280: Chapter 280 Securitization of the Queue List! I'll Trade Your Life for a Spot

Arrogant Dragon's left arm, withered like a dry twig, began to petrify three minutes after The Silencer disappeared.

Not a metaphor.

It truly started from the fingertips, turning into grey stone inch by inch.

"Aotian!" Lin Chen rushed over and grabbed his wrist. It felt cold and rigid, like holding a piece of dead wood.

Arrogant Dragon looked down at his arm and grinned, trying to smile, but he gasped in pain as soon as his mouth moved: "It's fine... I guess the souls are mostly gone, and the arm has no energy to sustain itself..."

"Bullshit." Lin Chen pulled up the system scan.

The scan results were shocking:

[Target: Arrogant Dragon's Left Arm]

[Status: Soul Inhabitation Rate 0.3% (previously 97%)]

[Remaining Souls: Approx. 3 million (previously 1.2 trillion)]

[Estimated Time to Full Petrification: 17 minutes]

[If fully petrified, it will spread to the entire body]

17 minutes.

3 million souls were simply not enough to sustain the consumption of an Immortal Emperor's arm.

"The souls inside me..." Arrogant Dragon frowned and listened, "They're lining up."

"Lining up for what?"

"Lining up... to die." Arrogant Dragon's voice was raspy, "They know the arm is about to give out, so they're voluntarily lining up to burn themselves batch by batch to extend my life."

Lin Chen froze.

Those souls hadn't resisted when deleted by The Silencer, hadn't complained when forgotten, and had waited quietly in the darkness of three million eras for their names to be called.

Now, they were choosing to die.

To save a stranger.

"What was the first civilization called?" Lin Chen asked.

Arrogant Dragon closed his eyes, then opened them three seconds later:

"Aka Civilization. Population: 27 million. Deletion time: 3.26 million eras ago. Reason for deletion: Invented 'currency'."

Inventing again.

Another group of smart people targeted by The Silencer.

"How many of them are left now?"

"All of them." Arrogant Dragon paused, "27 million, all in the first batch of the burning list. They are... dissipating one by one."

Lin Chen fell silent.

He opened the financial back-end and pulled up the interface for [Queue Priority Futures]—the product previously used to let civilizations bid to jump the line.

But now, he was going to use it in reverse.

He turned the queue order of the remaining souls in Arrogant Dragon's body into another product:

[Product Name: Sacrifice Qualification Transfer Rights]

[Underlying Asset: The 'order' in Arrogant Dragon's arm's burning list]

[Transfer Rules: Any civilization further back in the queue can transfer its order to a civilization further ahead. After the transfer, the civilization ahead gains the qualification to 'burn first', while the civilization behind gains the qualification to 'burn later'.]

[Special Note: Burning means complete dissipation, with no further chance of having one's name called.]

This was equivalent to letting those souls who wanted to die sooner and find relief trade their "death order" for something.

The product went live.

The first buyer appeared.

Not a civilization.

An individual.

It was an extremely faint point of light, so weak its outline was almost invisible. It floated to the transaction interface and pressed "Confirm Purchase" with its last shred of energy.

It bought the first place.

The transferor was the Aka Civilization—an individual among the 27 million currently burning.

Transaction complete.

The first position transferred from that Aka Civilization individual to this faint point of light.

Then, the faint point of light began to burn.

Before it dissipated, Lin Chen heard a very, very soft voice:

"My name is... AZhi... a weaver... of the Yixie Civilization..."

"I was... supposed to wait a thousand years... before it was my turn to have my name called..."

"But I can't wait anymore..."

"So tired..."

"Thank you... for letting me... go first..."

The voice vanished.

The point of light completely dissipated.

It had traded its chance to "be remembered" for the qualification to "die first."

Lin Chen held the terminal, his fingers trembling.

Arrogant Dragon looked at the arm—the petrification had stopped.

Because AZhi's burning provided 0.0003 seconds of extra energy.

3 million souls were extending his life second by second like this.

"Boss," Arrogant Dragon said suddenly, "let me go."

"What?"

"Let them all burn." Arrogant Dragon's voice was calm, "3 million lives to extend mine by 17 minutes, then what? I'll still die. Better to let them find relief now than make them wait a thousand years in line."

Lin Chen looked at him.

"Are you serious?"

"Serious." Arrogant Dragon nodded, "Anyway, this life of mine was bought back by you for 16 quadrillion. Dying sooner or later is still dying. Better to let those souls who have waited for three million eras go first."

Having said that, he raised his right arm—the intact one without any inhabiting souls—and aimed it at his left shoulder.

He was going to sever his left arm.

"Stop." Lin Chen held him down.

"Boss—"

"I said stop." Lin Chen stared into his eyes, "If you die, their wait in line will have been for nothing. Because you are alive, they have the chance to have their names called. If you die, who will remind me to call their names?"

Arrogant Dragon was stunned.

Lin Chen pulled up the system back-end and opened the [Tripartite Coexistence Agreement]—signed by Arrogant Dragon, the trillion souls, and Lin Chen.

Article 3 of the agreement:

"Party B (trillion souls) may occupy Party A's body for no more than 1 hour per day to remind Party C (Lin Chen) to call names."

Lin Chen pointed at that clause:

"See? You are bound together. If you die, the souls lose their 'reminder'. They can only continue to drift in the darkness, waiting for the next madman willing to carry a trillion souls to appear."

He paused, his voice softening:

"They won't find one."

Arrogant Dragon fell silent.

The petrification of the arm advanced another inch.

"Then what should we do?" he asked.

Lin Chen didn't answer.

He opened the issuance interface for [Cross-Era Perpetual Treasury Bonds] and began operating.

Three minutes later, a brand-new financial product was born:

[Product Name: Queue List Securitization Fund]

[Underlying Asset: The 'queue order' of the remaining souls in Arrogant Dragon's body]

[Operating Method: Package the queue order of the 3 million souls into 3 million 'Queue Warrants', each corresponding to a fixed 'name-calling order'. Warrants are tradable, transferable, and inheritable.]

[Special Clause: For warrant holders, even if their physical form dissipates, their 'right to have their name called' can still be transferred to descendants or compatriots.]

Simply put—turning "being remembered" into an inheritable asset.

If you die, your children can still be remembered in your place.

After the product went live, the first thing Lin Chen did was:

Distribute all warrants for free to the 3 million souls about to burn inside Arrogant Dragon.

Every soul received a notification:

"Your 'Queue Warrant' has been activated. If you choose to burn and sacrifice yourself, the warrant will automatically transfer to your designated heir (pre-registration required). The heir will retain your original queue order and can have their name called in the future."

Below the notification was a field to fill in the [Designated Heir].

The first to fill in an heir was AZhi—the Yixie weaver who had just dissipated.

Before dissipating, she used her last shred of consciousness to fill in:

[Heir: Yixie Civilization · All Compatriots]

System prompt: [AZhi has designated the entire Yixie Civilization as her heir. Her original 1st place in the queue will be automatically divided equally among all Yixie compatriots after her dissipation. Each compatriot's queue order will advance by approximately 0.00000001 positions.]

A tiny improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.

The second, the third, the fourth...

More and more souls began to fill in heirs.

Some designated their civilization.

Some designated their family.

Some designated their lover—someone who had dissipated three million eras ago and whose name they couldn't even clearly remember.

The transaction interface kept flashing:

[Aka Civilization · Soul No. 17 has designated an heir; its 173rd position in the queue will be transferred...]

[Aka Civilization · Soul No. 9 has designated an heir...]

[Aka Civilization · All souls have voted to pass a resolution to distribute the remaining queue order equally to other civilizations...]

The petrification of Arrogant Dragon's arm stopped completely.

Because those 3 million souls were no longer in a hurry to die.

Now that they had something to pass on, they were willing to live one more second, and another second.

Even if that extra second was just to take one last look at the name of their heir.

Lin Chen closed the system.

He looked at Arrogant Dragon and said:

"Now, they are your employees."

"What do you mean?"

"It means you can't die." Lin Chen pointed at the arm, "The Queue Warrants for the 3 million souls are all inside you. If you die, they'll have no one to inherit from."

Arrogant Dragon looked down at his left arm.

On that withered arm, a faint light began to flow again—it was the souls re-ordering themselves.

They were queuing more patiently now.

Because they had inheritance rights.

"Boss," Arrogant Dragon said suddenly.

"Yeah?"

"You really are a devil."

"Thanks."

Both fell silent.

In the abyss, the civilizations waiting in line for resurrection witnessed the entire transaction.

No cheering.

No applause.

Only countless points of light floating quietly, as if pondering the same question:

"If one day it's our turn to be the reminder—"

"Could we do better than this Immortal Emperor?"

No answer.

But those points of light shone a bit brighter than before.