Chapter 1079: Chapter 30: Demon Monarch of a Thousand Faces and the Book of a Thousand Faces
The way capital operates has nothing to do with morality at all.
Take the future Federation’s insurance industry, for example, they will stop at nothing to earn profits. They boast extravagantly to get you to buy insurance, but when you’re actually hospitalized, they are reluctant to pay a penny, rejecting claims for all sorts of reasons. They even have specialized departments for rejecting claims, making it a part of employee performance.
Even if the CEO is executed in the street, it won’t reign in their practices one bit.
Although Tianmen City is economically prosperous, its internal economic model is vastly different from other Pacific Free Trade Ports.
Before the establishment of the new government, light and heavy industries here were monopolized by Qianjin Church and the Machine Manufacturing Bureau, and the main consumers were not the local populace but the naval and army forces under Xu Ziwei.
Even though the new government has been established and light and heavy industries are gradually becoming market-oriented, with the port’s throughput and trade volume increasing annually, the foundation hasn’t changed much.
Simply put, the largest cake is held by the state.
Next are those “new elites” who rose with the President.
For example, the Shen Family and the Cheng Family.
They were brave enough to eat crabs back then, so of course, they have a share of the cake now.
This is quite different from the national situation of the Federation.
Finally, it’s the batch of agents sent by the Chamber of Commerce.
Under a tacit mutual agreement among the upper echelons of both sides, they consume cakes that others dare not or don’t know how to eat.
For instance, Mu Yuming, when he first returned, he didn’t intend to engage in real estate, and he wasn’t an agent for the Chamber of Commerce either.
It was just due to a series of coincidences that he achieved his current success.
If the Shen Family hadn’t collapsed, he wouldn’t have secured so much land nor afford the current villa.
When those disgruntled Chamber of Commerce members reluctantly started researching the Tianmen market, they found that all the cake had been divided.
There was no large cake left to eat, and the small cake wasn’t enough to fill the gaps in their teeth—everyone here isn’t short of money, you can’t possibly have me selling sweet potatoes on the streets.
Innovation is, of course, possible, but isn’t that a hassle?
Real capitalists only need to undercut their peers; why go through the hassle of starting a business?
So who is the easiest to deal with?
That would, of course, be their fellow insiders!
Looking at the interrogation records in Yan Yu’an’s hand, Wang Yunxiao remained silent for a long time.
“So this Yang Jian took Incense Hall’s armed team to Tianmen, with the real intention of finding some unwarranted charges to eliminate other families’ agents and replace them with their own agents?”
The real commercial war is surprisingly blunt and unpretentious.
“That’s basically the case. But what I’m more concerned about is this—”
Yan Yu’an placed a notebook familiar to Wang Yunxiao on the table.
“I remember you also have one?”
Wang Yunxiao took out his notebook and placed it beside it. The two were exactly alike.
But they were not the same book.
Wang Yunxiao’s notebook was seized from a Mutant Demon this time last year. That demon was deeply connected to the case of Li Mumu’s return ship passenger murders.
He can confirm that his notebook and Li Mumu’s notebook are the same one, to be precise, the same one from different timelines.
Rather than having a QQ chat feature, it might as well be a cloud document sharing.
Uesugi Risa’s notebook didn’t have this function.
Speaking of which, there were only three such notebooks at that time, a singleton doesn’t prove the rule. Wang Yunxiao didn’t dare say his judgment was entirely correct.
Now that there are more and more of these things… it’s no longer important whether it’s proved or not.
“A mass-produced magic prop, according to their confession, this thing is called the Book of Infinite Changes. By the way, have you heard of the title “Demon Monarch of Infinite Changes”?
“Whose side is that?”
“Doesn’t matter whose side it is.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I also haven’t heard of such a figure in Hell before, so it might be…”
Yan Yu’an gave Wang Yunxiao a knowing look.
“From the future era?”
That there was no such figure before doesn’t mean there will be none in the future.
And Wang Yunxiao has seen such examples.
“Like Annihilation, a monster that can reverse the timeline?”
There’s already an Overlord of Billion Flesh, so having a Demon Monarch of Infinite Changes doesn’t seem that unacceptable.
“We can’t rule out the possibility, after all, we’ve never seen something like this before. How should I put it about this Demon Monarch of Infinite Changes, he seems to really enjoy impersonating ancient sages, like Mimir, Moses, Merlin, stuff like that, and then pretending to be the legendary Mimir’s Book, Moses’s Book, Merlin’s Notes… What does your book claim to be?”
“What claim? It doesn’t claim anything.”
Wang Yunxiao shrugged: “I don’t have the time to chat with it. If it misbehaves, I just toss it into the toilet to let it reflect deeply.”
“Alright then…”
Yan Yu’an was momentarily speechless.
“How did they come by this notebook? How did they know its real name is the Book of Infinite Changes?”
“There is an illegal underground organization over at Cypher called the Apocalypse Sect.”
Yan Yu’an explained: “The sect itself doesn’t have much to say for itself, not much different from other heretical sects, except that their mid-level clergy all have a copy of the Book of Infinite Changes, from which they gain a lot of advantages. Because they were eating too much and had no restraint, they ultimately drew the attention of the Chamber of Commerce.”
“These notebooks were seized as spoils from those charlatans, they knew there were bound to be side effects, but since the thing was just so handy, they used it anyway.”
To be fair, it is indeed quite handy.
Ordinarily, it can serve as an intelligent search engine, look up anything you want.
When in danger, it can lend strength, and the effects are substantial and satisfying, the side effects not too apparent, perfectly acceptable.
As for whether there will be some severe consequences in the long run…
If trouble does arise, you might not even see tomorrow’s sun, who’s got time to worry about long-term implications?
This marketing style obviously isn’t the modus operandi of those ancient demon relics.
Tempting you to sign contracts, playing word games, trading souls for power…
That’s basically how ancient demons operate.
After hearing Yan Yu’an’s introduction, a familiar yet unfamiliar term involuntarily appeared in Wang Yunxiao’s mind.
Android.
Forget the Book of Infinite Changes, you might as well call it the Book of Android.
This is clearly not something people of ancient times could handle adeptly.
According to the interrogation records, they brought two copies of the Book of Infinite Changes to Tianmen this time.
One is right in front of Wang Yunxiao, the other is in Yang Jian’s hand.
These people confessed their crimes truthfully, including the case of Li Donglai and another agent’s family being murdered, which they did.
To eliminate evidence of their crimes, they used a method Wang Yunxiao had never heard of—Black Magic.
This is also the reason why Yu Tongxuan found no evidence of other perpetrators at the crime scene. They had unknowingly been cursed before even returning home.