Li Yuzhao once again noticed that Yi Yang intended to refuse, leaving her no choice but to play her last, seemingly useless card: an appeal to sympathy.
With a touch of warmth, she said, "Senior, I came from Yunlin County, just like you. We're fellow townsfolk, after all."
"My merchant guild used to be based in a town under Yunlin County's jurisdiction. We only moved to the prefectural city to expand our business in the last two months."
Hearing her words, Yi Yang stopped halfway through the refusal on his lips.
"Fellow townsfolk?"
"Yunlin County?"
She actually came from the same place he did. That revelation brought a slight change to Yi Yang's gaze.
He was not someone who disregarded ties to his hometown, and he did indeed need some helpers in the prefectural city.
But none of that was the main reason he swallowed his refusal. Yi Yang had noticed two crucial pieces of information about Li Yuzhao.
"Yunlin County" and her surname.
The surname Li?
One of the Three Great Families in Yunlin County's Inner City bore the surname Li.
Before that great purge, the Li Family and the other two families had been among the foremost behemoths in Yunlin County's Inner City. After the purge, only the Li Family had survived by sheer luck, though it had never regained its former prestige.
Now, those families were beneath Yi Yang's notice. What mattered was something else.
Yi Yang set down his teacup and looked at the young woman opposite him, his tone becoming a little more direct. "Are you from the Li Family in the Inner City?"
A flicker of surprise crossed Li Yuzhao's eyes.
She had not expected the sixty-year-old Yi Yang to react so quickly, piecing together most of her background from a single remark.
But