The cold steel of twelve mercenary broadswords gleamed within three paces of Lin Ke’s chest.
Merchant Liu stood behind his armed escort, tapping the five-wax-stamped ledger with an ivory-tipped fan. His expression carried the total, rock-steady confidence of a hungry corporate litigator who believed he had trapped an unsophisticated regional office in a contractual chokehold.
Elder Wu had already collapsed behind his desk, trembling so wildly that a stack of casualty reports slid off the polished blackwood and scattered across the floor like dead leaves.
“Five hundred thousand spirit stones...” Wu wheezed, his double chin quivering with despair. “We don’t have five thousand stones in liquid notes! The treasury won’t release funds without a quarterly audit!”
“Then you can’t enter Shaft Seven,” Merchant Liu purred. “Syndicate Lease Twelve is registered with the Provincial Commercial Bureau. Any secret blasting, sealing, or military intervention that degrades the collateral value of the Great Iron Vein will result in immediate civil seizure. If the vein suffers minor demonic contamination... Well, the Grand Fortune Trade ring is prepared to purchase the ruined asset at forced payout value to relieve the sect of its outside debt.”
Minor contamination, Lin Ke thought, his grey eyes narrowing with cold revulsion.
