The accounting room of the Grand Fortune Merchant Pavilion smelled of cold sweat and burnt animal fat.
Steward Pang lay face down on the silk carpets, his back bleeding through shredded robes where Zhao Wuji’s personal copper whip had bitten into his flesh.
“Nine point five stones?” Zhao Wuji’s voice was barely a whisper. A quiet, whistling sibilance that scared the five senior clerks cowering against the lacquered wall.
Zhao walked slowly along the row of rosewood desks. He held an iron math rod in his white, manicured hands.
“You spent three hundred and thirty spirit stones of my liquid capital,” Zhao whispered, “to buy thirty metal bars at eleven stones... And before you cleared the doorway, the peasant dropped another sixty metal bars on the counter at nine point five?”
“Young... Young Master,” a senior accountant stammered, holding up a trembling ledger scroll. “The forward contracts... The Weapon Hall Masters are at our gates right now! They’re demanding to void their forward purchase agreements under Clause 17.B! They claim they can buy Grade-3 Essence Iron on the open spot market cheaper than our guaranteed forward price of ten stones for standard bloom!”
Zhao stopped pacing.
His eyes were bloodshot, the veins in his temples throbbing with violent intensity.
If the forward contracts were voided, the Grand Fortune Clan would be left holding thirty thousand hundredweight of low-grade iron bloom that nobody wanted. Meanwhile, their eight-thousand-stone collateral bond in the Sect Treasury would be seized to indemnify the weapon halls!
“If we stop buying their spot metal,” the accountant whispered, “the price will drop to eight stones. The margin call from the Treasury will trigger before sunset.”
“And if we keep buying their metal?” Zhao hissed.
“We run out of liquid spirit stones within forty-eight hours, Young Master. Our cash reserves are already down forty percent.”
A classic liquidity squeeze.
A hunting beast caught in his own steel trap.
Zhao Wuji slowly tapped the iron rod against his palm. A cold, vicious light flared in his eyes.
“They want to play financial games with me?” Zhao sneered, tossing the rod onto the desk. “They forgot who holds the debt paper in this province.”
Zhao turned to his head clerk.
“Retrieve the debt bonds for the Seventh Smelting Ward’s supply cooperative. The promissory notes we bought from the Southern Charcoal Trade ring last winter. Two thousand spirit stones of outstanding bonded debt, secured against the Seventh Ward’s physical real estate and equipment.”
The clerk hurried to the iron safe, pulling out a heavy, wax-sealed thick parchment contract.
“Call it in,” Zhao ordered, his voice dripping with poisonous malice. “Immediate sped up seizure. Demand full settlement within two hours in cash spirit stones. If Elder Wu can’t produce two thousand liquid spirit stones before the third bell... We seize Crucible One, Crucible Four, and every shovel in the district!”
Twenty minutes later, in the office of the Seventh Ward, Elder Wu DeZheng was literally tearing clumps of hair from his scalp.
The fat elder was pacing in circles around his dark wood desk, hyperventilating so hard his silk robes were flapping against his ribs.
“Two thousand stones!” Wu wailed, waving the seizure writ in the air. “Two thousand spirit stones in cash! Due by the third bell! Where am I going to find two thousand spirit stones in two hours? They’re foreclosing! They’re seizing the crucibles! My pension is gone! My life is over!”
The door clicked open.
Lin Ke stepped into the office, his worn clerk robes neat and clean, his brass measuring tongs resting in his belt, his stance straight as an iron pillar.
“Good afternoon, Elder Wu,” Lin Ke said evenly.
Wu lunged forward, grabbing Lin Ke’s sleeves with both hands, nearly pulling the young clerk to the floor. “Lin Ke! Look at this! Zhao Wuji bought our supplier debt! He’s foreclosing! Two thousand stones by the third bell. Or the Outer Court Guards will put iron locks on our gates!”
Lin Ke gently detached Wu’s sweaty fingers from his robes.
He took the seizure writ from Wu’s hand and unrolled it across the desk.
Tianfu. Blame.
At double test model speed, Lin Ke’s eyes parsed the ancient contractual clauses in less than two seconds.
The debt bond had been drafted eight years ago under the Azure Cloud Standard Commercial Code.
Lin Ke smiled his thin, cold, building smile.
“Elder Wu. Did you read Clause Eight?”
Wu blinked, wiping tears from his cheeks with a soiled sleeve. “Clause Eight? What does Clause Eight have to do with anything? It’s two thousand stones! We don’t have twenty stones in the safe!”
“Clause Eight specifies the settlement medium,” Lin Ke explained. His voice was calm and melodic as running water. “The debt isn’t denominated only in cash spirit pebbles. It’s legally denominated in Azure Cloud Currency Bullion—specifically, approved Grade-3 refined metal at official Treasury valuation parity.”
Wu froze. “Bullion? Metal?”
“Under the Sect Treasury’s official heavy tax schedule,” Lin Ke continued, “one pound of approved Grade-3 Feather-Pattern Essence Iron holds a fixed lawful currency value of one hundred spirit stones.”
Wu’s jaw dropped. His eyes bulged until the whites were fully red. “One... One hundred stones per pound? But the spot market is eleven—”
“The spot market is backup,” Lin Ke said, cutting him off with razor care. “The lawful debt promise is governed by the official Treasury heavy tax, not the spot market. To satisfy a debt of two thousand spirit stones... We don’t need cash.”
Lin Ke stepped to the doorway and whistled once.
Meng Shan walked into the office, carrying a heavy timber crate banded in brass.
Meng Shan set the crate onto Elder Wu’s dark wood desk with a thunderous THUD that nearly cracked the wooden legs.
Lin Ke flipped open the brass latches and threw the lid back.
Inside lay twenty metal bars of Grade-3 Feather-Pattern Essence Iron—two hundred pounds of pure, rainbow-bright, gunmetal-grey perfection, shimmering with radiant silver-blue spiritual light.
The entire office was bathed in a breathtaking, heavenly glow.
“Twenty pounds,” Lin Ke said flatly. “At official lawful Treasury valuation parity of one hundred spirit stones per pound, this crate represents exactly two thousand spirit stones of legal tender currency bullion.”
Lin Ke dipped Wu’s office brush into the red stone inkpot and thrust it into the elder’s trembling fingers.
“Sign Form 18-A: Statutory Debt Satisfaction via Sovereign Currency Bullion. Stamp it with your elder seal. Send the crate and the approved receipt directly to Zhao Wuji’s pavilion under armed court guard escort.”
Elder Wu stared at the glowing metal bars, then at the brush in his hand. Then he let out a manic, frantic cackle that bounced off the ceiling rafters.
“Bullion...” Wu screamed with joyous madness. “Legal tender bullion! I’ll pay his debt with the very metal that’s driving him bankrupt!”
Wu slammed his seal down onto the thick parchment with all his weight, splashing vermilion ink across the desk.
One hour later, inside the Grand Fortune Merchant Pavilion.
Zhao Wuji was sitting behind his grand rosewood desk, surrounded by his advisors. He waited for the third bell to sound so he could send the court guards to seize the Seventh Ward’s crucibles.
The grand double doors swung open.
Four Outer Court Guards marched into the pavilion, carrying the brass-bound crate. Behind them walked Elder Wu’s chief record-keeper, holding an official, vermilion-sealed document.
“Delivery from the Seventh Smelting Ward,” the court guard announced. He set the heavy crate onto Zhao’s desk. “Full settlement of Promissory Note 7712, principal two thousand spirit stones, settled via lawful legal tender bullion Under Clause Eight.”
Zhao Wuji jumped to his feet, his face pale with sudden, dreadful suspicion.
He tore the lid off the crate.
Twenty metal bars of Grade-3 Feather-Pattern Essence Iron gleamed up at him under the silk lanterns.
The very metal his rival had refined.
The metal that had collapsed his spot prices.
The metal that was currently bankrupting his forward monopoly.
Delivered to his doorstep to legally wipe out his two-thousand-stone debt claim to the exact copper penny.
Zhao Wuji stood frozen, staring into the crate of glowing iron.
His hand reached out, trembling wildly, picking up a fragile white jade tea bowl from his tray.
CRUNCH.
The jade bowl was crushed into tiny white powder in his palm, the sharp fine china dust cutting into his skin and drawing thin streams of crimson blood across his knuckles.
Zhao Wuji looked up at the ceiling, his high-born face contorting into an expression of raw, pure, psychotic hatred.
He wasn’t fighting an illiterate fire slave.
He wasn’t fighting a corrupt, cowardly elder.
He was fighting a financial hunting beast who knew the rules of the game better than the clan that invented them.
“Lin Ke...” Zhao Wuji whispered, his teeth grinding together until the enamel chipped.
“You’ll not live to see the dawn.”