77: Chapter 77 Brand Revolution

The golden decree of the Heavenly Law Court pressed down like a massive mountain upon the crooked sign of "Ancestors Specialties."

Inside the shop, the light was dim, but the atmosphere was not deathly silent; rather, it was a strange stillness, like the calm before a storm.

The fingertips of the Wolf of Wall Street moved slowly across the sand table, surrounding the pieces representing the "Heavenly Law Court," the "City Guard Bureau," and the "Traditional Merchants Alliance" into an airtight iron barrel.

This was a dead end.

At least, that was how it appeared to any local cultivator.

"Damn it, can't these NPCs play fair? They're just flipping the table and changing the game rules?" a hot-tempered PVP player roared in the team channel. "Wolf, give the order! Let's organize the brothers from the Divine Wind Battalion, storm the Heavenly Law Court, and wipe out that old guy named Xuantian!"

"And then what?" the Wolf of Wall Street didn't even look up, his voice calm. "Let all players' reputation in the Holy Land be wiped out and get hunted across the entire territory? We are here to open up the market, not to destroy the server."

"Then what do we do? Once this 'Protection Law' comes out, our assembly-line products will become 'contraband,' and selling them will be a crime. We can't just close down and crawl back to our little patch of land, right?"

"Trying to stir up trouble won't work anymore." The voice of Keyboard Warrior Governing the Nation came from the corner, tinged with helplessness. "I just anonymously posted several threads in the major teahouses and markets of Tianshu City, all titled 'Shocking! Why is the Heavenly Law Court Colluding with Profiteers to Suppress Public-Benefit Shops?'. As a result, the posts didn't survive more than three minutes before being deleted, and two of my alt accounts were directly silenced. This is a blockade at the level of the laws of reality; the administrator privileges are too high, we can't beat that."

Everyone fell silent.

The "dimensional strike" that the players were so proud of had, for the first time, been beaten bloody by the true "rules."

They could defeat powerful enemies by not fearing death and using cheesy tactics, but this time, the enemy was not a specific boss, but the very order upon which the entire Holy Land relied to function.

The Wolf of Wall Street finally stopped his fingers. He tapped the edge of the sand table, making a thud-thud sound that drew everyone's attention.

"We were all wrong about one problem," he said slowly. "We were wrong to try to challenge their 'necessities' with our 'necessities.' The Qi-recovering pills we sell are benchmarked against their Qi-recovering pills; the talismans we sell are benchmarked against their talismans. In essence, we are stealing the rice bowls of those pill shops and talisman stores, so they will unite and beg the ruling class above to crush us."

He paused and scanned the crowd with his eyes: "This 'Protection Law' seems overbearing, but it has a core. It protects 'craftsmanship,' 'ancient methods,' and things that can be defined, quantified, and monopolized. But what if... we sell things they can't define?"

Everyone looked at each other, still unable to grasp his meaning.

Just then, an extremely dissatisfied female voice broke the silence.

"So annoying! So annoying!"

Appearance is Justice walked in from the backyard, pouting, holding a standard fine steel broadsword looted from the Black Wind Stockade.

This sword had decent stats and was standard equipment for low-level players.

"Look at this, what is this garbage?" She threw the sword onto the table with a clatter, looking disgusted. "Ugly! Too ugly! The hilt is just a lump of black iron, and the blade is bare without a single pattern! Holding it in my hand, it lowers this fairy's style! I wouldn't even take this thing if it were free!"

A newly joined combat player couldn't help but mutter, "Sister Yan, the stats on this sword are okay, it adds 5 points of strength..."

"Stats? Are stats as important as my looks?" Appearance is Justice rolled her eyes. "Why do we cultivate? It's for longevity, for freedom, for beauty! You cultivate painstakingly to the Golden Core or Nascent Soul stage, and end up dressing like a tacky rich merchant and holding a magic treasure that looks like a fire poker—what's the point of cultivating? People are iron, but style is steel! Understand?"

Her "twisted logic" left the combat players present speechless.

However, at this moment, the eyes of the Wolf of Wall Street lit up, shining like two cold stars in the night.

He stared intently at the despised fine steel broadsword on the table, then looked at the indignant Appearance is Justice, the corners of his mouth curling up uncontrollably.

"I understand..." he whispered, his voice filled with irrepressible excitement. "I understand! Our greatest advantage has never been cheapness, but the one thing they simply cannot comprehend... aesthetics!"

He slammed his hand on the table and said to Appearance is Justice: "You're right! You're absolutely right! We were wrong from the beginning! Why should we sell necessities? What we need to sell are 'luxury goods'! 'Artworks'! 'Status symbols'!"

Appearance is Justice was stunned by his sudden excitement: "Huh?"

"They forbid us from selling 'magic treasures not forged by ancient methods,' right?" The Wolf of Wall Street's speaking speed accelerated, his thoughts pouring out like a broken dam. "Then we won't sell magic treasures! We'll sell 'artistic ornaments'! This sword—we'll carve the hilt into a coiling dragon, use the cheapest colored crystals to dot the dragon's eyes, and then engrave meaningless but profound-looking ghost symbols on the blade, and name it the 'Nine Heavens True Dragon Suppressing Evil Breaking Blade'! Its stats are still that trash, but is it... still just an ordinary sword?"

He turned to Appearance is Justice: "No! It has become art! It has become a unique piece! It has become a collectible that can display the owner's unique taste!"

"We won't sell pills; we'll sell 'pill boxes'! Using fine agarwood, carved with patterns of shifting stars, we are selling the 'carving' of this wooden box. As for the industrial-made pills 'included' in the box, those are just packaging filler and don't count towards the price!"

"Our target customers are no longer those penny-pinching low-level loose cultivators!" The Wolf of Wall Street pointed heavily at the sand table, specifically at the area representing the major noble families. "It's them! It's those 'second-generation immortals' who don't lack money or resources, but lack 'personality' and are eager to draw a line with their decaying fathers! They will pay a hundred times the price of the pills themselves for a sense of 'uniqueness'!"

The entire shop fell into silence.

All the players stared blankly at the seemingly possessed Wolf of Wall Street.

You can... do that?

This wasn't just exploiting a loophole in the law; this was dancing right on top of the law!

The first to react was Appearance is Justice.

Her eyes shone, as if she had seen the gateway to a new world.

"Yes! Yes! That's it!" She slapped her thigh and took over the conversation. "We can also do 'private customization'! Don't they like Flying Swords? We can launch a 'scabbard beautification service'! Like 'Dark Night Gilded' style, 'Ice Crystal Phoenix' style, 'Star River Lament' style... guaranteed to make their Flying Swords the flashiest ones on the scene!"

"We can even sell 'fashion'! Those sect robes haven't changed in hundreds of years; they're hideous! We can design some clothes with 'exotic flair.' The material can be the most common cloth, but the style must be trendy and rebellious! Instead of embroidering auspicious clouds and beasts, we'll embroider skulls, flames, or some abstract symbols they can't understand!"

The two of them went back and forth, one starting from business logic and the other supplementing from an aesthetic perspective. In just a few minutes, a brand-new, subversive business blueprint had taken shape.

The Wolf of Wall Street took a deep breath to calm his excitement. He looked at Appearance is Justice, his eyes filled with unprecedented seriousness.

"Appearance, from now on, you are the Chief Creative Officer and Designer of the 'Ancestors' brand. I'm giving you the highest authority to gather all the appearance-focused and life-skill players to form the 'Brand Revolution Department.' I don't want you to consider cost, I don't want you to consider practicality; I only want one thing—Cool! Flashy! Unique!"

"Got it!" Appearance is Justice, her face flushed with excitement, immediately opened her player panel and started calling people.

The Wolf of Wall Street turned to Keyboard Warrior Governing the Nation: "Your task has changed too. Stop spreading negative news; we are going to create a new myth. Go spread the word in the streets that in the distant wilderness, an ancient ruin called 'Atlantis' has been unearthed, and inside are a group of crazy craftsmen who pursue 'ultimate aesthetics,' and their works are about to flow into the Holy Land market."

"Received!" A flame of mischief ignited in the eyes of Keyboard Warrior Governing the Nation as well.

A silent war against the old order of the Holy Land had quietly begun in the small shop.

Three days later.

In a corner of the "Ghost Market," the largest underground black market in Tianshu City, a peculiar item was displayed on an inconspicuous stall.

It was a sword, the blade unremarkable, just the most common mid-grade fine steel sword.

But its scabbard was enough to attract the gaze of every passerby.

The scabbard was made of unknown black wood, with complex and eerie star-orbit patterns outlined in silver thread. Under the dim light of the black market, those silver threads seemed to be flowing slowly.

At the end of the hilt, a grey stone the size of a pigeon egg was embedded, carved into a lifelike eye that seemed to be staring into the abyss.

The stall owner was a player wearing a bamboo hat, his face obscured. He introduced hoarsely: "This is the 'Eye of the Lost World,' crafted by an ancient artisan who obtained meteorite iron from beyond the heavens; it can glimpse the truth. The scabbard is the main body, the sword is a gift. Starting price, five hundred spirit stones."

"Are you crazy? A mid-grade magic treasure for five hundred spirit stones?" Someone nearby scoffed.

However, in the crowd, a young master dressed in luxurious robes with an arrogant expression stopped in his tracks.

He was Wang Teng, the third young master of the Wang family, one of the four great families of the Holy Land.

A typical "second-generation immortal," his cultivation was not high, but his eyes were higher than the top of his head, and he despised the rigid old antiques in his family.

His gaze was locked tightly onto that "Eye of the Abyss."

He couldn't understand what material it was, nor could he feel any spiritual energy fluctuations, but this thing... was too special!

It was ten thousand times more interesting than the top-grade Flying Sword engraved with the "Wang Family Precepts" that his father had bestowed upon him!

"One thousand spirit stones," Wang Teng said lightly, his tone filled with unquestionable dominance.

There was an uproar all around.

In the end, this "Eye of the Lost World" was bought by Wang Teng for the sky-high price of twelve hundred spirit stones.

He didn't even look at the sword that served as a "gift," just hung the gorgeous scabbard on his waist and walked away amidst the envious, jealous, and bewildered gazes of the crowd.

...

Inside the shop, the Wolf of Wall Street listened to the intelligence brought back by Gossip Reporter Little Trumpet and a smile of a successful plan appeared on his face.

"The fish has taken the bait."

Little Trumpet added: "Wolf, one more thing. I checked, that Wang Teng, his mother's lineage is very close to Fairy Yunshang. It seems... a bit too coincidental that he came to the Ghost Market today."

The smile of the Wolf of Wall Street froze slightly.

He walked to the sand table, looking at the piece representing "Fairy Yunshang," which he had always kept outside the chessboard, his eyes becoming profound.

In the muddy waters, it seemed they were not the only ones fishing.

"Interesting," he whispered, "The game is getting more and more interesting."