Chapter 814: Chapter 684: The Government’s Purge

Qu Jianlei entered the Elf House and couldn’t help but exclaim, "This is luxurious indeed!"

The building seemed to have only three stories, but who would have thought there were more than ten floors underground.

Besides the foot massage service, there were plenty of other projects as well, he even saw greenhouses!

That’s right, proper greenhouses, and they were growing vegetables inside.

The hostess in charge of reception noticed his gaze and immediately explained.

"These vegetables are picked fresh for consumption, and the soil used is the most fertile transported from Celestial Blade Star, pure green and pollution-free."

Whoa... Although Qu Jianlei was a rich man with more than two hundred million in cash, he couldn’t help but secretly click his tongue upon hearing this.

The soil was actually transported from alien planets, what kind of luxury is this... let’s have a meal first! 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Fortunately, when ordering, a server explained, "The stocked vegetables are still fresh, whereas the freshly picked ones are more expensive."

But even stocked vegetables are quite luxurious, right? Qu Jianlei slightly nodded, "Then I’ll have the freshly picked ones."

After finishing the meal, he spent nearly twenty thousand, enough for a starship to stay at Star Port for over thirty days.

The key was that the flavor was particularly bland, which he couldn’t tolerate, "Is there a room where I can cook? I’ll buy vegetables and cook myself!"

He stayed at the foot massage parlor for two days and did not encounter any troublesome people.

What a joke, spending almost three hundred thousand in two days, even if someone wanted to offend him, the massage parlor had to agree first.

According to his room server, there are occasional disputes here, but mostly due to—women!

Qu Jianlei had refused such services from the start, so naturally, he wouldn’t encounter any troubles.

But what was slightly disappointing was that even in such a high-consumption venue, there was no Qi Gathering Array for cultivation.

However, Qu Jianlei was not here for that. He mainly wanted a detailed map of the planet to understand various overt and covert rules.

Originally, his plan was to gather intel for two days and, if there was no gain, to take the risk and smuggle into Celestial Blade Star.

After all, more than two years have passed, it’s not possible to continuously enforce strict checks on smuggling, right?

However, after paying a substantial tip, he received some interesting news from the server.

One of them was: Although land trading on Blue Elf Star had been called off, previously purchased land could still be traded.

More than a hundred years ago, land on the Transfer Star could be freely bought—this included some oceans.

But after land trading, it became a place for some wanted criminals to hide.

Imperial law stipulates that private property is sacred and inviolable, private land cannot be entered at random.

More importantly, Blue Elf Star is truly a mix of dragons and snakes, but the Celestial Blade Government cannot strictly check entries and exits.

Due to this, land trading was later called off.

Qu Jianlei had long known that land here couldn’t be bought or sold, but was surprised that previously sold land could still be traded.

But he had no interest in buying land, so he asked casually, "Since it’s limited resources, will the prices skyrocket?"

Upon hearing this, the server burst into laughter, "Ha, that’s what the people who bought land thought at the time."

Turns out before the Celestial Blade Government issued the ’sales ban order,’ somehow the news leaked.

As a result, many people flooded into Blue Elf, waving around booklets to crazily buy land, with the land prices tripling and more.

After the ban was issued, the land prices continued to rise, reaching up to five times the original price, and then they couldn’t go up anymore.

Theoretically, this wasn’t surprising, it’s impossible for prices to continuously rise, there should be pauses midway.

Yet five years later, the Celestial Blade Star Government announced, a significant frozen terrain discovered rich geothermal resources.

So this frozen terrain became a candidate for a secondary logistics center, and construction began accordingly.

Thus, the land prices on Blue Elf Star plummeted and never climbed back up.

Later, the construction of the secondary logistics center was slow, never reaching planned scale.

The reason is simple, total transfer of materials has its limits.

Especially after multiple large forces monopolized the mining industry, they care a lot about profits, if the price isn’t high, they’d rather keep the mines closed.

Lanyun Market is the best example, not much ore extracted, directly closed the mine and turned into the trading platform.

Those who bought land initially hoped that one day demand would rise, and land prices would rise too.

Yet over these past hundred years, production from the asteroid belt hasn’t decreased, but there’s no sign of a sharp increase either.

Current land prices are a tenth of the peak, if someone rushes to sell, even lower prices are possible.

Those initial land buyers became pure jokes, even the server couldn’t stop laughing while discussing it.

Qu Jianlei listened, also mixed between laughter and tears, "The Celestial Blade Government’s operations are truly absurd."

Undoubtedly, this was a collusion between the government and some forces, wiping out a batch of the middle class.

Then he casually checked the trading platform using the massage parlor’s terminal, "This land price... hasn’t changed much, right?"

The server’s answer was, the government doesn’t allow land to be sold cheaply, otherwise, heavy taxes will be imposed.

"You’re seeing a quoted price of ten thousand, but actually it’s one thousand! Anyway, cash transactions are allowed here."

"Really peculiar," Qu Jianlei shook his head, evidently this was the government both supporting and exploiting the situation.

Fortunately, the waiter has worked locally for many years. If it were someone not familiar with the place, they might not know the tricks inside.

After Qu Jianlei checked out from the Elf House, the Little Lake had already found a seller.

"This place is only selling for 2.2 million, you can get it for 220,000, and it even includes some simple buildings and a fence, the location is also decent."

It even pinpointed the seller’s location, "What a coincidence, it’s less than twenty kilometers from us, should we drive over?"

"Of course not," Qu Jianlei answered casually, "Drive halfway and walk halfway, so others won’t guess my identity from the Elf House."

This shows how cautious he truly is, constantly reminding himself not to get carried away.

The seller was a middle-aged man, squeezing into a run-down tavern, drinking strong, pungent liquor.

Seated with him was a slightly younger C-level Warrior.

Qu Jianlei walked up to them, and without saying anything, just displaying his A-level cultivation level left them staring at him in shock.

He didn’t say much else, "Let’s find a quieter place to discuss your piece of land... cash."

The two obediently got up and moved to a tavern with private rooms, settling the deal in just a few words.

He offered 200,000, the other side said they couldn’t lower it any more, you’re an A-level after all, so eventually, they agreed on 210,000.

Honestly, Qu Jianlei didn’t want to haggle over such a small amount, but if he didn’t, he would still appear unusual.

Laughably, in the process, the man might have drunk too much and seriously asked if the land price would go up.

After the agreement, they went to see the site, the journey took two days.

Qu Jianlei was fairly satisfied with the place, roughly four square kilometers, surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing a frozen sea on one side.

It was a very small valley, with all three mountains being ownerless, so generally, people couldn’t wander in randomly.

The fence was... just a loop of wire mesh, barely visible now.

However, at the edge of the valley, there was a row of stone houses, the glass was somewhat damaged, but a repair would suffice.

The man spoke somewhat sentimentally, honestly saying his father was an Earth Attribute C-level, who built it bit by bit using techniques.

However, Qu Jianlei didn’t care if the man was being pitiful or not, if they didn’t plan on making money back then, at most they’d lose half.

If he bought recently, he wouldn’t even lose half, without much greed, the loss wouldn’t be significant.

After returning, the cash transaction and land deed were completed in less than half a day.

Then Qu Jianlei rushed back, and at the edge of the frozen sea, he spent two days digging an underground stone cave.

The cave plunged a hundred meters underground, and the stone chamber at the top could easily accommodate his two armed merchant ships.

Even for someone at the supreme level like him, completing such a project so quickly consumed nearly half of his Inner Breath.

Big Head Butterfly still hoped he’d do some interior decorating, "I feel like cultivating here would be much better than on an abandoned star body."

"Cut it out," Qu Jianlei shook his head, "I haven’t even finished the Sail Consortium’s order, as long as I can store some goods here, it’s fine."

He left some of the materials he carried with him, and then set up a Spirit Gathering Array to start replenishing Qi.

However, as the Spirit Gathering Array began to operate normally, for no reason, he felt something was amiss.

He released his A-level peak perception to feel carefully, but that feeling disappeared again.

"What’s going on?" He couldn’t figure it out.

In any case, fully restoring spiritual Qi is a must, and if something feels off, it’s even more necessary to enhance combat endurance.

He spent three days restoring his spiritual Qi to eighty percent, then sensed again, still finding nothing.

What he didn’t know was that over two hundred meters beneath him, a mass of black soil was twisting and writhing.

"Finally... such familiar energy."

Qu Jianlei spent another two days, bringing his spiritual Qi back to over ninety percent, then wrapped up and stood up.

He had been here long enough, if he didn’t return soon, he wouldn’t know how to explain it to Li Ang.

The unease from five days ago hadn’t appeared again, so he dismissed it as an illusion.

It’s very normal for people lacking a sense of security to have illusions, no need to cling to it.

Even if something goes wrong, the resources here are only a fifth of his wealth, the loss is bearable.

A clever rabbit has three or four more burrows; this was just one of them.

Moreover, for real liquid assets like silver notes, he carried most of them with him.

He did leave one Storage Talisman behind—since it’s not easy to liquidate.

Just as he sealed the entrance and leisurely left, an armed merchant ship landed in the Star Port.

The ship was heavily armored, with numerous weapon launch ports, giving an extremely menacing impression.

A group disembarked the starship, each attending to their own business.

Among them were three clear leaders, who walked out on foot.

As they walked, a young man pointed at one of the starships and started laughing, "Haha, what a piece of junk!"

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