"Three hundred sets?"
Lu Cheng looked at the roomful of packages, deeply surprised.
"Just one county, Yunshan County, yielded three hundred sets?"
Old Pi shook his head.
"Not Yunshan County. Those three hundred sets came from the Zhang Family of Yunshan alone!"
"The Zhang Family of Yunshan County is one of the largest medicinal herb-growing families among the surrounding counties."
"Their operation is far bigger than the Chen, Xu, and Huang Families combined."
"Many alchemists and factions without medicinal fields in the surrounding area buy from the Zhang Family."
Growing medicinal herbs was no easy task. It required a great deal of manpower, and outsiders couldn't be trusted.
So only families and major sects had the means to cultivate them on a large scale.
The Xu and Huang Families of Yang City had medicinal fields too, but they couldn't even grow every kind of herb needed for Blood-Activating Powder.
Lu Cheng wasn't doubting that they could acquire so many.
On the contrary, buying this much all at once would draw far too much attention.
"Old Pi, isn't this a little too risky?"
Old Pi nodded.
"Under normal circumstances, buying this much at once really wouldn't be wise."
"But this time's different. It's like fortune's smiling on us, hehe!"
At that, Old Pi couldn't help laughing.
"Originally, I only planned to buy thirty or fifty sets."
"But when I arrived in Yunshan County, the Zhang Family happened to be in a complete tizzy."
"It turned out they had a huge batch of medicinal herbs, but the buyer who'd agreed to take them had changed his mind."
Lu Cheng frowned. "Trying to haggle the price down?"
"Buy on credit!" Old Pi spread his hands. "For some reason, the buyer had even paid the deposit, but when delivery day came, he couldn't come up with the money."
"The Zhang Family flew into a rage and beat him up. They didn't even return his deposit."
"Martial arts herbs are different from ordinary ones. If they aren't stored properly, their medicinal properties fade extremely quickly."
"But the herbs used for Blood-Activating Powder aren't worth all that much on their own. It wasn't worth spending anything to preserve them."
"Their medicinal properties were dwindling by the day, and the Zhang Family was frantic."
"I hadn't even opened my mouth before they started begging me to buy more."
"They even cut the price by five percent. One set of herbs cost only four qian and five fen of silver!"
Hearing Old Yang say this, Lu Cheng suddenly asked:
"Then... how many sets of herbs did the Zhang Family have to begin with?"
Old Pi answered without a moment's thought:
"One thousand. Before I went, they'd already sold..."
He trailed off. The two men exchanged a look.
One thousand sets of herbs. The price came to exactly five hundred taels.
Never mind whether those thousand sets of herbs had been ordered by Zhang Rensheng.
Never mind whether that five hundred taels had been for buying herbs.
In any case, the arrival of the three hundred sets meant Lu Cheng could take a giant first step with his plan.
"Will this really work?"
Inside Lu Cheng's stone house, Fatty asked in a muffled voice. He wore a monkey mask.
Beside him sat Liu Chang'an, Liu Wan'er, and the three Hu brothers, all wearing masks of other animals.
"Of course it'll work."
Lu Cheng picked up a contract issued by the Black Market. "With the Black Market's contract as proof, our credibility won't be an issue."
Seeing this, the others nodded. With a contract, it would be easy to get things done.
The Black Market's contracts were a little like security deposits in Lu Cheng's previous life.
The difference was that each one was issued individually.
The contract in Lu Cheng's hands had just been drawn up by him and Old Pi at the Black Market.
It stated that the buyer had offered one tael and six qian to buy one set of Blood-Activating Powder five days later.
Of that, eight qian of silver went to Lu Cheng, and the other eight qian was held by the Black Market as a security deposit.
When five days had passed, the two parties would exchange the Blood-Activating Powder for the contract.
Lu Cheng could then take the contract to the Black Market and collect the other eight qian of silver.
If Lu Cheng couldn't provide the Blood-Activating Powder five days later, the Black Market would reimburse Old Pi the full one tael and six qian.
What happened after that was between the Black Market and Lu Cheng.
It was, in a way, a rather remarkable thing.
The Black Market couldn't operate openly, yet everyone trusted contracts backed by it.
"But what's the point of this?"
Hu Er asked, puzzled.
"You could just sell it directly for one tael and eight qian. Why wait five days? It's not as if we don't have the herbs."
"And we're giving the Black Market five percent of the silver for nothing."
The Black Market didn't issue contracts for free, of course. Lu Cheng had to pay eight fen of silver for each one.
Lu Cheng smiled, holding the contract between his fingers.
"If all we're doing is waiting five days to hand over the pills, then there's no reason to get a contract from the Black Market."
"But what if we borrow one tael and five qian of silver against this contract?"
"With the contract, you can either come to me and collect one set of Blood-Activating Powder worth three taels, or go to the Black Market and get one tael and six qian of silver back."
"So it shouldn't be a problem to take this contract to a pawnshop and borrow one tael and five qian, right?"
"Use that one tael and five qian to buy three more sets of herbs, and we can get three more contracts in return."
Fatty and the others were completely dumbfounded by this point.
Only Old Pi sprang to his feet.
"You little rascal, you really are something!"
"One set of herbs and five days, and you've turned eight qian into two taels and three qian!"
"And two taels and three qian can buy more than three sets of herbs. If we ran into a situation like the Zhang Family's, that'd be five sets!"
"One begets five, five beget twenty-five, twenty-five beget... beget..."
Lu Cheng smiled and finished the calculation for Old Pi.
"Twenty-five beget one hundred and twenty-five, and one hundred and twenty-five beget six hundred and twenty-five."
Old Pi's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
"With a thousand sets of herbs, you could exchange them for... for..."
After calculating for a long while, Old Pi finally murmured:
"Close to three hundred thousand taels of silver!"
"No wonder, no wonder you said you could earn enough money for ten lifetimes!"
"Three hundred thousand taels of silver? Even if the Black Market hunted you down, it'd be worth it!"
Lu Cheng looked at Old Pi with a strange expression.
Setting aside the fact that the man's wild calculations were completely wrong, even the direction his thoughts had taken left Lu Cheng speechless.
That's some serious jail time.
Lu Cheng smiled and cut Old Pi off.
"Six hundred and twenty-five sets won't be enough. Wouldn't we have to make it grow by another five?"
Old Pi was utterly stunned now.
"Make it... grow by five more?"
Lu Cheng shook his head.
"First of all, there aren't that many people in Yang City who'd buy Blood-Activating Powder, and we couldn't possibly buy that many herbs. You might as well give up on that idea now."
"Besides, I never planned to swindle anyone out of their silver."
"I'll provide Blood-Activating Powder for every contract in the end."
"Huh?" Old Pi could no longer follow. He asked the same thing Hu Er had:
"Then what's the point of all this?"
Lu Cheng drew a breath and said gravely:
"First of all, our plan isn't some scheme to swindle and cheat. It's an honest way to make money."
"And in the end, the people we'll be dealing with are those who already mean me harm."
"Second, this will involve enormous interests as it unfolds, and we'll face considerable danger."
"I don't want to turn against anyone here, and I don't want any of you to get hurt."
"If anyone wants to back out now, you can leave. You'll still be my brothers afterward."
"But if you stay, once tonight is over, you'll have to follow my lead in everything."
"The only thing I can promise is that when this is over, no one will ever have to worry again about finding the resources needed to advance in martial arts!"
"..."
After a long while, not one of them chose to leave.
Before you continue