“A blind appraiser is still just a cripple,” Deacon Jia sneered from the floor, his voice thick with spite.
He climbed to his feet, dusting off his soot-stained silk robes while casting greedy glances at the five wooden chests of spirit stones.
“Chairman Lin, you may have five hundred thousand spirit stones,” Deacon Jia said, trying to steady his shaking voice. “You can buy all the market stalls you want. But Mo Tianji has been blind for twenty years! The Guild’s Black-Corpse Poison dissolved his tear ducts and rotted his ocular meridians! He cannot see a rock from a cabbage! You just threw five thousand stones into a bottomless pit!”
Lin Mo did not even look at him. He pulled a fresh paper napkin from his coat and wiped a drop of blue mineral dust from his cuff.
“In my company, we consider physical disabilities an opportunity for medical expense claims,” Lin Mo said deadpan. “Tie Niu, call Dr. Gu over.”
“Already here, Boss,” a calm, cultured voice called out from the edge of the pavilion.
Dr. Gu Qinghe walked into the light of the red lanterns. He wore his crisp charcoal-gray suit, carrying a polished ebony medicine chest under his arm. His silver-rimmed glasses caught the blue glow of the spirit stones.
