Battle Royale of the Sinners

March 31st, 7 PM.

Tong and Hua Shi concluded the total income of this month and the current status of the city treasury.

Thanks to the soap trade, they obtained 900,000 gold from the five merchants, 180,000 from Te Langpu, and 100,000 gold from other traders. The auction netted them 400,000 gold from the random useless treasures, extra 300,000 from 10 batches of soap, another 500,000 from the soap recipe, 500,000 additional gold from the concession right, and a chump change of 25,000 gold from the whiskey.

Furthermore, the Yuan family had reserved an order of various seeds, sugar, and salt from Tong, so the city would have another guaranteed income by the end of April.

Combining with the previous leftover budget that Tong left in the treasury, they possessed over 3,000,000 gold! They had no idea that they had become the richest family in entire China.

Because the astronomical amount of gold could not fit into the city treasury warehouse, Tong and Hua Shi split it in half and stored them in their space inventories. Just like in the past, they left 100,000 gold in the warehouse, so Zhang Jiao could use this budget to manage the miscellaneous kinds of stuff.

Hua Shi, Tong, and the official workers finished arranging the warehouse at 9 PM. Both of them crawled back to their room in exhaustion and collapse onto their pillows.

Before Tong could fall into his dream, the sharp pain within his brain came back again. It got even worse than this morning.

"Sunday, can you scan me again? Why am I having this headache?"

"Eh? OK, give me a second. [Medical Gift]!"

The eyes of Hua Shi flashed. After five seconds, the light disappeared.

Hua Shi tilted her head in confusion. The skill told her that the target was perfectly healthy, and there was not any irregularity within his physical body or in his brain.

"System said you are fine. Are you sure it's not imaginary pain? Like a phantom pain?"

Tong shook his head while he still held onto his head. He could feel the throbbing of his blood vessels in his head and heard the sound of his heartbeat. The pain was stimulated each time the blood vessels throbbed.

Sweat rolled all over his face, and his back was soaked as if he had jumped into a pool not too long ago. The complexion of Tong's face turned paler each minute.

Seeing the changes right in front of her eyes, Hua Shi became panic and started asking questions while she reused her diagnosis skill again.

"When did you start feeling this headache? When did it start?"

Tong tried his best to recall the past and did his best to withstand the pain. Within a few seconds, he remembered.

"The day that we dealt with the riots. I had this headache in the middle of the night. I thought I was mentally tired or I was drunk, so I didn't care about it."

Hua Shi frowned. That day, she remembered that she scanned him as well because he acted weird. However, she did not find anything unusual in the system report. She tried to use her experience in her previous life to diagnosis Tong herself, but all result was negative. She had no clue what kind of diseases that could inflict Tong under his [Plot Armor] protection skill.

"Had it happened again after that?"

"… Err, sometimes, but it was not this bad. It came hard today morning during the auction."

Hua Shi was silent. She tried to think of a way to figure out his trouble.

"System, does my [Medical Gift] skill can detect parasites and viruses?"

[Yes. You can.]

"How about spores, fungus, bacteria?"

[You can detect all physical disease that is caused by all organism lifeform.]

"What about tumors or cancer?"

[Yes. You can.]

"Vascular disease or microvascular disease?"

[Yes. You can.]

"Concussion?"

[Yes. You can.]

"What about the psych? Can I scan the psych scan to detect the mental illness?]

[Yes. You can.]

Hua Shi's frown deepened. She just scanned Tong twice, but the result was nothing. It was not a physical illness, blood vessel problem, old injury, tumor, cancer, nor mental illness. Then what was this headache that Tong was suffering from?

Seeing no result, Hua Shi tried to be creative with the system.

"Then what disease that my [Medical Gift] cannot detect?"

The system did not answer her immediately as it had been doing. It paused for a minute before it gave out her answer.

[I cannot answer that question.]

"F**king useless system!!"

Hua Shi screamed at the system as she swung her fist at the empty air where the system messages popped up in anger.

The condition of Tong worsened. His pupils turned bright red and his clothes were soaked with his sweat.

Hua Shi stripped him naked and took out his blanket to give him air and ventilation to his body. She touched his under-chin with the back of her hand. It was burning hot.

She took a deep breath to calm herself and desperately asked Tong.

"Do you remember what you did to make this headache subside? What did you eat or did after the day that you have this headache?"

Tong panted and glanced at Hua Shi and gave her an awkward smile.

"… We ... mated."

Hua Shi felt like beating up Tong on the spot. It was not the time for a joke.

"Be serious."

"I'm serious. My schedule was the same every day. The only things I had done after that day that was different than the usual stuff I did … was … with you."

Hua Shi sighed and shook her head. If Tong was in heat and tried to get an excuse to dual-cultivate with her, she had to give him an Oscar Award as the illness and his complexion looked too realistic to be an act. However, if it was true, then she could help him.

"Okay. But I'm kinda tired today. So just a couple rounds for tonight, alright?"

"Yeah, thanks … and sorry."

"Don't be sorry, 'cause I'm going to punish you for it!"

…

April 1st, 6.30 AM.

Tong sat up with a lightened feeling. The pain really disappeared after the intense dual-cultivation. He tried to rotate his neck and tilted his head, and he did not feel any uncomfortable feeling inside his brain.

"Have you gotten better?"

Hua Shi, who was still lying naked on the bed, asked Tong after seeing him moving around.

"Yeah, thanks to you, really."

Hua Shi closed her eyes and sunk into her pillow in drowsiness. She planned to do it for a round or two, she ended up in the mood and went crazy all night again.

"I want another day off today."

"No problem."

Tong skipped away to take his morning bath in a good mood while Hua Shi continued to sleep.

Today, he had another important demonstration to the citizens of his city. He could not be late.

…

…

Netherworld Realm.

Morning Star, who was topless and wore simple black pants, was sitting on the mountain of corpses. Dead militated bodies scattered around him. Spears, arrows, swords, pikes, and flags flew up in the air and rotated around the sitting man.

The sky of Hell was pitch black with no stars. The bright land which had been made with holy granites were painted with blood. Many grand buildings made of silver marble were crushed as if they were bitten by beasts.

In front of Morning Star, a screen, which showed the daily life of Tong and Hua Shi, were being broadcasted in real time.

"It starts earlier than I expected."

"Don't disappoint me, Tong."

"Return as yourself. I don't want a mindless beast."

Below the mountain, an angel with broken wings was being chewed by a 3-head dog. Yet, she ignored the dog and continued glaring at Morning Star.

"You won't get away with this ..."

Morning Star grinned at the dying angel and mocked her.

"The same goes with Athena's Descendant. She won't be his match in that world."

'As long as he has awakened properly, that is.'

…

…

Heaven Realm.

Michael gazed at the public broadcasting screen in the middle of the town. He sighed.

"That idiot fatso. Why did he cast [Heart Devil] on him?"

"Haiz. The symptom has started."

"Even if you have found a way to delay it, there is no turning back."

"Unless … the father notices you…"

Then he checked the report of his scouts in Hell. A disturbing news was also being broadcasted.

"This is getting complicated. Why in the Heaven are they so stuck up in the past grudge!?"

…

…

Outer Space. The dimension of the "Trial World".

A goddess, whose appearance looked like a middle schooler, was wearing an asylum patient long sleeve suit. Her eyes were blindfold by strange cloth with wriggling runes on it.

Sinister black chains with bale aura wrapped around her and squeezed her tight as if they wanted to crush the girl into mincemeat. All chains were being pulled continuously from the 36 black holes, which were rotating around her in a circular formation.

Despite being crushed under the unmeasurable amount of force, she did not show any sign of pain.

"…"

"… I'm sorry Hua Shi."

"Your skill can only detect mortal disease."

"You cannot find "that" disease."

"I can't reveal the secret of the immortal."

"I'm sorry."

"…"

"Brat …"

"… Don't become a beast."

"If you fail ... I'll kill you myself."