My version of Heavenly Dao is too old, so it's full of bugs.

Chapter 367 Horrifying Missing Persons Data
After hanging up the jade talisman of the Heavenly Emperor's special envoy, the tears in Li Wei's eyes vanished instantly, and he immediately became serious, saying:
"Okay, now that the leader has taken the blame, we don't need to be so timid anymore."

Confucius witnessed Li Wei's dramatic change of expression and couldn't help but sigh inwardly: "This kid's acting skills are just too good."

Even He was almost moved by their deep affection.

But actually?
In reality, Li Wei himself had already been affected by the Immortal Meme, and if he didn't investigate this case, he would also be in trouble.

Therefore, he was definitely not as selfless as he had appeared in front of the Supreme Emperor.

However, due to the shielding effect of the Heavenly Dao 0.91 system and the influence of a certain special entry on Li Wei, the Supreme Emperor of Heaven did not discover the truth at all and truly believed that Li Wei genuinely wanted to save people.

This is simply treating the Heavenly Emperor like a monkey!
The key issue is that this generation's Heavenly Emperor is too young and overconfident, completely unaware of Li Wei's problems.

But who could have imagined that Li Wei, a mere mortal, would possess a Heavenly Dao System, and that this system even had a loophole like the Dragon Transformation Crown, which could shield him from all external perception?

Ultimately, it's because Li Wei is too outrageous. The entire Three Realms are underestimating his danger. If he makes a wrong step, the harm he causes will be far greater than that of the current Shanghao Heavenly Emperor!

Thus, Confucius reaffirmed his belief.

'Although the great calamity has arrived, the crisis is still brewing, so I should still have time to teach him a little more.'

Confucius did not expect Li Wei to completely change his personality, but at least he should try to correct the boy's arrogant, fierce, and unyielding nature.

Otherwise, rigidity leads to breakage and could easily cause trouble! With my current strength, I'm not sure I can protect you.

Thinking of this, Confucius suddenly transmitted his voice to the Heavenly Dao 0.91 System: "Please repair my court robes and crown as soon as possible!"

If these two innate spiritual treasures can be repaired, Confucius will be able to recover 30% of his peak combat power. At that time, he may not be able to help Li Wei defeat powerful enemies, but he can at least save his life.

No problem! But like I said, I need my master's permission first!

Heavenly Dao 0.91 smiled and then told Li Wei the whole story of His deal with Confucius.

Li Wei's resentment lessened considerably. It was commendable that this fellow remembered his master even after running away. He praised him, saying:

"You did well this time, we can make a deal with Him!"

【Master, I must remind you! Although making a deal with Confucius will grant us fragments of the Primordial Heavenly Dao's corpse, allowing me to unlock my next evolutionary life force!】

But Confucius was the one who was brought back to justice by the great calamity, and ultimately stood on the side of the calamity. No one knows what will happen after we help him repair the spiritual treasure!

The Heavenly Dao System even worried that if Confucius's revival was too advanced, it would attract the attention of the Great Calamity and prematurely assume the role of the purifier.

Confucius might just turn against them on the spot.

Li Wei nodded: "There are risks, but the rewards are also very high. If Confucius is willing to protect us, then we will have another trump card."

So in the end, he agreed to the deal with Confucius.

【I understand, Master! However, although I can repair Confucius's crown and court robes, it requires a large amount of merit and vow power crystals. Therefore, it seems that your plan for the Merit Spiritual Treasure Set will have to be postponed.】

"It's alright, the plan to acquire refining materials hasn't been going too smoothly lately anyway."

After Li Wei arrested the Kong family, he had already attracted a great deal of attention. With the help of some people with ulterior motives, his reputation spread throughout the five continents once again.
Countless wishes came one after another, and within a single day, the crystallization of wishes on Li Wei's body once again broke through the 100% mark!
The title of "Deceitful and Famous" is about to collapse and may be overwhelmed by the power of willpower at any moment.

Therefore, in order to use up the crystals, he had previously posted a list of materials to buy refining materials on the official website and the dark web, hoping to refine another merit-based spiritual treasure.

But whether it was bad luck or someone was deliberately targeting him, Li Wei was unable to buy the materials he wanted even after raising the price several times.

So even without the matter of repairing Confucius's relics, he would definitely have found other ways to consume the crystals.

From this perspective, Confucius actually solved his immediate problem.

After obtaining Li Wei's permission, the Heavenly Dao 0.91 system immediately activated the artifact shop's function, absorbing the Confucius court robe and the Confucius crown into the shop's forging law system.

【Master, could you please spend some money to speed things up? Not too much, just one trillion will do.】

Li Wei couldn't help but sigh that money really doesn't last long. Don't be fooled by the fact that he has made more than 300 trillion yuan from the stock of Zhongzhou Pharmaceutical Group.

But in reality, the money he needed to spend on his spiritual practice was also increasing.

"The wealth of those great families is accumulated over tens of thousands of years by countless generations; those are the real elite families!"

"Someone like me who made it onto the rich list through stocks is nothing more than a nouveau riche. If I had another three thousand years, no, or even just another three hundred years, my assets would probably increase dozens or even hundreds of times."

He won't even care about a mere trillion dollars at that time.

But right now he's genuinely in pain!
After obtaining one trillion in cash and 98% of the units of merit and vow power crystals, the Heavenly Dao 0.91 system began the repair of two innate merit and spiritual treasures.

These two spiritual treasures were damaged by the power of the Heavenly Dao's origin. I must first remove the Heavenly Dao's power from them before they can be restored.

Therefore, it is initially estimated that it will take about 10 days.

[Until then, I probably won't have the resources to help you from the outside world anymore, so you must be extra careful, Master.]

"Don't worry! The remnants of Confucius' will are still on our side, and Meng Shifei will be coming down soon, so there shouldn't be any major problems!"

"Besides, investigating this case of buying and selling private cultivators will take time and careful investigation. By the time you repair the spiritual artifact, we might have already found a clue."

As it turns out, clues are not so easy to find.

Leaving aside the cultivation level and combat prowess of the third son of the Kong family, his methods of handling affairs were indeed clean and efficient.

He had never left a criminal record with the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Thunder, and there were no flaws in his personal whereabouts or bank account transactions. Just to be on the safe side, Li Wei even risked contacting the Dark Web of the Great Sage Stealing Heaven to search through the dark trading world dominated by him, but still found nothing.

"This is truly strange. The third son of the Kong family has no transaction records with either the righteous or demonic paths, and his whereabouts have never been unusual. So how did he manage to trade cultivators with others?"

Do they have their own trading rules system?

Or perhaps they used a barter system, so they didn't leave any electronic information?
Or have these records been destroyed?

Since directly investigating the third son of the Kong family yielded no breakthrough, Li Wei turned to investigating the Kong family cultivators in his lineage, as well as the employees working under him.

These people spend every day with the third son of the Kong family, and some have even had a friendship for hundreds of years. Surely they must know something about him?
After careful questioning, Li Wei was surprised to find that they, too, knew nothing about it.

"It seems we won't find any clues by investigating the Kong family."

So Li Wei turned around and invited Qin Ying, the inspector in charge of archives from the Lei Department.

"This humble servant greets Inspector Li Wei. May I ask what advice you may offer?"

Although Li Wei and she were of equal rank, he remained seated and smiled, saying, "Inspector Qin is in charge of managing the Lei Department's archives throughout Zhongzhou?"

"Ah."

Do you know how many people go missing in Zhongzhou every year?

Qin Ying nodded: "Of course I know! Our Central Continent is vast and rich in resources, with approximately 80 billion registered cultivators, and about 20 million disappear each year for various reasons."

[About 40% of them are short-term missing persons or those reported repeatedly, and they are usually found within about a month.]

However, another 60% are long-term missing persons, numbering approximately 1200 million!

Before Li Wei's time travel, the country had around 100,000 missing persons each year, of which about 20,000 were children.

The number of disappearances is even greater on the other side of the scenic route, with 60 to 80 people going missing every year, including an average of more than 40 children.

If we put it in the Celestial Planet, this number would be even more terrifying!

Of the 12 million people who go missing each year, more than 80% are underage monks, which means nearly 10 million people go missing every year.

In the human society of the previous life, missing persons could be served on the dinner table—literally.

If they disappear on the Fairy Planet, their fate is predictable!

Li Wei was astonished by the number, which was even more shocking than he had imagined. He exclaimed in surprise, "How could there be so many?"

Qin Ying sighed and said helplessly, "This is only in our Zhongzhou. The number of missing persons in the Three Realms is actually much greater. If we were to categorize them carefully, we could find dozens of different categories."

"For example, some cultivators who cannot be born with a bloodline but are burdened with loans, if no one helps them bear the debt after they die, then even if they go to the underworld after death, they will not be able to enter the cycle of reincarnation!"

"But who would normally take on your debts?"

"Therefore, many indebted cultivators choose to adopt some ignorant young cultivators when their lifespan is about to end so that they can inherit their debts and be reincarnated in peace."

“This part of the monk trade amounts to nearly 400 million each year.”

"Then, the evil sects also need to absorb new blood in the long term, so every year they try various methods to kidnap some exceptionally talented children and raise them like poisonous insects. This part accounts for about 300 million every year!"

"Furthermore, as you already know, young talents are highly sought-after in the cultivation market—hair, nails, bones, ashes, flesh, blood, soul, and so on."

Inspector Qin Ying had worked in the archives management department for hundreds of years, and had written at least tens of thousands of papers on various types of crimes. He knew all the intricacies of these cases like the back of his hand.

Li Wei felt he had asked the right person, so he quickly asked, "Among these missing persons cases, how many people have unusual birth dates and times?"

"Hehe! Inspector Li, whether it's recruiting people for the demonic path or creating talent, the birth dates and times required are all very special."

"Therefore, of the ten million young cultivators who go missing every year, at least six million have special birth dates and times!"

Upon hearing this number, Li Wei felt a wave of despair. Finding 600 people out of 3 million was like finding a needle in a haystack.

From this perspective, the fact that the Kong family resells 3 cultivators every year doesn't seem like much when viewed in the context of the entire human realm.

The buying and selling of cultivators is only one part of the many dark transactions in Zhongzhou. Beneath this seemingly prosperous immortal sphere, who knows how much evil and bloodshed is hidden, and how much pain and despair has been born.

And this pain and despair is the inexhaustible energy source of the great calamity!

So even though Li Wei had made up his mind, he still felt a headache coming on: "This is going to be difficult to investigate. If we go in the wrong direction, we might implicate other big players!"

However, this also shows that Li Wei has begun to come into contact with the true deep forces of the Celestial Sphere and has begun to touch upon the core contradictions that ordinary reforms cannot reach.

"While profit may tempt people, it cannot corrupt them! The atmosphere of this Immortal Planet must change."

The reason Li Wei investigated this case was partly due to his own being affected by the Immortal Dao Meme, but more so because he was annoyed by these bastards!

Oh shit.

No matter who it is, no matter how much interest is involved, no matter how difficult this case is to investigate, we must take action against them this time!

But what methods should we use to find clues?
After thinking for a long time, Li Wei suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "Maybe... it can be done like this!"

(End of this chapter)