The shares Mondesny Co., Ltd. planned to issue were fully subscribed within a week. The stock price climbed from its initial 1 denar per share to 10 denars per share, yet even after subscriptions closed, nobles were still waving their purses around, begging to buy in!
If Li Ang had not instructed them beforehand to quit while they were ahead once the subscriptions were complete, the executives immersed in the thrill of counting money might have been unable to resist making another killing...
The merchants of Long River Town were even more enthusiastic. They actually followed Lesley all the way to Wheat Fragrance Territory, crying and clamoring that they absolutely had to "learn from advanced experience"!
—They did not want in on the gold mine project. They wanted to gain a deeper understanding of this corporate fundraising system. These merchants knew that ordinary commoners like them had no way to get involved with something like a gold mine.
The merchants of Long River Town were indeed more sensitive to this new corporate model. More than those nobles, they could recognize what the subscription process for a joint-stock company truly meant.
They wanted to learn.
But they could not get a word in with Baron Godric and the others—old-established nobles generally did not bother with commoner merchants.
So the merchants all clustered around Lesley. After all, Lesley had once done business in Long River Town and was considered an acquaintance.
Now that Lesley had transformed into the "General Manager of a listed company," handling such high-end projects as a gold mine, the merchants were naturally consumed by envy, jealousy, and resentment. They kept probing indirectly for the methods involved and could not be driven away.
Lesley was exhausted from being harassed. These merchants refused to leave, and the scam could not