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Besides, Gu Liyu normally stayed at the Imperial Military Department and his whereabouts would be highly confidential even if he did leave for a mission. There was nothing Qianye could do unless the former took the risk to appear before him. However, he had already left the Yin family and was now completely unrelated to that pond of murky water.

Song Zining seemed to have understood Qianye’s unspoken notion. His eyes faintly flashed as he swiftly changed the subject toward inquiring about how he had intercepted Wu Zhengnan’s merchandise.

“I have unexpectedly received news of this transaction, but come to think of it, it was rather strange. There actually weren’t any proper defensive measures despite the scale of this trade, not to mention the dark race escort was only about the size of a single patrol unit. I succeeded only because of this.”

Song Zining smiled. “Wouldn’t it be telling everyone that the value of this transaction was extraordinary if they suddenly increased security? You said the recipients of this transaction were the werewolves and arachne. How could the vampires not be interested in such a large batch of high-quality seedlings? There’s little meaning in increasing the number of guards if news of this transaction was leaked. They would never be able to walk out of vampire territory. Aren’t the goods desired by Marquis Ross also within this batch? It’s not as if he can’t play dirty among themselves.”

Qianye also began to understand and later said, “I’ve saved these people but know of no good way to help them settle down. Staying here on the long term isn’t quite feasible.”

“You’re actually worrying about what to do with a batch of superior seedlings!” Song Zining laughed until his brows turned crescent. However, after seeing Qianye still puzzled, he muttered to himself for a moment and said, “Just have them stay here for the meantime. I’ll dispatch some people over to help you manage things once we finish dealing with Wu Zhengnan.”

Song Zining suddenly blinked while saying this and proceeded to smile mischievously. “I have already prepared some presents for you, but I’ve changed my mind after seeing these people. I’ll bring you a different gift next time we meet.”

Qianye suddenly felt a bad premonition toward this “gift” after seeing his good friend’s expression. “Zining, why did you suddenly come over to this place?”

“What else other than for your case? I’ve already found clues about the black crystal channels and I came here to confirm some things.”

Qianye felt somewhat apologetic. “Don’t let my matters delay your own business.”

But Song Zining only replied with a smile, “This is my business now.”

The two slept in the same room that night and reminisced about past events from the Yellow Springs Training Camp. Qianye was astounded to discover that so many amusing things had happened during that period of hellish training.

Memories were indeed fascinating—sometimes the hardships would be washed away, leaving only warm-hearted recollections; but sometimes, all happiness would be erased, leaving only pallid ugliness.

Song Zining stayed in the village for two days to make sure matters were running smoothly. Wei Potian’s messenger arrived during this period with a reply stating his time of arrival. Only after that did Song Zining leave hurriedly along with his entourage.

In the following days, Qianye arranged the seedlings into various groups. Not all of them had nowhere to go, but almost all of them were unwilling to leave and expressed their desire to follow Qianye.

However, Qianye soon discovered that managing people was quite a troublesome task, especially when they were in the hundreds.

Wei Cheng came to the village to meet Qianye this morning and respectfully placed a list on the table. Qianye looked through it and found a long and detailed list. Most of the items on it were trivial—food, clothing, equipment, weapons, house and road maintenance, so on and so forth—more than a hundred of them.

These detailed items meant only one thing, money.

Wei Cheng didn’t ask Qianye for compensation but had delivered this list for Qianye to look over. The meaning was clear—it was to let Qianye know how much had been spent on these people. Discounting other costs for now, the daily necessities alone came down to ten gold coins a day. If there were other requirements, physical training or weapons, and ammunition, for instance, the cost would increase several fold or even tens of times.

Qianye put down the list and asked, “How much resources can the heir allocate?”

“The amount made available to the heir is different for each region. We’re at the lowest grade seven region and thus we can only provide 500 gold coins’ worth of supplies. A county town would be able to supply 1000 gold coins, while the upper continent cities would be able to mobilize up to 5000 gold coins’ worth of resources.”

Wei Cheng’s attitude was respectful throughout their interaction but Qianye knew this shrewd manager wouldn’t accommodate at all once the predetermined limit was reached. Qianye had already used over 300 gold coins on these seedlings up till now. A large portion of it was used to buy the necessary weapons and tools.

Qianye had obtained a significant amount of ores and tools from Wu Zhengnan’s trading camp while the dozen cargo trucks also constituted a small fortune. He thought about it for some time and then brought Wei Cheng toward the temporary storage room. There were several sealed chests stacked here, all of which were goods to be shipped to the dark races along with the seedlings.

Qianye extended his hand and, with a single tug, tore the lid off from one of the sealed chests to reveal the fist-sized pieces of red ore within.

Wei Cheng was astonished after seeing the contents of the chest. He produced an optical instrument from his coat pocket and proceeded to inspect the ore. These origin stones were decorated with beautiful cloud patterns and had several minute crystals embedded in them.

Wei Cheng exhaled deeply. “Indeed, these are indeed crude red crystal iron ore and of good quality too. Each chest could easily sell for over a hundred gold coins. But red crystal iron ore is the raw material for producing origin arrays. How did you obtain such a large amount?”

Qianye didn’t reply.

Wei Cheng slapped his forehead. “Ah! I’m so silly! I shouldn’t have inquired so carelessly about your matters! Please don’t take this to heart!”

“150 gold coins for each chest, will you buy them?”

Wei Cheng nodded continuously. “Of course I’ll buy! I’ll buy as many as you have!”

Qianye nodded and replied, “I have 20 chests here.”

Wei Cheng was so excited that his face was almost red. “Since you look after me so much, I, Wei Cheng, am not someone who doesn’t appreciate kindness. Let me tell you honestly, your asking price is indeed a tad too cheap. So, for such a large amount, I intend to set it at 3300 gold coins in total! What do you think of it?”

“That’s fine.” Qianye simply nodded. “But don’t pay me the whole amount in coins. Convert the surplus into weapons, equipment, medicine, and food.”

“No problem! I’ll have people prepare everything right away. You’ll see a list this afternoon. We can prepare everything within a week as long as it isn’t too difficult to procure. You can also receive a 10% discount on everything since you have the inspection executive insignia.”

Qianye felt relieved after finalizing the details of the trade with Wei Cheng. He knew red crystal iron was the primary raw material for inscribing origin arrays and that it could be used to produce origin guns below grade three and melee weapons below grade two. The ore within a single chest was sufficient to produce 10 origin guns, meaning Wu Zhengnan had sold an equivalent of 200 origin guns to the dark races.

Qianye’s quotation on the red crystal iron ore was indeed somewhat cheap. Each chest of ore could be worth over 200 gold if sold to the Qin Continent, or close to 300 gold if sold to the dark races. However, it wasn’t easy to sell such a large amount of thorny and illegally obtained goods.

He could only rely on the Wei Clan’s Far East Heavy Industries—only they dare accept goods of dubious origins without the slightest scruple—this was also out of consideration for the token in Qianye’s hand.

Wei Cheng’s attitude toward Qianye in the following days became excessively enthusiastic after receiving such a big profit. He would visit the village almost every day to call upon the latter. It just so happened that Qianye also had uses for him—managing the basic needs of these 700 people, planning ahead, preventing conflicts and unexpected circumstances—everything was extremely tedious and convoluted. However, knowledge could be found hidden within details. Qianye, on the contrary, had learned many things from Wei Cheng during this time.

While Qianye was busy with countless trifles, Song Zining had already changed his appearance and was now a commonly dressed young man. He had come, with two servants, to Shanyin County, located in the hinterlands of the Evernight Continent.

A whole 30,000 expeditionary troops were garrisoned in Shanyin County. Normally, there shouldn’t be so many troops stationed here since it wasn’t located close to human territory borders. The reason for having three times the standard number of soldiers here was that this place was the largest and most famous black crystal production zone in the Evernight Continent.

It was already quite dark and the world would be completely engulfed by night in another half hour. Song Zining was strolling along a narrow street within the county town. The county town was very lively, but this particular street was unduly silent for some reason.

The end of this street appeared before Song Zining and to one side of it was a large mansion. Quite a few thugs had gathered at the end of this street and were chatting away lazily amongst themselves.

Song Zining’s footsteps reverberated along the silent street and soon attracted the attention of these idle thugs. They stood up one after another and walked slowly toward Song Zining, their cold eyes gradually turning bloodthirsty.

Song Zining continued toward the mansion as if he didn’t see them at all. The thugs glanced at each other and moved forward to intercept him. “Perhaps you’ve come to the wrong place. Head somewhere else if you’re just taking a stroll!”

“This should be the place. I’m precisely here to meet Chen Guangyu,” Song Zining replied with a smile.

The bewildered thugs sized up Song Zining and asked hesitantly, “You’re looking for Master Chen? But how come we’ve never seen you before?”

Song Zining glanced at them with a smile. “That means Chen Guangyu is here. Oh, is it autumn already?”

“What autumn?”

The thugs were puzzled by Song Zining’s words—the people from the Evernight Continent weren’t as meticulous as those from the upper continent—there were only the light and dark seasons here. Sensing something odd, one of them immediately looked up in time to see countless leaves falling ever so gently...