Chen Mu was startled by the sight before him.
Outside his door, ten men stood in a neat row, bare to the waist, their bodies covered in dew and bits of grass. What astonished Chen Mu was the enormous bundle of grass each man carried on his shoulder-a bundle as thick as two men's waists put together!
Huge bundles of gold-sprinkled grass and star-pattern leaf! These were the two materials for making blank cards that Chen Mu had only requested yesterday.
But this quantity... Chen Mu stood in the doorway, his mouth hanging open, dumbstruck!
They had casually tied the gold-sprinkled grass and star-pattern leaf into bundles with finger-thick vines. When Chen Mu saw the expensive materials squeezed out of shape by those vines, his heart bled!
These fellows really know how to ruin good things! Chen Mu muttered without thinking.
Ten men, each carrying a waist-thick bundle of gold-sprinkled grass or star-pattern leaf, stood proudly before him. The sight delivered an overwhelming visual impact.
Specks of golden light shimmered on the long, narrow, saw-blade-like leaves of the gold-sprinkled grass, as though they had been dusted with gold powder. That was how it had earned its name. Its leaves were extremely slender when they first grew, but the older they became, the broader they grew-and the higher their price climbed. Every leaf of the gold-sprinkled grass on these men's shoulders was wider than a palm. Chen Mu knew that, in the outside world, a single leaf of this grade would fetch a staggering price. Even at the base, he had never used gold-sprinkled grass of such quality.
As for the star-pattern leaf, every silver-gray star marking on it was the size of a coin. Without question, these were top-grade star-pattern leaves.
Not one of these fellows realized the value of