Proper Pills?

Nanyan City, Silver Willow Pill Workshop, meeting hall.

Jiang Yan lounged against the back of a wooden chair, eyes half-lidded, listening with considerable ease as his subordinates reported, one after another, on the profits from the affairs under their charge. The corners of his mouth crept upward.

Half a month had passed since that bloody night of slaughter, and Jiang Yan had been living quite comfortably in the meantime.

At the White Crane Society Master's behest, Silver Willow Pill Workshop had been elevated into an important base on par with the other seven halls.

The industries, resources, and manpower under his control had all swelled at once.

Although the sheer number of matters he now had to handle was enough to drive him half out of his mind, there were plenty of benefits, too. With just a little effort, a flood of spirit crystals found their way into his pockets.

What was more, he had made no attempt to conceal his operation of the Yanlu Merchant Association. As a result, anyone trading with the pill workshop inevitably had a layer of skin peeled off by the Yanlu Merchant Association, which sucked their blood as well. It was a case of killing two birds with one stone.

And so Jiang Yan's purse grew ever heavier.

Xu Shaonian's expansion of disaster relief from a corner of the southern outskirts to the entire southern city was the clearest sign of just how deep the Yanlu Merchant Association's pockets were.

"Workshop Master, because Xiyue Mine is close to the wilderness, a strange entity slipped in and caused trouble last month. The guards couldn't hold it off, and a great many miners were killed, affecting the mine's output.

"So Xiyue Mine turned no profit. In fact, compensation, recruitment, and resettlement costs left it with a