The Silly Alchemist

Anger (3)

In another part of the town, the commander of the town’s mercenary group was doing his daily rounds, i.e. teasing young girls, collecting ‘protection money’ and feasting upon a huge meal... “Boss, something happened...

“What’s the matter? Can’t you see I’m getting to know this lovely girl?”

At that moment, the commander had a young woman in his arms. The woman was struggling bitterly, almost to the point of accepting her fate. She thought this day was the day her innocence would die when things took a very sudden turn.

One of the members of the mercenary ran over shouting, upsetting the commander.

“Boss, you can do this later. Your nephew was beaten to death!” reported the member.

“What?! Who?! Doesn’t this place have laws?” roared the commander, immediately getting on his horse, “take me there!”

The member hesitated for a moment, then said, “Boss, it’s different this time. You need to be prepared. The people who killed your nephew were a group of refugees...”

“What refugees? Are they getting bolder now?” The commander was shocked, as if not wanting to believe it.

“They wouldn’t have dared if they were mere refugees, but one person with them is a very different young man. He’s the one backing them,” said the member.

“There’s no fucking difference, they’re all just refugees! I’ll kill his bastard, watch me!!” cursed the commander arrogantly, then rode off in a cloud of dust.

“Boss...” The member ran after him as fast as he could. He wanted to tell the commander if wasn’t that simple.

The commander was used to calling the shots in this part of town. He was arrogant and demanding, he didn’t even respect the Duke himself. He was getting increasingly full of himself as time passed.

Perhaps that was due to the fact that there were so few prominent characters in the town. He’d forgotten he was a mere frog at the bottom of the well. There were many people out there he couldn’t afford to offend.

Then again, this commander was a considerably experienced player himself, or he wouldn’t be able to get himself into this position!

And that was how the Duke, the mercenary commander, businessmen and commoners of the town ran to the gates. It was a grand event.

And Ye Lang, the eye of the storm, was staring into space as he squatted aside, grumbling, “I’m so stupid, I should’ve asked someone to bring a chicken or something. I’m starving!

As he waited, Ye Lang had grown increasingly hungry. You can imagine how watery the porridge was.

“Anything to eat nearby?” Ye Lang asked the soldiers surrounding the town.

“There’s a good beef noodle place nearby, but it’s for us commoners...” said the soldiers. They hesitated, seeing as Ye Lang was from the upper classes of society. Then again, they recalled Ye Lang also willing to drink the porridge handed out so he must not be very picky.

“It’s not far down the road. You’ll see a sign!”

“Then I’ll get some noodles! When they arrive, take whatever they offer, and you can spend the money however you want!” Ye Lang immediately stood up and left with Little Xin, leaving everyone around them in shock.

Hey, sir, are you really alright with leaving so much money here? Don’t you think we might be tempted to take some of it? And even if we can’t move the whole pile, we might take a little.

Did Ye Lang care? Of course not. However, he wasn’t thinking about it anyway. He only wanted to fill his belly.

Fortunately, these people were conscientious- perhaps because there were many people around, they were watching each other!

The skinny dark man with very clear eyes also stayed where the gold coins were. He’d initially wanted to accompany Ye Lang to help check the bills when Ye Lang bought stuff because based on Ye Lang’s cluelessness, it was necessary.

He wouldn’t have expected Ye Lang to abandon everyone. He ended up being the one to collect the goods according to Ye Lang’s instructions: take whatever they had to offer. Of course, they had to help separate the trash from useful goods.

If you thought about it, this person was indeed a little different from the rest of them. He always had on a headscarf so while you could see his hair, his ears were always hidden.

No one would take notice though, everyone was dirty and wearing tattered clothes. If he was peculiar, everyone else was also peculiar.

Very soon, the first batch of traders arrived with all of their goods. When they saw the pile of gold coins, they went insane, running as if their lives depended on it. All they wanted was to sell their goods.

What was a businessman’s most important lesson? Sell your goods as fast as you can!

It didn’t matter if they earned a little lesser if they could get rid of their stocks.

They only wanted to sell everything in the shortest time possible. So what if they earned lesser? They could still bring in another batch of goods. When you did the calculations, you’d find they end up earning much more.

Also, there was a certain risk in keeping stock. The earlier they could get rid of it, the better- unless they were selling rare exotic items. However, this time the traders were selling regular everyday items you can find all over the mainland, would they have to even think about it?

Skinny Dark Man- looks like we’ll be calling him that from now on- was smart in collecting the goods, offering prices a little lower than the market price. He knew the businessmen wanted to get rid of the goods so they might not even mind if the price was lower.

He should have been glad Ye Lang left to eat noodles or the prices would be much higher- and perhaps they’d get fewer goods.

That was only an assumption though. They thought they’d be able to collect more items if their prices were lower, based on the assumption that money was a limited resource. In reality, they’d get no fewer goods if they offered higher prices. It would take much more to squander all of his money!

That was why if Ye Lang were present, he’d say, Why are you helping me save money? I want you to spend my money, spend all you want, spend it all!!

As the skinny dark man collected the goods, he sent the businessmen to place their goods in different areas, all divided according to their types. It would be much easier to deal with later!

His presence was probably more beneficial than if Ye Lang were here. That was why Ye Lang let this man deal with most matters after this. Everyone thought he was suitable for the job too, hence everyone listened to his instructions.

The number of categories and goods grew as time passed. At this moment, there were grains, herbs, clothes and many other types of everyday items on the ground. Some of them included construction material and metal too, but they were rejected by Skinny Dark Man- he felt they were useless.

However, Ye Lang had said he wanted everything so these traders didn’t leave, insisting their goods should be bought too.

Later, Skinny Dark Man announced that the matter would be discussed later. He wanted to first take in resources useful to the refugees, then decide later if they wanted to accept these items too.