Volume 1, Chapter 57: A horse cannot grow fat without night grazing, and a man cannot grow rich without unexpected wealth!

Players who noticed the situation here could not help but shake their heads with a helpless sigh when they saw this scene.

"Sigh, the times are truly corrupt."

"Indeed, forcing someone to sell their woman just to get a tiny spot to plant a spiritual plant."

"If it were me, I'd rather plant my spiritual plant on the sand."

……

"Big Brother, is it okay if I plant my spiritual plant here?"

Li Chuan walked onto the grass and asked timidly of a sharp-mouthed, monkey-cheeked fellow.

This skinny monkey seemed to hold the fourth rank among this gang of bandits. At the moment, all his attention was focused on Lin Yaoyao, and from time to time he reached out to take advantage, but Lin Yaoyao agilely dodged every time.

"Big Brother? Call me Fourth Brother! Plant it right here, huh? By the way, what kind of thing is your spiritual plant?"

Li Chuan raised his head, revealing a brilliant, sunny smile.

"My spiritual plant? Oh, it's just a little tree."

A blue photosynthetic containment pod appeared in Li Chuan's hand, and the next moment—

A tree large enough to dwarf every spiritual plant in the vicinity suddenly materialized in mid-air, and then rapidly thrust its roots straight into the soil.

Lin Yaoyao immediately kicked the skinny monkey flying.

"Yay! The plan is a complete success! Little Green, go crush this bunch of scum!"

The tall second sister widened her eyes and shouted cutely.

"No! This brat is no pushover! Attack him quickly and finish him off!"

The members of the Nine Tigers Gang finally reacted, shouting angrily as they rushed toward Little Green, hoping to deal with it before it could take root.

The skinny monkey shrieked shrilly, "Move fast! The grade of that spiritual plant is terrifyingly high!"

Li Chuan raised his hand crossbow, aiming right at the furious skinny monkey.

"Isn't it a bit too late to be saying that now?"

Piercing Arrow!

Whoosh!

Bang!

[Critical Hit — 999!]

The arrow, flying fast enough to produce a sonic boom, pierced straight through the skinny monkey's chest, plunging into the turf like a phantom as blood instantly stained the grass red.

[System Notification: Killed LV19 Huang Zhongge, Gold Coins +60, Experience Points +190]

Bang!

Little Green swung its flower bud, making short work of the charging crowd and grinding them into a bloody pulp in the blink of an eye.

[System Notification: Killed LV18 Wang Cheng, Gold Coins +90, Experience Points +180]

[System Notification: Killed LV19 Song Yang, Gold Coins +67, Experience Points +190]

……

In less than three minutes, of the eight players from the Nine Tigers Gang, only the cooperative leader and two female players who had yet to act remained.

"You! You people!"

The burly man widened his eyes, pointing a trembling finger at Li Chuan.

This fellow put on an expression of furious desperation.

"Bastards! How dare you touch my brothers!"

He cursed furiously, then whirled around, rushed to his spiritual plant, retrieved a photosynthetic containment pod, recalled his plant, and fled.

Li Chuan couldn't help rolling his eyes.

And here he thought this boss had some spine.

The burly man moved at lightning speed, and just as he was about to run out of Little Green's attack range—just as joy began to well up in his heart—

A crisp, sweet voice suddenly echoed right beside his ear.

"Ooh, you even have a spare one of these? Impressive."

A petite, black-clad figure materialized right beside the burly man. Before he could even recover his wits, Lin Yaoyao thrust her dagger straight through his throat.

Splat!

Blood sprayed everywhere.

[Parry — 89!]

Yet the burly man didn't die despite taking a fatal blow. He widened his eyes, pressing one hand against his neck while his other hand swung a heavy saber in a fierce, sweeping arc.

Lin Yaoyao executed a backflip to dodge it, but the burly man chased after her like a spinning top, moving at incredible speed with overwhelming momentum.

As expected, anyone capable of serving as the boss of a band of murderers possessed some genuine skill.

Bang!

A massive flower bud over a meter in diameter slammed viciously down onto the top of the spinning top.

Left behind on the ground was a puddle of minced meat and several pieces of miscellaneous equipment.

Li Chuan swept his gaze across the ground.

Goodness gracious!

The items dropped by the six red-named players were more than what sixty normal players combined would drop.

It was as if they had practically shaken out the contents of their entire inventories!

Lin Yaoyao patted her modest chest, putting on a frightened expression.

Then she turned around, gazing with hungry eyes at the two surviving female players.

"Ooh, I'm so scared, almost got cut in two! Leave these last two to me!"

Those two female players didn't have any spare photosynthetic containment pods. Seeing the god of death bearing down upon them, they exchanged glances and dropped to their knees on the grass in unison.

"Don't, don't kill us! We aren't bad people!"

"We only joined the Nine Tigers Gang because we were forced to! Heroine, spare our lives!"

Lin Yaoyao's figure flickered in and out of visibility.

"Hey, Second Sister, didn't you just say you wanted my pretty boy Chuan-ge earlier? Why are you claiming you were forced now?"

Feeling death closing in, the slender woman hurriedly spoke up.

The sixth sister shrank her neck, terrified that the invisible Lin Yaoyao hiding in the air would slit her throat with a single blade. Speaking through tears, she pleaded,

"We were forced! If we didn't act like bad guys, they would have killed us."

The rather attractive second sister also chimed in hastily,

"Right! We're victims! My sub-profession is a chef—a level-three chef! I can cook food for you, food with special effects!"

A silvery-white blade grazed her ear, shearing away a lock of dark hair.

"And you? What is your use?"

Lin Yaoyao appeared right behind the pair, fixing her gaze on the sixth sister.

At that moment, Li Chuan was busy directing Little Green to uproot the spiritual plants of the others and collect their evolution cores.

At the same time, he was gathering the scattered pieces of equipment on the ground.

Given that the Nine Tigers Gang was notorious in their original region, the six of them had actually dropped nine pieces of blue-grade equipment.

Truly, a horse grows fat only on night grass, and a person grows wealthy only through sudden windfalls.

Players on other oases watched with dropped jaws, staring in stunned silence.

They had expected to witness a humiliating spectacle of a man forced to sell his wife in despair, yet what they got instead was a blood-soaked, invincible masterclass by a super-grade spiritual plant.

"What the hell is going on? What kind of tree is that? It's way too fierce!"

A player put on a pair of glasses.

"An orange-grade spiritual plant! Good heavens, the highest-grade plant in our entire region is only purple!"

"So this pair was just playing pigs to eat tigers the whole time? How treacherous!"

"You can't really say that, can you? What if the only impressive thing about them is that plant?"

……

Before Lin Yaoyao, the slender sixth sister was in a state of utter panic, seemingly unable to think of any value she could offer.

"I—I can sleep with him! Just don't kill me, I'll do anything you want!"

"Or—or—I can sleep with you too, anything is fine!"

Lin Yaoyao's figure vanished, her playful voice echoing through the air.

"Well, that's a real shame. Neither of us likes your type."

Splat!

Blood stained the grass once more.

……

Ten minutes later.

"Any of this equipment you can use? If not, I'm putting it all on the auction house."

Li Chuan leaned against Little Green's trunk, with numerous pieces of equipment radiating various colored lights arrayed before him.

Lin Yaoyao picked out two pieces of blue leather armor.

"Just these two will do."

"That woman said she's a level-three chef, right? Should we keep her around?"

Li Chuan cast his gaze toward the tall, thin woman who was still trembling in a state of lingering fear.

This woman actually managed to raise her sub-profession to level three?

[Cheng Nannan (Nanqiang): Human]

[HP: 100/100]

[LV18, Human Warrior with ordinary constitution, weakness marked.]

Her level wasn't high, and the grade of her spiritual plant was merely green, posing no major threat.

"I am indeed getting tired of gnawing on dry bread. Let's keep her around for now."

Cheng Nannan's face instantly lit up with joy.

"Thank you, Boss! Thank you, Boss!"

"Those bastards always forced me to kill people. Every time I close my eyes at night, I see the people I've killed. Thank you, Boss, for saving me from this sea of misery."

Li Chuan pulled a few pieces of fish and beast meat from his inventory, the corners of his mouth curving upward.

"You've merely swapped bosses. What makes you so certain you've escaped the sea of misery?"