Visitors with Ill Intent

Five hundred thousand jin of rice would cost a thousand taels of gold at Yin Yunze's current exchange rate.

At real-world gold prices, that was a deal worth nearly thirty million. If it went through, Yin Yunze would achieve financial freedom in one stroke.

But Yin Yunze felt no joy at the prospect of such a big deal coming his way.

"Trouble's come knocking..."

Looking at the flippant young man, Yin Yunze sensed no sincerity from him.

"Xiao Liu, don't be rude."

Seeing how the young man was behaving, the older man spoke up to rebuke him.

But despite his words, the older man didn't seem to show Yin Yunze much respect either.

The middle-aged man gave Yin Yunze a casual fist-and-palm salute and said loudly, "I am Peng Shulan, and this is my disciple, Yu Liu. We heard from Song Zhao, the village chief of Clear Creek Village, that you can conjure grain, Fox Immortal. We happen to need grain, so please give us some! Oh, right, I know you only accept gold in payment, Lord Fox Immortal. Here's a thousand taels of gold! Fox Immortal, you can count it!"

As he spoke, Peng Shulan crouched down, pulled a key from his robes, and opened the chest they had brought into the Fox Immortal Temple.

In an instant, a chest filled to the brim with gold ingots appeared before Yin Yunze.

The golden gleam briefly dazed even Yin Yunze, to say nothing of Sun Qin and Song Ran.

Though the sight nearly dazzled him, once Yin Yunze came to his senses, he didn't even dare look at it for long.

Faced with a deal worth, in the truest sense, a thousand pieces of gold, Yin Yunze's first reaction wasn't joy, but startled suspicion.

Who did business like this?

They had brought the full payment for their first transaction without even negotiating!

Faced with such enormous profit, Yin Yunze's first thought was that when things were this abnormal, a demon had to be lurking.

Staring fixedly at the two men, Yin Yunze demanded of Song Ran, "Song Ran, who are they?"

He had asked the question, but before Song Ran could answer, Yin Yunze saw the answer for himself.

He hadn't noticed it before, but once he focused all his attention, Yin Yunze saw something unusual about the two men.

Yin Yunze saw that although it was only a thin layer, a purple light threaded with gold surrounded the two men, giving him a sense of inviolable majesty.

This wasn't the purple mist produced by the Incense of Faith that Yin Yunze was familiar with, but a gold-threaded purple glow closer to a curtain of light.

The instant he saw it, Yin Yunze naturally understood what the purple light represented.

Dynastic Karmic Luck!

Everyone who served at court and drew a salary from it enjoyed the protection of Dynastic Karmic Luck.

Of course, although everyone who drew a salary from the court enjoyed its protection, not everyone protected by Dynastic Karmic Luck drew a court salary.

Generally speaking, the families of ranked officials also enjoyed some measure of protection from Dynastic Karmic Luck, as love for the house extended even to the crows on its roof.

And since they enjoyed the protection of Dynastic Karmic Luck, these two were most likely connected to the authorities.

Judging by the faint, barely perceptible purple light on them, they probably weren't officials' relatives, but were most likely lowly clerks or constables.

Even the families of the lowest-ranking officials wouldn't have Dynastic Karmic Luck so faint that it was invisible unless one paid attention.

It was so faint he could barely see it. What the hell was it supposed to protect?

After noticing this, Yin Yunze turned his attention to the radar map. Zooming in on the area around the Fox Immortal Temple, he discovered that a dozen or so people were surrounding it.

That wasn't a particularly large or small number, but one thing was certain: they were unlikely to be able to carry away five hundred thousand jin of grain in a short time.

Those dozen or so people were clearly there not to transport grain, but to escort the gold.

They had brought enough gold, but not enough people to carry the grain.

Not even a pig would believe there was nothing fishy about that.

"Robbing a fellow crook!"

Almost instantly, Yin Yunze guessed what they were planning: they intended to swindle the white fox empty-handed!

They were probably thinking that once Yin Yunze was dazzled by the gold and actually traded them the grain, they would take it and tear down his Fox Immortal Temple to boot!

You're just some damn wild fox immortal. What makes you worthy of trading with our esteemed county magistrate?

And never mind saying that this was a little unsustainable, that keeping Yin Yunze around would let them trade for even more grain, and so on.

First of all, a thousand taels of gold was worth more than seven thousand taels of silver!

For a county magistrate who wasn't corrupt, more than seven thousand taels would be an astronomical sum.

If he was corrupt, he would be even less likely to hand Yin Yunze those seven thousand-plus taels in an honest trade.

He was probably thinking, When have I ever paid for the melons I eat?

Either way, it wasn't money they could honestly trade to Yin Yunze.

Second, never mind whether five hundred thousand jin of grain was enough to see Qingling County through the drought. By any reasonable logic, wouldn't a wild fox immortal have emptied his entire coffers after producing five hundred thousand jin of grain?

Without knowing that Yin Yunze had the backing of a major modern agricultural nation, who but someone kicked in the head by a donkey would think he could produce another five hundred thousand or even a million jin?

Most importantly, even if Yin Yunze could produce another five hundred thousand jin of grain, could the county magistrate scrape together another thousand taels of gold to buy it?

And never mind calling it killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. If they could get rich in one haul, what was wrong with killing the goose?

How many trades would it take to match the profit of getting five hundred thousand jin of grain for nothing?

They didn't need to worry about Yin Yunze's practice of taking payment before handing over the goods, either. They only had to insist on exchanging payment and goods at the same time.

As long as Yin Yunze was truly tempted, they only had to say, "We brought the gold, but where's your grain?"

Then, if Yin Yunze wanted to proceed with the deal, he would have to conjure the grain and exchange it for the payment on the spot.

And once Yin Yunze actually conjured the grain, those burly men would probably swarm in and tear down his Fox Immortal Temple.

If Yin Yunze couldn't resist their violence, then he would be a wild fox who had stolen grain, guilty of a crime too grave for execution to atone for.

If Yin Yunze managed to knock them all down, they could reveal their status as government men and proceed with the trade normally.

They would offer up the thousand taels of gold and make a few empty promises. Unless he was truly prepared to fight the court to the bitter end, wouldn't a mere country fox immortal have to pinch his nose and swallow the loss?

Surely he couldn't actually kill government officers and rebel, could he?

Although Yin Yunze had thought through a great deal, not much time had passed in reality.

"They are..."

Hearing Yin Yunze's question, Song Ran instinctively started to answer.

"Fox Immortal, don't you worry about who we are!" Peng Shulan interrupted Song Ran, pointed at the chest full of gold on the ground, and looked at Yin Yunze. "Tell me, Fox Immortal, are you doing this deal or not?"

If they had been sincere and had no ties to the authorities, Yin Yunze might truly have been tempted.

This was a thousand taels of gold!

At real-world gold prices, that was thirty million!

That was nearly a third of the way to the little goal of a hundred million. Who wouldn't be dazzled?

Yin Yunze had been busy for more than half a month and had taken in less than two hundred taels of gold.

And as time went on, selling rice would probably only get harder. Yin Yunze might have grain to sell, but the common people also needed money to buy it!

If this one deal went through, it would immediately spare him more than half a year of hard work.

But at the thought that they might be here to catch a white wolf with empty hands, Yin Yunze still restrained the greed in his heart.

Suppose, just suppose, that all his earlier thoughts were paranoid delusions and they had come to trade in good faith.

Even so, this wasn't the small-scale business from before, involving a few hundred or a few thousand jin, but a full five hundred thousand jin-two hundred and fifty tons-of rice.

Even in the modern world, that wasn't an amount Yin Yunze could trade as a private individual.

And even if Yin Yunze paid to find a way to obtain it, the Power of Incense Offerings needed to transport it here would be no small amount.

Most importantly, they were government men!

If Yin Yunze struck this deal with them, he would effectively be exposing himself to the authorities...

The more Yin Yunze thought, the colder he felt.

An ordinary man was innocent, but carrying a jade treasure made him guilty. Even if he could make this deal, Yin Yunze shouldn't get involved for the time being.

Admittedly, the best outcome would be for Yin Yunze not only to obtain the thousand taels of gold, but also to use this transaction as a springboard to spread his influence throughout Qingling County through the county magistrate behind these two men.

But conversely, one wrong step could very well lead to a fate from which he would never recover.

Leaving everything else aside, what if, after receiving the grain, the county magistrate suddenly had a thought?

Since you, Fox Immortal, can conjure five hundred thousand jin of grain, can you conjure five hundred thousand jin of iron? Or five hundred thousand fine horses?

This would be no ordinary fox immortal, but one who needed to be dealt with using a heavy fist.

If Yin Yunze had enough power to protect himself, that would be one thing; he could simply hold them in his grasp, just as he did in Clear Creek Village.

But unfortunately, Yin Yunze didn't.

Even taking a step back, suppose they were so blinded by greed that, even after realizing this, they still wanted to make money through Yin Yunze. When that time came, whether Yin Yunze could develop further or would be held in their hands as a cash cow was another question altogether.

He had finally managed to lie flat in the real world, and Yin Yunze didn't want to run into another miserable boss in this world.

It wasn't that he couldn't cooperate with the authorities. It was just that, even if he didn't have absolute control over the cooperation, he at least couldn't be too passive.

So even if this were an immortal pill that could make him ascend on the spot, if Yin Yunze rashly swallowed it now, he would most likely be too weak to withstand its nourishment.

"A trade?"

Having made up his mind, Yin Yunze quickly found a reason. "I have never traded with anyone. I said from the beginning that those who do not believe shall not eat! Since you have never believed in me, why would I bestow grain upon you? Go back where you came from!"