The Fourth Financial Crisis

As an investor with a professional background, Yang Lu also knows some programming knowledge in data processing.

However, since he is not a professional programmer, and the difficulty of getting started with the formation knowledge of Jiuzhou cultivators is no lower than that of computer programming, and it takes many years of hard work to gain entry, he has not had the opportunity to study the "Immortal Formation Logic" in detail so far.

Seeing the masterpiece of a cultivation programmer like the video wall, Yang Lu couldn't help but marvel at the magic of the formation.

After visiting the video wall, Pan Yue took Yang Lu and the two into the banquet venue of Pan's Trading Company.

As the largest chamber of commerce in Zhongzhou, Pan's Trading Company usually has a lot of tasks to deliver, not to mention that there are currently monks from all over Yunlai City. Pan Yue will definitely not be able to entertain only Yang Lu and Li Qingning. At this time, other guests were already sitting and waiting in the banquet hall.

However, the number of distinguished guests that Pan Yue personally entertained was not large. There were only four or five people in total, sitting on both sides of the hall.

Although the costumes of these guests are various, their appearance does not look unfamiliar.

According to Pan Yue's introduction, they all represented their respective sects in the recent Zhongzhou Sword Competition and achieved good rankings. As the seed players of each sect, they will all participate in the upcoming extraterritorial battlefield trials.

Therefore, this gathering organized by Pan Yue can be regarded as a gathering of young talents in the Qi refining period of Zhongzhou. As Li Qingning, it is definitely more than enough to attend such a gathering.

In addition to these guests, in the center of the hall, there are more than ten charming and graceful women in palace attire, dancing in front of the guests. These women are exuding light fluctuations of spiritual energy. Although the aura is not strong, they are definitely not ordinary mortals.

But although the guests sitting cross-legged on both sides of the hall were all men, they were all flipping through the pamphlets in front of them, and few of them paid attention to the beauties in front of them.

After seeing Pan Yue return to the main hall with the two guests, the women in the palace quickly finished dancing, then respectfully bowed to Pan Yue and bowed to Pan Yue, and then retreated to both sides of the banquet hall to stand.

"Fellow Daoist Pan, the quality of your maids seems to be even better than what I saw last time. It seems that in the past year's Immortal Ascension Conference, you still found a lot of top-quality goods!" He noticed that Pan Yue had returned and sat on the left side. A white-robed Confucian scholar suddenly said with a smile.

This person looks very familiar. He seems to be a top 16 player in the Zhongzhou Sword Competition.

However, there were too many players participating in the Zhongzhou Sword Competition, and Yang Lu couldn't remember their specific names.

Pan Yue was obviously very familiar with the white-robed Confucian scholar, and he immediately handed over his hand and replied: "Fellow Taoist Chu, you are so complimented. In the annual auction held by Pan's Trading Company, these female slaves with spiritual root qualifications are the most sought-after. Of course, I will take my place for them." Let’s go all out. These indentured slaves are all in perfect condition now, so if fellow Taoists are interested in them, you can take advantage of them first.”

Yang Lu couldn't help but be slightly shocked when he heard that all these beautiful dancers were indentured slaves.

The price of contracted slaves in the Jiuzhou cultivation world has always been high, and contracted slaves with spiritual root qualifications are extremely rare. Each of them is worth a fortune, and some prices can even reach hundreds of thousands of spiritual stone coins. Even ordinary monks in the foundation building period, No one can afford such a luxurious product!

These female cultivators command such a high premium, not only because they are extremely rare, but also for another important reason:

In the world of cultivation, there are some forbidden magic-level replenishing techniques similar to the Gengjin Body Transformation Technique, which can temporarily increase the speed of cultivation like the Golden Wheel of Merit. However, such forbidden magic techniques are against the way of heaven and will irreversibly damage the "furnace." "The spiritual root qualification.

This type of technique once flourished among the demons from outside the world who were not bound by the Heavenly Dao during the Second Crisis of Heavenly Dao. Since then, it has gradually declined due to the high cost for ordinary cultivators.

It is precisely because this type of forbidden arts is only suitable for use on objects with spiritual root qualifications and not protected by heaven, which further increases the scarcity of cultivation contract slaves, making this kind of contract slaves only mastered by a very small number of high-level people. In the hands of high-level monks and cultivation families, some high-level monks would even send them here and there as gifts.

Hearing this statement, the monks present raised their heads with expressions of interest.

As a female cultivator, Li Qingning subconsciously felt a little unhappy, but Miss Li has grown a lot now and quickly curbed this negative emotion.

At this moment, Pan Yue turned to look at Yang Lu and introduced: "Speaking of which, among these newly trained female slaves, there is actually one who was purchased with 300,000 spirit stone coins at your Haiya City Immortal Ascension Conference. The one who came, uh... must be this woman!"

Following the direction of his finger, Yang Lu saw a girl with a timid expression. Although the girl was wearing a gorgeous and charming palace dress, her expression looked a little green and she seemed to be young.

Yang Lu estimated that her age should be roughly between Murong and Li Qingning.

Seeing Pan Yue calling her name, the woman immediately saluted everyone: "Yu Ling has met Master Pan and Consultant Yang!"

"You actually recognize me?" Yang Lu pointed at himself in surprise, obviously not expecting to meet an acquaintance in Yunlai City.

"I used to be a newsboy in Haiya City, and I was very familiar with Murong!" The girl answered very quickly, as if she was afraid that if she answered slowly, Yang Lu would be dissatisfied. "I heard that after Murong was hired by the Qingning Chamber of Commerce with a high salary, I also tried to go to the Qingning Chamber of Commerce to ask for a job, and you personally interviewed me at that time, but I didn’t have the blessing of Murong..."

Yang Lu suddenly showed an expression of realization.

The bottom-level newsboys in Haiya City are a circle that can be said to be big or small.

These newsboys walk around the streets every day and even fight for territory. Most of them look familiar to them. Murong, as an ordinary newspaper boy, suddenly became a steward-level employee of the Qingning Chamber of Commerce. This kind of pie-in-the-sky good thing naturally quickly spread like wildfire in this small circle. Therefore, many of Murong's former colleagues also I plan to try my luck at Qingning Chamber of Commerce.

It's a pity that Murong's experience cannot be replicated at all.

Although Yang Lu did recruit some young people from poor backgrounds as fresh blood to the Qingning Chamber of Commerce, except for a few lucky ones such as Shen Xiaotao, the vast majority of job seekers could not escape being eliminated in the end.

Yu Ling is obviously one of the many job seekers who have failed.

Although she failed to join the Qingning Chamber of Commerce as she wished, Yu Ling tested her spiritual root qualifications at the Haiya Immortal Ascension Conference. However, for some unknown reason, she did not take the opportunity to join the Haiya Sect, but instead became a contract slave of Pan's Trading Company...

Even Pan Yue was a little surprised now.

He just picked a casual topic to say a few polite words, but he didn't expect that Yu Ling actually knew Yang Lu, a fellow villager!

Yang Lu didn't intend to poke the opponent's scars, and was ready to just nod and let the matter go, but Li Qingning had always been the kind of person who couldn't speak beyond his head.

After learning about Yu Ling's life experience, before Yang Lu could stop him, Li Qingning issued a soul torture on the spot: "Since you have spiritual qualifications and are a newsboy from an innocent family, why don't you take the right path and become a An indentured servant of the Pan family?"

Hearing such an rude question, not only Yu Ling was stunned, but even Pan Yue's face was a little confused.

Can this kind of question be asked face to face?

After Yu Ling tested out her cultivation aptitude, she was still sold into an indentured slave. She was obviously tricked!

But Pan Yue couldn't say this, and Yu Ling didn't dare to say it. This caused the scene to fall into an awkward silence for an instant, and even several guests sitting cross-legged showed expressions of wanting to laugh but being embarrassed... …

In fact, the matter itself is not complicated. Yu Ling is indeed a contracted slave girl who was abducted by the Haiya Clan and Pan's Trading Company.

At the Haiya Immortal Ascension Conference, the spiritual root qualification she tested was inferior earth spiritual root. This kind of cultivator qualification can be called a Dalit in the Jiuzhou cultivation world, and is even more pitiful than Yang Lu's low-grade water spirit root.

Unless you are a legendary figure like Li Qingyang, who has extremely high academic talent and unrivaled luck, with this kind of rubbish qualification, no matter how much resources are invested, it will be difficult to break through the bottleneck in the later stages of Qi refining.

If the Haiya Department happened to be short of manpower, they would be more willing to accept such inferior spiritual root disciples as odd jobs.

But now that the Haiya Sect has been in peace for a long time, the number of cultivators under its banner has been saturated. Such poor spiritual root disciples with no future are considered useless to the Haiya Sect. They are tasteless to eat, a pity to discard, and it is a waste to cultivate them. Resources are increasingly stretched.

Since one more bad spirit root disciple of the Haiya sect is not too much, and one less is not a lot, then it is better to trick her into signing a contract of betrayal and directly realize hundreds of thousands of spirit stone coins, which can also take the opportunity to relieve the sect's growing financial pressure. In a sense, the bad things that Haiya did were basically on the same moral level as Murong's adoptive parents.

Murong was able to see through his adoptive parents' conspiracy and escape mainly because Murong himself had a very high IQ. However, not all newsboys have the ability to teach themselves how to read and write like Murong.

Compared with Murong, who opened his eyes by reading Xiu Zhen Financial Daily, Yu Ling is a typical illiterate newsboy. Long hair but short knowledge is a perfect description. In addition, the person who came to deceive her was still a high-ranking and omnipotent immortal master of the sea cliff system in the eyes of mortals, which made the young female newsboy who was not experienced in the world even more unable to resist.

So Yu Ling was tricked into signing her own contract of sale in such a confused way.

Of course, considering that there are nearly a thousand low-quality spiritual root disciples who join the Haiya Sect every time, the Haiya Sect does not just kidnap and sell anyone based on who is easy to deceive, and will definitely conduct a detailed background investigation in advance.

Yu Ling was selected as the target of trafficking, but in fact she was inextricably related to Yang Lu.

Yu Ling's original surname was Ji, and her father's name was Ji Xiangde. Twenty years ago, Han Xinhe sent him to Yunlai City to work as a personal servant for Xi Jinhu, the current editor-in-chief of Xiuzhen Financial Weekly.

Yunlai City and Haiya City are nearly ten thousand miles apart. Even if ordinary mortals take advantage of the convenience of the Qinglan River waterway, it would take more than half a year to go back and forth. As Xi Jinhu's personal servant, Ji Xiangde obviously has no chance to return to Haiya City to see his daughter, so he has no chance. Yu Ling, who was under human supervision, became a newspaper-selling orphan living on the streets just like Murong.

However, after she tested her spiritual root qualifications, the information that her father was Xi Jinhu's slave was quickly investigated by the Haiya Department.

The Han family in Haiya City and the Xi family in Yunlai City are considered staunch allies. When the Han family discovered the relationship between Yu Ling and Ji Xiangde, they notified Xi Jinhu, who was thousands of miles away, of the news through a communication spell. Xi Jinhu casually told Ji Xiangde asked Xi Jinhu for leave and returned to Haiya City to visit Yu Ling.

If it is an ordinary mortal consumable, even if his daughter is tested to have inferior spiritual root qualifications, Xi Jinhu, a dignified golden elixir stage monk, will not allow his slave to be absent from work without reason. Ji Xiangde was able to be allowed to return to Haiya City to visit his bride, which showed that Xi Jinhu must be quite satisfied with this slave, and was even willing to go outside the law to meet some of his moderate demands.

As we all know, every move of a big shot is often observed by those who care about it.

This is like the person with the strongest connections in the unit who never says who his backstage is, and even intentionally avoids the topic of his backstage, but everyone will eventually know who his backstage is. Some secret relationships don’t need to be said at all. Those who need to know will naturally know when they need to know. On the contrary, they are the kind of backstage people who never leave their own words and often put "My dad is XXX" on the What is on the lips is actually the person with the lowest connections.

For a time, Yu Ling became the focus of the high-level officials of Haiya City because of Xi Jinhu. Even Han Xinhe himself considered taking Yu Ling as his disciple in order to sell Xi Jinhu a favor.

However, what happened afterwards was beyond everyone's expectations.

After entering the Immortal Sect, the penniless Yu Ling quickly fell into trouble because she had no money to buy cultivation resources. When sending letters to her father, she often complained that she had no cultivation resources and would definitely waste her life in vain.

Although Ji Xiangde worked as a cleaner with Xi Jinhu for many years, he did not understand the behavior of cultivators, and he did not know that his daughter had long been designated as the focus of the Haiya Sect. He did not realize that even if Xi Jinhu Even if I don't say anything, the Haiya Department is already ready to allocate resources to his daughter.

In order to obtain enough training resources for his daughter, he even chose to secretly steal the red envelope given to Xi Jinhu by his client!

Because Ji Xiangde knew Xi Jinhu's living habits very well, and Xi Jinhu had no defense against him, he committed crimes hundreds of times in a row without being discovered by Xi Jinhu.

If Ji Xiangde could only do this, he might actually be able to get through. However, Ji Xiangde's mistake was that he did not take the stolen money with him. Instead, he deposited all 120,000 yuan of spiritual stone coins into a Haiya Bank account under his own name, and then prepared to remit it to Yu Ling as training funds.

As we all know, the main function of the Lingshi Reserve Bank is anti-money laundering. A mortal with no background suddenly wanted to make a huge remittance of 100,000 yuan in Lingshi coins. This immediately attracted the attention of the staff of Haiya Bank and followed the procedures. The situation was reported to Xu Yannan, a monetary policy observer. After Xu Yannan discovered that the case involved Xi Jinhu, he naturally did not let this hot potato fall into his hands, but directly transferred the information to the Law Enforcement Hall of the Wuliang Sword Sect.

Xi Jinhu can also be regarded as a prominent figure in the Zhongzhou cultivation world.

Even ordinary drinkers in Haiya City will praise Xi Jinhu when he mentions it!

After receiving the report about Xi Jinhu, the Wuliang Sword Sect Law Enforcement Hall attached great importance to it. After all, the mortal brought by Xi Jinhu suddenly transferred such a large amount of money, or transferred the money to the foreign trade port Haiya City. This will undoubtedly make people think. Lian Lian:

Could it be that Chief Editor Xi is going to defect to Huoyun State?

Although Li Feiyu had not defected at that time, it was not that no other Zhongzhou monks had defected before.

Li Feiyu's defection has turned Lin Jianxing, the leader of the Wuliang Sword Sect, into a laughing stock. If Xi Jinhu, known as the mouthpiece of the Wuliang Sword Sect, also defected, it can be said that the authority of the leader Lin Jianxing, both internally and externally, has been shattered!

This kind of thing must be investigated seriously!

However, it turns out that both Xu Yannan and the Law Enforcement Hall of the Wuliang Sword Sect thought too much.

Youdao says that "the most high-end corruption often adopts the simplest methods of committing crimes." After dispatching a large amount of manpower and material resources to investigate and secretly investigate, the Law Enforcement Hall discovered that Ji Xiangde was actually the lowest-level red envelope thief!