The surviving Night Blade did not walk into the Wang Family Estate; he crawled.
He left a trail of blood and rainwater across the pristine white marble of the main hall, collapsing at the base of Patriarch Wang's raised dais. The Patriarch sat in his carved sandalwood chair, a cup of hot tea frozen halfway to his lips. To his left stood his eldest son, Wang Lei, whose face was pale with shock.
"General Yan..." the assassin choked out, clutching his bruised ribs. "It was the Blood Demon. He was waiting for us. He killed... he killed the others in seconds."
Patriarch Wang slowly lowered his teacup. It clinked sharply against the saucer. "Yan Kuo? The Magistrate's attack dog is guarding a penniless scholar?"
"He said..." The assassin coughed up blood. "He said the salt market is closed. And if you send more dogs, he will skin them."
Wang Lei stepped forward, drawing his sword in a fit of rage. "Father! This is an insult to our ancestors! I will take fifty of our private guard and level that counting house to the dirt! I will mount Yan Kuo's head on our gates!"
"Silence, you fool!" Patriarch Wang snapped, his voice echoing like a whipcrack through the hall.
Wang Lei froze, lowering his sword.
Patriarch Wang stood up, walking down the steps to look at the broken assassin. His mind, sharpened by decades of political and economic warfare, was racing. General Yan did not work for free, and he certainly did not take orders from a disgraced scholar. There was a puppet master in the shadows, and this puppet master had just successfully weaponized the Imperial Guard against the Wang Family.
"You cannot use swords to fight a man who controls the shields," Patriarch Wang said coldly. "If we attack General Yan openly, the Magistrate will be forced to declare us rebels against the Empire. That is exactly what this 'Master' wants."
"Then what do we do?" Wang Lei demanded. "He holds the city's salt! Our restaurants are failing, our curing houses are rotting!"
Patriarch Wang smiled. It was a terrifying, hollow expression. "He holds a few thousand crates. A drop in the ocean. He thinks he has cornered the market? I will drown him."
The Patriarch turned to his son. "Draft a letter to my brother-in-law, the Minister of Revenue. Have him open the Imperial Reserves in the Eastern Province. I want one hundred thousand crates of government salt shipped down the river and dumped into the Capital by tomorrow morning. Price it at five taels a crate."
Wang Lei gasped. "Five taels?! Father, that is below cost! We will lose a fortune, and the government will demand we cover the difference!"
"It is the cost of war," Patriarch Wang declared, his eyes burning with ruthless intent. "When the city is flooded with cheap government salt, this 'Master's' monopoly will shatter. His two-hundred-tael crates will be worthless dirt. He will go bankrupt in a day, and when he cannot pay General Yan's salary, the Blood Demon will abandon him. Then we send the assassins."
The Spring Willow House. The Syndicate Boardroom.
While the Wang Family plotted in their marble halls, Su Chen was enjoying a plate of steamed dumplings in the opulent, private top-floor suite of his newly acquired brothel.
Sitting around the large circular table were the founding pillars of his Syndicate: Han Jing, General Yan, and Madam Qin.
Madam Qin took a delicate sip of her wine, reading from a small slip of parchment delivered by one of her girls just moments ago.
"The Wang Estate is mobilizing," Qin reported, her sharp eyes flicking to Su Chen. "One of my girls was entertaining a clerk from the Ministry of Revenue an hour ago. The Wang Patriarch just leveraged his political connections to authorize a massive release from the Imperial Reserves. One hundred thousand crates of salt are arriving by barge at dawn. They plan to sell it for five taels a crate."
Han Jing dropped his chopsticks. His face, which had finally regained some color over the past few days, went ash-white.
"One hundred thousand?" Han Jing whispered, his mathematical mind instantly grasping the devastation. "Master... our entire stockpile is only three thousand crates. We priced them at two hundred taels to capitalize on the panic. If the Wang Family floods the market at five taels, the panic ends. Our salt becomes completely worthless. We will lose all leverage."
General Yan crossed his massive arms, his armor clinking. "Give me the word, Boss. I will take ten trusted men to the docks tonight. We will burn the barges before they can unload."
"No," Su Chen said calmly, swallowing a dumpling and dabbing his mouth with a silk napkin. "Burning one warehouse was a warning. Burning the Imperial Reserve is an act of treason. The Emperor would send the Black Dragon Cavalry to wipe this city off the map. We are businessmen, Yan, not terrorists."
"But Master," Han Jing pleaded, "if we do not stop those barges, our monopoly is broken!"
Su Chen leaned back in his chair. He tapped the air in front of him, bringing up the holographic System interface that only he could see.
[System Alert: Imminent Market Crash Detected.]
[Commodity: Coarse Sea Salt.]
[Projected Value in 12 Hours: 0 Taels.]
Su Chen smiled. It was the same confident, predatory smirk he wore when he was about to short-sell a failing tech company in his past life.
"Han Jing," Su Chen asked, "what does the Wang Family's salt look like? What does our salt look like?"
The accountant blinked, confused by the question. "It... it looks like salt, Master. It is coarse, yellowish-brown, and slightly bitter. Like all salt in the Empire."
"Exactly," Su Chen said. "It's garbage. They are flooding the market with garbage."
He navigated to the [System Shop] and opened the [Industrial Tech] tab. He scrolled past the locked steam engines and steel mills, finding exactly what he needed in the Tier 1 section.
[Blueprint: Advanced Chemical Refinement (Salt)]
[Cost: 5,000 System Points / 1,000 Taels of Silver]
[Description: Instantly grants the Host the knowledge and apparatus design to filter, boil, and crystallize coarse rock salt into 99.9% pure, snow-white table salt. Eliminates all bitterness and impurities.]
"Purchase," Su Chen whispered.
[Ding! Blueprint Purchased. Knowledge transferred.]
[System Vault Balance Deducted.]
A rush of information flooded Su Chen's brain—measurements, boiling points, charcoal filtration methods, and crystallization techniques. It was simple modern chemistry, but in this ancient world, it was literal magic.
Su Chen stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the lantern-lit city.
"Let Patriarch Wang flood the market with his cheap, bitter dirt," Su Chen said, his voice ringing with absolute authority. "We are no longer in the business of selling basic commodities. By tomorrow morning, the Syndicate is entering the luxury market."
He turned back to his stunned subordinates.
"Han Jing, clear out the back rooms of the warehouses and set up boiling vats and charcoal filters. Madam Qin, I want you to spread a rumor through your highest-paying clients tonight. Tell them the Syndicate has acquired 'Snowflake Salt'—a spice so pure and sweet it was previously only available to the Gods."
Su Chen's eyes gleamed with the thrill of the game.
"When the nobles taste our product, they won't feed the Wang Family's yellow dirt to their horses. Patriarch Wang isn't going to bankrupt us tomorrow. He is going to bankrupt himself."