Chapter 260: Movies Were Just Movies

8 o’clock of the next morning, Fang Ning woke up.

He had a headache after having worked for a whole day reading all sorts of report and information, so he slept at 11 from the night until the morning.

This was rare for him. Ever since he had started cultivating, he got used to sleeping at 2 a.m. and wake up at 4 a.m. energized. He would play his games and read novels until 8 a.m. before he started work. After all, he did not have to eat or wash up.

Naturally, normal people would not be able to do what he does. His body was being seized by Sir System and would not, ever, get into trouble health-wise. Additionally, he had a strong spirit that is able to withstand grueling cultivation like this. Normal people would still need to follow sleep well and eat well for their health.

Fang Ning habitually opened up a new game to play. After playing for a while, he realized something was wrong and looked at the time on the computer. 9.30 a.m., it had long past his usual working hour.

He immediately pretended to cultivate.

Fortunately for him, the System did not seem to notice, maybe it had already given up on him…

‘That was such a sad good news…

‘My cultivation speed in recent months has been pretty quick, it shouldn’t take even half a year before I can break through to Pond-level.

‘Being able to cultivate to Pond-level within a year must’ve been a miracle in other people’s eyes.’

This was the combination of a high talent and an abundance of resources. If other people were to have the conditions that Fang Ning had, they might only need three to six months to break through to Pond-level!

In comparison, even a prodigy like Ren Ruofeng needed two years to cultivate in Azure Mountain with other Upper Realm beings in order to reach Pond-level. After he had returned, he did not have much improvement through the years.

It could be seen how big an advantage Fang Ning had. With the rise of vitality concentration, cultivation ingredients and materials would increase exponentially. Even though the environment had improved, most people’s cultivation talent would still be the same. Fang Ning’s advantage would only increase in the future, and his cultivation speed would get even faster.

That was the greatness of a double Grade-S talent.

Were it not for that, Qi Mei would not have subconsciously ignored the fact that she was going to be rebirthed into a pig. With her competitiveness, the talent in cultivating was far more important.

After cultivating for a while, Fang Ning realized he had slept for a long time, so he asked, “Sir, I slept so long yesterday. You didn’t sneak out to do something bad, did you? You had a history.”

The System protested, “Billionaire, how could you accuse me just like that? I am a heroic system, doing bad deeds and all those were not in my nature.”

Fang Ning was only asking casually, he would not have cared if the System answered at all.

However, hearing the reply, he thought something was wrong. ‘If it didn’t do something bad, this idiot would definitely retort strongly, not with this meek protest.’

He asked immediately, “Tell me honestly. If you messed up, I can fix it for you in time. The longer you put this aside, the easier it will turn into a problem.”

The System quipped proudly, “How could I mess up? I even earned a huge sum…”

Fang Ning immediately understood. “Oh, so that’s what. No wonder you were so subdued today. You didn’t want me to know that you’ve made money, did you? Return me my money. We’ve talked about this. As soon as you’ve got money, you would return my money to me. You don’t know how to manage your money, it will only depreciate if you keep it. I don’t care how you keep your money, but I can’t let my money be treated that way.”

The System, “…”

System Notification: [$1,234,540,000 was transferred into the Host’s account.]

Fang Ning was satisfied and nagged, “That’s right, if you return something you borrowed, you’ll have an easier time borrowing in the future. You can’t hide your money like this and pretend to be poor in order to not return the money…”

The System said, “Yes, sir.”

“That’s right. Don’t blame me for nagging, I have to look after you. You are only one-year-old, I can’t let you turn out to be bad.” Fang Ning muttered away proudly. Having the rare chance to teach the System a lesson felt really good.

Aside from him, the people who dared to nag the System on Earth had either passed away or had yet to be born…

…

A week flew by quickly.

After becoming the leader of the Alliance of Justice and Order, Vigilante A had finally got a message from the secretariat, urging him to return to the old place for a meeting. It was an emergency, it might even be the first invasion of aliens.

That’s right, the old place where the alliance was located, the west countryside of Qi City.

Fang Ning said smugly, “See, this is a job, isn’t it? And it must have been a really huge one. They wouldn’t look for us for small things. How ’bout it, sir? I told you, if you take on the role, it would be different than other roles in that you can definitely farm monsters…”

The System said, “Rich Host, you’re as smart as usual. Let’s go home.”

Vigilante A zoomed away from the airspace of some country in North America, rushing back to China.

A few minutes later, he arrived outside the twenty-third floor of the Alliance of Justice and Order building. He pointed at the floor-to-ceiling window and it slid open, allowing him access to the building.

Of course, who would want to climb stairs and take lifts if they could fly?

The System was not a human, it did not have the fundamental ideologies of human beings. Vigilante A had always entered a building through windows.

The building was constructed with funds from the local authorities. Within a year of finishing work, it was donated to the Alliance to use as a headquarters just as it had started being sold.

It was easy to see the support from the Chinese government from this point.

The building was thirty-three floors with two thousand square meters each. The whole building could be sold at near ten billion yuan. A residence unit in Qi City was around fifty-thousand yuan per unit, and it could go even higher if it were a commercial unit.

The System’s income was a generous several hundred million per job, but in the real estate industry, it did not matter. One building costs much more than that.

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The staff members in the building had already gotten used to it, so they invited Vigilante A into the meeting hall of the headquarters.

There were already several hundred people in the meeting hall, all of them were members of the Alliance of Justice and Order with a great majority of them being the people of Truth Department.

Fang Ning was speechless. ‘Was this still a non-governmental organization? That’s so deceptive, no wonder the USA was unwilling to come, they would be led somewhere else if they do.’

The meeting hall was shaped like a fan. Its seats were arranged in layers. Speakers would stand on the stage in front. It was like the venue of the United Nations General Assembly.

Vigilante A followed the employee inside and was led to the first row.

Before long, Officer Zhang, who was just promoted to a secretary general, had already begun explaining the emergency at hand.

“South of the Pacific Ocean, location XXXX, XXXX, we’ve identified a large school of octopus-like monsters moving toward the northern region of Australia. These three are the aid seekers from Australia, let’s welcome them to the stage to describe the specific situations of their perils.”

The three white Australians stood one by one and began to address the audience with Mandarin Chinese, explaining emotionally about what terrible situations they might face in near future.

They all have the same intention, which was to appeal to the Alliance of Justice and Order’s humanity and to ask the Alliance to send protectors to Australia at all times. The whole time, they have neglected to mention anything about fees.

Fang Ning thought, ‘They actually have the gall to ask this of us. They have been idolizing the states this whole time, they did not even attend the founding ceremony of the Alliance. And now that they are in peril, they asked for protection in the name of justice, what the hell…’

That was human nature. They would not care before the knife had been pushed against their necks. It was easy enough to tell from the behaviors of many countries in World War II. As long as the enemies were not at their doorsteps, they would think they could get away with encouraging other parties to take the fall, as long as they did not have to take the lead in the fight.

Whatever wisdom or intelligence they spout was never as badass as they sounded.

They were all exaggerations. The decision makers were all normal people with the shortsightedness, the tendency to push their lucks, and the fear of normal people.

The System was excited. “Let’s go farm them. How many monsters are there?”

Fang Ning did not want to give help freely to the Australians. They were the same as the Indians and the Vietnamese.

The System did not care about the bigger picture, it did not have real human emotions. Aside from the Host with whom it shared a life, it did not have any opinions about the Australians. Better said, it did not have any opinions about any human on Earth.

However, as a connoisseur of alternate history novels, Fang Ning was very affected by all the different expert writers in what should have happened. Now that he had the chance, he would, of course, want to fulfill his fantasy and not just satisfied with the way the novels wrote them.

Fang Ning had become so accustomed to the System, he said after he deliberating a little, “Don’t rush. Do you want to earn more money?”

The System said, “Richie, you’re talking nonsense again…”

Fang Ning said, “Let me control my body, I’ll arrange it.”

System Notification: [The System temporarily relinquished control of the Host.]

Fang Ning wanted the Australians to suffer a little. ‘They’re not Chinese, I don’t have any relationship with them, why should I save them without reimbursement?’

It was just a threat, the monsters had yet to go ashore.

Confucius had once scolded Duanmu Ci ¹ for helping people without remuneration, as he had unwittingly heightened the moral threshold and discouraged people from actively helping people, since the majority of people could not afford to help people without some repayment.

Many of Laozi’s ² teachings were pretty logical, but some people in his distant future had twisted his words and ruined his reputation.

If the System also saved people without repayment, becoming a true hero, how would its strength grow as fast as it did? Would it even be able to kill monsters within seconds? Without money to grow its strength, it would be a miracle if it was not being chased by monsters all over the place.

With that being said, Fang Ning would not let Vigilante A do the talking. He was already the leader of the Alliance, if he still had to haggle with these people, would that not be too degrading?

In the hall, everyone was whispering as they discussed their positions. The majority of them maintained that they should act justly so they would save the Australians, but they needed to discuss the ‘how’.

Fang Ning scanned the hall and found a person to speak to telepathically.

That’s right. Fang Ning was no longer a normal human. Even only accounting for his spiritual sense, he was still a Bucket-level powerhouse. He had learned to utilize many of the supernatural tricks.

After a moment, when everyone was still discussing silently, Yun Hui, the Duke of Cloud Fog City, had stood up requesting to speak. Soon, his request was granted as he was invited to go onstage.

He took to the stage and gestured for silence, to which most people complied.

“Everyone, this is our first operation as the Alliance of Justice and Order. All of the rules and regulations will be tested in our decisions. I shall express my sympathies to the Australians on behalf of my allies. However, I would also like to point out to the Australians that the Alliance of Justice and Order is not a charity organization. Our operation to uphold justice costs a fair amount.”

Hearing that, people nodded in agreement. The core of the discussion that had been going around was the payment.

An operation would incur military expenses. What if Extraordinaires were injured or killed in operation? Their pension would be much higher than normal people’s.

Upholding justice was a noble act, but when it came to military expenditure, people would still argue, it was the reality of those who do real things. As agreeable as people are, they would still have minor conflicts regarding the details of things.

“To members of the Alliance of Justice and Order, it is possible for us to discount or even waive certain fees due to their participation in manpower and provisions. You are not a member of the Alliance, so the cost of this operation shall be borne by you alone.”

Yun Hui had always been a businessman. He had no problems talking about money with other parties.

Even Liu Bei ³ had had his own tear-jerking moments just for the issue of money and provisions.

The three Australians waiting offstage did not look pleased. Even though they had prepared for such an occasion, they did not really want to pay the amount.

They only wanted to hoodwink the idiots to help them solve their issue for free in the name of justice.

Before they had arrived, they had fantasized that the people of the Alliance of Justice and Order to behave like those superheroes in Hollywood films, to not ask for money after they had finished off the big bad, that would have been much easier.

After all, the legendary Vigilante A’s appearance fee was not a small sum. To them, that was a pretty big chunk out of their budget.

However, movies were just movies. The fighters for justice in the movies had never discussed the issue of payment, but the reality was different.