236: Chapter 236 The Founder Slams His Hand on the Table: Everything You Have Is Borrowed from Me

Within 0.3 seconds of an extra person appearing in the meeting room, the nine Creation-level employees simultaneously entered a combat-ready state.

The Titan Giant's nebula cloak billowed out, Time Existence froze the flow of time for the entire area, and the other seven each unfolded their Law Domains—yet all attacks melted away silently upon touching the "extra person," as if hitting an absolutely insurmountable barrier.

That person sat at the other end of the long conference table, directly opposite Lin Chen.

He looked eerily ordinary—a middle-aged male in a grey suit, his black hair combed meticulously, resembling a credit manager from some Universe Bank. But as he sat there, the space of the entire meeting room bent slightly toward him, as if dimension itself were bowing to him.

“Nice to meet you, Chairman Lin.” He spoke, his voice gentle yet causing everyone's soul to tremble. “I am the founder of the Epoch Administration Bureau. You can call me ‘The Manager’.”

Lin Chen stared at him for three seconds.

Then, he raised his hand, signaling the nine employees to withdraw their pressure.

“How did you get in?” he asked.

“I walked in,” The Manager smiled. “This meeting room uses the spatial architecture I designed back in the day. I left thirty-seven backdoors. Do you need me to point them out to you?”

As he spoke, he actually began to count: “The first is under the 73rd floor tile in the southeast corner, the second is...”

“That won't be necessary,” Lin Chen interrupted. “Speak plainly. What do you want?”

The Manager stopped counting and leaned forward slightly.

This simple movement caused the entire metal conference table to begin disintegrating at a molecular level—not crushed by force, but because the very concept of ‘metal’ was in awe and fear of him.

“I want to take back what I lent you,” he said.

“Lent me?” Lin Chen raised an eyebrow.

“Correct,” The Manager nodded. “Did you think those business talents, financial intuitions, and insights into rule loopholes were all innate?”

He projected an ancient contract:

[Borrower: Lin Chen (Reincarnated Body)]

[Lender: Epoch Administration Bureau Founding Fund]

[Loaned Item: Creation-level Business Talent (Temporary Usage Rights)]

[Loan Term: From the acquisition of the system until death]

[Repayment Method: Upon death, the soul and all assets shall belong to the Administration Bureau]

At the end of the contract was a signature with a soul wavelength completely identical to Lin Chen's—it was the mark of his previous life.

“Previous life?” Arrogant Dragon looked at Lin Chen in shock.

Lin Chen himself was stunned.

“It seems you've forgotten,” The Manager shook his head regretfully. “Understandable, the memory wipe during reincarnation was quite thorough. Simply put—in your previous life, you were a business genius in a certain cultivation universe. When you were on the verge of death, you made this deal with me: I would allow you to reincarnate on the low-dimensional Earth with your business talent, giving you a chance to start over. The price is that after this life ends, everything you have belongs to me.”

He enlarged a supplementary clause in the contract:

[Special Agreement: If the borrower's accumulated assets in this life exceed 100 trillion dimension points, the Administration Bureau has the right to reclaim the loan early and collect 90% of the total assets as a penalty for breach of contract.]

“How many assets do you have now?” The Manager asked.

Lin Chen remained silent.

The Group's total assets had long since exceeded one quadrillion.

“So,” The Manager smiled, “according to the agreement, I am reclaiming the loan early and taking 90% of your assets. The remaining 10%, roughly 100 trillion or so, is enough for you to live out your golden years in peace.”

The meeting room fell deathly silent.

Everyone looked at Lin Chen.

If this was true, then everything Lin Chen owned—The Group, equity, employees, even his business talent—was not his.

It was merely borrowed.

“Where is the evidence?” Lin Chen finally spoke. “Besides this contract.”

“You want empirical evidence?” The Manager raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

The walls of the meeting room suddenly became transparent, and memory images appeared outside like a revolving lantern—

Scene One: In a cultivation universe, a young man who looked seventy percent like Lin Chen was kneeling before an ancient hall, signing that very contract.

Scene Two: The young man died, his soul was extracted and cast into the reincarnation channel.

Scene Three: On Earth, the moment the infant Lin Chen was born, a golden light merged into his brow—that was the implantation of the ‘Business Talent.’

Scene Four: More crucially—at the moment Lin Chen obtained the ‘Underworld Investment System,’ a line of small text flickered within the system's core: [Technical Support: Epoch Administration Bureau Founding Fund].

All the images carried a soul resonance authentication that was impossible to forge.

It was real.

“Believe me now?” The Manager retracted the images. “I'll give you three days to hand over. I will personally receive 90% of the assets; you can keep the rest. As for your employees...”

He looked at the nine Creation-level beings: “For those willing to stay, the benefits remain unchanged. For those who want to leave, I won't stop you.”

The Titan Giant's single eye flickered, and he suddenly asked, “What about the Zero-Sum Crisis? What about the entities behind the parasites? You're not going to do anything about them?”

“Of course I am,” The Manager said as if it were obvious. “Once I finish receiving the assets, I will initiate the Administration Bureau's ‘Ultimate Cleanup Protocol’ to format and restart the entire universe—that way, all problems will be solved.”

Format and restart?

Everyone gasped.

“What about the civilizations we've saved?” Arrogant Dragon gritted his teeth.

“Civilizations?” The Manager acted as if he had heard a joke. “To the Administration Bureau, civilizations are just a few lines of code in a database. Delete them, and once the new universe restarts, we'll just write new ones.”

He stood up. “Alright, in three days, I'll come to collect—”

“Wait,” Lin Chen suddenly spoke.

The Manager stopped in his tracks. “Is there another problem?”

“There's a technical question.” Lin Chen also stood up. “The contract says you want to reclaim ‘what you lent me’—which is the Creation-level Business Talent, correct?”

“Correct.”

“But how can you be sure,” Lin Chen slowly walked up to The Manager, “that the business talent I'm using now is still the one you lent me?”

The Manager frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It means,” Lin Chen pulled up another set of data, “I've undergone at least seventeen ‘soul upgrade surgeries’ in this life, including data fusion from Alpha, frost law imprinting from Morgana, and even copying a portion of the Immortal Emperor Dao Foundation from Arrogant Dragon.”

He clicked on the detailed records: “With every upgrade, the essence of my soul has been changing. My current business talent has long since become different from the original version you lent out—it's a mixture of the essences of cultivation, magic, technology, and digital life systems. It is an entirely new product.”

The Manager's expression shifted slightly as he quickly scanned Lin Chen's soul data.

The scan results showed that indeed, within Lin Chen's current talent composition, the original ‘loan’ only accounted for 23.7%; the rest was all acquired through post-reincarnation fusion.

“Therefore,” Lin Chen smiled, “according to Article 44 of the ‘Cross-Dimensional Loan General Regulations’: If the loaned item undergoes an essential change during the loan period, and the change was not caused by the lender, then the ownership of the changed portion belongs to the borrower.”

“If you want to reclaim it, you can only take back that 23.7% of the original portion.”

“Furthermore,” he added, “since the original portion has deeply fused with my soul, forcibly stripping it would result in my death—and the contract stipulates that ‘if the borrower dies non-naturally during the loan period, the lender must provide a hundredfold compensation’.”

For the first time, a crack appeared in The Manager's expression.

He calculated quickly.

If he could only take back 23.7%, it would mean a massive loss on this investment.

If he forcibly reclaimed everything and caused Lin Chen's death, he would have to pay a hundredfold—that would be ninety quadrillion dimension points in compensation!

“Are you playing with me?” The Manager's voice turned cold.

“No, I am defending my rights according to the law.” Lin Chen returned to his seat. “Now, let's renegotiate.”

He pulled up a newly drafted contract:

[Proposal Regarding the Restructuring of the Loan Contract]

[1. The Lender (The Manager) shall transfer ownership of the remaining 76.3% of the talent to the Borrower (Lin Chen) at market price.]

[2. Transfer Price: One million dimension points (symbolic).]

[3. After the transfer, the loan contract shall be automatically terminated, and both parties shall be settled.]

[4. The Lender must sign a ‘Declaration of No Further Recourse’.]

The Manager looked at the contract and suddenly laughed.

“You think you can win like this?” He shook his head. “Child, you are too naive.”

He snapped his fingers.

In the meeting room, everyone except Lin Chen and The Manager—Arrogant Dragon, the nine Creation-level employees, and even Su Qingyu and others watching through surveillance—suddenly became completely still.

It wasn't a time freeze; they had been temporarily removed from this narrative thread.

Now, in this space, only the two of them remained.

“Now there's no audience,” The Manager said. “We can talk about something substantial.”

“Like what?”

“Do one thing for me. Once it's done, I'll tear up the loan contract myself and give you a grand gift on top of it.”

Lin Chen raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

The Manager pulled up a set of coordinates—it was the deepest part of the universe, an area of absolute darkness where even light could not escape.

“Something is imprisoned there,” he said. “I need you to go in and retrieve an item for me.”

“What item?”

“My ‘other half’,” The Manager's gaze grew complex. “Or rather, my ‘conscience’.”

He unbuttoned his suit jacket, revealing his chest—there was no heart there, only a constantly rotating black void.

“When I created the Administration Bureau back then, I stripped away all emotions—pity, guilt, mercy—and sealed them there. Because to manage the life and death of the universe, one cannot have feelings.”

“But now,” he paused, “I regret it.”

“So you want them back?”

“Yes,” The Manager nodded. “But that seal can only be opened by a ‘pure businessman.’ And I... am no longer pure enough.”

He looked at Lin Chen. “You are the purest businessman I have ever seen—willing to sacrifice everything for profit, including morality. If you go, you will surely be able to open the seal.”

Lin Chen was silent for a long time.

“What's in it for me?”

“Three things,” The Manager held up his fingers. “First, the loan contract is voided. Second, I will grant you ‘Founder Permissions’—allowing you to modify any rule of the Administration Bureau. Third...”

He lowered his voice. “I will tell you the true source of Zeroing.”

“You know it?”

“Of course I do,” The Manager smiled bitterly. “Because Zeroing was my invention—originally intended to clean up unqualified civilizations. But later it spiraled out of control, and even I can no longer contain it.”

“Now, it is devouring everything, including me.”

He looked at Lin Chen. “Help me get back my conscience, and I'll help you solve Zeroing. That's the deal.”

Lin Chen looked at the black coordinates.

Then he looked at the void in The Manager's chest.

Finally, he reached out his hand.

“Deal.”

The moment their hands met, the stillness lifted, and everyone regained their ability to move.

They only saw Lin Chen and The Manager shaking hands, but they had no idea what had just happened.

“Very well,” The Manager straightened his suit. “In three days, I'll come to take you to those coordinates. In the meantime, you can handle your personal affairs.”

He turned to leave, then stopped. “Oh, a word of advice—besides my conscience, there are some... ‘not-so-good things’ imprisoned in that seal. Be careful.”

With that, he vanished.

The meeting room returned to normal.

“Boss, he—” Arrogant Dragon asked urgently.

“It's fine,” Lin Chen waved his hand. “Get ready. In three days, I'm going on a business trip.”

He looked at the black coordinates, a flash of determination in his eyes.

Whatever was there—

He had to go.

Because this was business.

And business always needs someone to do it.