Chapter 470: 31. Madman chanism
Upon hearing Fisher’s words, the old man chuckled “heh heh” and a strong scent of alcohol seeped out from his mouth full of decayed teeth, as if a bottle of old brew had just had its cork popped.
“Buy sothing from my stall, and I’ll tell you… I haven’t opened for a long ti, and I’m running low on liquor at ho, just for the price of two bottles of liquor, I’ll generously share a little story about what’s been happening on Patulshen Island lately.”
As soon as Alagina heard his words, she was about to reach into her pocket for money, but Fisher beat her to it by flicking his fingers inside his pocket and pulling out the money bag left by Elliog, putting ten Nali gold coins on the man’s stall,
“That should be enough… Now, tell , what do those guys want?”
The old man’s eyes lit up eagerly, and he straightened up to scoop all the gold coins into his bag, but he didn’t start sharing the information imdiately. His eyes rolling around, he picked up an item from his stall and handed it to Fisher,
“This is the price for buying my goods, not the price for the information. This company dog’s business isn’t worth that much.”
Fisher felt sowhat amused but adhered to the old man’s principle, taking the item handed to him. It was a terracotta warrior custom-made from the Northern Realm, depicting a figure with both hands lifting a sword, but what really caught Fisher’s eye was the five-pointed snowflake symbol carved on the back of the terracotta warrior.
He had seen this symbol not long before, on a small island that only those bearing relics of the Phoenix’s Son could see, on a young girl nad “Valentina.”
“Stuff from the Turand Family…”
“Ah, yes, north of the Northern Realm, the flower of snow, the Turand Family… In the past years, they’ve always been the wealthiest people there, although very few have seen a real Turand family mber, but their legends spread all over the Northern Realm. So say the real head of the Turand family is actually a sentient artifact.”
The old man, nad Jesse, flicked the recently collected gold coins between his agile fingers, grinning at Fisher,
“Legend has it that this mysterious family has been living generation after generation in a snowflake-shaped fortress amidst snowy winds, controlling the entire Northern Realm’s situation with money without showing their faces, investing everywhere—even the brothels and cloned goods gentlen like you favor, but strangely, no one has ever seen a mber of their family, what you always see are middlen, middlen and more middlen…”
If it weren’t for the fact that Fisher had indeed seen a mber of the Turand family in person on that island, he would have almost believed in Jesse’s serious conspiracy theory about the artifacts.
The Turand family mbers truly existed, and the girl in the wheelchair was proof.
Alagina glanced at Jesse on the stall beside her but did not interrupt Fisher’s conversation.
“Alright, I’m not interested in the secret history of the Northern Realm family. I want to know, what are those Nali Exploration Company people doing here?”
“Alright, alright… but the exploration company’s business is not entirely unrelated to what I ntioned just now, such as the ‘middleman’ I previously ntioned.”
“You know, exploration companies working abroad usually don’t get directly involved in local affairs, either due to their sense of superiority or because they find handling local complexities too cumberso. In such cases, they typically delegate the work to local ‘middlen’… also known as ‘buyers.'”
“It so happens that on Patulshen Island, there are middlen from the Northern Realm who collaborate with Nali Exploration Company. Those people they were looking for earlier are middlen from the market. I heard that the middlen seem to help the Nali Exploration Company in the Northern Realm to find a group of grave robbers to dig in Sama Snow Mountain for treasures, said to be ancient demi-human tombs, sothing about avians. Though they were stopped by the Turand family halfway through their excavation.”
“But the truth is, they seem to have uncovered quite a bit that the Turand family hadn’t found and have managed to transport them out of the Northern Realm. Not sure what’s inside, but it must be pretty valuable, otherwise those suit-wearing dogs wouldn’t have co all this way to move it so ostentatiously. It’s just that simple, a bunch of exploration company animals running a long way to steal from soone else’s ho… just like they do in the South Continent.”
Fisher stroked his chin thoughtfully and then nodded, asking him,
“Do you have a grudge against the Nali Exploration Company?”
“A grudge?”
Jesse shook his head, took a sip of his drink, and smiled,
“I’m just a small fry, a little bug in other people’s eyes, easily forgotten after being stepped on, it’s not much of a grudge… by the way, thanks for your gold coins, it’s enough for to drink for quite a long ti.”
“That’s your due.”
Fisher finally glanced at the compass on his body, stood up to bid him farewell, and walked with Alagina towards the stall selling Magic Materials, but after leaving Jesse’s stall, his expression did not relax in the slightest, rather it turned even graver.
Alagina noticed his furrowed brow and instinctively took his hand.
Behind them, Ossie, seeing that Fisher did not reject Alagina’s gesture, turned her head to look at Fisher and then back at Alagina, feeling like she had learned sothing new.
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