RETURN OF THE DRAGON: Made 100 Trillon in A Day

Chapter 4: The Price of a Slap

The air in the Grand Hanhai ballroom was thick with the scent of ozone and the metallic tang of fear. Chu Haoran was trembling, but it wasn’t just from the cold. His face was a mask of twisted fury. He stood up slowly, his muscles bulging beneath his expensive suit. The Rank-1 Cultivation energy he had stolen from my veins began to swirl around him in a visible, sickly green mist.

"You think buying a building makes you a god, Qin Ming?" Haoran spat, his voice vibrating with the power of his stolen aura. "I am a Rank-1 Cultivator! I am a tier above humanity! You’re still just a man in a fancy suit. I’ll kill you, and then I’ll take this hotel from your corpse."

"Is that so?" I leaned back against a marble pillar, crossing my arms. "You’re talking about the power I gave you. That’s my blood moving in your arms, Haoran. Don’t you feel like a thief bragging to the man he robbed?"

"It’s not yours anymore! It’s mine!" Haoran roared. "Xinyi, get back! I’m going to turn this 'Chairman' into a stain on his own floor!"

Xinyi scrambled backward, her eyes wide with a mix of terror and anticipation. "Kill him, Haoran! Break his neck! He’s a ghost—he shouldn’t be here!"

Haoran lunged. He was fast—faster than any normal human eye could track. His fist was aimed directly at my throat, crackling with the force of a Rank-1 strike that could shatter concrete.

"In my eyes, Haoran, you're not a CEO," I whispered as the world slowed down. "You're just a liability."

[System: Incoming Rank-1 Strike Detected. Spend 10 Billion Spirit Coins for Skill: Absolute Suppression?]

Purchase it. Now.

[Transaction Confirmed. Balance: 39,999,000,000,000. Activating Absolute Suppression.]

The moment Haoran’s fist was inches from my skin, the air itself turned to solid lead. An invisible weight, ten times the force of gravity, slammed into the ballroom. The crystal chandeliers overhead groaned and shattered. The guests screamed, falling to their knees as the pressure crushed the breath from their lungs.

Haoran didn't just stop; he was hammered down.

The sound of his knees hitting the marble floor echoed like a gunshot. The stone beneath him splintered into a spiderweb of cracks. He was locked in a kneeling position, his fist frozen in the air, his face turning a deep, agonizing purple.

"What... what is this?" Haoran gasped, his voice a strangled wheeze. "I can't... move... My energy... it's being devoured!"

"That’s the difference between us," I said, stepping forward. The pressure didn't touch me; I walked through the zone of crushed gravity as if I were strolling through a garden. "You stole a cup of water and thought you owned the ocean. I am the ocean."

I stood over him, looking down at the man who had laughed while my wife shot me.

"You wanted to strike me, right?" I asked. "You thought your Rank-1 status made you untouchable?"

"Qin Ming... stop..." he managed to choke out.

"The price of a slap in this room is very high, Haoran," I said. I pulled back my hand. I didn't use the System’s power for this. I used the raw, unadulterated strength of the 'God-Body' reconstruction.

The slap echoed through the entire hotel.

Haoran’s head snapped to the side. Three of his teeth flew across the room, skipping over the carpet like dice. His cheek didn't just bruise; it split open, blood spraying onto the white linens of a nearby table. The force of the blow sent a shockwave that blew out the remaining windows of the ballroom.

"That was for the first bullet," I said.

I slapped him with the back of my hand, snapping his head back the other way. His nose collapsed with a sickening crunch.

"That was for the second."

I grabbed him by the hair, forcing his blood-masked face to look up at me. "And the third one? The one that sent me over the cliff? I’m going to let you live a long time just so you can wonder when I’m going to collect on that one."

"Ming! Please!"

A hand clutched at my sleeve. It was Xinyi. She was on her knees too, but not from the gravity. She was crawling, her face wet with tears, her silk robe torn. "Ming, I was forced! Haoran threatened me! He said he’d kill my family if I didn't go along with it! I still love you, I swear!"

I looked down at her. In the past, those tears would have broken my heart. I would have reached out, pulled her up, and apologized for the blood on her face.

But now, my eyes saw more than just a beautiful woman. The System’s interface flickered over her, a cold, digital evaluation appearing in my retinas.

[Scanning Target: Lin Xinyi...]

[Assets: Seized.]

[Loyalty: -100%.]

[Genetic Value: Minimal.]

A golden price tag manifested above her head, glowing with a harsh, neon light.

[Lin Xinyi: Worth $0.00. Status: Trash.]

I looked at the tag, then back at her desperate, lying eyes. I felt nothing. No anger, no love—just the clinical observation of a man looking at a broken piece of equipment.

"You’re worth zero dollars, Xinyi," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "Even the System thinks you’re trash."

"What? What are you talking about?" she sobbed, clutching my leg. "I’m your wife! I’m the CEO of Lin Cosmetics!"

"You were," I corrected. I looked at Manager Wei, who was standing at the edge of the suppression zone, watching with terrified awe. "Wei. Inform the banks. Every asset tied to the Lin family name is to be shorted into oblivion by morning. If they own a car, repossess it. If they own a house, board it up."

"Yes, Chairman!" Wei shouted.

I kicked my leg free from Xinyi’s grasp. She sprawled onto the floor, her face landing in the pool of Haoran’s blood.

"You said the ocean was deep, Xinyi," I reminded her, leaning down. "But you forgot the most important rule of the deep."

"What?" she whispered, trembling.

"The monsters at the bottom don't accept apologies."

I turned my back on them, the Absolute Suppression lifting as I walked away. Haoran collapsed face-first into the ruins of the floor, unconscious and broken. Xinyi began to wail, a high-pitched, pathetic sound that was drowned out by the sudden, heavy thud of military boots at the ballroom entrance.

[: The doors didn't just open; they were blown off their hinges. A man in a black trench coat, carrying a long-case sword and radiating a Rank-5 'Lord Realm' pressure, stepped through the smoke. He didn't look at the carnage. He looked at me.]

[System: Warning! High-Level Assassin detected. Contract: 'The 100 Trillion Bounty'. Would you like to spend 50 Billion to activate the 'Aegis of the Fallen'?]

I stood my ground, my golden eyes reflecting the stranger's blade. "So," I said, a dark smile playing on my lips. "The big players are finally showing up.”