Chapter Thirty-Nine: A Road to Riches

"Creating an Immortal?"

Upon hearing this, Liao Zhong inevitably frowned. "What nonsense are you spouting, kid?"

"Besides, how can you complete the Gu child’s internal organs? It’s easy for you to say, but I’ve never heard of any technique that can regenerate missing parts!"

Meng Fan smiled. "The technique to regenerate missing parts might actually exist, like the Reverse Vital Energy Triple Refinement!"

"When a person is born, the innate vital energy transforms into limbs and flesh—this is the natural order. Following the natural order aligns with the laws of heaven but inevitably leads to death. Thus, one must reverse-refine the innate vital energy, defying the natural laws to ultimately ascend and become an immortal."

"The Reverse Vital Energy Triple Refinement aims to train oneself back to the state of pure innate vital energy."

"The first stage: Vital energy fills the body, transforming into flesh and skin. Once achieved, every movement carries the strength of dragons and tigers."

"The second stage: Transforming muscles, bones, and internal organs. This allows the internal organs, bones, and blood to be temporarily vitalized to a certain extent. So, when injured, the flesh and blood are repaired not by ordinary means but by directing vital energy."

"Combined with the first stage’s flesh transformation, this forms an indestructible body—white as jade, impervious to water and fire, invulnerable to blades and axes, immune to malevolent forces and disease. Even severed limbs can regenerate."

"Innate vital energy is essentially the embodiment of the three treasures: essence, energy, and spirit. By analogy, reversing it naturally transforms into human flesh and blood."

"At that moment, the Gu within the Gu child’s body lies dormant. By reversing the Gu—already fused with the child's innate vital energy—and refining it into flesh and bone, a natural balance is achieved."

"Though the Gu harms the internal organs, the child can also refine the Gu to complete the organs. When necessary, the child can expend their innate vital energy or even their flesh and blood to accelerate Gu propagation, using it to defend."

"After battle, these Gu can restore the body anew."

"At this stage, one truly becomes Gu, and Gu truly becomes one with the person."

Listening to Meng Fan, Liao Zhong fell into deep thought. According to Meng Fan, this might just work.

However, Liao Zhong overlooked a crucial point: fusing Gu with innate vital energy contaminates the purity of the latter. To reverse-refine into flesh, the vital energy must remain pure; otherwise, the essence, energy, and spirit become defiled.

Meng Fan couldn’t reveal this, but he had a plan—using the Beast Aggregation Method.

Since the Beast Aggregation Method can freely splice genes and unify life and essence, it could eliminate the impurities.

But this only treats the symptoms, not the root cause. Each time Chen Duo’s body is restored, Meng Fan must intervene, binding Chen Duo to him. Meng Fan favored this safer, more controlled approach.

Of course, there was another, more permanent solution.

That was to fully merge the original Gu’s genes with the Gu child, altering the genes to become "non-human."

"Non-human" means different from humans.

Achieving this would let the Gu child develop their original Gu without restraint, absorbing all Gu from heaven and earth as nourishment, driving their life essence to evolve swiftly like the Gu itself.

With resources from myriad worlds, they could genuinely become an immortal, and Meng Fan would gain a perfect "weapon."

Whether Meng Fan could make this cold-hearted decision remained to be seen.

Perhaps I’m digressing.

All of this is just Meng Fan’s initial speculation.

If he were truly mad, he could use the Beast Aggregation Method to combine multiple bacterial traits, stacking buffs wildly—maxing mutation, resilience, and proliferation—then tailoring a specific biological survival type...

Of course, if Meng Fan unleashed this without restraint, even the entire non-human realm, or all of Divine Continent, might not tolerate him.

Meng Fan knew that anywhere, he would be seen by the higher-ups as a potential threat. That’s why he proactively sought placement with Liao Zhong—to carefully rehabilitate his image.

But having no weapon versus having one unused is a different matter. He might not need it under Liao Zhong’s protection, but what about elsewhere?

If pushed to the brink, wielding it wouldn’t hurt. Would it, Marshal?

The Marshal’s death taught Li Xingyun what true chaos meant; if forced to desperation, before fleeing, he would show the Marshal what true chaos really is!

—

Liao Zhong’s sudden voice interrupted Meng Fan’s thoughts: "Xiao Fan, your idea might be feasible, but have you considered that the Reverse Vital Energy Triple Refinement is practiced by Lu Jin, one of the Ten Elders? Why would he teach it to you?"

"Let me be clear—the company doesn’t have that kind of clout!" Meng Fan’s eyes twitched. "But why not try? What if it works? If not, I have another path."

Liao Zhong raised an eyebrow. "What path?"

"Uncle Liao, trust me—you won’t want to know."

Meng Fan lifted his head, his gaze dark and cold, cutting off further questions. Liao Zhong nodded, choosing not to press.

The Reverse Vital Energy Triple Refinement was just one proposed method to heal Chen Duo; Meng Fan could use others—it didn’t conflict.

In nature, many creatures can regenerate limbs and even internal organs—like earthworms. But after gene aggregation, Chen Duo would no longer be purely human.

—

Unless absolutely necessary, Meng Fan preferred not to use such means, as they violated certain moral boundaries he still maintained.

In the following days, Meng Fan made various demands of Liao Zhong, including establishing a small biological laboratory solely for himself.

This lab would analyze and compare genetic data, studying differences and peculiarities among various genes—accumulating materials for Meng Fan’s Beast Aggregation Method.

At first, Liao Zhong was reluctant, but Meng Fan’s question—"Do you want the Gu child to live or not?"—silenced his objections.

Initially, Liao Zhong scraped together funds from the Dark Vault’s budget, tightening here and there to support Meng Fan.

But as Meng Fan’s demands grew—immersed as he was in a sea of knowledge and eager to advance—Liao Zhong struggled to supply.

So Meng Fan stepped out of the lab with a proposal.

"Uncle Liao, do you want to make money?" he asked enticingly.

"Money?"

Liao Zhong eyed Meng Fan oddly. "You know the nature of our Express Company, right?"

Meng Fan laughed. "It’s just a delivery company. No matter how loudly you boast, it’s not officially part of the upper echelon."

"So, there’s opportunity here!"

Hearing this, Liao Zhong’s mind stirred. Every year, the Express Company’s budget was tight. How could they afford such a large operation on delivery fees alone?

Moreover, many injured personnel each year meant significant expenses.

Liao Zhong managed the Dark Vault and had a relatively ample budget, but with Meng Fan as a big spender, funds were stretched thin.

Scratching his head, Liao Zhong asked, "What’s your plan?"