After finishing their discussion of Spirit Cuisine Masters, Liu Changxu shifted the conversation back to their disappearance.
"Fifteenth Uncle, is there any recent news about those three Spirit Cuisine Masters?"
"No! We have no leads at all. We don't even know whether they ran away themselves or were abducted."
Liu Shichao shook his head as he answered:
"Do they have any family or close friends in Purple Forest Market?"
Liu Changxu asked:
"One of them, a Spirit Cuisine Master named Chen Xiyun, has a cultivation partner in Purple Forest Market! But I questioned his partner and got nothing but blank looks. The other two are rogue cultivators. They have no relatives in Purple Forest Market, only a few friends, and their friends don't know where they went either!"
Liu Shichao replied:
After hearing Fifteenth Uncle's answer, Liu Changxu knew that their hidden opponents would not leave him many openings. Liu Shichao alone certainly had no good way to deal with this, and it was beyond his ability to resolve.
This was the inevitable reaction to the Liu Household taking a bite out of the established powers' cheese in Purple Forest Market. Things had been fine when the Peach Blossom Pavilion's business was mediocre, but now both the Peach Blossom Pavilion and the Immortal Fragrance Pavilion were thriving. They were bound to encroach on other lineages' interests and provoke a fierce counterattack.
Liu Changxu had known that Eighth Aunt Liu Shifeng's earlier suggestions were good. He had refused them only because they lacked sufficient strength. Expanding their operations would inevitably provoke retaliation from the established powers in Purple Forest Market, and without a Foundation Establishment cultivator permanently stationed at the Peach Blossom Pavilion, trouble could easily arise.
Now it seemed that this expansion had indeed made those established powers unable to