Chapter 632: The Price of Ugly Business

“Holy shit...”

Ye Qing gasped under his breath. It had been a long time since he witnessed this level of DPS.

He wasn’t the only one who thought so. The chest of the indistinct woman heaved up and down with obvious anger.

It was such a lifelike reaction that Ye Qing couldn’t help but frown and think,

is the hand’s owner—the woman—really still alive?

Meanwhile, the girl continued her verbal assault on the hand, “What’s wrong? Did I hurt your feelings? Good!”

“An ugly bitch like you should never have been born. You don’t deserve to breathe the air of this world, and every second you exist counts as a form of pollution. If I were you, I would’ve hung myself so I could be reborn as an actual person a long time ago.”

Ye Qing’s mouth could not stop twitching. The woman’s chest couldn’t stop heaving either. Hell, she was flickering in and out of existence as if she might collapse from sheer anger.

She is the queen! The queen of roasts and flames!

Unable to endure the girl’s verbal assault any longer, the woman lifted her hand and lowered it gently. Her movement was so elegant and pretty it was like she was revealing a painting.

In reality, the entire Hill of Services suddenly shook like it was struck by an earthquake, and the air was suddenly filled with loud, indecipherable murmurs. The crowd pinned to their chairs suddenly howled like animals and began struggling with all their might.

Ye Qing was the only one who remained immune to the woman’s influence.

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

“Oho? It looks like you’re in a hurry to commit suicide as well. Very well, I shall fulfill your wish.”

The girl wasn’t afraid in the slightest though. She taunted the woman and waited until the woman’s hand was almost right on top of her before throwing a punch.

Buzz!

The entire Hill of Services suddenly shook once, and an unbelievable amount of power struck the woman’s body dead on. The punch instantly dispelled the woman’s figure like it was no more but a reflection in a pond and revealed the hand within.

The hand no longer looked as smooth and beautiful as before. It was now grayish and covered in wrinkles.

The wrinkles were twisting, squirming and struggling like they were alive. As Ye Qing stared at the hand, he was suddenly struck by the strong impulse to cut off his own hands and sacrifice it to the hand.

“Still trying to pull your ugly nonsense, eh? I guess you really can’t stop until you’re dead!”

The girl let out a grunt that sounded like a thunderclap. It erupted in everyone’s mind and dispelled the unnatural impulse before it could control them. Then, she slapped the hand right at the center.

“Eat this!”

Right before the hand would hit the wall, an arm grew out of the surface and sent it flying.

“And that!”

The girl yelled again as another arm grew out of the floor and smacked the hand hard before it could land on the floor.

What happened next was both cartoonish and incredible. Ye Qing could only watch in amazement as more arms grew out of the Popularity Tower’s walls, floor, ceiling and more. Every time the hand was about to hit a surface, an arm would appear and sent it flying. All the while, the girl kept yelling “Eat this!” or “And that!” at the top of her lungs.

The arms belonged to the girl, of course. To be more accurate, she was controlling the Hill of Services and making it grow arms at the exact place and time she wanted.

The girl wasn’t human, of course. She was an artifact spirit. The Hill of Services’ artifact spirit to be exact.

It should not need to be said, but the Hill of Services wasn’t an ordinary hill with buildings inside it. It was a Strange Artifact, a very powerful Strange Artifact with an Anima in it.

To Ye Qing’s senses, the girl was so powerful that he could not see the bottom of it. If he wasn’t mistaken, the girl was most likely a Disaster-class Strange Artifact.

As the artifact spirit of the Hill of Services, her strength was endless so long as she was inside the Hill of Services. He reckoned that even some Grandmasters were no match for her inside her domain.

Now he understood why Xi Duoduo and other Hill Carriers dared to venture into all sorts of dangerous places while carrying their Hill of Services. They were powerful warriors in their own right, yes, but the fact that their Strange Artifact was even more powerful—at least in Xi Duoduo’s case—was another reason.

Right now, the poor hand was being smacked all over the place like a ping pong ball. No, it was worse than that. At least a ping pong ball was only smacked around by four players at most. This was a kind of hell that should only exist in fiction, not reality!

Ye Qing gulped as a deep sense of relief overcame him. He was really glad he hadn’t lost himself to his greed and tried to rob Xi Duoduo while he was distracted. Otherwise, well... even with his tough body, he could not imagine himself faring much better than the hand.

No, it might be worse because I’m tough and can take greater punishment. Brr!

The girl was just toying with the hand, but it was clear it wasn’t a game for the hand. Ye Qing noticed that it was looking worse and worse as time passed. Its skin grew increasingly gray, and the wrinkles kept growing. At the same time, the anomalous, contagious energy it was giving off had become so weak that the rest of the crowd were awakening one after another.

The first thing the awakened crowd saw was a million arms smacking around a hand everywhere like a ping pong ball. It was a confusing sight to say the least, but no one said anything.

They weren’t stupid. Now was obviously not the time to ask who was the savior or what happened just now.

Seeing that the hand was no longer a threat, Xi Duoduo coughed a little and mustered his courage. “Ahem... that’s enough, right Bunbun?”

“Enough my butt! This lowly bitch dared to wake me from my beauty sleep and affect my growth! I’m gonna kill this bitch if it’s the last thing I do!” The girl spun around and glared at him angrily.

You’re an artifact spirit. You can sleep for a couple decades, and your height still wouldn’t change one bit,

Xi Duoduo thought with disgruntlement, not that he dared to say it or show his emotions on his face.

“Ahem... I mean, the customers are all awake now. Don’t you think that your current behavior isn’t very... ladylike?” Xi Duoduo said as tactfully as he could.

“So what? Like I care about their opinions!”

The girl waved, and the arms on the floor, walls, roof and more disappeared at the same time. After the hand landed in front of the girl, she stomped on it and ground it hard. “Oh, I get it. You think I’m embarrassing you, aren’t you? You heartless bastard. I gave you food, I let you play, I made you a ton of money, and now you’re going to toss me away just because I’m not ladylike?”

“O-of course not! That’s not what I meant!” Xi Duoduo hurriedly defended himself while wiping the sweat on his forehead.

“Who was the one who promised me that he would treat me well? That he would care for me forever? That he wouldn’t let me suffer even a little?”

The girl jabbed an index finger at Xi Duoduo. “Now that you’re rich and strong, you think you can dump me, don’t you? You don’t want me anymore just because I’m not ladylike!”

“What on earth possessed me to choose a heartless ingrate like you back then? If only I could beat up my past self!”

Everyone including Ye Qing was staring at the girl with strange eyes. Where on earth did the artifact spirit learn such words? If they didn’t know better, they would think that she was a weak, powerless woman who had been tossed aside by a heartless rat!

Not only that, she looked like a five or six-years-old right now. How could she make such statements without feeling any incongruity at all?

“Why the fuck are you looking at me like that? Am I wrong?”

Seemingly sensing their gaze, the girl turned around, put her hands on her waist, and glared at them. For some reason, she was staring straight at Ye Qing.