Chapter 244: Ideologically Backward Zhang Yu (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 244: Zhang Yu, a Man of Backward Thinking (Please Vote for Monthly Tickets)

Green Oasis Tower, Floor 1111.

The top floor of this new landmark building in Songyang City now stood as the highest point in the entire city.

And at this moment, as Zhang Yu stood at the city's apex, he could see the hall filled with company employees from the Green Oasis Group.

A thunderous bang echoed from the sky.

Fireworks formed by divine lightning burst apart, as bolts of lightning intertwined with one another, tracing the words "One Billion" across the night sky.

In the venue, the host shouted, "To celebrate the food loan scale surpassing one billion! Today, all food and potions are free! Everyone's bonus this month is doubled!"

"Let's thank President Wang!"

Everyone cheered. President Wang smiled and waved his hand casually, saying, "Keep up the good work, and strive to expand the food loan scale to a hundred billion! A trillion! Ten trillion!"

"In the future, this hall will produce a hundred billionaires!"

Amidst the crowd's screams, the atmosphere grew even more fervent.

Someone yelled, "President Wang! Send red packets!"

Wang Yin laughed heartily. With a flicker of thought, countless interest-free red packet talismans materialized, raining down on the crowd like droplets, drawing another round of cheers and pushing the atmosphere to its peak.

Bai Zhenzhen let out a cheer as well and rushed forward to grab the red packets.

Wang Yin walked over to Zhang Yu and asked curiously, "What's wrong? Not going for the red packets?"

Zhang Yu forced a smile. "I'll leave those to the regular employees."

Wang Yin laughed. "That's the spirit. You'll get richer and richer. When you have money, you learn not to compete with the little people for these small sums."

Then, glancing at Zhang Yu's skin, he said, "Come with me. I'll show you something good."

With that, he led Zhang Yu into another room.

There, a young man of similar build to Zhang Yu stood, bowing hastily as they entered.

Just as Zhang Yu wondered what was going on, Wang Yin said, "Take off the skin and give it to Zhang Yu to wear."

To Zhang Yu's astonishment, the young man peeled off his own skin like removing an outer garment, revealing the flesh-and-blood body beneath.

Wang Yin patted Zhang Yu on the shoulder and chuckled. "I told you before to switch to a real skin, but you kept refusing. So I took the liberty of buying this training skin for you."

Seeing the shock on Zhang Yu's face, Wang Yin rattled off knowledgeably, "High-end training skins all come from human bodies. To maintain their vitality, they must be nourished daily with essence blood and treated with secret methods. They’re usually worn on living mannequins, who practice and cultivate daily to preserve the skin."

"This kind of handmade skin is nothing like the mass-produced junk you’re wearing."

"Especially this one—I picked it specially. It came from a master of external martial arts. Once you put it on, it will enhance your protective techniques and break through your current limits."

"You might not know this, but at Netherworld University, we have a divine art called the Blood God Son, which excels at flaying and making skins. My skill in that area isn’t great, but my eye for quality is sharp..."

"Come on, put it on now. Throw away that fake skin of yours and never wear it again to embarrass me."

Looking at the young man called a living mannequin, Zhang Yu couldn’t help asking, "Doesn’t it hurt?"

The young man paused, a faint smile on his bloody face. "We had our pain nerves blocked before entering this line of work."

"Rest assured, sir. I’ve been in this trade for over twenty years. I have plenty of experience caring for real skins. There won’t be a single flaw..."

As the other man held up the skin, ready to slip it onto him, Zhang Yu cursed inwardly, "Crazy. This Kunxu is utterly insane."

Noticing the resistance on Zhang Yu’s face, Wang Yin frowned. "You don’t like this skin?"

The young man holding the skin, afraid of losing the deal, quickly said, "Mr. Zhang, if you don’t like this one, we have other types of real skins in the shop. Shall I call them in?"

Wang Yin took the skin from the man’s hands, fiddling with it and occasionally draping it over the young man to inspect it, puzzled. "The quality is fine. There’s nothing wrong with it."

Watching Wang Yin’s actions, Zhang Yu didn’t know why, but even though the man was picking out gear for him, trying to give him a gift, at that moment, Zhang Yu sensed in Wang Yin a quality more terrifying than anyone he had ever met before.

Watching him handle the young man and the human skin like a coat rack and a coat.

Watching the look in his eyes as he gazed at the young man and the skin.

Zhang Yu felt he suddenly understood why the man’s eyes held no hostility, only friendliness.

"That’s not the look you give a person. It’s the look you give property, a pet, a little animal..."

Just then, someone entered from outside—Sheng Jie and Tan Shishan, who had also passed the foundation-building qualification exam.

But their aura was vastly different from before; each breath stirred the spiritual energy around them, radiating an oppressive pressure.

Wang Yin glanced at them. "Oh? You’ve built your foundations?"

Sheng Jie quickly bowed. "Our families scraped together some money to let us build foundations early, get used to it, and have an edge when we enter university."

Though Zhang Yu’s income had skyrocketed, he still needed about half a year to gather enough for a Heavenly Spirit Root.

But for Sheng Jie and Tan Shishan, who had long reached the peak of Qi Refining, once they got the foundation-building certificate, they could rely on family support to build their foundations.

Watching this, Zhang Yu sighed inwardly... The gap in wealth meant that even though he outperformed them in Qi Refining, he would fall behind in foundation-building.

And to build his foundation before graduating high school, he ultimately needed the support of President Wang by his side.

President Wang ignored the two who had built their foundations and looked at Zhang Yu with a smile. "I’ve checked it. No problems. Put it on and let me see."

So, under the delighted gaze of the mannequin and the envious stares of Sheng Jie and Tan Shishan, Zhang Yu silently put on the training skin Wang Yin had given him.

President Wang laughed heartily. "I knew I chose well. This skin really suits you."

"Wear this to meetings from now on, got it?"

In Zhang Yu’s mind, the crippled ox visualized by the Crippled Ox Heart-Mind Technique had inexplicably come to a complete halt.

Staring at the ox that no longer moved in his mind, no matter how the technique cycled, Zhang Yu said to himself, "What a garbage technique."

"Does it only work when I’m suffering and struggling, constantly under pressure, charging into danger?"

"I want to buy a Heavenly Spirit Root. I want to build my foundation."

"I don’t want to be poor forever in Kunxu! I don’t want to lose to those rich people just because I have no money!"

"And besides, a training skin is just equipment in Kunxu. It’s no big deal..."

...

Another month passed in the blink of an eye.

It was now May.

Inside Songyang High School.

Zhang Yu looked at the 29 million in his bank account and thought to himself, "Almost there. Soon I can buy a Heavenly Spirit Root and build my foundation."

Suddenly, he heard sounds of a fight.

Frowning, Zhang Yu saw Zhou Chechen being surrounded and attacked by over a dozen classmates.

"You think you’re still the student council president? Your Zhou family is done for now. You’ve got no say on the board..."

"Zhou Chechen, you’re no richer than us now." "Hand over your homework!"

"Hehehe, I want to taste what kind of medicine the student council president uses today!"

Zhang Yu initially didn’t want to get involved, but as the commotion grew more outrageous, he finally snapped, "Get lost. Don’t mess around near me."

At Zhang Yu’s low shout, the students who had been surrounding Zhou Chechen scattered in fear.

Zhou Chechen silently got up, looked in the direction where Zhang Yu was, nodded slightly, whispered a thank you, and then turned and left.

But Zhang Yu knew that the Zhou family, due to a lack of competitiveness, had failed to secure a partnership with the Oasis Group, and was now in decline.

From now on, Zhou Chechen’s days at Songyang High School would likely become increasingly difficult.

“But… none of my business.”

Zhang Yu went to the cafeteria for lunch, only to find that the synthetic food had gone up in price again, and even his deskmate Qian Shen seemed to be eating less than before.

That evening, he once again attended a meeting at the Oasis Tower.

Looking at the next service to be promoted during the meeting, Zhang Yu couldn’t help but grit his teeth and mutter to himself, “Mortgage flesh and blood?”

With the successful rollout of the food loan, the Oasis Group decided to launch a flesh-and-blood mortgage service, allowing users to repay their debts with their own flesh and blood.

Although he knew this was a project that had long existed in Kunxu, seeing the corporate people at the meeting discussing how to collect flesh, how to appraise it, how to liquidate it, and how to store it still made Zhang Yu feel as if he were watching living people being stripped of their tendons and flesh, served up on a dining table…

…

Time passed, in a mix of hardship and ease for Zhang Yu, until June.

With another round of college entrance exams over, there were only three months left before Zhang Yu would step into his senior year.

By now, Zhang Yu’s account held over 33 million.

Yet he still went to the stronghold of the underground tutoring world, intending to give some lessons and earn a bit more money.

At least the atmosphere there felt more relaxed to him than the Oasis Group.

But as the Oasis Group allied with various companies, educational corporations like Xianyun Group and Deep Sea Group had intensified their crackdowns on piracy, even showing signs of abandoning their original gangs, as if discarding a used chamber pot.

On the other hand, as employee salaries and benefits continued to decline, the number of students in tutoring classes gradually shrank.

In particular, some elderly students, after their incomes dropped, simply exhausted their lifespans and reached the end of their lives.

Now, every time Zhang Yu walked into the classroom, he noticed new old faces missing, and his income from the underground tutoring world plummeted accordingly.

…

July.

The weather in Songyang City gradually grew hot.

Amid this rising heat, Zhang Yu’s savings finally reached over 38 million.

It was around this time that some scandals about the Oasis Group were exposed online.

At a company gathering that day, while dining with General Manager Wang, Zhang Yu couldn’t help but ask, “General Manager Wang, about that thing of using mortgaged flesh and blood as material for food…”

Wang Yin replied casually, “Oh, that matter.”

He glanced at the curious looks from Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen, smiled, and said, “It’s all just sensationalist reporting by journalists. How could the company possibly add human flesh to synthetic food?”

Zhang Yu breathed a sigh of relief, thinking, “Kunxu may be crazy, but it hasn’t gone that far yet…”

Wang Yin said, “Synthetic food is so cheap; adding human flesh would be a loss.”

“It’s only when selling to the upper layers that we use the mortgaged flesh and blood.”

Zhang Yu was taken aback: “Selling… to the upper layers?”

Wang Yin smiled faintly, looking at the two of them, and said, “You don’t really think we do all this just to make money from the first layer, do you? What use is money from the first layer? Up there, it’s hardly spendable.”

He patiently instructed them, “You’ll understand once you enter Netherworld University. The upper layers exchange various resources from the lower layers by authorizing immortal techniques and exporting immortal products.”

“The human body is a great treasure trove. Blood, flesh, skin, bones, marrow, brain, as well as resentment and souls—all have various wonderful uses.”

Wang Yin added, “And if someone has undergone body modification surgery and trained diligently, their value becomes even greater.”

Zhang Yu’s expression darkened. “So they pay to modify themselves, take drugs, train, and make themselves more valuable and easier to sell?”

Wang Yin said, “In this process, they can improve their grades, increase their chances of getting into a good university, and even if they fail and have to sell their flesh or soul, they can get a higher price. That’s a good thing for them.”

“Besides, our Netherworld University, along with the Heavenly Demon University, the Celestial Beast University, and the Bone White University, all have particularly high demand for such materials.”

“If we lack materials, how can we compete with the other top ten?”

“And the higher you go, the higher the cost of labor. Many places ban civilian farming, have human protection laws, and regulate resentment emissions…”

Wang Yin sighed, “In that regard, the first layer is far cheaper than the upper layers. We’re forced to come here.”

Zhang Yu gritted his teeth. “So… we’re selling the people of the first layer—their flesh and blood—to the upper layers?”

Bai Zhenzhen beside him was also stunned, seemingly unaware of this inside story about the Oasis Group.

Wang Yin looked at the two, sensing their resistance, and said, “You come from ordinary families on the first layer, so your thinking is backward. I understand that.”

“But remember, the flesh and blood belong to the people of the first layer themselves.”

“They want to sell, and we buy. I always give them a fair price. It’s a transaction of mutual consent.”

“Even if they don’t sell to me, they’ll sell to someone else.”

“This is normal on the path of immortality.”

Wang Yin urged them earnestly, “Besides, in another year, you’ll go to the second layer for university. After that, the first layer will have nothing to do with you. Stop dwelling on it and focus on preparing for foundation building.”

“You’re both talented. Maybe you can reach the fifth or even sixth layer. Don’t waste the opportunity.”

Seeing Zhang Yu’s silence and Bai Zhenzhen’s bewilderment, Wang Yin frowned slightly, as if dissatisfied with both of them.

It was like watching a pet dog guarding its food. He shook his head and sighed, “Is it me giving you money, or someone else?”

“Whoever gives you money, shouldn’t you listen to them?”

“If you still can’t figure it out, take a few days off and think it over carefully.”

“You’re both smart people.”

“I believe you’ll understand.”

Zhang Yu opened his mouth to say something, but then thought of the tens of millions in savings he and Bai Zhenzhen each had.

He thought of the celestial spiritual roots they planned to buy, of foundation building, of the top ten universities…

And he found that his body, tempered through countless trials, now seemed utterly powerless.

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(Chapter end)