The next morning.
Crack of dawn, 5:30 a.m. — way too early for normal people.
The three rolled out of bed, groggy but ready for action.
"The Beast Arena is in a small canyon five kilometers outside the county seat. If you don’t have someone to lead you in, it’s almost impossible to get inside."
The boss here is Luke Lu, and trust me, the guy’s a beast. Unless you want trouble, steer clear.
Shawn Shi couldn’t stop running his mouth about the Beast Arena the whole way. When he started ranting about losing a million yuan here, he looked like his soul had left his body.
They left Harmony County and headed further south.
All around them, it was nothing but wild hills and thick, tangled forest — real untamed country.
After leaving Harmony County and crossing the river, they found a winding goat path. A short walk later, a narrow canyon came into view.
At the canyon entrance, a crowd had already gathered behind a wooden fence.
"The Beast Arena starts at nine in the morning. Right now, they're exchanging points."
Shawn glanced over and explained to Evan Lin, "There are different tiers of points here, and each person can only exchange once per day."
"100,000 yuan gets you 10 points, 1,000,000 for 20 points, 10 million for 30 points, and 100 million for 40 points."
At this point, Shawn looked at Evan, digging around in his pocket and looking a little embarrassed. "I lost all my money here not long ago..."
Tony Dong looked even more embarrassed—his pockets were emptier than his pride.
"There’s over fourteen million in the card. Exchange 30 points for me, and 20 each for you two."
Evan just shrugged and handed over the bank card, sounding bored.
Shawn and Tony’s faces lit up. They hurriedly took the card and rushed to the exchange counter.
While Shawn was handling the exchange, Evan spotted Bryce Gu and that girl from yesterday.
The two of them noticed him as well.
The girl saw Evan Lin, munching on a lollipop, and walked over. She stood in front of him, looking him up and down. "You did pretty well yesterday. You're pretty impressive."
Evan glanced at her, not bothering to respond.
"What's your problem? I'm talking to you." The girl was clearly annoyed when Evan completely ignored her and frowned. "Let me put it this way—I'm Yvonne Zhu. Even Uncle Gu said you're pretty strong. Want to come work for my family? We can pay you 500,000 a month."
Yvonne Zhu stared at Evan Lin in front of her.
If you can throw down ten million like it’s pocket change, why would you care about a measly half-million salary?
The fact that Bryce kept bringing up Evan made Yvonne Zhu’s curiosity go through the roof.
She’d pegged Evan as a broke nobody, but now? Her whole mood flipped.
The fact that Bryce kept mentioning Evan made Yvonne Zhu extremely curious about him.
That’s why she came over to talk to Evan.
"No time for that."
Evan spat out two words, deadpan as ever, making Yvonne Zhu so mad she looked ready to explode.
The Zhu family is one of the big families in Oceanport City. Usually, people would do anything for a chance to join them—crying, begging, fighting for a spot.
Now Yvonne Zhu had offered a monthly salary of 500,000, yet all she got was those two words. She was instantly annoyed.
"Young man, who is your master?"
Bryce Gu nodded slightly as he looked at Evan, his eyes full of curiosity.
"Even if I told you, you wouldn’t know."
Evan glanced at Bryce Gu and replied calmly.
"Do you even know who you’re talking to!"
Yvonne Zhu was already annoyed by Evan’s cold attitude, and now hearing him talk to Bryce like that made her even angrier.
He barely glanced at Evan, didn’t see anything special, then spotted Yvonne Zhu still fuming nearby and instantly perked up.
Yvonne.
Bryce Gu reached out and patted Yvonne Zhu on the head, gently calling her name.
Yvonne pursed her lips, keeping quiet, but her glare at Evan Lin was fierce and full of defiance.
Yvonne's been spoiled since she was little. She always speaks her mind—don't take it personally.
Bryce Gu looked at Evan and continued, "The world’s a big place—there’s plenty I don’t know. If you’d rather not say, just pretend I never asked."
"If you’re willing, maybe we can go through the arena together later?"
Yvonne just rolled her eyes and stuffed the three chips into her pocket like she couldn’t care less.
Six chips—three each. That’s a whopping twenty million on the table!
Seeing that kind of money, Chester Zhang had to rethink everything—he kept his mouth shut for once.
"Sir, here are your point tokens."
Shawn handed Evan three yellow chips, looking extremely respectful.
Three?
Seeing Evan take three tokens from Shawn, Yvonne Zhu was briefly stunned, then let out a little snort.
Three tokens meant ten million yuan worth of chips.
Anyone who can casually put up ten million as chips clearly wouldn’t care about a 500,000-a-month salary.
That realization hit Yvonne like a slap. She thought Evan was just some broke kid. Now her feelings were all over the place.
She’d thought Evan was just some broke kid.
"Hey, Shawn? Back again? Didn’t you lose all your money last time? I remember you even sold your dad’s house to come here, didn’t you? Huh?"
A surprised voice rang out from the side.
Shawn’s face darkened at those words.
Evan turned his head and saw, not far away, a chubby guy in his twenties wearing a dress shirt and oversized pants swaggering over, fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan.
Two men with steady, imposing auras followed him—they both looked like late-stage Outer Strength fighters.
"Chester Zhang, what’s that supposed to mean!"
Shawn glared at Chester, gritting his teeth.
"What do you think I mean? I’m just telling it like it is. I tried to hire you as my bodyguard before, but you turned me down—so what could I do?" Chester Zhang laughed. "That Small Strength Pill you wanted ended up with me."
"You have no idea, eating that pill made me feel amazing. I was early Outer Strength before, but after taking it I jumped straight to late Outer Strength. Now I could kill you with one punch. Believe it or not?"
Chester stared at Shawn, looking down on him.
That look made Shawn grit his teeth even harder.
Only then did Chester shift his gaze to the people beside Shawn.
He glanced at Evan Lin but didn’t sense anything special, so he looked past him and spotted Yvonne Zhu, who was still fuming. His eyes lit up.
Chester grinned and was about to go over, but before he could say anything, someone came running up.
Chester recognized the newcomer—it was one of the Beast Arena's point exchange staff.
"Thank you for waiting. Here are your point tokens—three each. Please don’t mix them up, and remember you can’t exchange them directly with each other."
The staffer smiled and handed six tokens to Yvonne Zhu and Bryce Gu.
"Mm."
Bryce Gu nodded calmly.
Yvonne looked unimpressed and casually stuffed three chips into her pocket.
Six chips—three each—meant a total of twenty million!
Seeing those chips, Chester Zhang couldn’t help but reevaluate Bryce Gu and Yvonne Zhu, suddenly not daring to speak so casually.