Chapter 1706 - 876: I Make the Rules

Dense applause erupted, long and unending, rolling on and on.

In the thunderous clapping and cheering, every face that had been pale just now flushed red with excitement, like they were genuinely shocked and impressed by the insane performance this one drone was putting on.

Whether it was the open, official reporters or the various representatives who came pretending to be businessmen in the shadows, under Ling Shuo's gaze, all of them were genuinely offering praise to the birth of this epoch-making product.

They didn't even have time to reply to the flood of messages popping up on their phones or the screen full of violently scrolling question marks.

No time at all.

By the time the venue had already ridden out the storm, those spectators who weren't here in person had only just managed to let bewilderment surface on their foreheads.

Heads down, staring at the urgent bulletins in their hands.

Totally dumbfounded.

What do you mean Ji Jue really is launching a new product?

What do you mean there's something off about this launch event?

Wait, what the hell do you mean Ji Jue has fucking started bombing the Iron Hook District? And also, you fucking explain to me right now, what does it mean that Ji Jue took missiles and blasted the entire Iron Hook District into ash?!

Literal meaning?

No, are you even speaking Federation language, you fuck?

Spit it the fuck out!

Even the dense applause couldn't drown out the ringing phones that started going off all over the venue, one after another, and the Destruction of the Iron Hook District had already spread across the entire Endless Sea in just five minutes!

Very soon, on-site photos and video clips had already been sent out through god knows how many channels, both overt and covert, to every corner of the map—together with an ad for a crow-type drone.

Bro, look at this battery life, look at this autonomy, look at this 4K ultra-HD camera and this brand-new operating system… Place your order now for just 58,800, you won't lose out, you won't get scammed!

By comparison, aside from being forced to take the whole drone bundle shoved in their faces, all everyone's attention had already shifted to the ultra-clear live-control footage that came free with the bundle.

Multi-angle, 3D shooting, vivid, specific, leaving out not a single detail, recording from start to finish the entire Destruction of the Iron Hook District—down to the miserable ends of more than a dozen infamously Fierce ship owners, and even Satria scrambling away, rolling in piss and shit as he abandoned his life's work.

And also: explosions, explosions, and more fucking explosions!

To the point where every face that watched it had that slack, dazed look, almost drooling.

Come on man, sure, you can say art is explosion, but isn't the "art" factor here just a bit too high?

So high it's downright cursed!

Just estimating how much money Ji Jue threw into this was enough to make everyone break out in a cold sweat. But the moment you think about how the Coast in Seven Cities has been around for less than half a year and already stockpiled something this horrifying, that sweat turns into straight-up piss.

Too fucking terrifying, like a full-blown nightmare!

This isn't right!

When Desert Market branches fight each other, it's not supposed to go like this. You're supposed to invite people to dinner, or call a meeting, and then at the start, the middle, or the end, you pull a knife out of nowhere, you fight to the death, and finally you stand on the other guy's corpse, winning gloriously. That's how it's supposed to work!

What do you mean you blew the other side up together with every asset he's ever accumulated in his whole damn life, all turned into ash?!

Only now did everyone finally snap out of the hallucination of rice cookers, electric kettles, fridges, TVs and all those cute little home appliances, and see the ferocious face hidden behind the Coast.

Once the craftsman's mask was stripped off Ji Jue's face, what lay bare was the cold and brutal look unique to an arms dealer—make enough little three-wheeled carts and you really think I survive off your patronage?

The way he switched between these two modes was just too fast, too smooth, leaving everyone staring, dumbstruck.

After swallowing his pride for so long, everyone thought he'd chickened out; they never expected he'd gone full psycho!

Even in the Thousand Islands' lawless zones, there are still rules. To burn an entire Desert Market branch into dust, not a tile left standing, is insane on a whole different level…

Do you really not give a shit about consequences?

When everyone turned back to look toward Desert Market, expecting a Reaction from the leaders, they suddenly realized a problem—did he actually break any rules?

After carefully flipping through every rule Desert Market had, everyone couldn't help seeing their vision go dark as their minds froze.

Nothing!

There has never been a rule that restricts something this outrageous—it's like how a school will ban students from fighting in the bathroom, but won't bother banning them from flying a fighter jet in to bomb the school.

No need for that…

Before this, in hundreds of years and countless internal feuds inside Desert Market, not one branch had ever lost its mind enough to uproot another branch this cleanly, leaving no trace—so there was basically zero precedent.

Besides, even if you really did fly a fighter jet to bomb them, Desert Market would just chalk it up as you being a badass.

That same afternoon, in under three hours, facing Satria's final desperate, hopeful complaint submission, the Desert Gathering Headquarters finally issued its reply.

Still the same, plain and simple, four characters.

[The leader knows].

Just these four words were more than enough to show the leader's attitude.

Besides, even before this, the Seven Cities Wasteland Collection had already formally posted a public notice on Desert Market's homepage, stating they would be taking final measures. The click rate and hype were still rising even now.

The gap between the time the announcement was posted and the final deadline stated in it was exactly three days!

Seventy-two full hours, not a minute more, not a second less!

Seventy-two hours ago, they told you they'd take action; seventy-two hours later, they turned your piece-of-shit Iron Hook District to dust!

Now go ahead and say nobody ever notified you!

As for the innocents?

Come on, Hidden Mist Reef might still have some hired hands or servants on it, but a trash dump like Iron Hook District—where the hell are you going to find anyone "innocent" there?

Did you really think Ji Jue did nothing for three whole days, just sat there checking household registries on the other side? As long as anyone in Iron Hook District could even barely count as innocent, or could be called decent in the slightest, Ji Jue had already transferred them out.

He'd thought it would take a huge effort, but in the end it didn't even take five minutes before a dozen people were already tied up and dragged into the park by Ji Jue.

The goods in Iron Hook District were just too damn pure!

So pure that once Ji Jue started, he didn't have the slightest scruple. Wiping this kind of human trash and waste completely off the face of the world basically counted as doing good deeds and accumulating virtue.

Sure, it's a bit of a pity and a waste that they don't get the chance to enter the park, change their faces, and become new people, but life's never smooth, and there's really nothing to be done.

Just like that, amid countless people's shock, fear, sighs, or mockery, the Destruction of Iron Hook District became a foregone conclusion.

It didn't even last out the day; it vanished straight off the Desert Market registration rolls.

Along with Satria's local decision-maker privileges.

From now on, Iron Hook District and that guy were both going to be a joke, a glaring scarlet cautionary tale, a specimen and a stepping stone, tasked with hanging themselves amid the waves between the Thousand Islands, using their own humiliation and miserable end as a warning to all who came after.

However arrogant and cocky they'd been under East City's push before, that's how ridiculous they looked now.

And East City got dragged down with them.

The unexpected chain Reaction began right there!

Like taking a club full on to the face, your vision going black in waves.

East City's momentum, which had been steadily expanding in the western Endless Sea, took a heavy blow together with Iron Hook District's disappearance… and, just like every game that manipulates public opinion, they got hit by an unforeseen backlash.

"Hey, Mr. Meng, there's really nothing I can do, I've gotta give my guys an explanation too… Dinner? Nah, nah, I'm pretty busy lately, my wife's about to give birth, gotta go!"

"Sorry, the number you have dialed has been switched off."

"Hello? East City? Please stop calling, I'm afraid Mr. Ji will get the wrong idea."

"Meng, what exactly did you promise at the start? I worked for Mr. Han all this time, and this is what I get in the end?! And now you want me to take the fall? Do you have any idea that if I keep holding out, the Seven Cities' missiles will be on my damn head tomorrow?"

"Chao Li, you've got the face to call me? You gonna cover my lost deposits?"

"Fuck off!"

The calls that actually connected were pitifully few; on the other end it was either evasion or a stream of curses, and the calls that didn't go through were the majority.

In barely a week, before Meng Fengzuo had even met Ji Jue, he'd already run into a setback like nothing he'd ever seen.

Not only had the Heaven and Earth Net he'd laid over Iron Hook District turned into a joke, with the hidden manpower there taking massive losses, but East City's reputation in the West Sea was about to end up at the same table as Iron Hook District and Hidden Mist Reef.

The authority and influence that hadn't even been established yet could basically be said to have completely vanished.

After all, everyone could see perfectly clearly: you people in East City went to all this trouble, pulled every trick in the book, scrambled up and down, burned through all kinds of connections and channels to try to use the Seven Cities to make a show of power—now Iron Hook District's been blown out of existence by Ji Jue, and you don't even dare fart. Everyone got burned; who the hell still dares trust you?

All of this, Meng Fengzuo could understand.

He'd even long since anticipated the consequences of the plan failing, and had made some preparations.

He just hadn't expected it to be this bad. The Destruction of Iron Hook District itself was almost trivial; what really mattered was that East City—no, Mr. Han's promises and prestige—hadn't even had time to be fulfilled before they turned into this mess.

From now on, their credit was in the red.

Worse yet, those who'd believed Mr. Han's promises and the rumors, and had taken the initiative to come pledge themselves, all completely vanished once this blew up.

Prestige, if it might as well not exist, is totally useless—but if it really is going to be useful, then it's more important than your life.

A Fierce name, an evil name, a benevolent name, a righteous name—which of these isn't the manifestation of prestige and the display of power?

And now, East City could barely hold up the little red clown nose on its own face.

Can't be helped—who told you to make such a huge fuss out of going at the Seven Cities, only for it all to be fucking pointless?

But here's the problem…

This was what Meng Fengzuo had spent a whole day racking his brains over and still couldn't figure out.

Why!

Why did it get this bad? How did the situation suddenly balloon to this level!

Fuck, I never planned to blow it up this big to begin with!

Even if East City is the oldest, largest, and most outrageously influential of all the Desert Market branches out there today, it still shouldn't be like this.

Where did all these people come from?

When things were going smoothly before, he'd just thought it was the heavens lending a hand, Mr. Han having cultivated his reputation for years, his reach extending everywhere. Once the news broke, countless Desert Market branches moved at the smell of blood, even like welcoming imperial troops, bringing their own provisions. All he had to do was try his hand and the Seven Cities fell into such a predicament—what hardships could there be left in days to come?

But now, with the wind blowing against him, when everyone was shouting for East City to give them an explanation, he started to go numb.

How could there be this many people?!

Struck as if by lightning, Meng Fengzuo wiped his sweat and started carefully going through the lists, gathering intelligence. When the actual tally of all the trade guilds and branches targeting the Seven Cities was finally compiled, he was completely stunned.

Across hundreds of trade guilds, companies, and channels, more than twenty Desert Market branches had all, to some extent or another, stuck their hands in… yet the ones he had contacted weren't even half of that!

And now, people who didn't even know where they'd come from were all popping up, demanding explanations from him, even stirring it all the way up to the Headquarters. The scene was getting uglier by the minute.

Wait, I didn't call you back then, and you still came?!

He started sweating.

He finally realized something was very wrong!