I became the King of Ryukyu

As he spoke, Zheng Yi took out a pre-prepared business card from his pocket and handed it over with both hands.

The technician took the business card, glanced at it, and looked troubled: "Well... laboratory animals are not transferred to external parties in principle, and our batch of monkeys is all supported by research funding, and their numbers are strictly recorded..."

"I know, I know," Zheng Yi nodded with a smile, leaning forward slightly, his tone sincere yet neither humble nor arrogant. "But as you know, our animal protection organization is always short of funds for this kind of research. If we could directly transfer a few monkeys from your institute, cutting out the middleman, it would benefit everyone. Besides, wouldn't it be more meaningful for these monkeys to contribute to the ecological protection of Ryukyu than to keep them locked in cages for their entire lives for experiments?"

When he said this, his eyes were calm and resolute, carrying an undeniable sincerity.

The technician, who had prepared his excuses, found himself unable to utter them.

This is the power of "declaring on behalf of Heaven"—not coercion, not intimidation, but rather allowing your words to naturally carry the weight of a stern father, as if everything "should be so."

The technician scratched his head, hesitated for a moment, and finally relented: "Well... okay then. But the price isn't cheap. These macaques are all SPF-grade laboratory monkeys imported from Southeast Asia, and the cost price of one starts at 100,000 yen. To sell them to the public, they'll have to cost at least 120,000 yen each, otherwise I won't be able to explain myself."

Zheng Yi quickly did some mental calculations.

The cash he can currently access is a little over 1.4 million yen—the remaining payment from the sale of the sunken ship's supplies, the salary paid by Mioko from headquarters, the prize money from the fighting tournament, and the hard-earned money he saved from working at the convenience store. All of this adds up to this amount.

Each one costs 120,000, and at most you can only buy eleven. The remaining money won't even cover food.

He hesitated for a moment, not rushing to bargain, but instead reached into his canvas bag, took out a small cloth bag, placed it on the table, and untied the rope.

Several items were visible in the bag: four dried Ryukyu red coral branches, each about the thickness of an adult's little finger, with a warm luster and intact branches; and six dried seahorses, all of uniform size, with plump bellies, emitting a faint fishy smell.

These things were picked up by the little white dragon while he was patrolling the seabed.

Such resources are not scarce in the coral reefs surrounding Shadow Isles, but for people on land, such high-quality red coral and wild seahorses can fetch a high price in the medicinal market.

In fact, with the Little White Dragon, making money is no longer difficult.

Zheng Yi was thinking of quitting his job as the young lady of the headquarters that afternoon, so that the master of the ocean tyrant could scrub the shark's back. Would the shark be able to scrub it properly?

"I don't have enough cash right now," Zheng Yi pushed the bag forward, still speaking in his Osaka accent. "Take a look at how much these things are worth. The red coral is from the deep sea, not a shallow-water imitation, and the seahorse is naturally sun-dried and not sulfur-treated. If you have connections, you can resell it to a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy or have it made into a specimen; the price will only be higher than the market price."

The technician's eyes lit up. He picked up a coral branch and examined its texture under the light. Then he picked up a seahorse, brought it to his nose, and smelled it. A satisfied look appeared on his face.

Having worked in the lab for so many years, he has a basic ability to judge the quality of marine medicinal materials, and this batch of goods is indeed of good quality.

He hesitated for a few seconds before saying, "These are good items, but this is an experimental place, not a herbal medicine shop. It will take me a lot of effort to sell them. I can only offer you 30,000 at most."

This time it was Zheng Yi's turn to frown.

When these corals and seahorses were brought to the market, knowledgeable people were scrambling to buy them even for 50,000 yuan. The technician was clearly trying to drive down the price. But he didn't show it; instead, he smiled and shook his head.

"Boss, that's not fair of you. Four deep-sea red corals and six wild seahorses—go ask around at a traditional Chinese medicine shop in Naha, you won't get them for less than 80,000 yen. How about this, I won't beat around the bush—these things will be worth 50,000 yen, and I'll add cash. If you can accept that, I'll take twenty today."

"Twenty?!" The technician gasped. "What do you need so many monkeys for?"

"Our association has observation stations on several islands in the Ryukyu Islands, so it's not actually that many scattered around," Zheng Yi lied without batting an eye. "Besides, think about it, buying twenty at once saves me the trouble of bothering you every few days, and it's convenient for you too, right?"

The technician hesitated for a moment, picked up another coral branch and looked at it, finally gritting his teeth: "Fine, the coral seahorse is worth 50,000. But you need to add some more cash. Twenty monkeys, costing 2 million, you can use those for 50,000, plus 1.95 million... No, no, that's too much."

"Boss, I really don't have that much cash." Zheng Yi sighed, looking troubled. "How about this, I have 1.4 million in cash, plus 50,000 for these medicinal herbs, making it 1.45 million in total. Could you give me a discount? Twenty monkeys, is that a fair price?"

"1.45 million for twenty? That won't do. Each one would only cost a little over 70,000. I can't even keep track of that." The technician shook his head repeatedly. "The minimum is 1.8 million, no less."

"One million eight hundred thousand is too high, I really can't afford it." Zheng Yi gave a wry smile, then reached into his canvas bag and rummaged around for a while before pulling out two small pieces of coral of slightly lower quality. "Add these two pieces, and if you can lower the price again, one million five hundred thousand, that's fine, if not, I'll have to ask around elsewhere."

He made a gesture as if to clear the things off the table.

The technician looked at the two coral branches, then at Zheng Yi, hesitated for a while, and finally slammed his hand on the table: "Fine! One and a half million it is, you can take the twenty monkeys! But don't tell anyone about this, it'll be hard to explain to the leaders if they find out."

"Don't worry, don't worry, I'm very tight-lipped." Zheng Yi immediately laughed and pushed the money and medicine together in front of the technician.

The technician counted the money and collected the medicinal herbs, his attitude noticeably warmer: "Come on, I'll take you to choose. The cages in the third to fifth rows on the left are all healthy adult individuals. Pick them yourself, make sure you pick twenty."

Zheng Yi entered the feeding room and walked along the rows of cages.

Some of the macaques were dozing, some were preening each other, and some were scratching at the cage door, trying to escape. He was ostensibly selecting the strongest individuals, but in reality—he opened the recruitment panel of the game system and scanned them one by one.

[Common macaque] [Common macaque] [Common macaque]...

I scanned over thirty in a row, and they were all marked with a grayish-white "Unacceptable" sign.