Chapter 1868 - 959: nb_3

This was the first time in his life that he discovered a simple signing pen could actually feel this heavy.

Just picking it up was enough to make his fingers start spasming.

After he signed the contract in front of everyone, his whole body went completely numb.

His face looked like dead ash.

"Really not going to make a move?"

Lou Feng lowered his head to look at the Spirit Contract in his hand, let out a cold laugh: "Give you a chance and you still can't use it… I was the one thinking too much. You lot—how would you ever have the guts to collude with an Evil Cult anyway?"

Xu Lingwei squeezed the words out from between his teeth: "Since that's the case, then stop talking nonsense!"

"Haha, true, that was my slip of the tongue, don't hold it against me, Brother Xu."

Lou Feng laughed heartily, put away the Spirit Contract, and patted Xu Lingwei's shoulder: "Relax, when it comes to how to tell an Evil Cult, I've got experience… to be blunt, I can tell who's an Evil Cult at a single glance!

Since we're all here today anyway, I might as well share some insights with everyone."

Lou Feng paused, and the palm pressing on Xu Lingwei's shoulder suddenly felt like an iron clamp, almost crushing his shoulder. The smile on his face vanished.

On that sheet of pale-white complexion, uncontrollable malice and mania surged like a raging tide, erupting outward:

"I'm fucking telling you, telling every last one of you——"

Lou Feng's gaze swept over each twitching face. He looked into their eyes and at their hateful expressions, and announced, indifferent:

"From now on, whoever dares target the Fly King, that person is an Evil Cult!

Whoever dares target the Coast, that person is Lu Changsheng's lapdog!

——All clear?!"

No one answered.

There was no need for an answer.

Lou Feng didn't even bother to glance at Xu Lingwei again. He flicked his sleeve, took everyone with him, and turned to leave.

Leaving behind a complete wreck.

Xu Lingwei stayed silent, staring at the now empty courtyard. After a long time, he closed his eyes.

From beginning to end, he clenched his teeth, suppressing the urge to roar and bellow.

He did not utter a single word.

.

.

Voices arguing from all sides, feathers and chicken shit all over the floor.

Once things get strung together, the end result is destined to be a complete mess.

Unlike the clean-cut win-or-lose between the Lou Family and the Xu Family, the tug-of-war between East City and Hai Province dragged on endlessly, sticky and disgusting.

But in the end, the outcome was something everyone already saw clearly from the start. It was nothing but paying compensation—only the amount differed.

As for the accusations related to an Evil Cult, those were doomed to fizzle out.

No matter how useless or incompetent it was, East City was still one of the Four-direction City. The Federation would never allow East City to be branded with that kind of label. If things really blew up, Hai Province would be the one to suffer.

So they could only snatch whatever easy gains first.

But that didn't mean Central City would keep playing deaf and dumb on this matter… on the contrary, the Heavenly Governor Saints showed a rare level of swift, ruthless, and strict attitude toward this mess.

They didn't even waste a moment feeling sad about East City's disastrous losses and public humiliation. The ones who rushed to the scene immediately were the Federal Internal Revenue Service!

Or to put it in a more common, easier term.

——The Federal National Tax Bureau!

In just two short days, a supervisory inspection team had already stationed itself in East City and started working, with their sights set straight on a charge that was deadly serious in the Federation even for Heavenly People.

Tax evasion and tax fraud!

In the Federation, only two things are absolutely inescapable: death and taxes… and in fact, the two are practically the same thing, because once a person dies, eight or nine parts of the spiritual matter that dissipates gets taken away by the Heavenly Governor's Law.

For any Central City, anything else might be negotiable, but the spiritual tax is the one thing that never budges an inch—when Hai Province suffered the disaster of Sea-burning Day, even with Xu Chaoxian throwing away his pride, running to Central City to roll and wail on the ground, in the end they only got a limited reduction.

The spiritual tax had two main components. One was the per-capita tax calculated based on permanent population, and the other was an operational tax directly levied on Chosen One institutions and organizations.

The most important part among these targeted all Heavenly People.

Even though Heavenly People enjoyed privileges and had exalted status, the fixed annual spiritual tax was absolutely unavoidable!

Of course, for any Heavenly Person, that kind of money barely counted as anything.

Take a spiritual-industry giant like the Lou Family, a Federation tax pioneer—they've already paid their taxes up to twenty years in advance, paid at the maximum full rate with not a single discount, not even using any of the typical tax-avoidance tricks—so long as the Lou Family maintained this stance, the Federation would turn a blind eye if they occasionally strayed or slipped.

By the same token, this applied to the Xu Family too, though they were stingier; even paying in full, they lagged slightly behind the Lou Family.

The problem East City had to face was precisely an issue with the spiritual tax.

As everyone knew, for the last two years, the Heavenly People roster East City submitted didn't have Han Hui's name on it at all!

But in reality, their support and assistance to Han Hui had never been the least bit stingy. Which is to say, East City had been deliberately underreporting its Heavenly People count to Central City, making its paid spiritual tax inconsistent with reality—there was a major discrepancy!

To be fair, this wasn't a huge deal. They were Heavenly People, after all, and the Federation would usually go easy, even offering tax exemptions and incentive clauses for newly emerged Heavenly People.

Under normal circumstances, this would barely amount to "three cups of penalty wine."

But unfortunately, this time Central City was determined to grab this little handle and punish them at the maximum level!

As a result, the Governor—who hadn't even meddled with this shitty business—was directly subjected to investigation for "failing to report despite knowing," sobbing as he boarded the Flying Airship for a seven-day rehab tour at a Central City sanatorium…

Before leaving, he kept cursing, "Han Hui ruined me, Han Hui ruined me."

Everyone knew this wasn't really Han Hui's fault—or at least not entirely—after all, wasn't Han Hui working for "the sect" too?

But there was nothing to be done. Someone had to take the blame.

Up top, it was the Governor; down below, it could only be Han Hui.

After playing dead for so long, Central City finally made its stance public.

Time and again, it had been East City unilaterally making trouble, provoking internal strife and violent clashes… utterly over the line!

Sure, this kind of shitty thing was nothing rare among Central Cities, and over the last century, the Four-direction City's bloodsucking and harvesting of other regions had practically been an open secret. But the key issue was: how the fuck could you just put all this crap out in the open like that?

That's not how things are done!

If every Central City behaved like you bugs, how would the Federation ever become great again?

Do you seriously still expect Central City to back you now?

Even if East City swore up and down that the Evil Cult had nothing to do with it, and even if people genuinely believed they wouldn't be that stupid, facts were facts, and two separate issues had been tangled together, making everyone look bad and leaving no graceful exit.

On the surface, they might not fine East City too harshly, but behind the scenes, they'd have the National Tax Bureau give East City a couple of slaps in the face.

And under repeated blows like this, Mr. Han finally met the last "straw" that "broke" the camel's back.

A letter from Hai Province.

Personally sent by Ji Jue, the Coast's chairman who had "barely recovered enough to move" but was still "gravely injured," delivered to Mr. Han via Desert Market channels.

After reading it, Han Hui fell into silence, not speaking for a long time.

"What is it?"

Zhu Lu, waiting at his side for instructions, couldn't hold back anymore. After hesitating for a long while, he finally craned his neck to look at the desk… there was only a single sheet of stationery.

And even on that sheet, only two letters were written.

"nb?"

Zhu Lu lowered his head and read in confusion, unable to make sense of what that dog Ji Jue meant—was he really sending sarcasm to mock them at a time like this?

Wouldn't that be just…

Expressionless, Han Hui reached out and rotated the letter one hundred and eighty degrees.

And just like that, the characters transformed.

[qu]!

Zhu Lu's face spasmed, twisting into a grim, dark scowl. Furious beyond measure, he was about to speak when a hoarse voice sounded from behind the desk.

A cough he could no longer suppress, and laughter that broke apart completely.

"Never thought that one day, I, Han, would bring humiliation upon myself, reduced to such a wretched creature, haha, hahaha… haha…"

The stony fissures on his face spread uncontrollably, flaking and collapsing, turning into flying Dust, nearly beyond his control.

Under anger and humiliation like never before, he barely maintained his calm. He opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but his throat seized, and his vision went black.

The only thing he could still see was that streak of scarlet spilled across the desk and the letter.

Blood.

"Mr. Han? Mr. Han!"

In the office, panicked shouts rang out: "Someone, get someone in here, now!!!"