Regarding the boy’s final words, Nie Junyue merely tugged at the corner of his lips without expressing agreement or disagreement. Before the smile had faded, he rose and walked outside.
A delusional promise meant to raise his own value. If Nie Junyue truly believed it, then there was no way he could have developed Immortal Guest Lodge to its present scale.
He acknowledged that Qin Yi was a once-in-a-century genius, but how was that monster girl any less extraordinary? Falling ten years behind in this era of transformation meant that the gap between them was far from insignificant.
Besides, even if he could kill...
Nie Junyue stood before the carriage door and lowered his eyes to look at his own hand, which was trembling faintly. He then clenched it tightly.
...by then, he did not believe the other party would be willing to offend that girl for the sake of him, the “old master.”
Nie Junyue had not described the girl’s features,
and Qin Yi had not asked.
When he pushed open the carriage door, the autumn sunlight outside was pleasantly warm. Cascading beams of light poured down from the sky. Before the main building of Immortal Guest Lodge, people came and went constantly, including black-market merchants dressed in silk and internal martial arts experts carrying swords or wearing blades at their waists.
Upon seeing Nie Junyue’s figure clad in a scholar’s robe, several people with connections to him bowed respectfully from a distance. However, they were sensible enough not to approach and curry favor with him.After adjusting to the light for a moment, Nie Junyue stepped down from the carriage. The instant his feet touched the ground, he saw Ruan Su, who had followed the convoy the entire way, jogging over. Her breathing was steady, without the slightest trace of exhaustion. After bowing to him, she directly went around him and crouched down, intending to pick up the boy after he got out of the carriage.
Nie Junyue: “........”
“There’s no need to carry me,” a childish voice came from behind him.
“I can walk by myself.”
“Really.”
“Sis, don’t keep doing this. I want to go to the town by myself...”
“Thump!”
“......”
This time, the little devil refused very decisively. The consequence was that his sister gave him a sharp thump on the head, then forcibly scooped him up in a princess carry.
Nie Junyue: “........”
After picking up Qin Yi, Ruan Su politely inclined her head toward Nie Junyue. She then carried Qin Yi away at a jog alongside the leader of the iron guards.
Watching the plainly dressed siblings disappear around the corner of the buildings, Nie Junyue ultimately failed to maintain his composure and let out a soft laugh.
Heh...
If he had not witnessed it with his own eyes, it would have been extremely difficult for him to connect the monster wearing human skin inside the carriage with the little devil curled up silently in the young girl’s arms, covering his head because of the pain.
After giving the steward a few instructions regarding the siblings’ affairs, Nie Junyue returned to the elegant chamber on the top floor of Immortal Guest Lodge. The moment he pushed open the carved wooden door, he saw the desk once again buried beneath piles of documents.
Tiredness surged through his heart like a tide, but Nie Junyue still sighed and sat down. He casually pulled out one of the documents and spread it open before him.
That little devil had indeed struck precisely at his current weakness. Immortal Guest Lodge’s development was now completely resting on one person’s shoulders, and the burden had already begun to leave him struggling for breath.
Thinking of Qin Yi again, Nie Junyue’s gaze lowered slightly.
Ten years old...
What had he been doing at ten?
The light from outside slanted into the room. The intersecting beams made every speck of dust dancing through the air clearly visible.
As if possessed by a sudden impulse, Nie Junyue turned the document upside down, pushed it one foot forward, and concentrated on the densely packed inverted writing.
One line.
Two lines.
Three lines.
After struggling to read as far as the fifth line, Nie Junyue gave up and leaned wearily against the back of his chair. Yet in the next instant, he suddenly stood up, crushed the document into a ball in his palm, and slammed his fist into the wooden table.
Wood chips flew from the heavy sandalwood table, and a deep fist-shaped hollow was imprinted upon it. The wind outside the window stirred the curtains. The only sound drifting through the room was the trembling, resentful murmur of the middle-aged man:
“Why can’t I make sense of it?
“Why... is the gap between me and these monsters always so enormous.....”
...
Two periods later,
The autumn wind swept up the fallen leaves.
Taking advantage of the fact that Ruan Su had been taken away for questioning, Qin Yi secretly slipped out of Immortal Guest Lodge on his own.
He walked along the crowded marketplace, with a burly man following behind him. The man had been sent by the old master and was considered part of the promise and transaction, serving both as surveillance and protection.
The burly man kept approximately one step behind Qin Yi. His face was cold, and one hand rested on the hilt of his blade. Zhenbei was Yellow Bamboo Town’s “commercial street,” though most of its gambling houses and brothels only opened at night. The morning crowds were not particularly dense, but the burly man’s gaze continued sweeping over the pedestrians on both sides of the street, even checking the window lattices on the second floors of the shops.
A professional.
If the two roaming bandits guarding him yesterday had possessed this level of skill, he might have needed to go to great lengths to escape. It was even entirely possible that he would have been killed on the spot.
By comparison, it was no longer strange that Family Head Zhou’s head had been so easily taken by the old master.
Before reaching a certain scale, an ambitious and disciplined violent organization would crush a rotten and disorganized violent organization through sheer superiority.
While calculating this in his mind, Qin Yi suddenly turned and asked the burly man behind him, “Uncle, how much money is the old master allowing me to draw in advance?”
The burly man clearly froze when he heard this. The old master’s instructions before their departure echoed in his ears.
[If that boy asks you for money... give him a limit of fifty taels. Of course, remember to report back when you return. I have not told him about this.]
The burly man answered truthfully, “Fifty taels.”
Qin Yi looked back in astonishment. “Gold?”
The burly man’s cheek twitched. “Silver!”
“Oh....”
Qin Yi nodded, looking somewhat disappointed on the surface.
The exchange rate between gold and silver on the black market in ancient Shu was approximately one to seventeen. If the old master had offered him gold, that would have been what truly surprised him.
The other party was just as practical as Qin Yi had expected. A fool who immediately knelt and pledged allegiance could never have developed Immortal Guest Lodge to such a scale.
Although the negotiations had gone pleasantly, and although the other party appeared to have become convinced, neither side actually regarded the other as one of their own.
Once the marriage between the Young Master and his older sister was no longer possible, the investment promised by the old master would remain nothing but an empty promise until Qin Yi designed a new framework for Immortal Guest Lodge and produced an initial model.
Qin Yi’s position was much the same.
Although he had promised to solve the weaknesses in Immortal Guest Lodge’s current power structure, he had not actually done anything.
He could have used these two days since awakening to provide the other party with a rough framework, but instead, he had merely offered the “greater cause” as a question to serve as a wedge, dangling it in front of the old master.
Without powerful legal safeguards, people’s hearts could never be fully known. Everyone claimed that they would not hold last night’s attack against the others, but only they themselves knew the actual situation.
Both sides were observing the other, giving themselves time to prepare a way out. In the foreseeable future, they would continue negotiating, continue struggling for advantage, and continue testing the other party’s true attitude and bottom line.....
During this process, he and the old master might completely fall out. However, it was more likely that they would reach a genuine partnership in the truest sense.
A transaction based on their respective contributions.
One side would provide knowledge, while the other would provide money and resources.
As for that kind of unlimited, one-sided investment based on immediate allegiance?
That was possible too. Qin Yi only needed to have a child with the other party’s daughter. By then, the old master would probably even stake everything he had on it.
Back to reality,
these fifty taels of silver should be the old master’s initial show of goodwill toward him, offered without knowing whether there would be any return in the future.
Of course, it could also be bait meant to lure him into lowering his guard.
Regardless,
none of that would stop Qin Yi from converting it into cash.
Ruan Su kept a tight hold over the money. These fifty taels were the largest fortune he had ever received in his life.
He had to spend it before Ruan Su discovered it.