The girl stared at the gleaming nail by her foot, then at Tang Wugui's eerie red thread.
The fierce light in her eyes finally wavered.
She wanted to live too much.
The thing on her back tortured her every moment. If this person could really...
She took a deep breath, her tense body relaxing slightly.
Dragging the heavy basket, she tentatively took a step forward.
One step.
Two steps.
Just as she was only a few paces away from Tang Wugui, about to complete the transaction.
"Ugh... Heh heh..."
Old Man Liu, who had been cowering to the side the whole time, suddenly made a series of strange sounds.
Tang Wugui frowned slightly and instinctively turned his head.
He saw Old Man Liu's entire body convulsing violently. His hands were strangling his own neck, and his eyes were bulging out, as if he had seen something horrifying.
His belly swelled up at an unnatural speed, like a balloon blown to its limit, stretching until it was transparent, revealing the churning black blood underneath.
"Bene... Benefactor... Save..."
Old Man Liu desperately stretched out a hand, trying to grab the corner of Tang Wugui's robe.
But it was too late.
BANG!
A dull, thunderous sound rang out.
Old Man Liu's body exploded right beside Tang Wugui without warning.
Flesh and blood mixed with viscera rained down, splattering all around.
Warm, foul-smelling liquid splashed onto the girl's face, instantly filling her with terror.
In front of Tang Wugui, the red thread had already automatically woven itself into a net the moment of the explosion, blocking all the filth from reaching him.
Through the gaps in the red thread, he looked at where Old Man Liu had stood. Now, only a pair of severed legs still kneeling in the dirt remained.
"Breach of contract? But..."
A hint of confusion entered Tang Wugui's tone:
"Could it be because of the eyes?"
He didn't panic because of the explosion. Instead, through the red thread net, he carefully scrutinized the pile of flesh and blood on the ground.
"No."
He suddenly spoke, his voice carrying a shuddering excitement.
"Look at the ground."
The girl's hand holding the knife trembled, but she instinctively took a look.
This look almost made her throw up.
What exploded on the ground wasn't ordinary flesh and blood at all.
Old Man Liu's internal organ fragments didn't rot when they hit the ground. Instead, they melted and reorganized rapidly.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.
Accompanied by harsh sounds, the fresh blood solidified into black-red, inferior molten silver, while the shattered bones turned into dusty slag.
In just two breaths, only a pile of foul-smelling, not-yet-fully-cooled...
Human ore remained on the ground.
In the girl's basket, the silent mother ore suddenly gave a tremor.
The molten silver on the ground seemed to receive a summons, flowing slowly towards the girl's feet, as if to return to the mother body.
"This... What is this..." The girl's voice finally carried fear.
Tang Wugui stepped forward and cut off the flow of the molten silver with the toe of his boot.
He looked up at the girl, his eyes fanatical:
"Truly spectacular."
"That old man held onto that fake silver piece for a long time. His body was infiltrated long ago."
Tang Wugui analyzed calmly, speaking very quickly:
"For this mother ore, Old Man Liu is just a small deposit certificate that has matured. Now the mother ore has sensed you, a higher-quality major client, and it urgently needs funds to expand..."
"So, it cashed in Old Man Liu, using his flesh and blood as a down payment to prepare... for a mandatory acquisition of you."
As if to confirm Tang Wugui's words.
The basket behind the girl suddenly became scalding hot!
That mother ore was no longer content to lie dormant. It emitted a greedy humming sound, and countless tiny silver tentacles pierced through the wicker basket, stabbing directly into the girl's back!
"Ah!" The girl let out a miserable scream, collapsing to the ground in pain.
On her exposed back, the skin was hardening at a speed visible to the naked eye, taking on a metallic sheen.
The molten silver on the ground also crept up her legs, attempting to wrap her up completely.
It wanted to refine this living girl into a larger human-shaped silver mine!
"Bad debt materialized... Is it trying a backdoor listing?"
Watching this scene, Tang Wugui's eyes suddenly turned cold.
He didn't save people out of mercy, but out of appetite.
If this mother ore really devoured the girl and gained a complete flesh and blood shell, this bad debt would completely solidify, becoming a difficult-to-collect dead account.
So, he had to intercept it the moment it was devoured!
"Since it has already lost autonomous operational ability..."
Tang Wugui's left hand rose sharply: "Now, I announce the takeover of this project and initiate the violent dismantling procedure."
Boom!
The soil under Tang Wugui's feet exploded. He instantly moved behind the girl, then pressed down on her basket.
"Bear with it."
Tang Wugui's voice rang in her ear, cold, yet carrying an absolute power of control.
Before his voice faded, dozens of red threads fell like a red rainstorm, instantly piercing into the wildly pulsing mother ore!
Zzzzt!
The moment the red thread contacted the mother ore, it emitted harsh screeching sounds. The silver tentacles that had pierced into the girl's body retracted desperately, attempting to resist the red thread's invasion.
"Want to renege on the debt? Or want a reverse acquisition?"
A ferocious smile curled the corner of Tang Wugui's mouth. That hunger made him look even fiercer than a ghost right now.
"Once in my plate, even if you're mud, I'll squeeze oil out of you!"
"Get... out here!"
Veins bulged on Tang Wugui's left arm as he yanked backward violently.
Splurt!
Accompanied by a muffled sound like tearing flesh.
The girl felt her back lighten, and the piercing pain disappeared significantly, making her feel much more comfortable instantly.
Immediately following, she saw an extremely shocking scene:
Using the red thread, Tang Wugui forcibly dragged out a twisting, struggling black shadow from inside that seemingly solid mother ore!
The shadow had no concrete shape, looking like a monster formed by the fusion of countless painful human faces and contracts.
It clung tightly to the mother ore, refusing to let go, like a parasite refusing to release its host.
This was the true face of bad debt.
It was the most vicious curse on money from all the wronged souls in the mass grave who had died of poverty and debt over the past century.
"Such rich malice, worthy of a century-old debt..."
Tang Wugui looked at the black monster.
He spread his five fingers. The red threads instantly wove into a giant net, strangling that mass of bad debt tightly.
No matter how the monster roared, cursed, or even attempted to reverse-pollute the red thread, in the face of Tang Wugui's absolute law of liquidation, everything was futile.
"Liquidation, complete."
Tang Wugui clenched his five fingers sharply.
Pfft!
That huge mass of black resentment was instantly crushed by the red thread, transforming into the purest energy that flooded madly into Tang Wugui's body along his wrist.
In this instant, his pale face, which originally relied on the red thread to maintain, instantly became rosy like jade.
On his left wrist, the red thread, originally only ten inches long, began to grow wildly.
Fifteen inches... Twenty inches... Thirty inches!
It didn't stop completely until it had wrapped around his wrist repeatedly for nearly ten full turns.
"Satisfying."
Tang Wugui let out a satisfied burp. Even the breath he exhaled carried a sense of comfort.
He released his hand, allowing the red thread, combined into one strand, to lazily retract into his sleeve.
Clang.
A crisp sound.
The basket fell to the ground.
At this moment, the disgusting stench was no longer present inside.
Lying at the bottom of the basket was no longer that pitch-black mother ore.
Instead, it was a piece of...
Pure Blood Silver.
Full-blown watermelon size, its surface smooth as a mirror, refracting pure radiance under the moonlight.
This was enough to make anyone in this world crazy.
The mass grave was dead silent.
The girl sat paralyzed on the ground, staring blankly at that piece of silver, then staring blankly at Tang Wugui, who was wiping his hands with a handkerchief.
The wound on her back had stopped bleeding. The terrifying feeling of being devoured just now seemed like a nightmare.
Tang Wugui adjusted his sleeves, restoring his usual casual appearance.
He kicked that piece of pure silver with the toe of his boot, making crisp "dang dang" sounds.
"Asset reorganization complete."
He looked down and gave a professional smile to the dazed girl:
"The bad debt is mine, the principal is yours."
"Although the process was a bit rough, look..."
"Now it has resumed its original liquidity as an asset."
"This silver gathered from so much spiritual energy of souls, how clean it is."