Chapter 1443

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

On the top floor of the Red Fort, in the luxurious parlor of the Jiang Company...

Xia Fan met with the company’s Chief Steward, He Jinting.

He Jinting seemed to be in his forties, and was neither fat nor thin. He had a smile on his face and treated everyone courteously.

He invited Xia Fan, Traveling Buddha, and Tony to sit, and then had an employee bring in the treasures that Xia Fan had won.

“Do you want anything to drink?” He Jinting asked, pointing at the wine cabinet.

!!

Xia Fan waved his hand. “That won’t be needed. We already drank a lot downstairs.”

He Jinting smiled. “Then have a cup of tea. Too much drink can be rather unbearable.”

Xia Fan didn’t refuse, so He Jinting personally brewed some tea for them.

This steward of extremely high status had a rather inconspicuous personality. He would do many things personally and didn’t have the commanding air of a person of high status.

It wasn’t long before an employee and several guards arrived with Xia Fan’s winnings from the auction: the antique space hoverboard and the Wine of Immortality. The hovercar engine that Xia Fan cared the most about did not appear.

Xia Fan was uneasy. He didn’t care about the engine, but the core in the engine! Every minute that thing wasn’t in Xia Fan’s hand was another minute he couldn’t relax.

“I think there should be other things, right?” Xia Fan asked.

The bespectacled employee quickly replied with a smile, “The rest of the items aren’t worth any money, particularly that engine. It’s really too big, so it wasn’t brought to the parlor. If you need it, I can have the warehouse prepare it.”

“Yes, please get it ready,” Xia Fan said firmly.

The employee was startled. “You want the engine, the insulated cups, clothes... all of it?’

Xia Fan nodded, saying in a matter-of-fact tone, “Why wouldn’t I want it? I still bought that insulated cup with my money, so I can use it to hold my tea. I’ve never had a habit of being wasteful.”

The employee mentally spat out his tongue, saying to himself, ‘Even after opening a big treasure chest, he’s still so stingy, wanting even the souvenirs with our company logo! It’s like he hasn’t won a priceless treasure worth more than ten million gold coins!’

He Jinting immediately ordered, “Immediately do as our guest requests. He has the freedom to do as he sees fit with them.”

“Understood.” The employee withdrew to ready Xia Fan’s other rewards.

He Jinting sat with Xia Fan for a while, wanting to develop a connection with him.

Xia Fan had no desire to talk with He Jinting. All of his attention was on that engine, so he stood up and prepared to leave.

“Very well.” He Jinting saw that there was no keeping Xia Fan, so he smiled and said, “The waters must run down the mountain eventually. Mister Xia Fan, I hope to see you again. If you have anything you need this He Jinting’s assistance on, then please do not try and be polite. Come and find me anytime, I will be waiting.”

Xia Fan bowed back very politely. “I’ll take your word for it. Let us say our farewells for now.”

Xia Fan moved to leave, and Tony anxiously shouted, “Don’t go! There are still treasures!”

Traveling Buddha casually said, “It’s not like they’re heavy, so you can carry them.”

My God!

Tony and He Jinting were both flabbergasted. The Wine of Immortality was a priceless treasure, but it was being handed over to the tour guide? These two were truly magnanimous!

With no other choice, Tony nervously took the wine and hoverboard from the hands of an employee. While the hoverboard seemed rather large, it was made from a very light alloy, so it only weighed two and a half kilograms. It was truly very light when held in the hand.

But being so nervous, Tony started sweating, and he walked very slowly. The two employees couldn’t relax after seeing him in that state, so they walked behind him as an escort.

—

It didn’t take long to go from the parlor to the back door on the first floor, but just in that elevator trip and the short walk there, Tony had ended up drenched in sweat, more tired than if he had run a marathon. There was nothing to be done, he was just too nervous. After all, he was holding a treasure worth more than ten million gold coins in his hand!

When they arrived at the backdoor, Joe was already waiting. Xia Fan called the employees over to put the engine and the souvenir items in the back of the hovercar.

Tony and Joe’s hovercar had a small storage bed in the back, like a small pickup truck. It was just large enough to fit the engine.

The company employees told them that they could deliver the goods for free, but for some reason, Xia Fan had immediately refused. It was as if this engine was more important than the Wine of Immortality.

‘Weirdo!’, Tony thought to himself.

Once the car was loaded, Xia Fan grabbed Tony and left.

—-

The hovercar left the Red Fort swiftly. On the way, Xia Fan constantly turned his head to look back at the engine.

“Are we going back to the hotel?” Joe asked.

Xia Fan thought it over. There were too many people at the hotel, so it wasn’t guaranteed to be safe.

The safest place would definitely be his ship, the Disaster. The AI identification system would ensure that nobody entered its hold, except for Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha.

As for anyone who wanted to enter the Disaster from the outside, that would also be very difficult. After all, the Disaster was made from tough and expensive Keller Alloy. Thus, this item would be safest on the ship.

“We’re not going to the hotel. Go straight to the spaceport. I want to put these things in my ship,” Xia Fan ordered.

Joe nodded. He saw that it was getting late and said, “The market has already closed. Big Eyes and the others are probably waiting for us.”

Xia Fan sighed. “There’s nothing we can do except make him wait a while more.”

...

The Red Fort...

After sending off Xia Fan, He Jinting did not join the banquet downstairs, instead going to the room next to the parlor. He knocked on the door three times, upon which a raspy voice said, “Come in.”

He Jinting respectfully entered the room and then closed the door.

This was a secluded office. A silver-haired old man stood in front of the window, looking at the guests on the lawn. They were laughing and joking, drinking and feasting, but the old man was completely unmoved.

He turned around, revealing that he had a square face and a broad chin, often said to be signs of a very stubborn personality.

He was Jiang Chunyun, the current boss of the Jiang Company. The employees called him the Old Master.

He Jinting whispered, “Old Master, the matter is done.”

“Did you draw any suspicion?”

He Jinting shook his head. “Everyone thought that our company was willingly giving out the Wine of Immortality and were effusive with their praise. As for that young man called Xia Fan, he also did not suspect anything. But...”

“But what?”

He Jinting cocked his head and smiled. “But that young businessman Xia Fan was very stingy. He even wanted to keep the company’s insulated cup!”

Jiang Chunyun sighed heavily. “Haa, it’s fine if he’s willing to take away the Wine of Immortality without suspecting anything. And if he’s stingy, who cares?

“What we want is to get rid of the goods. The Wine of Immortality is no priceless treasure to us, but a hot potato. The sooner it leaves our hands, the faster we can sleep peacefully at night.

“As for that child Xia Fan, whether he encounters misfortune because of the Wine of Immortality is his own business. There’s no free lunch in the universe, as he should know.”

He Jinting nodded. “Old Master is right. So long as we send out that Wine of Immortality and let everyone know that it’s not with us, we can ensure the safety of the company.”

“But,” He Jinting’s tone suddenly changed. “Old Master, is your intelligence accurate? After all, the Wine of Immortality isn’t just a treasure worth ten million gold coins. It’s essentially priceless! Now that we’ve given it away, no matter how much money we spend, we will never be able to get our hands on a second bottle.”

Jiang Chunyun said nothing for a long time. After a long while, he finally looked out the window at the clamorous party. “I wish even more than you that there was a mistake, but it’s impossible. I absolutely trust the person who gave us that information.

“Look out there. Life is such a wonderful thing. You can drink to your heart’s content, see so many women, and do many things that you want to do.

“Starting from today, you no longer need to bring up this matter. Just treat it as if we never obtained the Wine of Immortality. Things that shouldn’t have belonged to us will never belong to us. As businessmen, we must act with absolute resolve, rather than wading through the muck and mire.

“As for that Xia Fan who took away the Wine of Immortality, you don’t need to watch him, and I forbid you to let anyone follow him. Let him be.

“Based on my intelligence reports, he won’t survive past the fifteenth of this month,” Jiang Chunyun said solemnly.

...

With a whoosh, the hovercar stopped in front of Hangar 139.

That was the hangar Xia Fan had rented to store his ship, the Disaster. It seemed rather decrepit, and there were many cracks in the walls, but it kept the Disaster out of the public eye. After all, the Disaster had a very conspicuous appearance, and was a very special frigate.

The hangar door opened, and Joe drove the hovercar in and parked inside. Xia Fan then chased him and Tony out, after which Xia Fan used the remote to close the hangar door, shutting Tony and Joe outside.

Bang!

Once the hangar door was closed, Xia Fan finally relaxed. He stowed the Wine of Immortality and hoverboard in his spatial ring, and then he opened the hold of his ship and took out his toolbox.

His arms folded, Traveling Buddha watched with great interest as Xia Fan started working. He liked watching Xia Fan work because of his super-speed.

When Xia Fan dismantled engines, Traveling Buddha would see afterimages of screwdrivers, wrenches, and other tools flying through the air. In just a few minutes, Xia Fan could dismantle an engine into loose parts, and in another few minutes, he would have put it back together. It was truly a fascinating show.

An ordinary mechanic would take half a day, but Xia Fan could do it in five minutes! His speed was like a movie in fast forward, an experience that was very hard to come by.

Two minutes later, Xia Fan had dismantled the turbine engine. Traveling Buddha frowned as he watched Xia Fan remove a silver ball from the engine. It was about the size of a fist and covered in many complex and mysterious patterns.

“My God!” Traveling Buddha shouted, his eyes brightening. “Isn’t that an energy core?”

Xia Fan shrugged. “I could only smell that there was a core inside this engine, but I couldn’t tell which core it was. So that is what an energy core smells like...”

Traveling Buddha walked over and took the energy core. He weighed it in his hands and then examined it closely.

“Correct. When I was little I got an energy core as a birthday present.

“But I didn’t like messing with machines, so I gave the energy core to my big brother, and then later on, my big brother left the house, haaa...,” Traveling Buddha sighed.

Xia Fan was startled. “You! You can even get energy cores as birthday presents? This thing goes for billions of dollars! Someone would actually gift an energy core to a kid? That’s so extravagant that nobody else in the universe could understand it. Who gifted it to you?”

Traveling Buddha shook his head nonchalantly. “Who knows? So many people send me presents that I can’t be bothered to remember their names.”

“Comparison can really kill someone!” Xia Fan grumbled.

But he had forgotten that while he had never received an energy core as a birthday present, the Disasters had fed him Tier 9 energy crystals while he was growing up. Even an energy core couldn’t compare to the astronomical price of those energy crystals!

In that aspect, Xia Fan’s background was also rather terrifying, and that wasn’t even considering the legendary Skywing relatives who he had never met before, who were said to be able to fly across the stars.

“I was wondering why you were so interested in this engine! So it was because the engine was hiding this thing...” Traveling Buddha pursed his lips. “Do you know who hid it? And why would they hide it in an engine?”

Xia Fan shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that. Seventy percent of this engine is new, so it’s probably been used before. It definitely wasn’t carrying an energy core when it was bought off the market, so someone must have put it in later.

“It might have been hidden in the engine because the engine’s cylinder is made from Black Starsand Metal. That metal is good at blocking energy, and x-ray scanners would not have noticed anything strange about the engine.

“There are many smugglers in the Outer Frontier. Maybe someone used this method to smuggle energy cores out of the Inner Territories?

“According to the laws of the three Federations, cores are a precious resource that are forbidden from being exported. Although a smuggler might have used this method to move a core from the Inner Territories to the Frontier, for some reason this engine ended up in the hands of the Jiang Company.”

Traveling Buddha nodded. “It makes sense. Regardless, you’re really rich now. The Wine of Immortality and the energy core are both good things, and this energy core is brand-new, never used before.”

Xia Fan happily smiled. “With the energy core and the mechanical core, the Disaster can move even faster. It’s just a pity that I only have two of the four cores. It would be great if I also had an impact core and a defense core.”

Traveling Buddha rolled his eyes. “You’re a real freak. The Disaster is only a small frigate, and you want to put two cores in it? People would be scared to death if they heard about that!

“Two cores is enough to buy one thousand frigates, and everyone installs them in battleships, or even carriers. You, on the other hand, install two cores in a lousy frigate and even want to install four! Would anyone else in the universe do something like that?

“If it were me, I would switch to a larger ship, and then I would set up a luxurious cabin for myself. Sleeping all day in this little ship is just suffocating!”

“Who cares if you find it suffocating?” Xia Fan bickered with Traveling Buddha. “You’re the Buddha Clan’s young master, so you have everything you want, yet you insist on squeezing into my Disaster. If you want a luxurious cabin, get your own big ship!”

Friends were friends because they could be frank with each other, and bickering had already become a form of entertainment to both Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha. Though they would argue with each other, neither of them took it seriously.

As they were bickering, Xia Fan put the engine back together, and it ran even better than before.

As for that precious energy core, Xia Fan put it in his spatial ring. When he had the time, he would install it in the Disaster.

He was lacking a base to install the energy core into. An average metal base wouldn’t be able to endure the heat generated by the core, only an extremely expensive hyperdense alloy would do the job.

After doing all that, Xia Fan opened the door and called Tony and Joe inside.

Tony was startled when he saw that the engine was still there. He asked Xia Fan why he didn’t store the engine on his frigate.

Xia Fan shook his head. “Forget it. I thought it was something, but it’s actually not that useful. You can have it.”

“Really!?” Tony and Joe shouted in unison.

Their hovercar used a second-hand engine that had cost them more than one thousand gold. Tony and Joe only made two gold coins a day, and one also had to consider that they didn’t have work every day. Xia Fan had essentially given them two years of income. That was a huge sum of money!

“Thank you! Really, I can’t thank you enough!

“That’s it! Starting from today, no matter how long you stay in Beacon City, I’ll be your guide for free! Even if you want to go to other planets, I’ll go with you!” Tony exclaimed in delight.

Xia Fan waved his hand. “Just doing your job well is enough for me. Let’s hurry and leave. Big Eyes is still waiting for us.”

“Alright!”

...

The hovercar started up again, this time heading back to the city. When they arrived at the restaurant next to the market, they saw that Big Eyes and one of his little brothers were squatting next to the road. The little brother had a thin hand on his cheek, and appeared rather dejected.

Xia Fan got out of the car and smiled at them. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Boss! You’re finally here!” Big Eyes saw Xia Fan and grew excited. His little brother also grew energetic, but he seemed to be a little afraid and hid behind Big Eyes.

Xia Fan hadn’t really eaten anything at the Red Fort, so he was a little hungry and had decided to have something to eat here first.

Entering the fashionably decorated restaurant, Xia Fan found a large table and called over a waiter, magnanimously saying, “Bring out whatever you have that’s good. In addition, get them something sweet, like ice cream or chocolate. Right, I also want to drink soup. Do you have seafood soup or beef stew?”

The waiter hastily replied, “Is a scallop and fish stock puree okay? It is this restaurant’s signature dish.”

“That’s fine. One bowl per person.”

It wasn’t long before the table was covered in gourmet dishes. The Outer Frontier people lived impoverished lives. There were few people who would order a table full of good food when there were only six people in their party.

At first Big Eyes and his little brother were very restrained, and the waiter regarded them with contempt. After all, there were far too many beggar children like them living around the market. But when he saw that the two of them had come in with those two men from the Inner Territories, the waiter didn’t say anything.

Gradually, Big Eyes began to drop his inhibitions, and he and his little brother started wolfing down food, stuffing anything they could into their mouths.

Xia Fan frowned. “Didn’t I give you some spare change so that you could eat? What, did you not eat?”

“Of course we ate!” Big Eyes replied quickly.

“We gave the money to our mother and little sister!” Big Eyes’ little brother was honest and told a different story. Under the table, Big Eyes pinched his little brother, and he grimaced in pain.

Tony sighed. “Eating out is always going to be more expensive than eating at home. I was the same when I was little. I would never eat outside, and I would always drink the water that I got from the pipe myself. I could save more money that way.”

Xia Fan nodded. He ordered Big Eyes and his little brother to eat more slowly and told them that they could take home whatever wasn’t finished.

Once they were done eating, Xia Fan ordered some freshly-squeezed sugar cane juice. As he drank the juice, he asked Big Eyes, “How are things going with the thing I asked you about?”

Big Eyes shook his head, and Xia Fan’s heart sank. After all, no matter how nice the core and Wine of Immortality were, they couldn’t match up to finding his relatives!

At that moment, Big Eyes said, “Boss, let me finish. Although I didn’t find anything with the winged symbol, I found a person.”

“A person?” Xia Fan was confused.

“Mm, an old man. In his youth, he was a junk collector. He said that there’s a place in the Char Star Region where a battle took place in ancient times. Many remains were left behind, and some of them have that winged symbol,” Big Eyes whispered in a mysterious voice.