Chapter 223: Marrying An Older Woman Comes With The Imperial Throne
After thinking it over repeatedly, Lu Li still picked up his phone and dialed that number he rarely called.
“Little Pudding, do you need something from me?” Qu Suxin’s tone carried a bit of teasing and flirtation, her voice soft and slightly husky.
Hearing this familiar nickname, Lu Li’s facial expression darkened.
Ekaterina liked calling him that, and then this noblewoman he had never met in person started calling him that too.
Lu Li said helplessly, “I have something to discuss with you, it’s like this…”
Lu Li briefly told Qu Suxin about his discovery and guess.
Actually, he didn’t have to do this, but mainly if he really didn’t, it would weigh on his conscience a bit.
If the Yao Family really used this excuse to go to war with the Qu Family, he would regret knowing about it later, so rather than regretting it himself, it was better to tell Qu Suxin about this matter first.
Even if he guessed wrong, it would just make the other party laugh at most.
There’s a saying, something like: I’d rather make a mistake than do nothing—that was Lu Li’s current thought.
“Got it, thanks for this matter. When I have time, Older Sister will properly thank you~” Qu Suxin slightly drew out the ending, with a lazy teasing tone, like a cat leisurely and confidently toying with its prey.
After hanging up the phone, Qu Suxin narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, then picked up the phone beside her and said, “I want all the information on Yao Tianxing.”
After hanging up again, she stared at the ceiling with dazed eyes.
“Alliance… is this your condition?” Qu Suxin murmured in her heart.
The Eighteen Great Attribute Families had grown too powerful, and now with the Jiuzhou Alliance’s independence imminent, those above naturally hoped to weaken the Eighteen Great Attribute Families through various means.
This was also unavoidable; if the Eighteen Great Attribute Families weren’t weakened, the Jiuzhou Alliance would be controlled by those noble families then.
………..
Having listened to the entire conversation, Yao Yifei couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t this being too cautious? No matter how shameless the Yao Family is, they wouldn’t use this kind of excuse, right?”
Lu Li just smiled and shook his head, with no intention of explaining further.
Lu Li asked, “The Pokémon Eggs are all gathered, where do we go next?”
After searching for a moment, Yao Yifei asked, “I want to trade a Mega Stone for a Pokémon Secret Treasure I can use. Do you have anything to trade?”
“Which of your Pokémon are missing Secret Treasures?” Lu Li asked curiously.
Yao Yifei’s first tier Pokémon were Sylveon, Togekiss, Altaria, Wigglytuff, Milotic, and Vespiquen.
But they had all reached their qualification limits, so if the Pokémon Secret Treasure couldn’t improve their qualifications, it would be a complete waste of a Pokémon Secret Treasure.
Yao Yifei said, “Wigglytuff.”
“Why not Espeon?” Lu Li asked.
Yao Yifei said helplessly, “Because Espeon has already used a Psychic Gem.”
“Alright.” Lu Li nodded and continued asking, “What about Altaria?”
“Altaria has already used a Flying Gem, and Dragon Attribute Secret Treasures aren’t common. I’m not holding out much hope for that.” Yao Yifei spread her hands regretfully.
If possible, she certainly hoped to trade for a Pokémon Secret Treasure that Altaria could use, after all, Altaria could Mega Evolve, and if Altaria broke through to Heavenly King Level and then Mega Evolved, she could almost instantly escape the beginner Heavenly King realm.
Lu Li smiled and comforted, “You still need dreams; what if they come true?”
Yao Yifei’s luck was actually pretty good; she absolutely wouldn’t stop at Gym Level.
“Hope so, follow me.”
After Yao Yifei finished speaking, she led the way ahead.
Soon, the two arrived in front of a window; the spots they took weren’t the only ones—a row had at least sixty or seventy different windows.
“Customer, what service do you need?” the staff member behind the counter asked respectfully.
Yao Yifei: “Item for item trade.”
“Please continue.”
The staff member nodded.
“I want to trade a Greninja Mega Stone for a Fairy Gem or Dragon Gem.”
Hearing Yao Yifei’s conditions, the staff member quickly registered: “Alright, please leave your contact information, and we’ll match you with a trading partner as quickly as possible.”
Yao Yifei stepped aside, giving the spot to Lu Li.
“This customer, what do you need?” the staff member looked up and asked.
“I want to trade an Aggron Mega Stone for…”
Lu Li fell into thought.
To be honest, he couldn’t use any Pokémon Secret Treasures right now at all, and as for trading for something else, that would just be Mega Stone for Mega Stone.
Lu Li continued, “Trade for a Charizard or Steelix Mega Stone.”
The staff member didn’t say anything, just registered it, then handed Lu Li a card: “Please don’t leave Deep Blue City during the Trade Convention. I’ll match you with a trading partner as soon as possible.”
Lu Li smiled and took the card.
After leaving the trading area, Lu Li said, “I remember there’s this kind of trading on online platforms too, right?”
Yao Yifei just countered, “Do you dare trust online trades?”
Lu Li: “…”
“The Deep Blue Black Market’s Trade Convention can be said to be the safest Trade Convention; the probability of seeing scammers here is almost zero, and the probability of being robbed is also nearly zero. That’s why the Trade Convention can be held every year.” Yao Yifei explained.
“Next, let’s go to the grocery area. That’s mostly stalls, mainly testing your eyesight—that’s the real Deep Blue Black Market.” Yao Yifei suggested.
Lu Li nodded.
Yao Yifei added, “Everything in the grocery area has no quality guarantee. Even if you buy fakes, the Deep Blue Black Market won’t take responsibility.”
The two chatted while walking and soon arrived at the trading area.
In fact, the items in the trading area were indeed as Yao Yifei said: 80% fakes, and of the remaining 20%, 10% were inferior goods; of the last 10%, not many were actually good stuff.
“People who come here to buy want eyesight and knowledge. I generally don’t come here to buy.” Yao Yifei said seriously, and Lu Li even heard a gritted resentment in her tone.
Lu Li: “…”
“You weren’t scammed here before, were you?” Lu Li felt like he had grasped the key point.
Hearing this, Yao Yifei’s facial expression darkened.
Yao Yifei retorted, “Can you speak properly? Mine was at most paying tuition; later I learned.”
“Learned what?” Lu Li looked at Yao Yifei curiously.
The “tuition” Yao Yifei paid must have been quite a lot; Lu Li was also curious what she had actually learned.
Yao Yifei answered dryly, “I learned not to buy things here.”
“Heh~”
Lu Li was successfully amused.
Lu Li praised, “Sister Yao, I didn’t expect you to have such a sense of humor.”
Yao Yifei: “…”
Yao Yifei rolled her eyes at Lu Li, then chose silence.
Lu Li curiously searched the various stalls for his target.
When coming here to buy, the most important thing is not to listen to the stall bosses’ nonsense.
The poop of an unknown Pokémon could be hyped by the stall boss into a divine item.
What? You say this pile of poop has no energy fluctuation?
Don’t you know what self-purification of divine items is?
If it really had energy fluctuation, would it be your turn to find a bargain?
Lu Li felt the boss made a good point, then spent 200 League Coins to buy this pile of poop.
This wasn’t because the poop was some divine item, but because it was the excretion of a Heavenly King Level Drampa, which was a very good fertilizer for Berry trees; many fertilizer recipes could use this stuff.
“Hm?”
Lu Li suddenly stopped in front of an old man’s stall.
“This…”
Lu Li looked in surprise at the bones in front of him.
Lu Li said, “Boss, this thing is quite grounded.”
The boss opposite, hearing this, looked at Lu Li somewhat unexpectedly.
“Fellow practitioner?”
The boss asked with a smile, “How does little brother see it?”
“I sensed the resentment on this bone from far away.” Lu Li answered while inspecting the bone in front of him.
Hearing this, the boss’s facial expression instantly calmed; turns out not a fellow practitioner, so this old man can relax.
This was a cervical vertebra bone from the corpse of a Master Level Pokémon; due to the passage of time and the corpse being too severely damaged, there was no energy fluctuation on the bone anymore, only soaring resentment.
Worth mentioning was that the resentment on it wasn’t from the Pokémon itself, but wrapped in grudging thoughts.
In other words, the owner of this bone was a Pokémon that had committed great slaughter in life, to the point that even after death it was entwined with resentment.
This thing was a great supplement for some Ghost-type Pokémon, but any trainer not out of their mind wouldn’t let their Pokémon absorb this kind of resentment.
“I really like this bone, boss, name your price.” Lu Li put the bone back on the stall.
“Fifty thousand, no haggling.” The boss said directly.
Lu Li paid directly, then tossed the bone into his Space Backpack.
After the money arrived, the boss kindly reminded, “It’s best not to use this thing on your own Pokémon; it’ll cause trouble.”
Lu Li nodded.
This was a cervical vertebra bone from a Dragon Type Pokémon, wrapped in soaring resentment, a main material for refining the Ten Thousand Souls Banner.
“Now I just need runes, and find a way to get an Unown representing the basic rules of Ghost Type, then my Gengar army plan can be put on the agenda.” Lu Li thought full of expectation.
Yao Yifei asked curiously, “Why did you buy this bone properly? To make fertilizer?”
“Something like that.” Lu Li didn’t explain.
In the grocery area, Lu Li did pick up quite a few good things.
Like some herbs he had been searching for, and some materials for artifact refining, even materials for making fertilizer.
The time Lu Li spent in the grocery area was almost twice that of the Pokémon Egg area.
Yao Yifei suggested, “It’s getting late, how about we head back to the hotel to rest first?”
Lu Li was about to say he was still full of energy, but considering Yao Yifei was just a mortal, Lu Li ultimately nodded.
“Tomorrow we’ll check out the second floor.” Lu Li said.
Yao Yifei nodded, without objection.
After finding a hotel under the Qu Family to stay in, Lu Li couldn’t wait to start inventorying his harvest from today.
First, he found some materials for Spirit Beauty Pill 3.0, and the materials for Fire Spirit Pill 2.0 were complete; next was nurturing and refining the new Fire Spirit Pills.
Since he didn’t know the specific recipe for Metal Coat, Lu Li specially collected quite a few strange metals, and decided to take them to black markets in other regions tomorrow.
As for those Pokémon Eggs, Lu Li didn’t find any that suited him this year.
Ralts was okay, but he had already promised Bao Bao, so Lu Li chose to reluctantly give it up this time.
Of course, the main reason was that his requirements for first tier Pokémon had gotten higher; he somewhat looked down on Gym Level qualification Ralts now.
After inventorying the harvest, Lu Li specially made a cross-region call to Ekaterina, congratulating her on ascending to Empress.
Ekaterina tempted, “Interested in coming over to be an imperial consort? The kind with inheritance rights, oh.”
Lu Li: “…”
Looking at the silent Lu Li, Ekaterina continued to entice, “You can really consider it; maybe you’ll be Katerina the Tenth, or of course, possibly Lu Li the First.”
“I’m used to freedom, not really accustomed to that, but thanks for your kind offer. When free, I’ll properly thank you. By the way… did you receive the gift I sent?” Lu Li quickly changed the topic.
Heaven knows what shocking words this woman would say next.
Lu Li had a very clear grasp of his own position.
The benefits he had now all relied on the Ideal Messenger tiger skin; without it, Katerina might appreciate him, but it would absolutely just be appreciation.
“I received the gift; you should have sent it on the day I ascended, then your gift would have been the best ascension gift received.” Ekaterina pretended to complain dissatisfiedly.
Lu Li weakly reminded, “Is it possible I sent it long ago, it’s just that logistics is slow?”
Ekaterina: “…”
“Alright, you just ascended so you must have lots to handle; I won’t disturb you, bye.”
After Lu Li finished, he quickly hung up.
“Eating soft rice for an imperial throne? Tempting me with that? I… almost fell for it.” Lu Li thought somewhat relieved in his heart.
This honey trap was simply perfect; if his identity weren’t fake, he definitely would have agreed to Ekaterina.
Shaking his head, Lu Li continued sorting his recent harvest.
Today he collected quite a few special metals, among which one metal fragment was what he cared about most.
In the Spiritual Vision Eye’s view, this metal flashed with golden radiance, appearing exceptionally dazzling.
Lu Li had taken a fancy to this metal at first glance back then.
The metal had no energy fluctuation, the only praiseworthy thing was its terrifyingly high hardness.
Lu Li had also spent 2 million to acquire this metal; at the time Yao Yifei even said he had money with nowhere to spend and came to the black market for charity.
This metal was entirely orange-red, and under spiritual sense scan, Lu Li keenly detected the Psychic Power waves contained within the metal.
Though he didn’t know the origin of this metal, 2 million was absolutely worth it.
Even if this thing had nothing to do with Pokémon, the metal was excellent material for refining a Flying Sword.
