"The owner of the Heart Quenching Mulberry Dew has left instructions," Li Gang, one of the branch leaders of the Vast Blue Expanse rchant Company, said imdiately after Yang Qing answered.
"They have?" Yang Qing asked incredulously before quickly following up, "What were their instructions? And was it the sa person as before, or did they use a proxy?"
"The ssage was delivered via a spell that appeared in the form of a blue sparrow, which disappeared imdiately after delivering the ssage," Li Gang answered.
"Then how did you know it was them?" Yang Qing pressed.
"They had left a verification incantation to confirm their identity, which is what I used to unlock the ssage. The parchnt itself had also been made from my essence, so the instant I used the incantation, the essence within it resonated with mine. Only the owner of the dew and I know the incantation, and it only works with parchnt made from my essence—another component only the two of us would know."
Yang Qing nodded subconsciously, impressed by the seller’s thorough security asures.
"So you didn’t et them?" he muttered, then asked, "What were the instructions? Please do not feel burdened to reveal any sensitive aspects you might be uncomfortable sharing."
"The instruction itself isn’t all that confidential, given that it will be public information anyway. The owner has decided to sell. That was the instruction, along with the deadline, which is four days," Li Gang said.
"Did they leave other instructions? Like how they’ll receive their proceeds, whether they’re doing it in person or via a proxy, and what kind of trade they’re looking for?" Yang Qing asked.
Yang Qing hadn’t been to many auctions, given his financial constraints. But in his earlier years (before he’d been given that ruthless slap of reality, back when he still believed his monthly remuneration easily put him in the top 20% of wealthy cultivators on the continent), he had frequented a few auction houses to spend ’big,’ only to leave as a hollow husk of himself every ti.
It was from those little excursions that he discovered bidding wasn’t done solely with spirit stones. Occasionally, auction houses, at the behest of the item’s owner, would alter the bid and ask for sothing else. It could be an item, information, or services used in place of spirit stones. Whatever bidding alternatives were used, they were usually as instructed by the owner, and more often than not, such cases occurred with the most attractive items.
The Heart Quenching Mulberry Dew most definitely counted as one, hence Yang Qing’s question.
If the seller left special instructions such as an alternative barter, it could shed more light on the seller; after all, when barter was involved, it was usually sothing of grave importance to the seller.
Li Gang, the seasoned rchant that he was, easily inferred the aning behind Yang Qing’s question. "The owner didn’t leave special instructions on that front, which ans the default ans of purchase using spirit stones will apply. As for the proceeds, they haven’t given any instructions on that.
As is customary with our company, we will reserve a special box for them at the designated auction house, where they can receive their proceeds should they co in person.
If not, we will hold the funds until they co or give express instructions on where to send them," Li Gang explained.
A short silence ensued as Yang Qing mulled over the matter.
Li Gang’s route was one he had been following in the hopes it would lead him to Bai Chen’s whereabouts. From everything he had learned about the case, especially how the escort agency operated, Yang Qing suspected the kidnapping had been an inside job, pulled off by soone who knew the route well enough to lay down such a successful snatch. That was why he had first taken a closer look at the two escort supervisors before moving on to the clients.
In his mind, one of those two groups was high on the list of those who could have known the route. It was while looking through the clients that he ca upon Li Gang and the Heart Quenching Mulberry Dew, which he found suspect, given the item’s value and the choice to use a little-known escort agency for transport.
Given the peculiarity of the situation, he suspected there was sothing off about Li Gang. It was only when he dug deeper into the branch manager’s background, along with the testimony he gave, that he understood the circumstances that had forced him to use an unknown escort agency—and a Quasi-Palace Realm escort agent, no less—to transport the highly valuable, highly coveted Heart Quenching Mulberry Dew.
Li Gang was eliminated as a suspect, but it still didn’t change the fact that whoever kidnapped Bai Chen’s disciple and the ferry he was on had to have known the route. As such, his mind turned to the owner of the Heart Quenching Mulberry Dew.
Yang Qing’s reasoning was this: what if Li Gang had been an unwilling puppet, with his actions manipulated by soone else in order to get their hands on Bai Chen’s disciple?
It was too much of a coincidence that a rush job to transport a valuable item like the Heart Quenching Mulberry Dew appeared precisely when Bai Chen was not around, and his disciple, coincidentally, was.
At the ti, though Yang Qing felt his suspicions carried so weight, a huge part of him worried he was being overly paranoid. He wondered if his past trauma and the way the Order always seed to lead him by the nose like a dark, puppeteering hand were influencing his judgnt, making him see a conspiracy where there was none, with that slowly steering him into feeling that maybe soone had manipulated events to push Li Gang toward using the Bluefin Escort Agency.
At first, he felt his assumption was slightly excessive, but now he no longer did.
Everything he had uncovered thus far pointed to a kidnapper who was ticulous and thorough in their planning and execution, which could be seen in how swiftly and silently they had acted. Not to ntion, they seed to prefer using unwitting bystanders who had no idea they were being used. A case in point was Wenling; the Natural Yin Array Cicada had no idea her soul and innate abilities had been used as a conduit for the formation array that kidnapped Bai Chen’s disciple.
If their paths had not crossed, Wenling would have likely gone her entire life without ever discovering the array inscribed in her soul or the nebulous yin qi inside. Perhaps she might have realized sothing when her body and soul transford upon breaking through to the Palace Realm, but Yang Qing felt she wouldn’t have discovered much beyond the yin qi itself.
As for the intricate formation array inscribed in her soul (parts of which even he couldn’t understand), he suspected the mysterious kidnapper had likely built in contingent asures in case Wenling ever broke through to the Palace Realm. Perhaps a subtle self-destruct script that wouldn’t harm her per se, but would trigger a breakdown with the array fading away quietly when the tribulation struck.
Then there was the ostracized guest elder of the Huang clan, who, in exchange for a few pointers that allowed him to break through to the Palace Realm, offered to spy for that mysterious figure in the gorge between the Huang and Wan clans.
This kidnapper seed to know the exact strings to pull in every situation and with every person. It was no longer preposterous to imagine they could have led Li Gang by the nose into unwittingly doing their bidding.
That kidnapper had probably studied Li Gang inside and out to know exactly how he would react to certain situations, and using that knowledge, they prepared the ground accordingly to manipulate his actions to get the desired results.
Studied him... Yang Qing murmured softly, his eyes instantly widening.
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