Mecha! Mecha!

Of the three children Li Mei had adopted, only two were found at the orphanage. The remaining child had been adopted after awakening his Martial Soul on Awakening Day.

He had awakened his Martial Soul the day before yesterday and been adopted yesterday?

The problem was that the adoption had been illegal. An orphanage employee had taken money and colluded with outsiders, pushing the boy into a pit of fire.

"Li Fu, bat Martial Soul, level 2 innate soul power."

"The Earl's Gang? A gang of thugs that also ran the black market?"

Realization dawned on Jiang Dongjun.

Right, there did seem to be a black market in Aolai City or somewhere nearby. At the beginning of Douluo Dalu III: The Legend of the Dragon King, Na'er had nearly been dragged off by a bunch of thugs and sold into it.

"The captain of the mecha squadron in Aolai City's defense force received a cut from the Earl's Gang every month."

"Fuck! It's the same rotten mess everywhere!"

"There isn't enough time tonight. I'll take a look tomorrow night and draw a line under this whole Aolai City affair. While I'm at it, I'll see whether this little gang has anything good, grab some loot, and send it back to Douluo II. No need to feel guilty about robbing villains."

He returned to the inn.

Jiang Dongjun went back to his corner to meditate, pondering how to divide his attention.

In the latter half of the night, his Yin Spirit suddenly opened his eyes. Surprised, he reached out to sense the "Light of Time and Space" dwelling deep within his soul. After discovering something, he turned in astonishment toward Na'er, who was sound asleep on the bed.

Just now, one drop of soul liquid had condensed!

Its source was perfectly clear.

As he lived alongside the Silver Dragon King, blessings of fortune constantly radiated from her, and the "Light of Time and Space" collected them bit by bit. Those small amounts accumulated until they finally condensed into soul liquid.

The production rate was roughly one drop of soul liquid a day.

"If I live with the Silver Dragon King like this for thirty years, I'll get over ten thousand drops of soul liquid-almost the equivalent of devouring a Sky Dream Ice Silkworm?"

Jiang Dongjun was dumbstruck.

Wasn't this soul liquid a little too easy to obtain?

But when he considered the Silver Dragon King's origins and standing, Jiang Dongjun felt that this harvest was only barely satisfactory.

In any case, Jiang Dongjun immediately perked up. He had even more motivation to look after the child, and his mind filled with thoughts of how to tell his stories well enough to earn this "pay."

The rabbit ran and the crow flew; the sun set and the moon rose.

On his third night in the Douluo III World, Jiang Dongjun set out again, having returned to the Douluo II world during the day to upgrade his equipment.

Aolai City, the commercial district.

A few scattered lights still burned in a four-story office building bearing a sign for "Earl's Properties." Uniformed security guards patrolled outside.

His Yin Spirit huddled in the shadows at the corner of an alley, peering at the office building.

He had learned from the orphanage employee that this was the Earl's Gang's base, and several leaders who had risen into management lived inside.

His Yin Spirit slipped into the office building. Relying on his memory of the lit rooms, he searched them one by one until he found a lone wage slave working overtime in an office.

He drifted behind the man, making him feel a bone-piercing chill. But the man merely rubbed his exposed arms, which had broken out in goosebumps, cursed a couple of times, and continued his work.

Jiang Dongjun took a curious peek.

Oh, an accountant doing the books. What he's handling right now is this month's protection money from the various stalls.

"Heh heh, I know a thing or two about accounting myself. Invite your venerable ancestor into your body, and I'll teach you how to keep the books."

Yin Spirit, possession!

The gap between an ordinary person and a spirit sea realm Yin Spirit was simply too great. The accountant had no power to resist as Jiang Dongjun possessed him, leaving the memories in his mind open for Jiang Dongjun to browse at will.

The accountant of any organization was sure to be a favorite of those in power and know plenty of secrets.

What Jiang Dongjun found shocked him.

"The Earl's Gang's public leader, the head thug, is actually just a puppet? Xue Zhensha, two rings, Yellow-Rank Mecha Master-just a musclehead enforcer."

"The real power behind the scenes is a four-ring Vampire Bat Evil Soul Master, Delong, a Mecha Designer. He has to drink a young girl's blood every fortnight? A lot of his blood meals are purchased through the black market's slave trade, so he hasn't attracted the Federation's attention."

"I see. No wonder he was so impatient to take away an orphan who'd awakened a bat Martial Soul... Maybe he intended to corrupt the boy's Martial Soul and gain an enforcer, an apprentice? Or perhaps he planned to raise him for a while, then devour him to obtain martial soul origin from the same source and improve his own cultivation aptitude? Evil Soul Masters take all sorts of twisted paths. Whatever his ultimate goal was, it wouldn't be surprising."

"Delong is staying on the fourth floor of the office building tonight. He wants to check this month's income and work out how much he'll have left after paying out everyone's cuts. He's planning to buy a batch of Thousand Refinement rare metals."

"The ring-shaped layout inside the office building practically spells it out. There's another space right in the center. The two Mecha Masters' mecha might be parked in there. I'll take a look."

After thoughts as crystalline as diamonds escaped from the accountant's body, his head tilted to one side and he slumped over his desk, no longer breathing.

Jiang Dongjun had originally come merely to skim a little off the top and plunder ill-gotten wealth. But the moment he heard there was an Evil Soul Master, he perked up like a starving wolf catching the scent of blood.

When he met a wall, he passed straight through!

In just a few breaths, Jiang Dongjun plunged into a vast space.

The ceiling was nearly twenty meters high. This immense, open space occupied the office building's bottom three floors and extended deep underground. There were no windows anywhere, and soul guidance lamps lit the place as brightly as day.

"Woof... whimper..."

Inside the room, a fierce dog kept in an iron cage, almost as large as a tiger from Jiang Dongjun's previous life, sensed something amiss. The instant it opened its mouth, a blast of spiritual power turned the inside of its skull to mush, and it fell silent with a whimper.

Jiang Dongjun paid no attention whatsoever to this small fry. His entire field of vision was filled by three enormous machines.

Two were yellow-painted metal monsters standing twelve meters tall;

The remaining one stood in the very center of the room, surrounded by an array of soul-guided mechanical arms. It was a mechanical monster nearly ten meters tall, with half its paintwork yellow and half purple.

Clearly, this was a mecha undergoing an upgrade from yellow rank to purple rank, changing from a standard-issue model into one with a personal style.

This space was the workshop of the four-ring Evil Soul Master overhead.

Jiang Dongjun reluctantly pulled his gaze away from the mecha. Earlier, he had sensed a faint sign of life in this room besides the fierce dog.

Now, looking closely, he discovered a child inside the dog cage.

It was Li Fu.

Only a day after his adoption, he had already been whipped all over and forced to eat and live with a dog. How deep a grudge could someone possibly hold against him?

Compassion appeared in the Yin Spirit's eyes. He dissolved into crystalline thoughts and entered Li Fu's body, possessing him to find out why.

Before long, Jiang Dongjun sighed in admiration.

"You've got backbone! Faced with temptation, you'd rather die than drink human blood!"

"Looks like I'll have to find a way to save your life today. And there's also..."

After adding a little something to Li Fu's memories, his thoughts escaped the boy's body, reformed into his Yin Spirit, and drifted toward a workbench in the center of the room.

After examining it, Jiang Dongjun stared with burning eyes at a belt lying on the workbench. Two enormous gems were set into its buckle, fashioned into a pair of Yin-Yang Fish chasing each other.

Even though he had caught a fleeting glimpse of it in Li Fu's memories, Jiang Dongjun still inspected it with his spiritual power.

Once he confirmed it beyond doubt, he was overjoyed.

"A black-market organization in a little city actually has High-Capacity Storage Equipment for Mecha? Two storage compartments, each big enough to hold a yellow-rank mecha!"