Special Expert of Beauty CEO

Day by day went by, and the date of the Asian Mercenary Association's presidential election drew nearer and nearer.

The Skull and Dahe factions chose to lay low during this time, refraining from openly attacking each other's forces.

After all, Okazaki Yokawa from Dahe had become extremely cautious after being spooked by the previous assassination attempt.

And on the Skull side, upon learning that Dahe had supreme experts, including practitioners of Cultivation Immortality—though the exact number was unknown—they dared not act rashly either.

Therefore, the Skull and Dahe factions focused all their energy on winning over the undecided neutral members.

Of course, they essentially ignored the meddling from War Dragon and Qin Tian.

Moreover, both Skull and Dahe, by some tacit agreement, expanded their poaching efforts to include the supporters of War Dragon.

Apart from their own and their rival's supporters, and the neutral ones, it was War Dragon's supporters that formed the largest group, so Skull and Dahe naturally set their sights on them.

"Damn, that's ruthless!"

When Qin Tian learned of this, he merely chuckled lightly.

The supporters he had in the Asian Mercenary Association were his old comrades, so how could they just be swayed or bought over so easily?

"Go ahead, let's damage each other, poach and be poached, and see who swings the pickaxe better."

Qin Tian stretched lazily, finding the whole affair increasingly amusing, akin to several men fighting over a girlfriend.

As time dragged on, the anticipated major clash between Skull and Dahe that Qin Tian and Zhou Yang had speculated about didn't occur; instead, the presidential election began.

Two days before it started, teams interested in participating in the presidential election began to register.

A day later, the results were out: only three teams registered to contest in the presidential election—Skull, Dahe, and War Dragon!

Other teams knew of Skull and Dahe's involvement and sensibly chose not to wade into this mess.

It was only Qin Tian's War Dragon that boldly stood between Skull and Dahe.

Most teams naturally didn't believe War Dragon had any chance of challenging Skull or Dahe.

The influence of Skull was well understood, and Dahe, at last month's member meeting, had countered Skull's opinions and forcibly pushed for a re-election of the president!

This election was clearly focused on Skull and Dahe; everyone knew it, so nobody paid attention to the chaotic intervention of War Dragon.

In reality, that was indeed the case. During the member meeting, when the host Hu Zhengwei announced the names of Meng Kuang from Skull and Okazaki Yokawa from Dahe, there was an uproar from the audience, but when Qin Tian's name was read, the noise noticeably diminished.

Qin Tian naturally didn't mind this; he knew that the teams he had persuaded wouldn't openly support him, as they had only promised to vote, and it was anonymous voting, so they weren't afraid of Skull and Dahe's pursuit.

Of course, Qin Tian was also worried that those who promised to vote for War Dragon might betray him at a crucial moment.

This couldn't be helped; Skull and Dahe were also vying for these teams, many of which had taken money. As for who they would ultimately vote for, it was up to their conscience.

According to the assembly's procedure, each of the three candidates had to come up and deliver a speech.

Meng Kuang went first, boasting about his various accomplishments as the former president, but it seemed like the audience didn't buy it, indicating that he wasn't very popular during his tenure.

After Meng Kuang stepped down, Okazaki Yokawa ascended the stage, passing by him, and the two exchanged a cold glare, each looking down on the other.

Unlike Meng Kuang's speech, Okazaki Yokawa began instilling his philosophy in the teams, promising that he would do better than Meng Kuang.

In this direct comparison, Meng Kuang sat below, furious to the point of turning green.

Fortunately for Okazaki Yokawa, his speech was met with more applause than Meng Kuang's.

Finally, Qin Tian took the stage. By then, both Meng Kuang and Okazaki Yokawa had each spoken for over an hour, leaving Qin Tian with only half an hour.

However, Qin Tian had no intention of speaking for that long. He began straightforwardly, "I am Qin Tian, in charge of War Dragon. Those familiar with the old Dragon Soul Team should have heard of me."

"I'm not here to make grand promises and paint grand visions in this election. I just want to tell you one thing: if I'm elected president, I'll expand your rights, make the Association more democratic! Let everyone have a voice! Let's make sure the Association doesn't become the private domain of one or two teams!"

Qin Tian only said that much and immediately stepped down.

This concise work style, particularly his emphatic and resonating conclusion, touched people directly.

When Qin Tian left the stage, the audience only then reacted, erupting into thunderous applause, shouts, and whistles, one after the other!

Qin Tian had struck a chord with these small teams. In the past, the Asian Mercenary Association was completely controlled by Skull, which meant that lucrative and easy-to-complete mercenary tasks were entirely allocated by Skull to themselves or their direct lineage.

This alone led to widespread discontent within the Asian Mercenary Association.

"Quiet! Quiet down!"

After Qin Tian finished, Hu Zhengwei resumed his hosting role. Seeing the crowd still discussing the democratic issue Qin Tian raised, he shouted several times before they were finally quiet.

Normally, Hu Zhengwei would have lost his temper long ago.

But today, he couldn't and didn't dare.

After all, votes were to be garnered, and he couldn't afford to offend people, so today he had to keep a low profile.

Once the audience settled down, Hu Zhengwei instructed the staff to hand a blank ballot to each team leader.

"Please cast your votes, each ballot only allows one name—any more, and the vote becomes void. After making your choice, personally drop it into this ballot box."

Hu Zhengwei finished speaking and had the staff open the ballot box, showing that it was empty inside.

Only then did he signal for the leaders to start voting.

Originally, Hu Zhengwei and Meng Kuang had intended to count the votes backstage to create room for manipulation.

However, this was met with strong opposition from Dahe, and War Dragon also objected, leaving no choice but to conduct the fairest election with on-site vote counting.

The leaders lined up to cast their votes, each ballot was folded so its contents couldn't be seen.

The venue was surprisingly silent, as if everyone knew that today's election could decide the future direction of the Asian Mercenary Association, so some teams deliberated for a while before finally making their choice on the ballot.