Chapter 3146 — The Exorbitant Pill Cauldrons

"Good, then it's settled! Jinxing, go talk with the Tomorrow-All-Tomorrows Sect again and see when our two houses can move together and finish Wei Zhao off!" Dongfang Badao said.

"I'll make the call in a bit," Dongfang Jinxing replied.

Over at the Tomorrow-All-Tomorrows Sect, Chunyang Tianzun received Dongfang Jinxing's call and went straight to find Zhong Yongliang—that is, his master, Patriarch Kuanglong.

"Master, the Dongfang family just called. They want our two houses to join hands against Wei Zhao!" Chunyang Tianzun reported truthfully.

"Wei Zhao... so you've already decided to kill him?" Zhong Yongliang was somewhat unwilling. He had always harbored the hope that one day he might personally put an end to Wei Zhao, but Patriarch Kuanglong's soul still dwelt within his body, and so he knew the greater cause must come first. Reluctant as he was, it had to be this way.

Besides, Zhang Naipao was his brother, and he did not wish any harm to come to Zhang Naipao either.

"Zhang Naipao still hasn't broken free of his inner demon. It seems the only way to make him whole again is for us to strike Wei Zhao down ourselves. True, this will hurt his growth—he will have no rival left to spur him on—but that is still better than him never escaping the demon and withering away for the rest of his life!" Chunyang Tianzun said. "So I beg you, Master, to grant this."

"Fine. Tell the Dongfang family that the moment that brat Chunyin comes out of seclusion, we go and kill Wei Zhao!" Zhong Yongliang nodded and agreed.

"Yes, Master," Chunyang Tianzun answered with a nod.

The quiet of these past days had led Wei Zhao to believe, for the time being, that the Dongfang family had given up on its designs on Xu Shilan. After all, so many had died, and no more experts had been sent for so long—surely the matter would simply be dropped, or at least there would be no trouble for now.

What Wei Zhao did not know was that two experts of peak late Heaven-rank strength were preparing to join forces and come looking for trouble with him! It was not that they were not coming—it was that Chunyin Tianzun had not yet come out of seclusion.

The first-grade automatic cauldron had officially gone on sale at the Liu family's company in the secular world. Though Liu Jinghan had set the prices absurdly high—twenty million for the single-version cauldron and eighty million for the five-in-one—on the very first day of business they still sold three single-version first-grade automatic cauldrons and two five-in-one first-grade automatic cauldrons!

The rest, of course, were holding back, waiting to hear how others found them. After all, they had no way of knowing whether the version sold in the secular world was the same as the version sold at the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce; the only way to find out was to wait for someone else to use one, and then decide.

Two of those cauldrons, however, had been bought by men sent by Kang Jingming—one single-version automatic cauldron and one five-in-one automatic cauldron—which he intended to study together with Patriarch Xuanchen once he got them home.

And so these visitors, whether from the ancient stratum or the hidden stratum, were all wise enough at this moment not to haggle and not to seize anything by force. The Liu family of the secular world was now in partnership with the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce, after all, and to move against them would be to defy the Chamber. They had not the nerve for that!

After all, the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce had three experts of peak late Heaven-rank strength, great and complete, holding the fort—a formidable force indeed!

Liu Jinghan had not expected first-day sales to reach one point nine billion—a spectacular opening, to be sure! The money from this first day alone was enough to repay the bank loans that had been pressing them, so at least the Liu family's debt was no longer a problem; and the sales of tomorrow and the day after would be more than enough to pay off the debts of Lai Pangzi's pharmaceutical company as well.

At once, Liu Jinghan happily phoned Wei Zhao!

"Wei Zhao, do you know? On the first day, our revenue hit one point nine billion!" Though Liu Jinghan was the Liu family's genius daughter, even she was shaken by such a terrifying, heaven-defying turnover. What kind of business could rake in so much money at a stroke?

The cost of a first-grade automatic cauldron was not low, either—the titanium alloy and the specialized single-chip microcontroller were extremely expensive—but set against the sale price, it was a drop in the bucket, negligible, even.

"One point nine billion?" Wei Zhao was startled out of his wits; he too had never imagined so many could be sold on the first day. Back when he had been trying to get the pharmaceutical company running again, he had strained every nerve to scrape together a bit of capital—and yet Liu Jinghan had sold this much in a single day: "How many cauldrons did you sell?"

"Five—two five-in-one, three single-version," Liu Jinghan said. "But the cost of the two kinds is the same; there's no difference."

Wei Zhao understood what Liu Jinghan meant: the only difference between the two was the program in the microcontroller, while the cost of manufacture was identical. What astonished him was that five cauldrons had sold for one point nine billion?

"How is that so much? What price did you set?" Wei Zhao was utterly aghast; the price truly shocked him.

"Twenty million for the single-version cauldron and eighty million for the five-in-one—that's the price Vice President Ouyang and I agreed on together, because I had to price them according to the estimates from their auction and couldn't undercut the market," Liu Jinghan said. "But for now, the momentum looks good—no empty seats, at least. From tomorrow on, more people will come to buy; plenty are still watching, waiting to see whether the others who bought one find the same effects as the ones at the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce."

"Good—then keep selling, and report to me whenever there's news!" Wei Zhao felt one burden lift from his mind. The company's troubles had plagued him for a long while, and now at last they were settled.

The Five Luminaries Sect.

Kang Jingming presented the two cauldrons he had obtained directly before Patriarch Xuanchen and said with a wince of pain, "The Liu family of the secular world is truly black-hearted beyond words—these two pieces of junk actually cost a billion! If the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce hadn't settled some of the payments for pills we'd already sold, I wouldn't even have had the money to buy them!"

The Five Luminaries Sect's liquid funds had all been poured into refining first-grade pills, so they were nearly cleaned out; fortunately, there were still unsettled payments for pills sold earlier—otherwise Kang Jingming truly could not have afforded these two first-grade automatic cauldrons. After all, these two first-grade cauldrons were priced at a fortune! (To be continued