If, in the hardest early days of his business venture, Li Cunxu would have needed that crucial piece of gold, someone helped him through it, with the assistance from Chen Xi, he no longer needs it.

Her million yuan, the ranch she gifted, the Mechanical Annihilation Hunters and guard dogs she hired, all provided Li Cunxu with immense convenience and help, enabling him to quickly accumulate initial capital.

Now, he is not in such dire need of money.

Naturally, there's no need to invest in the family by selling out his future.

Is there any method to keep the Blood Lotus Eye from being exposed while making it seem reasonable that Xiaoruan has grown stronger without arousing excessive suspicion from others?

Suddenly, a thought flashed in Li Cunxu's mind.

"Perhaps, I can do this—disguise my Blood Lotus Eye as a Holy Lotus Eye."

"This way, people would find it understandable that a mere Slime like Xiaoruan is that strong."

"Fortunately, the Pupil Technique: Blood Banquet Holy Meal of the Blood Lotus Eye and the Pupil Technique: Holy Meal of the Holy Lotus Eye have roughly similar abilities, Blood Banquet Holy Meal can be forged into a Holy Meal, deceiving others."

What about the other Pupil Technique, how to handle the difference between the Burning Lotus Blood Fire of the Blood Lotus Eye and the Holy Lotus Sanctuary of the Holy Lotus Eye?

It's simple, just don't use it.

Pupil Technique awakening can also result in a particularly embarrassing situation known as 'single-eyed,' or 'half-eye.'

'Half-eye' refers to someone who has awakened the Holy Lotus Eye but only partially, with one eye as the Holy Lotus Eye and the other as a regular eye, possessing only half the Pupil Techniques of a complete Holy Lotus Eye, with similarly reduced pupil power.

Disguising as a half-eye has one advantage: not having to join the Saint Lotus Li Family.

The Saint Lotus Li Family might still invite Li Cunxu to return to the family, but the invitation wouldn't be very strong, probably after declining once, they wouldn't extend it again.

For a half-eye, families generally adopt an indifferent attitude, not offering them the status of core members.

Before the great catastrophe, 'single-eye' was a very derogatory term, with families considering single-eyed individuals as detrimental to the family's image and seen as a disgrace, usually leading to expulsion or humane elimination.

Individuals with fully awakened Pupil Technique Eyes looked down on 'single-eyed' people with only half the pupil technique and power, while those without any awakened Pupil Technique Eyes envied them, thus placing the single-eyed in an awkward, middling position within the family.

Furthermore, some deliberately defamed them, attributing the emergence of half-eyes to impure bloodlines, prompting all Pupil Technique families to see 'single-eyed' individuals as a disgrace.

Post-catastrophe, it was only when the old chairman took charge of management that the single-eyed were liberated from the plight of being chased and executed, replaced with the less discriminative term 'half-eye.'

Even so, half-eyes remained unloved by both family elders and members.

Families would invite them, but only to prevent them from using their abilities outside and making a fool of themselves.

As for disguising the blood-red Blood Lotus Eye as the golden Holy Lotus Eye, Li Cunxu thought of artificial lenses.

These lenses, naturally, aren't ordinary ones.

Special lenses are needed to disguise the Blood Lotus Eye as a Holy Lotus Eye, and another lens is required to make the left Blood Lotus Eye appear like a regular eye.

The first person Li Cunxu thought of who could craft such lenses was Master Jia from the black market in Senmu District.

This Master Jia could make anything. He once made artificial lenses for Holy Lotus Eyes, so realistic that even the light and flow within the eye were convincingly imitated. Apart from not being able to unleash Pupil Techniques, they were no different from real Holy Lotus Eyes.

He even made counterfeit imperial tools, with several Kings still vying over them.

The key reason Li Cunxu approached him was Master Jia's high level of discretion.

Master Jia never pursued the background of his clients; as long as they paid, he would make it, even for Evil God Cultists, remaining absolutely neutral. Moreover, when crafting confidential items, he would drink memory-erasing potions to forget his creation process upon completion.

The only downside is, his fees are a bit high and only payable in cash.

"Forget about the Golden Slime for now."

Li Cunxu converted gold blocks dug from a mine's secret realm and the gold previously collected from Zhang Chiqian into money, totaling seven million.

Looking at this money, Li Cunxu sighed.

"It's quite a lot but it's not as much as it seems once spent."

Senmu District, black market, in a corner alley.

Li Cunxu, masked and draped in a black cloak, turned a vending machine. The wall behind the vending machine slid aside, revealing a door.

Anyone unaware of the rules would be electrocuted upon trying to open the door, regardless if they were Gold or Silver.

Blacked out in the black market, you'd likely wake up with everything on you gone.

The correct way to enter was to say 'Open sesame' in perfect Standard Mandarin and then hit the wall to the left of the door to enter.

If your Mandarin wasn't perfect, the harder you hit, the more it would hurt.

Inside was a dim space, with sparse, dim streetlights lining the sides of the commercial street. Hooded travelers hurriedly passed through the dim streets, their shadows lengthening and shortening under the lights like ghosts of the night wandering around.

This was the black market proper, a true black market.

Inside a dim tailoring shop.

Li Cunxu spoke to an elderly woman knitting clothes:

"True pretending to be false, false pretending to be true, true or false, false or true, I want to find Master Zhen."

The elderly woman continued knitting, without looking up, she replied: "Second wardrobe, in the mirror."

Li Cunxu pulled open the curtain to the wardrobe, entered, and closed it, then walked towards the mirror.

In the mirror's reflection was a workshop, with tools scattered all over the floor and quirky inventions decorating the room.

A silver-haired old Master Jia, with a silver monocle, was holding a wrench, tapping on a wooden goldfish, which flapped twice against Master Jia's face with its tail in defiance.

Li Cunxu revealed his Blood Lotus Eye and got straight to the point: "Master Jia, I want lenses that can disguise my left eye as a regular eye and another to change red to gold, making my right eye appear as a Holy Lotus Eye."

Seeing the Blood Lotus Eye, Master Jia showed no desire to explore.

A mutant eye, after a millennium, he'd seen plenty.

He wasn't in need of money; opening a shop in the black market was just a way for him to draw inspiration from customers' strange requests for his creative inventions.

Although the memory would be erased, the inspiration gained during the process wouldn't disappear with the memory.

The requests made by Li Cunxu for two types of lenses seemed too ordinary, lacking any technical difficulty.

Master Jia wasn't interested: "Two million per lens, totaling four million."

"Alright."

Li Cunxu handed over the money without hesitation.

Master Jia took out two fish eye membranes, mixed various reagents into them, completing the work in less than two minutes.

"It's done, give it a try!"

Li Cunxu put on the lenses crafted by Master Jia and looked in the mirror. The Blood Lotus pupil in his left eye reverted to its original appearance, while the right eye's Blood Lotus changed color, shining in gold, just like a real Holy Lotus Eye.

It perfectly met Li Cunxu's expectations.

Li Cunxu took out five hundred thousand and placed it on the table, "Master Jia, if you'd do me the favor of keeping this confidential."

"You're quite familiar with the rules, unlike someone coming here for the first time."

Master Jia gave Li Cunxu a look as he spoke.

Being too well-versed in the rules, could it also be a flaw?

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