Super Gene Ⅱ: Evolution

Tian Xun and Lin Shen had not expected that they could dig up such sensational news.

Lin Shen was unaware of Little Wine Emperor's origins, so Tian Xun briefed him on Little Wine Emperor's achievements.

No one knows which race Little Wine Emperor came from; it remains a mystery to this day.

Even though he claimed the third spot on the race ranking, Little Wine Emperor never left his race's name on it.

Moreover, Little Wine Emperor's position as the third on the race ranking was not because his strength was only third best, but because his last opponent was the Phoenix Clan Empress, to whom he had once expressed admiration.

During that race ranking, the Phoenix Clan reached its peak and claimed the top spot on the list.

However, that was a very long time ago; although the Phoenix Clan no longer contends for first place today, they seldom fall out of the top ten.

Many strong figures believed at the time that if Little Wine Emperor's opponent had not been the Phoenix Clan Empress, he might have been the one to take the first place in the race ranking.

But these were all rumors; forget about now, after countless years, even back then, no one could be sure whether Little Wine Emperor had held back.

Unfortunately, in the end, Little Wine Emperor never managed to be with the Phoenix Clan Empress. After her failed attempt to become the Realm King and her subsequent death, Little Wine Emperor also disappeared without a trace.

Little Wine Emperor rarely took action in his life and hardly ever made enemies, perhaps because he was without a racial background and had no desire to compete with other races. Thus, he had countless friends in his life, but very few enemies.

His biggest hobby was merely collecting, though his collecting was a bit unusual.

"Guess what Little Wine Emperor liked to collect?" Tian Xun asked Lin Shen with a smile.

"Considering his nickname is Little Wine Emperor, he must be a lover of wine, so he probably collected wines, right?" Lin Shen replied.

"That's where you're wrong. Little Wine Emperor did indeed love wine, but what he liked to collect was not wine," Tian Xun said dreamily, "He liked to collect planets."

"Collect... planets... Do you mean the planets I'm thinking of?" Lin Shen gazed at Tian Xun, thinking he had misheard.

"The very planets you're thinking of. 'To hold a sand pitcher in hand, the starry river in a cup of wine'—these lines are not an exaggeration of rhetoric. It is said that someone once witnessed Little Wine Emperor putting a planet into his sleeve," Tian Xun explained. "But this, too, is just a legend, and whether Little Wine Emperor ever really collected planets is something that no one knows now."

"To think that on Giant Ring Star, there is a trial ground left by Little Wine Emperor; if one could inherit his legacy, the path to immortality would certainly be smooth," Tian Xun's eyes shone, evidently very interested in the trial grounds Ye Xing spoke of.

Tian Xun also asked in detail about the list of Hybrid Night Ghosts hidden among various tribes by the Night Ghost Tribe, as well as the situation in the Utmost Darkness Domain.

Unfortunately, these were not the matters Ye Xing was in charge of, and she knew only a portion of them.

However, the list that Ye Xing revealed was shocking enough for Tian Xun, leaving him to wonder how many more Hybrid Night Ghosts there were that Ye Xing did not know about.

"Should we first clear out the Night Ghosts on your side?" Lin Shen mused.

"Aside from you, no one knows the Devout Blazing Angel has such abilities, and they won't suspect that the truth is already known to us. We shouldn't spook the snake by hitting the grass. According to her, many people from the three families may have already become Night Ghosts. If we can't catch them all at once, it will be troublesome later.

I need time to make arrangements in advance." Tian Xun asked Ye Xing a few more questions until he really couldn't extract anything else, then he locked Ye Xing up.

"You were ordered here this time, presumably for the resources submitted from Giant Ring Star, right?" Tian Xun settled back onto the couch and looked at Lin Shen with a smile.

"You can't hide anything from you. That old guy, the Heavenly Emperor, made me come here to handle this matter, really quite sinister." Lin Shen sighed.

Tian Xun's fingers caressed Lin Shen's face, and her beautiful eyes shifted as she said, "I had already anticipated there would come a day like this, but I didn't expect it would be you."

"Tian Xun, darling, since you've anticipated it, you must have a plan in place." Lin Shen wanted to hear what Tian Xun was planning first.

"What if I said I have no plans and am powerless to help, would you believe that?" Tian Xun said to Lin Shen with a half-smile.

"I believe you. Just tell me if you're in trouble, and I'll find a way to solve it," Lin Shen replied earnestly.

"This matter isn't as simple as you think," Tian Xun sighed. "If we divide my profits from Giant Ring Star into ten parts, in truth, I've only taken three-tenths."

"That old guy, the Heavenly Emperor, isn't satisfied even after taking seven-tenths, that's way too greedy," Lin Shen frowned immediately upon hearing this. The Heavenly Emperor took away seventy percent of the profits and still wanted him to scrape up more, which was just too excessive.

"I didn't say the Heavenly Emperor took seven-tenths," Tian Xun changed the subject and continued, "Of the remaining seven-tenths, my family will take three-tenths, and the Celestial Court will also take three-tenths."

Lin Shen's eyes widened suddenly, "So you mean, the Heavenly Emperor only took one-tenth? You're eating the meat yourselves, letting the Heavenly Emperor just sip the soup? No wonder he's dissatisfied."

"It's not just us, the An Family and Chi Family have the same standard. To speak more broadly, nearly all developing planets follow this ratio, and the fluctuations aren't too great. Some of the planets that have been developed probably can't even reach this ratio," Tian Xun said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"The one-tenth that the Heavenly Emperor gets is for his own personal use. What we take, we have to share with those below us and grease the palms of those above. Moreover, with so many planets, each having to give one-tenth to the Heavenly Emperor, when you really do the math, the resources that the Heavenly Emperor gets are already unimaginably vast."

"The key issue is that he squanders all these resources himself, nobody else gets to enjoy any of the benefits. One-tenth is not little at all, in fact, it's already too much."

"Although that's true, it's also quite normal for the Heavenly Emperor to be dissatisfied when there are so many resources yet he only gets one-tenth," Lin Shen now felt that this matter shouldn't be too difficult to handle.

The hint given to him by Steward Yun was for them to double the resources they submitted, which is just an additional one-tenth.

It seems the Heavenly Emperor has no accurate concept of how much they had skimmed off; otherwise, he wouldn't have settled for just doubling it.

If they only doubled it, the impact on the three families shouldn't be too great, not to the point of breaking all relations.

However, Tian Xun's next words shattered Lin Shen's fond illusions, "Doubling the submitted resources is impossible. If this precedent were broken because of us, what would you have the other Star Lords do? With that, the Heavenly Emperor would find a reason to question why they can't submit as much as Giant Ring Star if we can.

If we break the rules now, it'll be hard for us to survive in this circle in the future."

The problem was more complicated than Lin Shen had thought. He wasn't just fighting with Giant Ring Star but with the entire noble strata of the Celestial Race. The Heavenly Emperor had pushed him to oppose this massive entity, an existence that even the Heavenly Emperor himself couldn't shake.

"That old bastard, the Heavenly Emperor, is really trying to send me to my grave!" Lin Shen said with a bitter smile.