Chapter 85: The White City

The next evening, Qingyue Qiu sat quietly behind her desk, carefully reviewing the documents in front of her.

Suddenly, she felt a cool breeze pass by. When she looked up, a dark figure was already sitting in front of her desk. It was Ghost Fist, who had arranged to meet today.

Clearly, the other party had followed them yesterday and found this place. And instead of going to the agreed meeting place as planned on the second day, they came here early, choosing a way to meet that they thought was safer and more advantageous.

If it were an ordinary person, seeing a man wearing a white mask suddenly appear might make them scream, ask who are you? How did you get here? They might call for guards or make some defensive moves.

But Qingyue Qiu was different. She just looked up at Ghost Fist, who was disguised by Zuo Zhicheng, then lowered her head and continued reviewing the files. It was as if Ghost Fist being here was a very normal thing.

Zuo Zhicheng frowned. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

“If you mean you sneaking into my office, I have nothing to say.” Qingyue Qiu said with a cold face. “If you had obediently gone to the meeting spot surrounded and monitored by my subordinates, that would have really disappointed me.”

Zuo Zhicheng thought to himself: ‘The calm and rational type, quite rare for a woman.’ This was also the type he hated dealing with the most, because it meant that getting information or advantages from such a person was not easy.

“What’s the deal with Spiritual Energy Food?” Zuo Zhicheng said while glancing at the files on her desk. His eyes paused very briefly on a drawing in one file, but it was so slight that even Qingyue Qiu didn’t notice.

Qingyue Qiu said, “About six months ago, Rihuo got a bag of fruit from Brother Pa of the Sea Dragon Gang.” Seeing Zuo Zhicheng look at her, Qingyue Qiu nodded and said, “You guessed it, that bag of fruit was Spiritual Energy Food.”

Then Qingyue Qiu threw a file into Zuo Zhicheng’s lap. Zuo Zhicheng looked at the file while listening to Qingyue Qiu’s explanation.

“After Rihuo ate the fruit containing Spiritual Energy, his strength began to grow unnaturally. Although it caught the attention of the person in charge, Lin Ganghao, at the time, due to an emergency with the Sea Dragon Gang, it wasn’t made a top priority.

It wasn’t until the Hundred Families Association attacked the Sea Dragon Gang’s territory and Rihuo’s strength exploded that it truly came into our view. Then, as you see in the file, our people conducted various monitoring and investigations and found the cause of everything: the Spiritual Energy Food that Brother Pa had obtained from somewhere.

We immediately took control of Brother Pa and tried to find the source of the Spiritual Energy Food.”

“But that place is very special, and everything had to be done in secret, so it took us a few more months to successfully locate the entrance.”

There was a silence between them. Clearly, Qingyue Qiu wouldn’t casually share more in-depth information with Zuo Zhicheng.

The silence lasted for a few minutes before Zuo Zhicheng spoke. “What are your terms?”

“Join us and explore that place together.” Qingyue Qiu said slowly. “After it’s done, you get twenty percent of all the Spiritual Energy Food, and we get eighty percent. Everything else also belongs to us.”

Zuo Zhicheng smirked. He naturally knew the other party wouldn’t really offer such terms and was just waiting for him to negotiate. But he wasn’t in a hurry to counter-offer. Instead, he said, “Is it dangerous over there?”

“The first two groups we sent in to explore haven’t come out yet.” Qingyue Qiu’s voice carried a chill. “They were all our best soldiers, hunters, and explorers, with plenty of experience.”

“Hunters?” Zuo Zhicheng asked. “Is that place in the mountains?”

“Yes. Interested?”

Zuo Zhicheng shook his head. “The reward is too little. All the Spiritual Energy Food goes to me, and besides that, I get to pick three items from the spoils.”

“Impossible.” Qingyue Qiu’s tone remained icy cold. “Without our intelligence, you wouldn’t even know this place exists.”

After some back-and-forth haggling, Zuo Zhicheng ended up with half of the Spiritual Energy Food and the priority to choose two items.

But he knew that with this outcome, Qingyue Qiu must have gained the upper hand. After all, he knew nothing about the intelligence there, not even what was there besides Spiritual Energy Food. But Qingyue Qiu had made the deal with him knowing more information.

If Yao Youwei were here, he would be very surprised that Qingyue Qiu had spoken so much. After all, he had been busy in Xinlu City, accompanying Qingyue Qiu for so long, and all the words she had spoken to him probably didn’t add up to as many as she spoke today.

“Let’s leave it at that for now. After I know the intelligence, I’ll see if I need to adjust.”

After they finished discussing, Zuo Zhicheng then asked, “Now can you tell me what exactly this place is?” As for whether he would go or change the previous terms after seeing the intelligence, that was another matter.

“You should know that the East Coast of the New Continent is mostly occupied by the three Patrol Superintendents of our dynasty. Before it was colonized, this land belonged to several tribes of the Hante People, Newman People, and Western Indians.” Qingyue Qiu began by talking about a piece of history that seemed unrelated to the matter at hand.

“But before them, this land was always home to various ethnic groups and kingdoms. For example, about two to three thousand years ago, legend says this land was ruled by a kingdom called Amariken.”

“As far as I know, before Great Qi arrived, the natives of the Western Continent still mainly lived in tribes and family systems, without reliable historical records.”

“That’s true. But almost all the natives of the New Continent, in their ancient myths, legends, and strange tales, have clues about Amariken. Divine kingdom, immortality, heaven, celestial people—they have different names among the different peoples on this land. They appear in various myths and legends.

Unfortunately, we haven’t found any evidence of Amariken’s existence so far.”

Zuo Zhicheng laughed. “You’re not going to tell me that what you found this time is that Amariken Kingdom, are you?”

“We didn’t find it, but we found some ruins that might be left by this kingdom.” Qingyue Qiu’s eyes were very serious. “We found a stone slab there with a line of words carved in an ancient continental language.”

“What words?”

“It said ‘The White City’. In the myths and legends of the New Continent, that place was the center of Amariken, with gold everywhere, endless fine wine, never-ending food, and the place where gods lived.”