Meng Chao’s eyes shone brilliantly. He said to Qin Hu, “Mr. Hu, you just reminded me of something. There’s a huge pool of resources hidden behind hundreds of thousands of broken-star superhumans in Dragon City. If we don’t use it properly, it’d be a great waste. But I can’t just let you fork out your own money for the renovation of the headquarters.”
“You don’t have to be concerned about that,” Qin Hu said heartily. “Kid, you don’t understand. You can only earn money if you’re willing to spend.
“Think about it. The main goal of setting up the Broken Star Club is to practice the Ultimate Style. You’re not just Mr. Gu’s true disciple, but also the promoter with the most charisma. You’re also the one who is repairing your main meridians and reaching new cultivation realms the fastest among all the broken-star superhumans. All the broken-star superhumans are using you as their example. It’s only natural that you become the club leader of the Broken Star Club.
“But what about me? I joined midway, and I don’t even know whether I can be considered a broken-star superhuman. There’s no problem if I’m a normal member, but I want to be a director, and if I’m a director when the Broken Star Club really has hundreds of thousands of members, others will inevitably ask what gave me the right to be the director.
“I really have high hopes for the Broken Star Club’s development, which is why I’m willing to fork out all my money to take this gamble. Kid, you have to let me fulfill my wish!”
Meng Chao thought about it for a moment and said, “Mr. Hu, this is all armchair strategy right now. It sounds really impressive, but no one knows what sort of problems we’ll face when things really start rolling. You might end up with all your money going up in smoke.”
“That’s nothing. I still have Superstar’s shares. We entrusted our backs to each other before. Kid, you won’t be able to bear watching me beg for money on the streets, right?” Qin Hu laughed. Suddenly, his expression turned dark, and a spark akin to that of a fierce tiger shone in the depths of his eyes.
He said clearly, “The deal with the White Spirit hasn’t ended yet. Practically all of Frenzied Saber died, and I have to take revenge for my friends. Unfortunately, I don’t know who the mastermind is yet. I’ve also lost all my power, but I can use other methods to help a little!
“I can’t do much else, so I want to do my best to make the Broken Star Club grow. If I can gather people from everywhere and obtain clues from all over the city, I might be able to truly figure out something.”
Meng Chao’s expression changed.
He did not expect that this was Qin Hu’s goal.
His mind raced, but he did not suspect Qin Hu’s motive in the slightest.
In his previous life, Qin Hu had also managed to survive alone and then stepped on the path of revenge against the White Spirit. He never turned back or wavered.
It did not matter how many flaws Qin Hu had, at the very least, he was a real man.
However, there were certain differences between Meng Chao and Qin Hu when it came to operating the Broken Star Club.
He shook his head and said, “Mr. Hu, if you and I work together with Big Sis Ya, we’ll definitely have the chance to catch the mastermind who created the White Spirit, but when it comes to the Broken Star Club, I don’t intend to earn even a single cent from it.”
Qin Hu was shocked. “What?”
“The Broken Star Club should be a non-profit organization. Its goal is to obtain the friendship and trust from hundreds of thousands of broken-star superhumans. If you want to make it big and strong, you can’t mix in any thoughts of gaining any sort of profit from it.
“There’s nothing wrong with what you said about using the members to do ground marketing, direct selling, and group purchasing. But we have to return all the profit to the members and the normal citizens who trusted the members. Aside from the fees required to maintain the operations of the organization, we can’t earn any money from the Broken Star Club.”
Qin Hu scratched his head. “Then, what should I be aiming for after doing so much hard work and making such a huge deal about this entire thing? Do you really want me to contribute to the citizens?”
“What’s so bad about contributing to society?” Meng Chao smiled faintly. The light in his eyes was incredibly bright. “Mr. Hu, place your sights even further. If we really manage to win over the trust and friendship of hundreds of thousands of broken-star superhumans, then rely on their connections and resources to conduct business beyond the Broken Star Club, we’ll definitely be able to earn money.
“Money isn’t the most important thing in Dragon City and the Other World. You’ve already made a good start, so you should not kill the goose that lays golden eggs for a quick profit. The Broken Star Club can’t be used to earn money. Instead, it should be used to win something that’s even more important.”
“What is it?” Qin Hu asked in shock.
“The future!” Meng Chao said firmly and slapped Qin Hu’s shoulder. He strode outside. “Come, let’s have a good talk with the other directors. I have a piece of good news for all of you.”
Qin Hu thought about it and quickly walked after him. “What good news is it?”
“What does the Broken Star Club lack right now?” Meng Chao asked.
Qin Hu thought about it. “We’ve paid half a year’s worth of rent for the warehouse, and we don’t really need to pay much for the renovations. But we’re facing a severe lack of the Ultimate Style cultivation cabins. The club members come mainly for cultivation, but those cabins are expensive and difficult to buy. I’d like to contribute in that area, but I don’t have that much money!”
“Don’t worry. You don’t need to contribute.” Meng Chao grinned. “It’s all thanks to your hard work that the Broken Star Club has entered the sights of the best in Dragon City. A mysterious elite has donated one million Supernatural Coins and one hundred cultivation cabins to us!”
From that day onwards, Meng Chao felt as if he had returned to the most crucial period of time for Project 1024. He started living a life where he wanted to split one second into two.
First came the training from the abnormal beast research department.
Ye Xiaoxing was really efficient. He found a few instructors for him right away. They were specialists from Agricultural University and also ace lecturers from the University of Technology, University of Science, Medical University, and the military school.
The alliance of the five universities always helped each other to make up for what the others lacked, so elite students going to other universities for an exchange was a common occurrence.
Everyone was in Nine Sands University City, and superhumans could move pretty quickly as well as jump far, so Meng Chao did not waste a lot of time traveling.
The instructors taught him all sorts of things. He learned detailed dissection of superbeast brains, how he should create mental walls with spirit energy magnetic fields to fend against mind control from abnormal beasts, how to use a large number of advanced runic symbol machines and weapons the likes of which Meng Chao had never heard of before, and how he should set up or disassemble biochemical bombs that were made using monster organs as raw materials.
Of course, he also learned how to identify signs, track targets, perform anti-tracking, reconnaissance and anti-reconnaissance, use sociopsychology, histology, and other things.
Based on what Lu Siya told him, these subjects should have been taught slowly over the course of two years. He was supposed to learn from his instructors bit by bit.
But Meng Chao was not an official investigator of the abnormal beast research department. It would be enough if he learned the general concepts.
Regardless of whether it was Captain Ye Xiaoxing of Group 9 or the instructors, they did not have high hopes for Meng Chao. After all, the special training period was short, and he had to focus on many things.
The end result, however, was something that Meng Chao did not know how he should explain to the instructors, Ye Xiaoxing, and Lu Siya.
Perhaps it was because he was exposed to those things during the day, he started dreaming of them at night.
In the special training from the abnormal beast research department, his brain was forcefully injected with a large amount of information in the classes, and once he returned to the Ultimate Style cultivation cabin and entered deep meditation, he had really clear and long dreams.
In his dreams, he saw another training ground. He was receiving special training from the Ghost Tribe in his previous life.
The training courses were on how he should poison, kidnap, assassinate, detonate bombs, spread lies, shift blame, take advantage of chaos, steal during chaos, and other things.
The training he received when he was awake taught him to be the sturdiest shield that would defend the unity, stability, and peace of Dragon City and human civilization as well as find the evil forces lurking in the dark.
But in his dream, the training he received showed him how to become the sharpest spear that would do everything to throw chaos into the unity, stability, and peace of the civilizations of the Other World and become the evil force that lurks in the dark.
‘Just what did I do in my previous life?!’
As he delved deeper into the training courses during the day, the memories in his dreams became clearer. Meng Chao discovered that practically every day after he woke up, he would remember a brand new skill that was absolutely despicable and ruthless. When he looked at the murderous skills listed by Kindling, his skin crawled and he broke out in cold sweat.
‘Looks like there’s a reason behind why I was able to drag out my existence until the apocalypse fell upon Dragon City despite being just a third-class fighter when many peerless fighters had died.
‘I was old and had serious internal injuries. No matter how much I trained, I couldn’t improve any further. That’s why I could only learn how to poison, assassinate, set up traps, and lurk in the dark to snipe my targets. That was the only way I could remain alive.
‘But Dragon City was in a really bad state in my previous life. We were a human civilization, but for the sake of survival, we used these despicable methods.
“But so what if they’re despicable. The point is, even after we used all of them, we still couldn’t escape the disaster. This is just… It would have been better if we had caused a huge ruckus and stirred up a storm!’
Meng Chao felt that the sacrifice had not been worth it. He and Dragon City had lost too much with nothing to show for it.
His resolution to change the future became firmer at that moment.
Fortunately, with the memories of his previous life and contribution points, he could digest and absorb the special training courses from the abnormal beast research department.
After he received the training from the Ghost Tribe in his nightmares and returned to reality for the training from the abnormal beast research department, he felt like veteran bandit who had performed all sorts of heinous crimes being asked to catch a thief or an assassin who had killed many targets being asked to be a bodyguard.
He could not say that he could handle the tasks with ease, but at the very least, there were similarities in the courses.
Besides, he could usually think from an angle that no one expected and give answers that stunned his instructors.
Honestly, as he awakened to the memories of his previous life, Meng Chao came to look down on the training course from the abnormal beast research department, but only a little.
In the last half a century, the main threats Dragon City faced were zombies and monsters.
They did not need to use deception techniques when they faced these evil creatures.
The abnormal beast research department had just been formed, and while the members were elites from various fields and law enforcement organizations, none of them had yet figured out an effective solution to facing intelligent monsters or organized abnormal humans and abnormal beasts. They were things that they had never faced before.
Most of the training courses from the abnormal beast research department were copied straight from the adjudicator court. The problem lay in the fact that the enemies the adjudicator court had to deal with were evil superhumans who committed crimes.
Committing crimes and throwing Dragon City into chaos were two different things. Since they just copied the training courses blindly, Meng Chao found them a little unprofessional, since he had experience from the future.
There were plenty of times when Meng Chao could not help but think, ‘If I used the skills from the Ghost Tribe to attack the defenses of the abnormal beast research department, I think… I’d have a good chance of succeeding.’
