Chapter 742: A Crippled Beggar

Zhang Lie smirked. He knew what Li Qianlin was thinking, but he didn't expose her.

"Hey, say something! What's with that evil smile?" Li Qianlin called out.

"Nothing, it's nothing." Zhang Lie knew that Li Qianlin was rather thin-skinned at heart.

Quite a fair bit of the contents of the western treasury, with Zhang Lie's approval, went to line the pockets of the aliens of the Milky Way who participated in the battle.

There were simply too many treasures around, and in such great quantities that their eyes blazed with greed upon seeing them.

They were very excited: from start to finish, they were in no danger at all, and yet they had reaped such substantial rewards.

Following Zhang Lie was the best decision they had ever made. Quite a lot of the aliens decided that they would stick to Zhang Lie no matter what, following him wherever they went.

The "fee" for this treatment was the scraps that Zhang Lie was collecting.

None of the aliens had been able to identify what good these shards were; better to give them to Zhang Lie to get in good standing with him.

In order to demonstrate their strength and capabilities, the four prime races even began buying these scraps in bulk.

A rumor from who-knew-where suggested that these scraps were the key to a massive secret, one that might be related to limit fragments. As a result, the limit fragment research society that Amurong had spearheaded likewise began purchasing these scraps in earnest, dramatically increasing the difficulty of acquisition for these scraps.

Many of those races who possessed some such scraps began hoarding them as they waited for their value to appreciate, and those who didn't have these scraps tried to scrounge them up.

The Milky Way had somehow ended up in a scrap-collecting frenzy.

Zhang Lie only found out about this affair later. He immediately told the four prime races to halt what they were doing, or the scrap bubble would only keep growing and growing.

With the efforts of the four prime races, however, most of the scraps had become consolidated with just a few parties. The four prime races sent all the scraps they could acquire to Zhang Lie, an impressive collection.

Zhang Lie had only managed to collect a few dozen on his travels, but the aliens of the Milky Way, in conjunction with the four prime races, had managed to acquire almost three hundred.

It took Zhang Lie quite a few days to piece together as many of the scraps as he could. With about sixty percent of the scraps in his possession, he was able to make out the outline of the map.

"This is..."

Zhang Lie frowned as he scrutinized the partial map he had assembled.

"Was there such a place in the third realm...?"

Zhang Lie didn't think so, but the location the map suggested seemed somehow familiar to him. It looked as though he would have to gather the remaining scraps before he could uncover the secret in earnest, but this was no easy feat.

Despite the aliens' best efforts, they had only managed a 60% completion. The remaining 40% would be far harder to find.

Zhang Lie thought to himself, "It might be time to mobilize all the worlds of the third realm, then..."

Naturally, Zhang Lie would compensate the aliens of the Milky Way who had brought him scraps of the map. He portioned out another fraction of the treasures from the king of the west's treasury among those aliens as reward.

One of the affairs that rocked the Milky Way was the fact that the four prime races were collecting these scraps of an unknown map; another was Zhang Lie's ranking on the warlord leaderboard.

Zhang Lie, who had recently just ascended to the third realm and had just appeared on the warlord leaderboard, was now rocketing up the rankings.

He had catapulted from the 90th position to the 30th position—Warlord Xing Ying had given up his position to Zhang Lie, claiming that he was far inferior to him.

The denizens of the Milky Way were shocked by how fast Zhang Lie was ascending the ranks—and even more shockingly, none of the other warlords disagreed with his new ranking.

Not only had Zhang Lie been the fastest warlord ever, he was now the speediest to ascend up the ranks as well.

Those in the third realm at least had four months to witness and grow used to Zhang Lie's progress up the ranks, but to those back on Earth, all this had happened in just two weeks.

Some citizens lambasted the four prime races for indulging Zhang Lie's every whim just because he was the pioneer of the limit fragments they now depended on, but such criticism quickly vanished.

After all, the hundred races of the Milky Way had all agreed that Zhang Lie deserved his new spot on the ranking.

Zhang Lie was unaware of what was going on back in the Milky Way, but even if he were, he wouldn't have cared.

Right then, Zhang Lie and Li Qianlin, along with Dong Mingxing, who had been dragged along as a companion, were seated at a teahouse in order to watch a beggar.

Li Qianlin and Dong Mingxing were very curious about just how one specific beggar was faring. That beggar was dressed in nothing but rags, dirt and dust all over his body. His eyes had been gouged out, and he had lost one arm and one leg. He was emaciated and pale, and garnered pity just by existing.

He was fervently begging, "Please, sir, please, madam, I've gone a few days without food!"

This was hardly entertaining to any other onlooker. None of the passersby walking along the streets paid any heed to the beggar, not expecting that he had once been the crown prince of the realm—Duan Gen!

Upon witnessing the pitiful Duan Gen, neither Li Qianlin nor Dong Mingxing knew how to behave. Was this really the arrogant, talented bastard who had once graced the halls of nobility?

Dong Mingxing sighed. "So these are his circumstances now."

The passersby hurried along the road, ignoring the beggar. Despite how pitiful Duan Gen was, no one was willing to spare him any charity.

The world of the west was an unsafe place now that Zhang Lie had invaded with his army, which meant that everyone kept their purses closed and doors shut as they tried to figure out how to navigate the insecure future ahead.

And if they were struggling themselves, who among them would be willing to donate to beggars?

Duan Gen had spent a whole day begging to receive just a few paltry copper coins.

He grabbed onto the hem of a passersby's pants as he pleaded, "Please, sir, anything will do!"

The man kicked him away impatiently, causing the coins to topple out of his bowl. The few coins within scattered onto the streets. A few thugs rushed out of an alley and picked them all up, then ran off...