Chapter 13: The Ammunition
For three days, the ground-floor luxury suite of the Rose Hotel was a tomb of absolute silence.
True to his word, the hotel manager had enforced Mame's decree with terrifying efficiency. The cleaning staff were forbidden from even walking down that specific hallway. Trays of the finest roasted meats, imported fruits, and clear spring water were left silently outside the door at designated hours, and the empty plates were collected only after Mame had pulled them back into the hall.
Inside the room, Mame actually rested.
He didn't forge. He didn't intimidate crime lords. He simply sat in the center of the massive, silk-draped bed in a lotus position, allowing his Cosmic Origin Core to slowly cycle and stabilize. The intense micro-tears in his Saiyan muscles from compressing thousands of tons of Heavy Silver fully healed, leaving his physical density even more terrifying than before. His tail rested lazily across his lap, occasionally twitching as he processed the vast amounts of cosmic energy stored in his third ring.
By the time the sun set on the third day, Mame opened his eyes. The abyssal black pupils flickered with a faint, silver light.
He was at absolute peak condition.
He slid off the bed, stretching his arms until his joints popped like firecrackers. With a familiar hum of spatial energy, he tapped his silver ring. The elegant silver-white noble robes vanished, instantly replaced by the blood-red canvas and the jagged, crimson demon mask.
Dimensional Blink.
He didn't bother using the door. Space folded around him, and he vanished from the Rose Hotel, reappearing flawlessly in the shadowed alleyway behind the Golden Coin Casino.
The Grandmaster's Sins
Down in the lavish, incense-filled subterranean office, the Spymaster of the Shadow Ledger was waiting. She looked noticeably more tense than she had three days ago, her eyes darting to the shadows as if expecting the red-robed monster to materialize out of thin air.
Which, of course, he did.
The air pressure in the room subtly shifted, and Mame stepped out from the corner of the office, his footfalls completely silent. The Spymaster jumped, her hand instinctively twitching toward a hidden dagger before she caught herself and bowed her head respectfully.
"Welcome back, my crimson friend," she said, her voice tight. "The Ledger has completed your request."
Mame walked over to the velvet table and sat down, crossing his arms. "Show me."
The Spymaster pushed a heavy, iron-clasped lockbox across the table. She flipped the latch, revealing stacks of pristine, heavily stamped parchment.
"Yu Xiaogang," she began, her tone carrying a mix of professional pride and genuine disgust. "You were right to point us in his direction. The man's reputation as a harmless, eccentric scholar is a meticulously crafted lie. We dug into the archives of the rural Spirit Halls and found the suppressed incident reports."
She pulled out the first stack of papers.
"We have clear-cut proof," she stated, sliding them toward Mame. "Signed medical examiner reports, testimonies from the grieving families of commoner Spirit Masters, and the official Spirit Hall suppression orders bearing the proxy seal of the Supreme Pontiff. Xiaogang convinced desperate, low-level cultivators to attempt his theoretical cross-species ring absorptions. When their meridians violently ruptured and they died from spiritual backlash, he simply marked them as 'anomalies' in his notebook and moved on."
Mame picked up a document. It was a formal complaint from a grieving father in a remote farming village, neatly stamped with a REJECTED - CLASSIFIED seal from a Spirit Hall bishop.
"When the families tried to take the matter to the local magistrates," the Spymaster continued, "Xiaogang flashed his Honorary Elder Token. The local authorities, terrified of angering the Supreme Pontiff, buried the bodies and threatened the families into silence. He is a butcher hiding behind a scholar's robes."
Mame's demonic mask seemed to cast a darker shadow in the candlelight. "This is perfect. I want fifty exact copies of every single one of these documents made and bound. Keep them in your secure vaults until I give the signal to distribute them."
The Spymaster nodded. "It will be done. But as for your second target... the boy."
She hesitated, looking genuinely frustrated for the first time. She pulled out a much thinner, almost empty folder.
The Ghost of Nuoding
"Tang San," the Spymaster sighed, sliding the thin folder across the desk. "I must apologize. The Shadow Ledger rarely fails, but this boy... he is a ghost."
Mame picked up the folder, raising an eyebrow behind his mask. "Nothing?"
"Not exactly nothing, but nothing actionable," she explained, leaning forward. "We tracked him to the rural roads heading north from Nuoding. Our agents observed him late at night, slipping away from his rabbit-spirit companion into the woods. He is secretly forging strange, intricate metallic weapons—things that look like complex crossbows and hidden needle-launchers. He guards the blueprints with his life."
Mame smirked internally. The Tang Sect hidden weapons. He's already building his arsenal.
"But here is the disturbing part," the Spymaster admitted, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I sent three of my best Shadows to tail him. Elite, Rank 40 agility-type Spirit Ancestors trained to conceal their breathing and heartbeat. But the moment they got within two hundred yards... the boy stopped."
She shivered slightly. "My agents reported that his eyes briefly glowed with an eerie purple light. He didn't even turn his head, but he knew they were there. He casually changed his route, laid a series of incredibly lethal, toxic traps in the brush, and completely lost them. A Rank 20-something child effortlessly outmaneuvered three veteran spies. We couldn't get close enough to find any 'sins' without risking a bloodbath."
Mame let out a low, echoing chuckle that vibrated the teacups on the desk.
Chapter 13: The Ammunition (Continued)
"Don't worry about the boy," Mame said dismissively, waving a gloved hand. He knew exactly what had happened. Tang San's Purple Demon Eye and Tang Sect anti-tracking techniques were legendary in the original timeline. The fact that the Shadow Ledger had even caught him forging was impressive enough. "His secrets are a different kind of currency. I already know what he's hiding."
Mame stood up, tapping a finger against the heavy, iron-clasped lockbox containing Yu Xiaogang's damning evidence.
"However," Mame's voice dropped, the metallic rumble vibrating the teacups on the desk. "We are going to adjust the scale of the Grandmaster's downfall. I don't just want fifty copies for Suotou City."
The Spymaster paused, her eyes narrowing slightly. "How many copies do you require?"
"Thousands," Mame commanded, his pitch-black eyes locking onto hers through the demonic mask. "I want a copy delivered to the desk of every major organization on the Douluo Continent. The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School, the Clear Sky Clan, the imperial courts of Heaven Dou and Star Luo, and every high-ranking bishop in Spirit Hall."
He leaned forward, the oppressive weight of his aura pressing down on the room just enough to make the air feel thick. "And I don't want it to stop with the elites. I want thousands of copies scattered in the streets, taverns, and plazas of every major city. I want the commoners to read the exact details of the 'Grandmaster' who butchers them for his untested theories."
The Spymaster's sleek composure finally cracked. She went pale, her breath hitching as she realized the sheer, apocalyptic scale of what he was asking.
"My crimson friend," the Spymaster whispered, her voice tight with genuine fear. "To smear Yu Xiaogang on a continental scale... that is not just a scandal. That is an act of war. Despite his exile, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan will mobilize their intelligence network to hunt down the source just to protect their family's pride. And worse... the Supreme Pontiff of Spirit Hall. Bibi Dong is known to have a deeply complicated, fiercely protective history with him. The backlash from Spirit City alone could wipe the Shadow Ledger off the map."
"I am well aware of his plot armor," Mame stated coldly.
He raised his hand, his silver ring flaring with intense spatial energy. With a heavy, deafening CRASH that threatened to splinter the velvet table, a literal mountain of wealth materialized.
"That is why I am telling you to name your price," Mame said smoothly, looking at the Spymaster over the pile of treasure. "Factor in the extreme hazard pay. Factor in the bribes, the untraceable couriers, the misdirection tactics, and the monumental risk to your network."
The Spymaster stared at the gold. Her mind raced through the logistical nightmares and the terrifying risks, but the naked greed of a true broker ultimately won out. She did the math, naming a price designed to be so outrageously high that any normal emperor would balk.
"One million gold soul coins," she breathed, her hands trembling slightly. "And 1000 kilos of solid gold ingots. Paid upfront."
It was an astronomical fortune. But to Mame, who possessed the hoarded wealth of a dead Titled Douluo, it was just the cost of doing business.
Mame didn't blink. He channeled his soul power again.
Clatter. Crash.
Heavy, reinforced chests of gold soul coins and stacks of gleaming ingots materialized, filling the corners of the subterranean office until there was barely room to breathe. The Spymaster looked like she was about to faint from the sheer magnitude of the wealth sitting in her office.
"The payment is yours," Mame said, picking up the original lockbox of evidence and slipping it into his ring. "But listen closely. I do not want this released today, or even in ten days. I am buying your logistics and your silence. You will prepare the couriers and lay the groundwork across the continent, but you will hold the execution. I will need this in the far future, when the Grandmaster thinks he has finally reached the peak of his prestige. When I give the signal, the continent reads."
"It... it will be ready, My Lord," the Spymaster bowed, her voice filled with a new, terrified reverence.
"And as for the backlash," Mame added, stopping just short of the door. He looked over his shoulder, the red demon mask glowing menacingly in the dim light. "If the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan or the Supreme Pontiff come looking for trouble... you don't need to fight them. Point them directly to me."
The Spymaster's eyes widened. "You... you want them to find you?"
"I'm counting on it," Mame chuckled, a dark, rumbling sound that promised nothing but violence.
With a final flash of spatial energy, the red-robed demon vanished from the subterranean office, leaving the Spymaster alone with a mountain of gold and the terrifying realization that she had just helped orchestrate the collapse of an era.
The Calm Before the Storm
As the first rays of dawn began to peek over the horizon, Mame reappeared in the alley near the Rose Hotel. With a quick spatial swap, the blood-red robes and demon mask vanished, replaced once again by the elegant, silver-white attire of a wealthy aristocrat.
He walked out of the alley and pushed open the glass doors of the Rose Hotel, returning to Room 1. The manager was fast asleep at the reception desk, none the wiser that the boy in the ground-floor suite had just purchased the destruction of the continent's most famous scholar.
Mame locked his door and walked over to the plush armchair, sitting down in the quiet, rose-scented room.
The trap was fully armed. The evidence was secured. The Shadow Ledger was mobilized for the future.
"Take your time, Grandmaster," Mame whispered into the quiet room, his tail giving a satisfied, predatory swish. "Climb as high as you want. The fall is going to be spectacular."