"Protest! I hereby lodge a fierce protest on behalf of the Commercial Alliance against your
Fatty Shi dug his ear with a finger and replied in a perfectly unhurried tone: "Lord Count Cait, please don't be upset. We accept your protest. Now then, shall we move on to discuss the transportation arrangements for returning those family members for whom you've already paid ransom to the border between Mana Hill Plains and Maweflin Province? If you send your own carriages, the toll fee for a round trip is one gold Forde per carriage. If you entrust us with the transportation, meals and carriage fees included, it comes to only two gold Forde total. That's a fifty percent discount we're offering out of respect for your lordship being an old friend of ours — anyone else who comes to negotiate will pay at least three gold Forde. And that doesn't even include food and drink..."
Count Cait slumped in his chair in defeat, as though a punch he'd been winding up for ages had hit nothing but air, leaving him to wrench his own back instead. He covered his haggard face and groaned inwardly — who was the real merchant here? Wasn't it supposed to be that nobles cared about face while merchants cared about profit? How had the Norton Family turned the script completely around? They couldn't have cared less about face; all their eyes were fixed on gold Forde, gold Forde, gold Forde! More merchant-like than actual merchants...
At the start of the negotiations, Count Cait had thought everything was perfectly normal. Two million gold Forde as a lump sum to buy the freedom of all the surrendering Sword Saints, Gold Swordsmen, senior guild officials, Alliance nobles and their families, attendants, and personal guards — nearly two thousand people in total. But the bill submitted right afterward sent Count Cait into a towering rage.
"I wouldn't believe it if you beat me to death — food expenses for two thousand people over fifty-some days reaching eight hundred thousand gold Forde? Eighty thousand would be more like it! Hand over the menu! I want to see what exactly they've been eating every day!" Count Cait was furious.
"My apologies, Lord Count Cait. You should be aware of the current state of
Count Cait erupted: "Outrageous! Your family actually runs a gambling den!"
"That doesn't seem like all that big a deal, does it?" Fatty Shi answered without a trace of concern. "Lord Count Cait, you must understand how miserable it is for a person to lose their freedom. All these Sword Saints and Gold Swordsmen became prisoners of our family because of your Commercial Alliance. Loss of freedom leads to depression, loss of appetite, and declining health. That's precisely why we went to such great lengths to ensure that even as captives, they could maintain their physical and mental well-being — so that once freed, they could better serve the Commercial Alliance. A little gambling also helps pass the time..."
"Enough! Stop talking..." Count Cait flipped through the IOUs and quickly spotted something suspicious: "Baron Shrade, can you tell me why every single one of these IOUs belongs to a Sword Saint? None of the other Gold Swordsmen, senior guild officials, or Alliance nobles have outstanding debts?"
Fatty Shi shrugged. "It's quite simple — we don't allow them to take out IOUs. We figured you'd pay up with a grimace for the Sword Saints' debts. But if the Gold Swordsmen, the Alliance's senior officials, and the nobles gambled away all their money and wanted to put it on tab, you'd definitely ignore them — might even leave them here to rot. So we simply didn't allow anyone who'd lost everything to take out IOUs and borrow money to try to win it back..."
The blunt truth stung, but Count Cait had to admit that Fatty Shi had a point. The Commercial Alliance was desperate to ransom back these captured high-tier fighters to bolster the strength of its armed forces. In the end, Count Cait swallowed his pride and paid up for the Sword Saints. The ransom that had originally been negotiated at two million ended up costing five million gold Fordes.
Though the negotiations had been fraught with twists and turns, at least one matter was settled. Count Cait wanted to press his advantage while momentum was on his side and ransom the hundred-odd thousand surrendered residents still living in the inner city district as well. Most of them were family members of the Alliance's armed forces and mid-level managers — getting them back would help maintain morale among the Alliance's military, while also deepening the loyalty of those mid-level managers to the Alliance. It was the best way to win hearts and minds.
The Norton Family had no objections to granting freedom to these hundred-odd thousand inner-city residents. Fatty Shi rambled on for a while before laying out his prices: children and the elderly at one gold Forde each, women at two, able-bodied men at three gold Fordes. He was going to send people to the prisoner-of-war camp first to conduct a headcount — tally up how many men, women, and children there were, then compile a detailed roster and calculate the total...
"No need to bother," Count Cait interrupted. "One million gold Fordes — take the whole lot. That'll save you the time." In that moment, Count Cait displayed the Commercial Alliance's deep coffers, and he was delighted to see Fatty Shi's expression as the gold Fordes struck him like a slap in the face.
"Deal!" Fatty Shi was equally elated — he couldn't care less about being slapped in the face by gold Fordes.
Afterwards, the feeling was as if he'd been struck by lightning — the whole world was spinning. These... these inner-city residents looked less like townspeople and more like refugees. They were clad in rags, utterly destitute, barefoot and empty-handed. The only thing that distinguished them from actual refugees was that their skin was pale and delicate, their complexions fine — you could tell they'd once lived lives of pampered luxury.
A brief inquiry was enough for Count Cait to learn everything that had happened in the prisoner-of-war camp. Those three thousand released inner-city residents saw Count Cait and swarmed toward him as though he were their own parents, crowding around him to air their grievances. Some accused the Norton Family of deliberately overcharging for food. Some demanded that Count Cait retrieve their possessions, which had been stolen by fellow prisoners in the camp. Others wanted Count Cait to foot the bill for a proper meal for everyone...
With the help of his guards, Count Cait barely managed to push his way out of the throng, dizzy and overwhelmed. That was when he discovered that his clothes had been torn, every last gold and silver coin on his person had been pilfered, and even the wedding ring on his finger had been snatched by some unknown hand. Count Cait was past the point of anger — he was practically numb. Yet he still clung to his sense of duty, and the moment he was free, he asked the Norton Family guards watching over him for an audience with
A word of explanation was in order here: ever since Count Cait had arrived in Morant City and been granted that first audience with Lorist, he had been housed outside the east gate in what had once a grain warehouse compound. There stood a two-courtyard gray stone estate, its walls higher than the buildings inside — it had apparently been the old warehouse manager's secret love nest. This estate became the lodgings for Count Cait and his eight bodyguards. Fatty Shi had posted a hundred guards to pitch tents in a circle around the stone compound, effectively cutting off all contact between Count Cait and Morant City.
Count Cait's first protest to the Norton Family came about because he felt as though he had been placed under house arrest in this gray stone courtyard. The guards at the gate would not allow him or his bodyguards to set so much as a single foot outside — but if they had requests, anything they wanted could be provided. Even women could be procured; after all, Morant City had no shortage of brothels. At most they could send over a few dozen harlots to set up a flesh screen for the Count, and the bill would be his to pay.
No matter what, Count Cait was not permitted to leave the courtyard. Fatty Shi's reasoning was that it was for the Count's own safety, which was why every negotiation session required Fatty to come to the gray stone courtyard in person. The tidings that leaked from the glum-faced Fatty's mouth, combined with some educated guessing on Baron Cait's part, made it easy enough for him to piece together the picture: the people of Morant City were in open unrest. The Norton Family's armed forces were busy suppressing the rioting populace, and the primary reason they did not want to let him enter the city was that they were afraid of revealing their true situation.
Even those Sword Saints and merchant guild executives who had been released, along with the allied nobles, all said that from the ship platforms in the middle of Hidden Gold Bay, they had frequently seen fires raging inside Morant City. Not long ago the Norton Family had even organized a large number of fishing boats to head out and catch fish — a clear sign that food supplies inside Morant City were running short. Public order also appeared to have broken down. For instance, when they had gained their freedom, they had not disembarked at the dock district but instead been taken by boat along the Silver River in a wide detour, arriving at the grain warehouse compound outside the east gate. Along the way, they had seen the Norton Family's forces on high alert. Traces of blood still lingered on the riverbank, and many wounded Norton Family soldiers sat on the ground, their bandages freshly applied...
Based on these descriptions, Count Cait smugly concluded that although the Norton Family had seized Morant City, they had reaped little benefit — just as the merchant alliance's higher-ups had predicted, they had stumbled into the vast pit that was Morant City. This much was evident from their eagerness to proactively prepare carriages, arrange food and lodging, and escort those two thousand freed Sword Saints, merchant guild executives, and others to the province of Maweforin. Despite possessing Lorist the Blood Sword Saint, the Norton Family was clearly worried that the freed high-level combatants of the merchant alliance might join forces with the rioting citizens inside the city to inflict even greater damage and losses on Norton Family forces.
What Count Cait had not anticipated, however, was that the Norton Family would start playing dirty when it came time to release those hundred-odd thousand inner-city residents — setting their sights on the personal belongings those residents carried with them. Each inner-city resident was permitted to carry over thirty jin of personal property, and multiplied by a hundred thousand people, that added up to a staggering sum. Count Cait would absolutely not allow this enormous wealth to fall into the Norton Family's hands.
The moment he heard that the Norton Family had opened taverns, brothels, gambling dens, and pawnshops in the prisoner-of-war camp, Count Cait knew exactly what they were up about. He requested an audience with Lorist, but the guards watching over them refused. Fatty Shi, who normally came by once a day, did not show his face until three days later.
Count Cait unleashed all his pent-up fury on Fatty Shi, but Fatty defended himself by saying that the Norton Family had not broken any of Lorist's promises. The taverns, brothels, gambling dens, and pawnshops had been established to better serve those hundred thousand inner-city residents. The Norton Family's forces fully respected the prisoners' private property rights — they had not plundered them, had provided them with protection for their lives, and had continued to supply them with free food. As for their complaints about the high prices of goods being traded, the Norton Family fully respected their choice — if they found things too expensive, they were free not to buy...
"Heh — does two bowls of plain water-rice gruel count as free food?" Count Cait sneered.
"Those people have already obtained their freedom. From now on, my lord will need to pay for food out of his own pocket. The current price is one gold Forde per hundred jin of potatoes, so I suggest my lord make up his mind quickly — shall we handle the transport for you, or will you pay the transit toll and arrange your own?"
Count Cait drew a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the renewed surge of fury in his chest. "May I ask something, Baron Shrade? Why was it that the first time, you proactively offered to transport everything for free, at no cost? I assumed those expenses were already included in the ransom..."
Count Cait's mention of the first time referred to the Norton Family proactively transporting the freed Sword Saints, Gold Sword Saints, trade union high officials, alliance nobles and their families, guards, attendants, and followers—two thousand people in total—to the border of the Mana Hill Plains and the Mawefulin Province with utmost care.
Fatty Shi looked at Count Cait with disdain. "Do you think I'm an idiot? That first time was only two thousand people. The next batch is going to be a hundred thousand. If we transport them for free, we'd be at a loss. We'd be better off not releasing them at all."
"But I already paid the million-gold ransom..."
"That's a separate matter. You yourself called it a ransom, and you paid it voluntarily. Now we're discussing the cost of transporting these hundred thousand people. It has nothing to do with the ransom."
"You... you people are truly shameless! I... I protest..."
"I accept your protest. I'm very sorry. Now, my lord, have you made up your mind? Will you be commissioning us to handle the transport, or will your Trade Alliance send your own carriages to collect them?" Fatty Shi asked impatiently.
"..." Count Cait was beyond the strength to be angry.
"I... I want to see your Grand Duke! I will lodge a protest with him! Is this the so-called sincerity for peace from your Norton Family? I don't see any! All adverse consequences resulting from this will be borne by your Norton Family!" Count Cait roared, his face red and his neck bulging with rage.
"As for the consequences, well, you can send your army then. Our family has long said we would return Morant City to you. To be honest, we don't even want to occupy Morant City. That city is a goddamn hassle—people are dying there every day. Sometimes I'm tempted to just burn it to the ground. Oh, I've gone off topic again. Lord Cait, why don't you write back and have the Trade Alliance send an army to fight our Norton Family's forces in an open field battle? Just defeat our family's troops, and you can retake the Mana Hill Plains and Morant City..."
Only after finishing his sentence did Fatty Shi realize that Count Cait was clenching his teeth and shaking his head vigorously.
...