasmine before the official launch of the promotion
Jasmine heard Charlie saying that the promotion and registration for the Rejuvenating Pill auction would be launched tomorrow, so she hurriedly said to Charlie, “Master Wade, I have selected three candidate auctioneers for the auction. Would you like to take a look at them and screen through them first?”Charlie nodded and smiled as he said, “Okay. The auctioneer is still very important to the auction and so, the auctioneer must be chosen carefully.”Jasmine hastily took out her cell phone and pulled out several videos from her album as she played them to Charlie one by one, explaining as she went along, “Master Wade, these three auctioneers are all very senior auctioneers from Vintage Deluxe. Although their qualifications and experience are not as good as those of Christie’s or Sotheby’s, they are definitely the best in Aurous Hill.”Charlie patiently watched the three videos shown by Jasmine. Out of the three candidate auctioneers, there were two women and one man who were all in
The order required Roger to take out ten boxes of the Apothecary Restoration Pill to be handed over to the special envoy sent by the White House to be kept in strict custody with the nuclear bomb cipher box in the name of the highest-level strategic supplies.This suddenly placed Roger in an extremely difficult situation.Smith had brought back a total of twenty boxes of the Apothecary Restoration Pill, which would be one hundred and forty pills in total.Four boxes had been kept aside for Smith’s son, Jimmy, and aside from being used for the reverse engineering research and development, the rest of the pills were being distributed amongst the four patients that the White House had previously crammed in.To begin with, they were already stretching themselves to the limit.Now, the special envoy was even going to take away ten boxes to be kept as strategic supplies. So, that would mean that Roger and the others would have almost nothing left on hand.Roger could not help but compl
Shunpei, whom they had high hopes for, was not in a better situation at the moment.After settling down temporarily in Aurous Hill, he had been collecting environmental specimens in Aurous Hill for the past two days. Air, soil, floating dust, and water sources had all become the objects of his research.He even used some river water, lake water, tap water, and even spring water from the mountain in Aurous Hill and took turns to conduct various research in the villa.However, even after he had researched continuously, he began to feel more and more that not only was there nothing outstanding about the environment in Aurous Hill, but it was not even as good as the environment in Washington as a whole.The rest of the members of his team also felt the same way. Even though Aurous Hill was one of the ancient capitals in Oskia, the environment here was really not very good.Although the air pollution was not so serious, the air quality was not that good either. Moreover, it had a typ
“Okay.” Charlie instructed, “You should also be more careful. It would be best for you to stay in The Apothecary Pharmaceutical and not go anywhere for the time being.”Liam hurriedly said, “Yes, Master Wade!” ***Early the next morning, Shunpei dressed himself up as a morning jogger and ran all the way from his residence to The Apothecary Pharmaceutical.As he was on his way to The Apothecary Pharmaceutical, Jasmine announced to the public that Vintage Deluxe would be holding an auction in Aurous Hill in twenty days. She also announced information on the collections that would be auctioned at the auction.In addition to some famous calligraphy and paintings as well as antique porcelain, there would also be an item called the ‘Rejuvenating Pill’.Vintage Deluxe did not explain much about the ‘Rejuvenating Pill’, only introducing it as an ancient Oskian medicine with excellent medicinal effects. When this news came out, it did not cause any ripples in Aurous Hill and domestical
The registration threshold for Vintage Deluxe was ten billion dollars, which converted roughly to about 1.6 billion US dollars.It might sound like a lot, but in reality, just from the data that could be counted, there were nearly three thousand wealthy people in the world who had assets exceeding this amount.In addition, there was no telling how many invisible tycoons there were, ones who had never announced their assets to the public. Therefore, Charlie was not surprised that five hundred people had registered in two hours.However, it was rare for Elaine and Jacob, who were at home, to start to get angry when they saw the news of this auction.When Elaine saw the news feed on her cell phone, she basically did not think before she blurted out and cursed, “I’m afraid that Vintage Deluxe is really stupid! What kind of sh*tty auction is being held that a threshold of ten billion dollars is required for the registration?! Isn’t this simply bullsh*t? Who would dare to be so arrogan
Elaine may have led a life as if she was above the rules, but beneath that tough exterior lay crippling insecurities and a horrific inferiority complex.She was always afraid of being belittled—but more than that, of being ostracized and betrayed.Over the years, the greatest source of her complexes could all be traced back to Matilda.After all, Matilda had been a star back in their school days. Because Elaine was a close friend of hers, many boys would get chummy with Elaine, but only because they were interested in Matilda.Being from a poor farmer's family, Elaine had been scorned plenty and therefore felt exceedingly inferior around Matilda.It was from that sense of inferiority that Elaine had inadvertently developed a one-sided rivalry against Matilda, and she believed her greatest triumph over Matilda in this life was the moment she had stolen Jacob from her.However, while Elaine presumed that she could hold that victory over Matilda's head, Lady Wilson had soured that v
Moreover, given Elaine's ridiculous temper, Jacob knew she would definitely go overboard and destroy him.He wouldn't even have a place to live at that point, and it would really be game over if she held a grudge and stormed the Calligraphy and Painting Association!Under such circumstances, he couldn't ask for a divorce—hell, he might even refuse a divorce if Elaine asked for one!However, that was when Elaine laughed coldly. "Oh, my… You're really not going to divorce me?""Come on—how long were we married?" Jacob quickly reasoned. "Getting divorced at our age? People would laugh at us."Elaine scoffed. "Now I'm curious… Matilda's quite old too, and she's a divorcee marrying again. Won't people laugh at her?""Technically, she's a widow—"Jacob blurted out, but soon turned pale, tensing up again not a second after he had just calmed down, asking gingerly, "W-Why would you suddenly mention her?'Elaine stopped pretending right then and snapped, "It's actually impressive that y
Horrified, Jacob promptly grasped the steering wheel and brought the Cullinan back under control while not hesitating to snap, "Are you crazy?! We're on the highway—that could have killed the both of us!"However, Elaine ignored him and seized the moment to open the armrest box, pulling out the large white envelope.As she opened it, she muttered, "So, it really was a wedding invitation… You really are a terrible friend, Jacob Wilson, hiding a wedding invitation like this! What's the point? Just look at that nervous face of yours—would I suspect you of having an affair with the bride-to-be?"She flipped open the card and was experienced enough to check the names first while disregarding the usual preamble. She wouldn't care about the venue or the time either, focusing solely on the professor who had somehow made Jacob very nervous.That was how Elaine found the names in less than a second: Yolden Hart and Matilda Hall.Matilda?!The name could well be knives stabbing Elaine in th
Jacob's brain blanked out, leaving only a dull hum as soon as Walker mentioned 'Professor Hall'.Already feeling nervous in the first place, he quickly said, "Okay, okay—I got it. Anyway, I'm hanging up if there's nothing else!"With that, he promptly pressed the button to hang up.Nonetheless, Elaine was soon asking in curiosity, "Who's Professor Hall?"If Jacob had any semblance of composure, he would have said 'a colleague at Senior University' as if it was perfectly natural, and the matter would have been forgotten.But the reality was that he didn't—in fact, he was the champion when it came to dropping the ball as a casual question from Elaine left him sweating all over his brow.Even as he slid nervous glances at her face, he stammered uncontrollably, "N-Nobody…"Elaine promptly noticed his strange reaction and frowned. "I'm talking about Professor Hall. What do you mean, nobody? Who are they? And what's this about an invitation? Inviting you for what?"Seeing that he was
Jacob had really had too much to drink and couldn't remember the later parts of what had happened last night—even how he had gotten home was a blur.Naturally, he also forgot that Walker had brought Matilda's wedding invitation, and therefore didn't hesitate to answer the in-car answer button.Over the phone, Walker was positively fawning as he asked, "Mr. Wilson? It's Walker. Why didn't you come in today? Had too much to drink last night?""Uh-huh," Jacob grunted, lethargic. "I did—my head still hurts now… Anyway, what's up? Trouble at the association?""No, of course not," Walker quickly said. "I was just worried you're still hungover, so I called to ask. If you need a driver or anything, you just need to ask!"Then, before Jacob could answer, he continued, "By the way, my wife is somewhat knowledgable in Oskian medicine, and she has recipes for brews that cure hangovers and nourish the liver. I'm sure you'll need the latter since you're always drinking at social events, so I as
Fortunately, Elaine and Jacob's bickering never escalated.Even though Elaine was winning, Jacob found it tolerable.After Jacob finished his lunch and cleaned up, he never looked up as he said, "Charlie sent a text, saying Claire's flight would touch down earlier at three. We will leave at two."Elaine grumbled. "Why leave so early? She's coming back from abroad, and there'd be checkpoints she has to clear—she'd be lucky if she could leave by half past three. I'm sleeping a few winks now, and we'll leave at half past two."As she left the dining room, she didn't even look back as she said, "Clean up for me too."Jacob had a million complaints but said nothing as he kept his head down, throwing Elaine's lunchbox in the trash can as well.With Elaine gone, he sat on the couch as her hangover slowly cleared while his mood soured with the lack of alcohol.In the end, the pleasure of being fawned over at the Diamond Room was but temporary—the pain of his beloved leaving with someone
Vera kept her plan to investigate the identity of the abbess deep in her mind and told Charlie nothing.Instead, she smiled as she said, "It seems that it's both yours and Ms. Ito's good fortune that she has attained enlightenment. You've never had anyone who could attain enlightenment and master Reiki at the same time, so Ms. Ito will definitely be a great help to you in the future."Charlie chuckled and said calmly, "I'm not hoping for her to help. I'm simply happy for her with her enlightenment and excited to have another comrade in my solo ventures into the dark forests."Vera nodded in understanding, and she murmured emotionally, "I've lived for so long, and it's only when I opened my heart to you that I felt that sensation you described."There was a flicker of wistfulness in her eyes.She really did not expect to attain enlightenment before meeting Charlie.Years ago, she thought that she would eventually avenge her father.Now, she no longer hoped to murder Fleur Griffi
Vera was inwardly disappointed to hear that Claire was returning.That meant there were fewer chances of Charlie visiting the Scarlet Pinnacle Manor, as were her chances of seeing him again.Still, she didn't let it show, instead asking casually, "How are things at Champs Elys? Are the warriors improving at a rate to your satisfaction?""Well, most of everyone's improvement is within expectations…" Charlie explained, just as he remembered a certain someone. "By the way, there's something I haven't told you yet. Are you perhaps acquainted with the name Ito Nanako?""Yes," Vera smiled. "The Japanese lady who was with you. What about her?""She attained enlightenment days ago.""Enlightenment?" Vera did a double take and soon pressed, "Enlightenment in what sense? Essential Qi or Reiki?"After all, the former was the path to enlightenment in martial arts, while the latter meant enlightenment in cultivation.But despite the distinction between both domains, enlightenment was a comm
While Charlie had long since gotten used to Elaine and Jacob's bizarre marriage, being near the heart of the storm still took a toll on his senses—to the point that he felt physically sick.Leaving right away was therefore his best solution.Once he left, however, he realized he didn't have anywhere to go. Champs Elys was quite far, and it would take a lot of time.As he started to feel bored stiff, he remembered Vera for some reason and called her.Once Vera answered, she quickly asked in curiosity, "To what do I owe the pleasure? Lunch, perhaps?"Charlie chuckled. "Since you've put it that way… I haven't eaten either, so lunch it is!"Vera giggled. "Come over to my place, then. It's cold outside, and I was just lighting up a hot pot. I'll have Madam Marilyn prepare an additional portion.""Okay!" Charlie agreed to it without hesitation. "I can return her car too. Just wait, I'll be right there!"Once he hung up, he got on the Rolls Roycs he had borrowed from Scarlet Pinnacl