Auntie Shu Yun

"Cough, cough! I mean, nuclear power is obviously out of the question. What other kinds of power are there?" Nie Yun saw that Chu Xiaoxiao was about to blow up and hurriedly changed his tune.

"The most efficient would be solar generators. More common options include diesel generators and wind turbines," Chu Xiaoxiao said irritably.

"Great. Then I'll take one of each!" With the Mechanical Insect around, one of each might as well mean an infinite number.

"I'd also like a robot with nimble hands and feet. It doesn't need to be particularly advanced."

"A nimble robot? What for?" Chu Xiaoxiao asked, puzzled. Why did this guy always want such strange things?

"Cough, cough! You know how it is. Life at sea can get pretty dull, so I just thought it'd be fun to buy one!" Nie Yun lied.

He couldn't exactly say he planned to use it as a crew member. Ordinary sailors absolutely couldn't be used aboard the Sea Wolf, so after thinking it over, this was the only solution he could come up with.

The Mechanical Insect could transform into all kinds of tools, but without a body, it wasn't very efficient at getting things done. Nie Yun also had to supervise it and correct its mistakes.

If he could give the Mechanical Insect a robot body, it would be far more efficient at handling all sorts of tasks.

Of course, the more important thing was that this would make the Mechanical Insect look more like a sailor!

On a great fishing boat, without a crew of loyal sailors working tirelessly to scrub the decks, Nie Yun always felt something was missing. The Sea Wolf seemed a little incomplete, too.

Mechanical Insect: "..." (Why scrub the decks!?)

Anyway, that was how Nie Yun came up with his "Robot Sailor Completion Plan."

"Fine, I'll keep an eye out for one. There are plenty of these robots on the market, so it shouldn't be hard to find. Anything else you need?"

"That's all. Oh, right—how much will all this cost?"

"About one or two million. If you don't have enough, I'll cover the rest for now."

"Great, then I'll take you up on that. I happened to find some more old coins these past couple of days. You can sell them for me and I'll pay you back!"

"Y-you found more old coins! You make it sound like they're cabbages on the street! You can't just find them every time you go out!"

"Cough, cough! I'm serious. I don't know what's going on these past few days, but I keep running into this sort of thing. And these coins, honestly—they just had to make me find them in several batches!"

Chu Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes. So that meant he was supposed to have found them all at once?

"Fine, but not every old coin is worth as much as the last one you found. Scarcity makes things valuable. The rarer a coin is on the market, the more it's worth. The one you found was especially precious, so the others might not fetch anywhere near as much."

Chu Xiaoxiao worried he was getting his hopes up, so she couldn't help warning him.

"Yeah, I know. Have someone appraise them first. I'm not expecting to make much."

Nie Yun really wasn't expecting much. He didn't expect to sell another coin for over ten million, but he had so many of them!

Even if those hundred-odd gold coins were worth only one million each, that would still add up to nearly a hundred million!

"Fine. None of this is difficult. Our group's purchasing team can get it all done in a day. I can hand everything over to you this time tomorrow. Where would you like to take delivery? You'll also need to sign a sales contract and some related paperwork."

"Tomorrow at this time works. I'll tell you the location later. Oh, and while you're at it, buy me some scrap iron and fuel to put on the boat. The more, the better!"

"Hmm? Forget the fuel. What do you need scrap iron for?"

"Oh, uh, well, I'm having a friend modify and upgrade the boat I bought, so I'll need quite a lot of iron," Nie Yun said, making up an excuse on the spot.

"You're using scrap iron to modify and upgrade a boat?!" Chu Xiaoxiao didn't know what to make of that idea.

Was aircraft-carrier engineering really this wild?

After hanging up, even Nie Yun hadn't expected to solve the problem that had been troubling him for days in just a few words.

Once he took delivery of the new boat and equipment, the Mechanical Insect would no longer be held back in its development. A massive building boom was sure to follow.

"Just as I thought, Chu Xiaoxiao is a god-tier teammate. I've got to stick close to her!"

The next afternoon, a dozen or so nautical miles from Nie Yun's secret base, three boats came alongside one another.

One was Nie Yun's fishing boat, the old Sea Wolf. It was still battered and run-down.

Another was a white, mid-sized yacht, over thirty meters long. Its streamlined exterior gave it an elegant shape, and its surface had been carefully painted and waxed. It was so exquisite that it looked like a work of art.

"Hey! Which one's your boat?"

Chu Xiaoxiao looked at Nie Yun, who was practically drooling over her yacht, with exasperation and amusement. She pointed to the third boat.

"Oh! Oh! That one!"

Nie Yun turned his head slightly and glanced at the large cargo ship beside the yacht. It was several sizes bigger, but looked rather bulky. Some of its paint was even peeling, so it was definitely secondhand.

Then... he turned back and continued drooling over Chu Xiaoxiao's yacht...

Comparisons could make you despair; comparisons could make you throw your goods away! Put side by side, it was like a country bumpkin meeting a rich lady!

Nie Yun became acutely aware of the gap between them.

"Want it?" Chu Xiaoxiao asked with a mischievous smile.

At her words, Nie Yun turned to look at Chu Xiaoxiao. Today, she was wearing a pink, sleeveless, low-cut dress and light makeup. Standing prettily in the sea breeze, she left Nie Yun staring for a moment.

She's prettier than the yacht, Nie Yun suddenly thought.

"No, I'm just admiring it. Yes, admiring it!" He shifted his gaze away slightly, and even he wasn't sure whether he meant the boat or the person.

Chu Xiaoxiao was dazzling like this!

Chu Xiaoxiao noticed how awkward Nie Yun seemed and felt a little pleased with herself. This outfit had taken her three whole hours to put together!

She looked down at the generous expanse of cleavage on display, and her face reddened a little. She'd never worn anything so revealing before.

But when she remembered that hateful "Auntie Shu Yun" Nie Yun had mentioned, Chu Xiaoxiao gritted her teeth in anger.

That night, she'd heard Nie Yun mention that she couldn't compare to "Auntie Shu Yun." She'd remembered the name right away, then specifically sent someone to the Nanwan docks to ask around about a woman named Shu Yun.

The results of the investigation soon reached Chu Xiaoxiao. Shu Yun really did live near the Nanwan docks, and she also ran a beef noodle shop. She was easy enough to find.

But when Chu Xiaoxiao took the photo of the proprietress named Shu Yun from a subordinate with a strange look in his eyes, she was so furious that she crumpled it into a ball of wastepaper.

The woman in the photo was a fat woman in her forties with an ordinary face, but one feature stood out clearly!

She was very well-endowed! No, she was tremendously well-endowed!

"Nie Yun, you bastard!" Chu Xiaoxiao had been absolutely furious!

How was she supposed to compete with that?!