Setting Up a Street Stall on the Spot

Chief of Staff Zhang Yuan half rose from his chair, opened his mouth, then sat back down.

He had worked alongside Xiao Ding for eight years. He knew the man too well.

Once a man with four general's stars made a decision, no one could stop him.

"Then I'll relay the order." The adjutant turned and strode away.

Beside him, Lin Zhenshan set down his teacup and lightly patted his knee twice.

"The commander has a good eye. Li Zhengyang truly is the most suitable touchstone for Lu Chen. But the boy is only a Ninth-Rank Martial Spirit. If his foundation gets damaged, then..."

He drew out the final word.

What a pity.

At least, that was what his words implied.

Zhang Yuan turned to glance at him.

Your son's wrist had just been broken, and now you were saying it was a pity?

Like hell anyone would believe you.

Xiao Ding did not respond to that.

His attention was fixed entirely on the massive holographic display.

The competitor count in the Mimetic Battlefield was still dropping.

28... 19... 12...

"If we don't stop this now, the kid's going to scare them into extinction," Xiao Ding muttered. "Pass the order. End the second stage early and teleport all contestants back immediately."

Inside the Mimetic Battlefield.

When the announcement came over the speakers, Li Zhengyang was crouched beside an unconscious guy, stripping off his wristguard.

"Attention. The second stage has ended ahead of schedule. Due to the large-scale withdrawal of contestants, there is no point in continuing. All contestants still on the field will be teleported back to Central Stadium in thirty seconds. Final rankings will be determined by the number of point badges collected."

Thirty seconds.

Li Zhengyang's hands instantly moved at full speed.

Wristguard, stripped.

Storage pouch, untied.

The dagger tucked at the waist looked pretty good, so he took that too.

Several weapons knocked away by the spear blast lay scattered across the ground. He bent down to pick up the two best-looking long blades, then kicked over a storage pouch half-buried in rubble.

There was too much stuff.

Even his pockets and storage ring were stuffed full. There was still a pile of miscellaneous loot with nowhere to put it.

He looked around, his gaze settling on a guy embedded in a rock wall thirty meters away.

The military jacket on that guy was still mostly intact.

Li Zhengyang walked over and tore the jacket off in a few swift motions.

The man groaned in pain, but he was playing dead and did not dare make a sound.

Then Li Zhengyang stripped another one off the back of someone lying nearby, too scared to move.

He spread the two jackets on the ground, piled all the spoils on top, then gathered and tied the four corners.

The two bulging bundles stood upright like oversized sackcloth bags.

"Ten, nine, eight..."

The countdown began.

Li Zhengyang carried one bundle in each hand, with the Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear tucked beneath his arm.

He lowered his head and gave the area one final sweep.

Yep, nothing left behind.

"Three, two, one, teleport!"

White light swallowed the entire wasteland.

Central Stadium.

The final rankings had already appeared on the massive holographic display.

First place: Li Zhengyang, Fortress No. 13, forty-one point badges.

Second place: Sun Kai, Fortress No. 7, six point badges.

Forty-one to six.

The stands, packed with one hundred thousand people, were unusually quiet.

Everything that needed to be said had already been said. Now everyone was waiting for the contestants to emerge.

White light flashed one after another from the teleportation array.

The surviving contestants appeared in the center of the field, one by one.

Some collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. Some trembled as they looked around wildly. Some ran straight to their teammates the moment they landed, hugging them and bursting into tears.

Then came the final beam of white light.

Li Zhengyang emerged from it.

A bundle in his left hand, another in his right, and a long spear under his arm. The weapons inside the bundles clinked together with every step he took.

The stadium of one hundred thousand people fell silent.

A team of medics carrying stretchers happened to pass through the right-side tunnel.

Four stretchers moved in a row, and Qi Tian lay on the first one.

His chest was wrapped in thick bandages, his face ashen, with dried blood still crusted at the corners of his mouth.

The stretcher passed less than two meters from Li Zhengyang.

Qi Tian's body suddenly went rigid.

Then he violently twisted his entire head in the opposite direction.

The motion tugged at his broken ribs, drawing a muffled groan from him as reflexive tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes.

But he would rather hurt himself to death than look this way even once.

The Northern Frontier's elite, the seed contestants from every fortress.

At this moment, they collectively chose to close their eyes and play dead.

In the front row of the stands, Hu Dahai launched himself out of his seat.

He did not even take the stairs. He vaulted over the railing, jumped down, and staggered toward Li Zhengyang.

"Zhengyang!"

His voice cracked as he threw open his arms and rushed in for a hug.

Li Zhengyang sidestepped.

Hu Dahai lunged at empty air, slipped, and nearly planted his face in the dirt.

"Don't touch me. You'll crush my merchandise."

"What merchandise?"

Li Zhengyang set the two bundles on the ground and crouched down to untie them.

Weapons spilled across the floor with a clatter.

Seven long blades, three short swords, two hammers, an iron shield stripped from some unlucky bastard, complete with a fist-sized dent in it.

There were also more than a dozen bottles of pills, five or six pieces of armor and wristguards, plus several bulging storage pouches.

Li Zhengyang pulled out the piece of cardboard that had been with him all day, flipped it over, and used a marker he had found in Qi Tian's storage pouch to write two lines on the back.

[Clearance sale! Half off everything!]

[No returns. No haggling.]

He propped the cardboard behind the pile of weapons.

The entire stadium went silent for three seconds.

Slap.

Somewhere in the stands, someone finally lost it and smacked their thigh.

Then laughter exploded from every direction.

"Am I seeing this right? He's setting up a street stall?"

"A street stall in the arena? That's a first, isn't it?"

"It's the same cardboard from before! Robbery on the front, clearance sale on the back! He's running a two-sided business!"

Li Zhengyang ignored them all.

He picked up a long blade, flicked the body of the weapon, listened to its ring, and nodded in satisfaction. Then he raised his chin at a referee passing ten meters away.

"Hey, Referee."

The referee stopped and turned around.

"Can you take QR payments here?"

"...What?"

"I take cash too, but transfers are better. I don't have change."

An extremely complicated expression appeared on the referee's face.

He had been a referee for twelve years.

He had seen contestants fight in the ring. He had seen them curse each other out. He had seen losers cry for their mothers.

But this was the first time he had seen someone set up a street stall.

Hu Dahai crouched beside him, lowering his voice.

"Could you tone it down a little? A hundred thousand people are watching! You represent the honor of Fortress No. 13!"

"How much is honor worth?"

"..."

"Want this blade? Forged from black iron. Forty thousand for you, friendship price."

"I don't want it!"

"Then squat somewhere else. Don't block my business."

Someone actually came over.

Two eliminated contestants bent down and began picking through the pile of weapons.

One of them hesitantly picked up a short sword and weighed it in his hand.

"How much for this one?"

"Thirty thousand."

"Can't you make it cheaper?"

"Look at this edge." Li Zhengyang took the sword and slashed it through the air. "Thousand-forged refined steel, its cold gleam restrained. Its previous owner was full of spirit when he swung this thing at me. The quality is absolutely beyond question."

The contestant thought of the scene in the Mimetic Battlefield earlier.

Silently, he put the sword back down.

It was not because it was too expensive.

He was afraid the original owner would come looking for it.

Or, more accurately, he was afraid Li Zhengyang might rob him again someday.

Before the laughter throughout the stadium had died down, the loudspeakers sounded again.

"Dear audience members and contestants, the rules for the final round will now be announced."

The stadium gradually quieted.

"Given the large-scale withdrawal of contestants in the second stage, the originally scheduled ten-person final no longer holds competitive significance. With approval from military command, the final-round rules have been adjusted as follows."

"The contestant ranked first in the second stage, Li Zhengyang, will challenge a specially invited gatekeeper alone."

"The gatekeeper is Lu Chen, deputy commander of the Northern Frontier Military Region Guard Corps."

The announcement paused for a beat.

"Cultivation: Martial Sect."

The moment those final two words fell, the entire stadium seemed to have its power cut.

All laughter, conversation, and noise vanished.

Then one hundred thousand people erupted at once.

"Martial Sect?"

"You're making a Martial Spirit fight a Martial Sect? Is this a selection trial or an execution?"

In the Fortress No. 13 section, several old soldiers who had come with Li Zhengyang shot to their feet, slamming their hands against the railing.

"Fuck! Who approved this?"

"Is this a competition or a death sentence?!"

At the center of the field.

The color drained completely from Hu Dahai's face within two seconds.

"Withdraw."

Li Zhengyang looked up at the two words on the display.

Martial Sect.

He put the hammer he had just picked up to price back on the ground.

A faint smile touched his lips.