Capital City was vast.
How many businesses were there? Of those businesses, how many were individually owned, and how many belonged to organizations?
No one knew.
After all, among the Twelve Departments, probably only the Hundred Schools Department had any connection to merchants, and merchants had once belonged to the commoner registry as well.
As for the others, there was not even a Commerce Department or an Industry and Commerce Department.
Merchants prized profit, after all, and had faced a certain degree of discrimination since ancient times.
That was also one reason people like Li Chungang had complained about poverty every day in their youth rather than seeking their fortunes in commerce.
As a result, many major merchants were known to everyone, while some small businesses had no corresponding oversight.
That also gave Lin Ke an opportunity.
If he seized this opportunity to bring more of Capital City's businesses, large and small, under his wing and buy up their formulas, trade secrets, and the like, wouldn't that be splendid?
Of course, Lin Ke was not thinking about making money, but about the greater technological value hidden within them.
Take primordial heavy water, for instance. In many people's eyes, it was simply used for artifact refining.
And the artifacts it refined were meant for fighting and killing.
The point was that primordial heavy water might have a much broader range of applications.
Just like gunpowder, which could be used for fireworks, blasting through mountains and excavating tunnels, or making weapons.
Perhaps some small businesses possessed research breakthroughs like the "production of primordial heavy water" found in the Snow-White Lynx's inherited memories.
The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed!
With that thought, Lin Ke's doppelganger straightened up from his paperwork.
"Acquisitions and mergers..."
Lin Ke's doppelganger put