Preaching and Dispelling Doubts

  "How's your mood?" Lain, the dirty old man carrying two bottles of wine, walked up to the observation deck of the rationing center and sat down with his nominal apprentice, Wu Chang.

  Wu Chang had been sitting in this transparent dome for more than four hours, accompanied by nothing but a plate of dried meat and a large wine bottle with one-third of the inferior liquor left inside.

  "I really don't know what you're thinking, having made a small fortune and not even getting some good wine to drink? Here, have this one," said Old Lain as he handed over the bottle of wine in his hand.

  Wu Chang didn't stand on ceremony with him, poured himself a large glass of wine from the bottle and took a big gulp. "Isn't this one of the two most expensive bottles of wine in the store? How did you have the money to buy it?"

  "Hehe, I'm using the money you deposited"

  "Ah?" The shameless old man left Wu Chang speechless. "Don't squander it, 20% of that belongs to someone else's Pai Ke, after all, he was the one who took me down into the mine."

  "Never mind, Pai Ke had already said no earlier. This time you almost lost your life, it's also Pai Ke's fault for leading the wrong way. If you two had walked for another hour and come out from another mining area, maybe there wouldn't have been so much trouble."

  Can't blame him for being angry, he got punched several times in this conflict too. Can't let him take the beating for nothing. He deserves all 16 rainbow coins.

  Layne fell silent for a moment before changing the subject "Pike's matter is a small thing, it can be handled at any time. I came to find you mainly to talk about the identity tattoo, some things are better for you to take charge of..."

  Wu Chang looked at Laine's hesitant expression and said, "Isn't it just 500 gold coins? Can't five rainbow coins cover that?"

  "Heh, theoretically speaking, you should know that 500 gold coins can barely deceive Huang E's administrative system. If you go to other civilized planets in the future, especially the capital star circle, this amount of money won't be enough."

  It wasn't until Laine introduced him that Wu Chang discovered the amount of information contained in his identity tattoo was too great, including the planet, location and time of birth, as well as parents, relatives, and even educational experiences.

  If Wu Chang just wanted to get a legitimate identity in the abandoned mine area, 500 gold coins would be enough, because no one is interested in competing with a dirty old mouse. Everyone on this planet knows that there is no real information in the miner group, and most people have unspeakable secrets.

  To put it bluntly, those security guards had no interest in verifying everyone's real information through the internet.

  However, the unpredictable display of force today, as well as his calm demeanor, and the occasional famous quotes that popped out from time to time, all made Laine and Boss Pan feel astonished. After everyone returned to the supply center with their teams, the two of them held a very long secret meeting in the corner, nobody knew what they were talking about.

  "We discussed it for half a day and thought it's better to give you a real identity. We always feel that you won't survive on Huang E Star for long, there is an aura of a big shot around you. I believe your future path will be broad, but if you want to walk more stably and further, then you need an identity that can withstand scrutiny."

  "In the future, if you enter other civilized planets, even including the capital planet. In those places, primary black market tattoo artists can tell the difference at a glance, and when that happens, you'll be in for a world of trouble"

  He didn't expect that there would be so many twists and turns in the identity tattoo, and after thinking about it for a while, he asked, "How much does the real identity tattoo cost?"

  "Oh my, a real tattoo requires mobilizing a lot of manpower to fabricate genuine paper documents on the planet where you were born and send back all sorts of information to your hometown. In short, they need to turn a non-existent person into a legally recognized individual. All this costs money..."

  "Stop beating around the bush and tell me how much it costs."

  "Alright, I and Boss Pan will help you find a connection, it's estimated that at least 55 Rainbow Coins are needed..."

  "Ah!" The calm and collected Wú Cháng was stunned, 5,500 gold coins?! It's actually that expensive? The rainbow coins he had just obtained were instantly depleted. After deducting the 16 rainbow coins given to Pàikè, Wú Cháng was left with only 9 remaining.

  "So it turns out I'll only have 900 gold coins left in the end? It seems this meal is only worth that much"

  Layne was also a bit embarrassed, "No way, we only have this much ability now, they asked for 60 rainbow coins, and it's still me who begged for half a day to get them to lower the price by 5... If it were in the past, I wouldn't even need to spend any money on something like this..."

  Wu Chang shook his head, stopping the old man's self-blame. "Don't say that, you've helped me a lot. Money comes quickly and goes quickly too. As long as things are done, money spent is just spent. I can still earn more anyway."

  Layne took a sip of his drink and let out a long sigh before saying "Paik also knew about this, so he voluntarily gave up the money..."

  "No way, I must give it. For a coward like Pei Ke to be able to stay by my side all the way to the end is already very difficult, I won't let my friend suffer losses."

  Laine didn't know that Wu Chang's idea was actually very simple. He thought that if he could collect such precious crystals the first time he went down the well, then he would definitely be able to collect even more in the future. Maybe it wouldn't take many days for Wu Chang to save up a large sum of money and leave this planet to go somewhere else to take a good look at the world.

  "Oh, right. Tell me the story of Crystal then? Why would Huang E Star come up with such a strange law? Even if crystal is precious, it's not to that extent, is it?"

  "What do you know?" The old man took a sip of wine, and then picked up a piece of dried meat and threw it into his mouth. "This thing happened fifteen years ago, at that time I had not been on this planet for several years..."

  In the old man's mouth, Wu Chang gradually learned the truth of the matter. It turned out that in that year, a lucky miner excavated the longest crystal in history, which was as long as 43 cm, 4 cm longer than the historical record of Huang E Star, which was 39 cm.

  It's hard to measure the value of a 43cm crystal with money. All we know is that in this universe, the legendary divine warships use crystals of only over 50cm in length, and there are only three divine warships in the entire universe.

  While 43cm crystal can already be used to produce sub-god level warships, there are only over 500 sub-god level warships in the entire universe. Throughout the history of the Maotou Xingquan, there is only one sub-god level warship, which is the Emperor's flagship "Benteng". As for god-level warships, the Maotou Xingquan, a small force, is not even qualified to own one.

  "It goes without saying that with the emergence of this crystal, the Ma Tou Xing circle can add a quasi-divine warship, so the preciousness of this crystal is self-evident."

  The story that followed was too cliché, 21 mine owners and 16 underworld bosses fought for the crystal in a three-day and three-night battle, turning the entire abandoned mine area into a battlefield. The intense fighting even affected Huangyacastle, with flames blocking out the light from the volcanic eruption.

  The battle raged on until the governor's reinforcements took control of the situation, and then something completely unexpected happened. The miner who had lost all his loved ones and friends smashed the crystal to pieces in front of thousands of people, and then jumped off the high tower to his death.

  "That matter was really blown out of proportion, and detailed intelligence even reached the Emperor's face. At that time, it was the most intense moment of the battle between the Hunter Star Circle and the Horse Head Star Circle, and our Horse Head Star Circle had already lost two ordinary star systems."

  "When His Imperial Majesty heard that a battleship of the Agni class had been destroyed because of these greedy mine owners and rascals, he spat out a mouthful of old blood on the spot."

  "The emperor's single mouthful of blood turned into a sea of fresh blood, and more than 10,000 imperial guards rushed into the abandoned mine area, starting a massacre. The 21 mine owners plus 16 underworld bosses including their relatives and subordinates, a total of 30,000 people, were all killed overnight."

  "It wasn't just a clean kill, their corpses were even airdropped into the territory of the Southern Cannibal Tribes. Heh heh, those mutated cannibals have had a feast, three million corpses are enough for them to eat for half a year"

  Laine's introduction was brief, but the unpredictable feeling of blood rain and wind from that year still lingered. Killing three million lives for a crystal is unimaginable, but looking back at the tragic fate of those two fallen mortal planets, people won't sympathize with these three million lives anymore.

  "You should understand now, it wasn't me who saved your life today, but that crystal you excavated. 19 centimeters and you can get a pardon, if the crystal you excavated today exceeds 30 centimeters, I believe Ye Tian will not mind helping you kill Tu Lang Sai Wen"

  "It's said that 'a common man is innocent, but one who holds a precious jade is guilty' has its specific environment. In this world, there are still many cases where treasures bring disaster."

  Dirty old man Laine felt that the abnormality was not an ordinary person, but the abnormality also felt the extraordinaryness of the old man, especially in his last conversation with Ye Tian. This doesn't seem like something an ordinary miner could say. The broad vision contained within is something ordinary people simply don't have.

  Wu Chang was good at reading faces, and the first impression he got from Old Man Lai was that of nobility. It was a kind of nobility that carried an air of learning, a nobility that had been deeply imbued with knowledge. Although Wu Chang couldn't quite figure out what made Old Man Lai tick, he knew that this cheap master was absolutely a treasure.

  At that moment, Sevyn with a purplish face and Bloodrose with bandages around her neck were sighing together at the ration center in A332 mining area.

  "Ye Tianyou has gone too far, if you don't want to then just don't, why hit someone? And hitting so hard?" said Xuehong, who was helping Saiwen apply medicine, with a huff.

  At this time, Saiwen was no longer as arrogant as he was during the day. He looked at the gauze on Blood Rose's neck and let out a long sigh. "Today's incident is my fault, I miscalculated. Ye Tian is also considered a collateral branch of the imperial family, people like him don't have much ability but they all care about saving face. We gave him money in front of hundreds of people, how could he possibly want it? He'd rather beat me up in front of the crowd to gain a good reputation."

  "What are we going to do then? The money will be wasted and our reputation will also be lost?"

  "How is that possible? You also underestimate your man too much, today's matter is just the beginning, and later on, we'll see the real skills. Prepare 40 rainbow coins for me again, I'm going to visit Mine Supervisor Luo Da tonight, I don't believe that Ye Tian guy really has no weaknesses at all?"

  Today's loss is a bit too much, Blood Rose is heartbroken, but she doesn't dare disobey the man's order, can only pitifully open the safe, and take out 40 rainbow coins to hand over to Sevin.

  As the darkness fell completely, Sevyn's landcar disappeared hastily into the black snow, heading straight north.