The Second NPC

Refining pure salt was extremely risky, but the profits were sky-high as well!

The price of refined salt in the Great Wu Dynasty was several times, even ten times, that of coarse salt—up to eighty coins per jin!

The official price of coarse salt was ten coins.

Smuggled salt cost only five!

Official families, powerful clans, wealthy merchants, and even Immortal Dao practitioners had an enormous demand for refined salt.

Immortal Dao practitioners in particular would only eat the highest-grade blue salt!

There were too many impurities and toxins in coarse salt. It was unacceptable to Immortal Dao practitioners!

Assuming three jin of coarse salt produced two jin of refined salt.

Even if he bought official salt for refining, there would still be a fivefold profit!

If Chen Bao directly refined low-cost smuggled salt...

The profit would be more than fifteenfold!

With just a little refining, one tael of silver would immediately become fifteen taels!

Su Mo made a rough calculation.

He drew in a sharp breath!

With such staggering profits, even the current Empress of Great Wu would probably be tempted!

Damn it!

He still couldn't do it!

He'd better honestly have Chen Bao sell smuggled salt.

With his support, the business could naturally grow much larger. Even if the profit was only two large coins per jin of salt,

That was still far better than having the whole clan sent to the execution ground after the matter came to light!

If he ever encountered the disaster of having his home confiscated and clan exterminated, presenting this method to the Empress would definitely be a trump card capable of turning the tables. It might even have the miraculous effect of bringing the dead back to life!

A fortune vast enough to blot out the sky lay before him, yet he simply couldn't take it!

What a pity!

What a pity indeed!

Su Mo was thoroughly depressed!

Chen Qianyu saw that Su Mo seemed to have fallen into a daze and couldn't help poking him with the large sword in her hand.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?"

Only then did Su Mo come back to his senses.

He temporarily suppressed the thought of getting involved in the smuggled-salt trade. "It's nothing."

"Let's go!"

If these matters were to be discussed, he had to speak with Chen Bao in person.

There was no use telling the female knight-errant.

The two entered Eight Treasures Pawnshop side by side.

Most antique shops also dealt in pawn and redemption transactions.

When the shopkeeper saw Su Mo return not long after leaving, bringing along a young female knight-errant with a large sword strapped across her back, his heart jolted.

He thought Su Mo had discovered that the calligraphy and seal were fake and had come back to cause trouble!

But really.

He had only sold them for a few dozen large coins!

Who could possibly mistake them for genuine?

Before the shopkeeper could decide whether to call for the burly assistant in the back,

Chen Qianyu placed the cloth bundle on the counter and put on the bearing of a female knight-errant. "Shopkeeper! I need urgent help from the jianghu!"

"How much silver can these pair of golden bracelets fetch?"

The female knight-errant's true nature was fully exposed.

Su Mo secretly found it hilarious.

"Urgent help from the jianghu"—she had definitely read too many martial-arts novels!

The shopkeeper sighed in relief.

So she had come to pawn something!

He opened the cloth bundle and looked inside. There were two heavy gold bracelets. Weighing them in his hand, they were at least five taels in total. Their design was nothing special, but with gold bracelets, all that mattered was the weight!

He picked up a gold bracelet and bit it, then took out a lodestone and carefully examined them again.

Finally, he said, "One pair of crude, low-quality gold bracelets in the shape of dragons and phoenixes. Twenty taels of silver for a live pawn, thirty for a dead pawn!"

Chen Qianyu's willow brows knitted together. "Only twenty for a live pawn?"

Seeing Su Mo secretly laughing beside her, Heroine Chen blinked, picked up the weighty large sword, and slammed it onto the counter with a bang. "Say that again?"

The shopkeeper's heart jumped. After hesitating for a moment, he said, "Thirty for a live pawn, forty-five for a dead pawn!"

After a pause, he added, "I really can't offer any more!"

"If you don't believe me, miss, you can ask at another pawnshop."

Chen Qianyu thought about it, snorted, and glanced at the gold bracelets. Reluctance showed in her eyes, but in the end she gritted her teeth and said, "Dead pawn!"

On the surface, gold was exchanged at a rate of one to ten against silver, but it could not circulate in ordinary transactions.

Only people of extremely high status, such as official families and Immortal Dao practitioners, could use it.

Exchanging it at a money house would not get much more, and might even get less!

Before long,

Chen Qianyu carried the silver out of Eight Treasures Pawnshop with Su Mo and turned to look at him. "I have to go back and find Father."

"Where are you going?"

Su Mo nodded with a smile. "Go on."

"I also have to make a trip back to the yamen."

Chen Qianyu nodded and had only taken two steps when she suddenly turned back.

Her pretty face flushed slightly as she looked a little embarrassed. "Um..."

"Su Mo... sir..."

After hemming and hawing for a long while, she finally gritted her teeth. "I want to be your assistant servant!"

Su Mo was instantly stunned. "You want to be an assistant servant?"

From the way she was dressed, she clearly wanted to be a heroine who roamed the jianghu and upheld justice. Why had she suddenly lost her mind and decided to become a government hound?

This didn't fit the mood at all!

Chen Qianyu took a deep breath, puffed out her chest, and stared straight at Su Mo with her lovely eyes. "Just tell me whether it's allowed or not!"

That size!

Su Mo drew in a sharp breath.

Then he smiled. "It's not that it isn't allowed!"

"But I don't accept just any assistant servant!"

"I have to test you first!"

Chen Qianyu was a little dumbfounded. "How do you test someone?"

She was a dignified female knight-errant, highly skilled in martial arts and peerless with a sword. Even becoming a subordinate clerk at the yamen required an examination?

Su Mo thought about it. "Once you become an assistant servant, you'll be part of the yamen."

"Let me ask you."

"If your father committed a crime and the authorities ordered you to arrest him, would you arrest him or not?"

The female knight-errant blurted out, "Of course I wouldn't!"

"That's my father!"

Su Mo snapped his fingers. "Congratulations! You passed!"

"When my leave ends, I'll take you to the yamen and enter your name in the records!"

"From now on, you'll be a government hound... I mean, an assistant servant of the yamen!"

Heroine Chen...

Heroine Chen left with a completely dazed look on her face.

Su Mo couldn't help chuckling.

It seemed she could still be saved.

The female knight-errant's moral bottom line was fairly flexible. She had potential for cultivation.

He didn't want to keep a heroine overflowing with a sense of justice by his side. Otherwise, that thunderbolt would explode sooner or later!

The female knight-errant's back vanished completely from sight.

Su Mo returned to Eight Treasures Pawnshop. "Shopkeeper, I want to redeem the pawn!"

"The large gold bracelets I pawned just now."

The shopkeeper...

Could these two young people be here to toy with him?

Did they really think he was easy to bully?

Which antique shop or pawnshop didn't have some backing?

The owner had connections in the yamen!

He coughed twice. "Young brother, those gold bracelets were a dead pawn. They can't be redeemed."

Su Mo rummaged through his money pouch, took out his constable's identity plaque, and placed it on the counter.

"Say that again?"

A moment later, Su Mo carried the calligraphy and seal in a brocade box and headed toward the yamen.

It was already noon, and the yamen was closed for the midday recess.

Xue Shan was naturally resting in the rear residence.

Su Mo didn't want to disturb anyone, so he took a detour to the side door of the rear yamen.

But before he reached the side door,

He heard a commotion coming from atop the rear yamen's wall.

He looked up.

A scholar wearing a scholar's robe climbed over the high wall.

The delicate-looking scholar sat astride the wall, looking fearfully at the wall, which was more than half a zhang high, and didn't dare jump down.

Turning his head, he happened to see Su Mo passing by. After hesitating for a moment, he gritted his teeth and said, "This brother..."

"Could you... could you help me down? I would be deeply grateful!"

Su Mo blinked.

Then blinked again.

He hadn't seen wrong!

The fellow who had climbed over the wall was far too poor at disguises. Anyone could tell at a glance that this was a fake scholar.

Above her head was a yellow exclamation mark, flashing like a giant lightbulb. It was impossible not to see!

I wasn't used to asking for votes. I'd always just written honestly, but the data was truly dismal—far too ugly to look at—so I had no choice but to ask! I hope my brothers with monthly votes or the like can lend me a hand, all right? Also, in the part about Heroine Chen in the previous chapter, some of the character details didn't quite match. It feels much better after the revisions, so everyone can go take a look.