Madam Jin’s sharp laughter grated like metal scrapers against stone pavers.
She rested her iron yardstick against her hip, looking at Lin Mo’s black card as if it were a withered leaf from a ditch.
“How much is my boutique worth?” Madam Jin mocked, her painted eyebrows arching high. “Listen to this mortal clown! You think you are buying turnips at a roadside stall? This three-story building has stood at the center of Cloud-Mist Market for over two hundred years!”
Madam Jin strode over to the glass counter and slammed a thick, golden parchment deed onto the polished surface.
“Look at this deed, you beggar!” Madam Jin shrieked, waving her sharp fingers. “Three floors of prime commercial real estate! Forty bolts of celestial spider-silk! Two hundred rolls of Warm-Cloud Dragon-Fleece! Plus A-Xiu’s lifetime indenture bond!”
She leaned forward across the counter, tapping her long crimson fingernails against the glass.
“The official municipal valuation is thirty million spirit stones,” Madam Jin sneered, her eyes bulging with naked greed. “But since you want to pretend to be a wealthy patriarch, I demand forty million mid-grade spirit stones! Pay in pure cash right now, or get down on your knees and bark like a stray dog!”
