The Black Sun Blazing Flame violently erupted from Gu Xiechen's palm. The Two-Tailed Poison Scorpion lunged straight into the Glacier Flame, and with a faint explosive crackle, the Three-Tailed Poison Scorpion disintegrated into a stream of cyan-blue mist that settled onto the ground, searing a pit the size of a human head into the earth. The moment the Black Sun Blazing Flame appeared, the room's temperature plummeted. All the Three-Tailed Poison Scorpions summoned by Ulis curled up on the floor, quickly freezing solid into ice sculptures.

"Damn it!" Ulis shrieked, "What in the hell is that bizarre thing? Instant ultra-low temperature? Instant structural breakdown of matter? Even instant destruction of energy structures?"

A raw, undisguised greed burned in Ulis's eyes. She leaped off the billiard table, bouncing directly in front of Gu Xiechen. Her gaze locked onto that wisp of Black Sun Blazing Flame, and she stated plainly, "Let me study this special ability, and I'll get you a hereditary baronetcy!"

Gu Xiechen looked at Ulis in surprise and shook his head. "A noble title? Sorry, I don't have an appetite for joining the Noble Faction right now. Uh... maybe scratch that!"

The Black Sun Blazing Flame gradually dissipated in his palm. Ulis’s head moved closer and closer to Gu Xiechen’s hand, until her face was nearly pressed against his palm.

After a long moment, Ulis sighed softly, "The mysteries of the human body are truly endless. To spend my limited life pursuing these endless mysteries—it’s a thought that makes one feel utterly powerless."

He reluctantly retracted his hand, and Gu Xiechen offered a wry smile. "If you're interested, I might be able to find you a way to attain near-immortality."

A sharp glint flashed in her eyes, and Ulis lifted her head excitedly. "What way?"

Gu Xiechen pointed to Penghua, who was shakily emerging from the ground. "Find him, take a bite, then find a Feng Shui blessed spot and bury yourself for a few years. Once you absorb enough earth energy, you can transform into a Jiangshi!"

Penghua rolled his eyes, clamped down on two of Uria’s subordinates, and slowly dragged the screaming men back into the earth. The two unlucky souls struggled and begged with all their might, but Penghua showed no mercy, pulling them into the floor with a grotesque grin. Faintly, a chorus of mournful wails could be heard rising from beneath the ground. Gradually, the howling faded as it traveled across the courtyard toward the Seine River.

Ulis nodded thoughtfully. She spoke with grave seriousness, "That’s a good method, equivalent to becoming a descendant of the Blood Clan. It’s a real shame. If the Supreme Elder Council of the Blood Clan didn't have an agreement with the Federal Noble Faction strictly forbidding Blood Clan members from Embracing members of the Noble Faction, I would have found a powerful Blood Elder to perform the Embracing ceremony for me long ago."

"Scientific lunatic," Gu Xiechen silently labeled Ulis, offering a strained smile. "Even better, if you're willing to give me some benefits, I don't mind asking my Master to help you transform into a Jiangshi. It is a universally acknowledged truth in the supernatural world that Eastern Jiangshi are more powerful than Western vampires."

Ulis acknowledged Gu Xiechen’s statement with a nod. She then settled back onto the billiard table. She put two fingers into her mouth and slowly gnawed on her nail, her gaze fixed intently on Gu Xiechen’s face.

Gu Xiechen glanced down at himself with a perplexed expression, forcing a bitter smile. "Honorable Miss Ulis—no, Your Highness Ulis! Your uncle is the Speaker of the Upper Council; he holds the rank of Prince. Therefore, you must be a Princess? What business does a noble Princess have seeking out a humble member of the Lower Council like myself?"

Ulis waved her hand dismissively. "Don't mention that cursed Princess status. If I weren't a Princess, I'd already be a member of the Blood Clan! If I were a Blood Clan member now, I wouldn't have to secretly divert the Scientific Research Fund to the black market to buy high-priced vampire blood for my experiments! Those damn black market scoundrels—the vampire blood they sold me was all trash below the Knight level! A bunch of damned bastards!"

After venting her fury on the Federal black market profiteers, Ulis sighed. "I came to see you for a reason, naturally. I hear you are a merchant?"

"A merchant?" Gu Xiechen’s spirit immediately lifted. He sat up straighter, squared his shoulders, and smiled. "Indeed, I am a perfectly competent merchant. Do you have business to discuss with me?"

Penghua burrowed out of the ground again. He had somehow procured a battered sickle used by farmers for cutting grass. With a sinister, evil grin, he hooked his chin over the jaw of one of Uria’s confidants and slowly dragged him back down. A chilling frost enveloped the billiard room, and the increasingly shrill screams shook the very structure of the building.

Ulis ground her teeth as she watched Penghua disappear, then frowned and shot out several beams of purple light, instantly killing Uria's remaining confidants. She frowned deeply. "Truly unpleasant. I despise those who like to yell so loudly. Every time I use my laser scalpel to slice them up, they scream just as horribly! Can't their shrieks be gentler? More pleasant, like the Federally famous ‘Sensual Starlet’, Belle?"

"'Sensual Starlet' Belle?" Gu Xiechen laughed. This woman's ability to change her image was remarkable! In just over a month, she had transformed completely from a pure ingenue to a provocative siren!

Sighing, Ulis looked at Gu Xiechen. "There is one prerequisite for the business with you. I know that scoundrel Siren is now under your command, and his kin are under your protection. Therefore, I require you to restrain him. He is forbidden from appearing near me in the future, and if he happens to see me, he must pretend not to know me! You must guarantee this!"

Silence. Gu Xiechen simply remained silent.

Ulis sighed again. "Tell him to forget me. Of course, I will perform meticulous brain surgery on myself to erase all memory of him. Hopefully, he won't come back later to harass me!"

After a moment of deep silence, Gu Xiechen spoke in a low voice, "Based on my understanding, a man should take responsibility for a woman. While there is no law mandating monogamy in the Federation, I could..."

Ulis sharply waved her hand, interrupting him loudly. "Oh, heavens, thank you, but I have no desire to marry a pervert whose mind is constantly filled with massive breasts, and who can summon hundreds or thousands of them at will! I don't want to wake up every morning to find my vision dominated by vast expanses of black, white, yellow, green, or even multicolored, zebra-striped cleavage! I want to marry someone whose mind is a bit more grounded!"

Gu Xiechen could only manage a nervous chuckle. It seemed Ulis’s own mind wasn't very grounded, making the thought of her marrying Tartarus difficult to imagine.

Tilting her head and swinging her feet, Ulis smiled charmingly. "Besides, marrying Tartarus would be highly advantageous for my family. My family's influence in the Federal Council cannot possibly grow any larger, and my father's Greenglass Conglomerate cannot expand further without facing joint retaliation from our competitors. Therefore, a Lieutenant General with real power would be very beneficial to us. Furthermore, Tartarus seems more like a man; I detest those 'hermaphrodites' whose beauty is almost equal to my own!"

Penghua slowly crawled out of the ground. He shouted in a bizarre, affected voice, "The real manly man is right here, ladies! Back in the day, Big Master Penghua fought thirty-eight pleasure houses single-handedly along the Qinhuai River in one night, staining the silver spears crimson, and breaking the virginity of eighteen respected Qing officials overnight—that is a real man!"

"Scram!" Gu Xiechen and Ulis roared in unison. A chunk of ice and a bolt of purple light smashed Penghua back down into the ground.

An unidentified object wormed its way out from beneath the earth. Penghua wickedly arched his back up from the surface, thrusting upward violently several times. Then, dragging two corpses, he vanished at top speed.

Cursing Penghua’s ancestors in frustration, Ulis’s face darkened. "Why are all the men around you such villains and scoundrels? Is it that..."

Gu Xiechen rubbed his nose, offering a wry smile. "My father told me that the villains and scoundrels who are rotten to the core are surprisingly the least likely to betray their brothers. I would rather be friends with a rogue!"

Ulis blinked in surprise, nodding thoughtfully. "That sounds plausible. Perhaps. That isn't the main point, though. Have you agreed to my requests?"

Gu Xiechen spread his hands helplessly, offering a non-committal reply. "I will do my best!"

"Excellent." Ulis snapped her fingers, and with a sweep of her right hand, a purple light shot from her palm, instantly enveloping the entire room. Pop-pop. With a few sharp crackles, all the electronics in the room burned out, spitting out countless dense sparks that nearly ignited the room's carpet.

Taking a deep breath, Ulis stated, "You currently control twenty supernatural training academies, with dozens more slated for construction. There are already millions of students enrolled. So, I require a few of those academies. I want to serve as the medical and welfare instructor for those students!"

"You?" Gu Xiechen gasped in horror. "Medical instructor? Don't even think about using those children for experiments! No amount of money will suffice!"

"Heavens, no," Ulis shook her head. "I won't be using them for experiments. I simply want to establish a large-scale database. All students need to wear a sensor device on their bodies daily. Of course, if they are willing to provide me with ten to two hundred milliliters of fresh blood monthly, and about one gram of bone marrow every six months for research and analysis, I can offer them additional compensation!"

Gu Xiechen rapidly analyzed the situation. Wearing a sensor device? That was trivial. Of course, since the children would be inconvenienced by wearing the sensors for daily activities, Ulis would certainly need to provide them with a daily living subsidy!

A maximum of two hundred milliliters of blood per month? Oh well, that was even less of an issue. Haven't mature girls been losing blood monthly anyway? This amount wouldn't be a burden on the children! However, the blood of a supernatural individual was precious, drop for drop. How should this price be set? Hmm, what is the going rate for the most expensive, "Panda"-grade blood at the Federal Emergency Center per hundred milliliters? Let’s use that price!

Gu Xiechen was a businessman. A businessman values harmony to foster wealth; he couldn't scare off a client with an exorbitant demand!

As for the bone marrow—good heavens, that was truly rare! Although Federal technology could now use medications to replenish bone marrow loss, extracting bone marrow was excruciatingly painful!

Ulis shouldn't be stingy regarding the compensation for physical damage and emotional distress, right?

Well, if these experiments only involved observation and didn't involve injecting the children with any strange, bizarre drugs, then Gu Xiechen could tolerate this level of study! But that was the absolute limit! Moreover, he would never agree to these terms unless Ulis suffered a significant financial loss herself!

After a period of contemplation, Gu Xiechen narrowed his eyes and smiled. "Very well, we will discuss the specific terms later. In exchange, what have you prepared?"

Ulis glared at Gu Xiechen, tossing her head back with a cold sneer. "On a Federal colony planet, quite a few—no fewer than one hundred stalks—of the Blazing Orchid have been discovered!"

"What?" Gu Xiechen leaped up violently.

He clenched his fists tightly and said in a deep voice, "We need to have a serious talk."

The Blazing Orchid—that item was invaluable!

Reminders: Mid-match break May 1st second release Where are the monthly tickets? (To be continued)