One hundred and forty-two thousand spirit stones.
The figure didn’t merely represent wealth. In the outer sect, it represented the total economic output of six iron mines over a decade. It was enough to buy forty Foundation Establishment Pills, three floating war barges, or the complete mortal lives of twelve hundred fire slaves.
Lin Ke held the gold-threaded parchment between two blackened fingertips, his eyes skimming the fine calligraphy with clean, steady care.
Forty-eight years ago, the Seventh Ward’s former work boss—a corrupt, opium-addled elder named Song who had drowned in a melted rock waste water tank before Lin Ke was born—had signed a servant contract loan with the Grand Fortune Merchant Clan. Eighty thousand stones to purchase second-hand air-powered blast furnaces from the northern provinces.
The principal was eighty thousand.
The rest was interest. Compounded monthly, calculated according to ancient multi-tiered interest tables. Then he backed by a full seizure debt claim on the Seventh Ward’s equipment, blast furnaces, scrap stockpiles, and registered personnel.
Due in fourteen days.
“He isn’t trying to collect money,” Lin Ke said to the empty shed. “He’s executing an effort to seize the blast furnaces by force.”
