Lu Qian sat in gloom, not stepping out of his base for the next two days.
The thousand-strong band of earth ghosts that Ah Hu had gathered was already assembled.
Lu Qian put into full use the intelligence network set up through small street vendors.
Every day, a vast amount of information flooded in relentlessly.
But Lu Qian’s intelligence network wasn't just about mingling on the streets and alleys.
Those inconspicuous small merchants, over the years, had settled down, started families, had children.
Some of their relatives had moved into other trades for a living; others had entered the grand estates, working as servants, grooms, craftsmen, gatekeepers, and so on.
Indirect family relations would occasionally visit, chat over drinks, and in the course of their casual conversations, countless tidbits of information slipped out, consciously or unconsciously.
So after Lu Qian officially activated this massive network, the information he received was unusually rich and tangled.
But what irritated Lu Qian the most over these two days was the news about the “new traitor of the imperial dynasty"—the real Lu Qian himself.
Perhaps it was at Bai Changkong’s instigation.
Maybe he was even directly pulling the strings behind the scenes.
The scholars throughout Haojing City, even in seventh- and eighth-grade towns and markets, were all shaking their heads, chanting and spreading the notorious name of "Traitor Lu Qian."
Previously, Bai Changkong and his disciples in education had praised Lu Qian loudly.
But now, they were using a hundred times their effort and resources to smear him relentlessly.
In more than eighteen hundred years since the founding of the Great Yin, Lu Qian might be the fastest to go from a rising figure to “infamous” and “disgraced” scoundrel in history.
The only thing that truly interested Lu Qian was the official intelligence that came from the Office of the Palace Guard.
Because the base of the Yushunfang Survey Department had been attacked two days ago, Chief Bureau Official Yu Changle, acting on Lu Qian’s advice, personally took charge.
He even mobilized eunuchs from the imperial court’s main station and the Forbidden Army from Jiǔqū Garden to conduct a comprehensive, thorough inspection of all the coffin shops in the city wards rated six-grade or above.
Yu Changle issued strict orders, so the investigations by the Palace Guard became rather bloody and harsh, even causing impeachment proceedings from the Censorate.
But as soon as the evidence gathered piled up, the censors’ accusations became utterly pale and powerless.
In just two days, the Palace Guard raided thousands of coffin shops.
The Great Yin government was shocked to find that about 60% of these coffin shops’ entire staff—from managers, waiters, craftsmen, to cleaners—were all cultists of the Nine Yin Sect!
Coffin shops required a lot of hands.
A small shop alone needed over a dozen waiters, workers, and helpers.
The larger, higher-end coffin shops employed hundreds of people.
Thousands of coffin shops controlled by the Nine Yin Sect meant there were easily a million or so cultists hidden among the city.
These Nine Yin Sect followers acted like rabid dogs.
Some of them launched desperate, suicidal counterattacks when the Palace Guard came knocking.
Others were even more proactive.
Before the Palace Guard could fully investigate, these cultists gathered forces to launch attacks on city ward magistrates’ offices, military camps, and residences of high officials.
The Palace Guard gave no quarter; they slaughtered without restraint.
The Nine Yin Sect didn’t have many experts, so within just over two days, the Palace Guard’s massacre turned Haojing City into chaos and bloody turmoil.
The slogans “The Ghost Mother Descends” and “Cross My Remaining Soul” rang loud throughout Haojing City during these days.
Officials and civilians alike gained a deep understanding of these ominous words.
During these chaotic days, Lu Qian’s Survey Department remained quiet.
Two coffin shops within his jurisdiction had rashly attacked him two days ago.
Some died, some were captured, so his area was relatively peaceful.
But from the intelligence reported by the Palace Guard, Lu Qian could imagine the storm of blood and gore raging across Haojing City!
With a million or so killed, even if these were spread evenly among hundreds of wards rated six-grade or above, each ward would have had thousands of Nine Yin cultists killed on the spot.
The horrific scene was beyond imagination.
“They really... worship the Ghost Mother. So, they seek death willingly,” Lu Qian muttered as he tossed a piece of intelligence paper into the fire, watching the thin, flexible sheet burn completely.
He whispered, “Ah, do they really consider those red-robed female ghosts as their ghost mother? Are they so willing to sacrifice themselves for her?”
Looking at the little eunuch standing silently in the study, waiting for orders, Lu Qian waved a hand toward him. “Apply to Headquarters and see if you can get me a detailed case file on the Nine Yin Sect, in other words, the Ghost Mother worship cult?”
“This sect is interesting. Heh, running so many coffin shops in Haojing City — coffin selling must be pretty profitable, huh?”
The little eunuch respectfully left the study and closed the door behind him.
Lu Qian shook his head and sighed, looking at the messy pile of ledgers before him.
His fingers rubbed over an abacus as he continued clicking the beads, counting.
Ah Hu’s strength, size, and the burgeoning gang that Lu Qian called the “Hundred Tiger Hall” were enough to sustain the basic interests of this small street merchant network.
But after all, it still grew out of the very bottom of Great Yin’s markets.
Lu Qian lacked talent—he was desperately short of it.
Knowledge, especially specialized knowledge like arithmetic, was controlled by the disciples of education.
Those proud and arrogant disciples—how could he expect them to help him manage this street snack network?
So, some things Lu Qian had to personally handle.
If he left it to Ah Hu, everything would turn into a mess.
The stinky tofu stalls had spread across nearly seven hundred city wards, with at least a hundred stalls per ward.
According to Lu Qian’s rules, these stalls had to hand over half their daily profits.
On average, each stall provided Lu Qian about a hundred wen every day.
A hundred wen per stall wasn’t much.
This hundred wen was the pure profit, after deducting all costs, taxes, and payments to various grey forces.
Seven hundred wards with at least a hundred stalls each totaled nearly seventy thousand stalls, each paying a hundred wen daily—seven million wen total.
Even if these were the lowest quality copper coins, with about one thousand five hundred wen to a guan, this was nearly five thousand guan, a huge sum.
Five thousand guan a day, nearly two million guan a year.
And that was just from the stinky tofu stalls.
There were also soybean milk stalls, douzhi stalls, dandan noodles, small wontons, big dumplings, meat sandwiches, baked buns, lamb skewers, fishball stalls, and countless others—over twenty varieties in total.
Among these, because some were more palatable to the Great Yin people’s daily tastes, their profits were even several times higher than stinky tofu stalls.
For example, wontons and dumplings—many people disliked the stinky tofu’s strong odor, but who could resist wontons or dumplings?
Every year, at the beginning of each quarter, when Lu Qian tallied the total profits from the previous quarter, he was often so overwhelmed he wished he could die.
So, Lu Qian’s vast street vendor network’s accounting was essentially a mess.
But broadly speaking, it was stable enough.
What troubled Lu Qian even more was that they’d hoarded too many copper coins over the years.
Only a tiny portion had been cautiously and painstakingly exchanged for gold, silver, and some other high-value secure assets.
Even so, the money vaults secretly managed by the Hundred Tiger Hall were piled high with copper coins.
Each vault filled with coins was like a ticking bomb.
Just thinking about them made Lu Qian’s scalp tingle and gave him restless nights.
“I have to find a way to gradually launder this money, at least so it can be openly spent...” Lu Qian muttered to himself.
“But it’s really tough. My official rank is still too low... Ha, this business should have been abandoned long ago. The snowball’s gotten too big.”
“But so many people depend on it for food, so much profit every year... I just can’t bear to let go!”
“In the end, Lu Qian is just an ordinary mortal.”
After laboriously working the abacus for over two hours and roughly reconciling the ledgers gathered from several halls, Lu Qian recorded a long string of numbers in a script the common folk of Great Yin could never recognize.
Then he threw the subdivided ledgers from the halls into the fire to burn clean.
“Close enough,” Lu Qian sighed. “If the Bai family knew I was actually a secret millionaire... No, no, no, I’d probably die even faster.”
Soft, feminine footsteps came from outside.
Judging by the strength and pace, the visitor was definitely a eunuch.
And the footsteps weren’t familiar—they didn’t belong to any of the twenty little eunuchs around Lu Qian.
Lu Qian put away the ledgers, stood, opened the door, and stepped out.
Around him, several little eunuchs crowded around a small eunuch wearing purple robes.
Seeing Lu Qian, the purple-robed eunuch hurriedly bowed, “Ah, Lord Lu, congratulations, congratulations! These past two days, the Chief Official kept praising you nonstop—ten times or so a day!”
“Thanks to your suggestion, our thorough investigation of the coffin shops in Haojing City these last two days has caught and killed countless demons, and the loot was plentiful, hehe, very bountiful indeed.”
“Wait for the good news! Within these few days, the Emperor himself will surely grant grace. You’ve truly achieved great merit this time.”
“But, uh… I didn’t come for that today.”
The little eunuch glanced at the sky and quickly said, “Well, time’s almost up. Hurry and follow me into the palace. There’s still some distance to cover.”
“Enter the palace?” Lu Qian looked at the sky.
It was already dusk; night would fall soon.
“Someone, prepare the horses. I and…” Lu Qian immediately gave an order.
The purple-robed eunuch promptly said, “Oh, no need for horses. Riding won’t keep pace. We’ll fly over.”
His eyes quickly scanned Lu Qian’s figure and he admired sincerely, “Ah, Lord Lu, so mighty and extraordinary. That fellow’s going to have a hard time today!”
With the little eunuch’s words still echoing, the sound of beating wings came from above.
A huge white crane, accompanied by a vulture three to four times its size, stirred up a gale descending straight down.
Lu Qian looked at the vulture, its extremely ugly head completely bare-necked over more than four feet, bald with a red tumor on its skull and a blackened face.
He was about to ride that hideous thing into the sky?
(End of chapter)