Chapter 457: The Real Buyer

No, still no!
After searching over a dozen warriors, Lin Dong couldn’t help but look up at Yun Lan. In each other’s eyes, they saw the same answer.
Their gazes then turned simultaneously to the warriors retreating back into the shop. Though they were called warriors, they weren’t exactly that—Lin Dong and Yun Lan both spotted Zi Han, the powerful figure, among the crowd.
After returning to the shop, the warriors had no intention of confronting the one who claimed Snow Red Grass was on them. Instead, they carefully observed those around them, their eyes instinctively falling on Zi Han. Of all of them, only Zi Han wore a hat and a loose robe, making him appear the most mysterious.
With their minds scattered and repelled by Zi Han’s energy barrier, they focused even more on him.
Zi Han hesitated for a moment. To avoid drawing too much attention, he gave up the idea of returning to Ling Chenyue’s side.
The group of warriors stood at the entrance, carefully watching those around them, with none of them planning to return to their seats. After all, if Snow Red Grass was indeed with someone nearby, it meant they would be the closest to it. Although the danger increased, so did their chances of seizing it.
“If Snow Red Grass is really among these people, how did the buyer manage to swap it?” Yun Lan frowned slightly. With the warriors forced back, they could breathe a sigh of relief—Snow Red Grass wouldn’t leave the materia shop for now. What remained was to find out as quickly as possible who had it.
Lin Dong pondered for a while before suddenly looking up and asking softly, “Do you remember which people were sitting at the seats the buyer passed by?”
Yun Lan nodded, her gaze shifting to where the young man in fine clothes had walked. The chairs in the shop were evenly spaced, so there were no special passages, and the spacing wasn’t very wide either. Standing in the center, if one stretched out their arms, those with longer arms could reach the chairs on both sides.
Lin Dong also glanced over. There were twenty chairs on either side of the path the young man had taken. Eight of those chairs were still occupied, clearly by medicine merchants too weak to compete for Snow Red Grass.
The remaining twelve chairs… Lin Dong’s gaze lingered on Ling Chenyue.
Next to Ling Chenyue was an empty chair. Lin Dong vaguely remembered the positions of Ling Chenyue and Zi Han—this empty chair had originally belonged to Zi Han.
“Could it be her?” Yun Lan suddenly asked.
“Who?” Lin Dong asked quickly.

“The one you mentioned, Zi Han,” Yun Lan said calmly, “if it’s her alone, I’m 50% sure it’s her. For the others combined, the certainty is only 50%.”
“Why?” Lin Dong pressed.
“To swap them, one must act when everyone’s attention is focused on one place,” Yun Lan whispered. “Look at Zi Han’s position. If I’m not mistaken, as soon as the buyer turned around, he started running and threw out the storage spirit ring. During that time the ring was in the air, undoubtedly everyone’s attention was drawn to it. At that moment, I can’t remember which side the buyer ran toward, but the moment he threw the ring, his arm must have already been lowered as he passed by Zi Han, allowing him to hand her the swapped ring as he ran again.”
“Xuehong Cao—I’m 90% sure it’s on her,” Lin Dong said. “She was the first person I suspected. After all, 88 million taels of silver isn’t an ordinary amount. Throughout the entire capital, not many people can afford such a sum. And here, there’s exactly one such person. With Fenglin Restaurant’s financial resources, 88 million taels is equivalent to the maximum amount that a dozen county-level restaurants can mobilize. Among the few people who could afford it, one is sitting right here. It’s just too much of a coincidence. Moreover, I suspect Zi Han’s strength was bought with Ling Chenyue’s money. Ling Chenyue brought her here today, most likely to buy spiritual materials for cultivation. With your deduction as well, the likelihood becomes very high.”
Yun Lan nodded slowly, her gaze shifting back to Zi Han in the crowd. After staring for a while, a smile appeared on her face.
“Now, it’s almost 99%.”
“Why?” Lin Dong asked, puzzled.
“Look closely at the spot just below Zi Han’s left elbow,” Yun Lan suggested.
Lin Dong focused his gaze there. After a moment, he grew pleased. Upon closer inspection, he noticed a crack about an inch long in the area Yun Lan had mentioned—on Zi Han’s loose robe, a spot that few would notice. If not looked at closely, even up close, it would be impossible to detect the crack, as the color of the clothes underneath matched that of the robe, and the crack itself was too thin.

At this moment, Lin Dong suddenly saw everything clearly. The situation was now understandable. The young man in fine clothes was a mercenary hired by Ling Chenyue, and this mercenary had extremely dexterous hands—or rather, a right hand. Ever since the notice was posted at the Spirit Materials Shop, Ling Chenyue had been planning this scheme. First, he had the young man in fine clothes pay an exorbitant price to buy the Snow Red Grass. Then, as the man placed the grass in his spirit storage ring and lowered his arm with his palm hidden by his sleeve, Ling Chenyue quickly removed the ring containing the Snow Red Grass and replaced it with one of the same color. Afterwards, taking advantage of the moment when everyone, even the powerful ones in the Heart Reversal phase, focused on the fake ring as it was thrown away, he silently slipped the ring with the Snow Red Grass into a crack beneath Zi Han’s left elbow while running. Following that, the last words of the young man in fine clothes made the surrounding herbal merchants realize what was happening and they all fled the area. With the merchants retreating, the men in black who occupied the Spirit Materials Shop grew worried that the spirit storage rings might be taken away, forcing them to commit murder. There were too many dead people at the entrance, which surely had a significant impact on the shop’s reputation. The elders of the shop had no choice but to step in, using the power of their sect to force everyone to stay away from the shop. This caused the warriors inside to fear that the spirit storage rings might end up in places they couldn’t control, so they rushed out to fight over the Snow Red Grass. Zi Han took the opportunity to slip away; as long as he mixed in with the crowd on the streets along with the warriors and found one person to assist him, the ring containing the Snow Red Grass could be taken out. If not for Yun Lan’s exceptional quick wits, which allowed her to spot some clues in a short time, and Lin Dong’s loud warnings to the warriors outside, this plan would have been flawless. Even after everyone calmed down and tried to figure it out, no one could guess how the Snow Red Grass was taken away. “This isn’t simple!” Lin Dong’s mind wandered toward Ling Chenyue. If this plan really was conceived by Ling Chenyue in just a few days, and if Ling Weifeng, the second young master of the Ling family, became the head of Maple Forest Restaurant, there must be some extraordinary secrets behind it. The only thing Lin Dong couldn’t figure out was why a single plant of Snow Red Grass was so valuable to Ling Chenyue.

After all, Ling Chenyue came from a merchant family. Not to mention that a single Snow Red Grass was not enough to help Zi Han advance from the first stage of the Heart Reversal Period to the second stage; even if Ling Chenyue himself were a strong expert in this period, 88 million taels of silver would still be far too expensive. Moreover, by offering nearly 90 million taels at once, it was clear he was determined to succeed at all costs and could tolerate no mistakes. Otherwise, 50 to 60 million taels would have been sufficient to ensure that Zi Han would undoubtedly belong to him.

In fact, aside from the fact that as many as thirty people were supporting him from outside, Lin Dong’s deduced situation matched the actual circumstances exactly. Of course, there were still some things Lin Dong didn’t know—such as the elite assassin known as the Brocade-Clothed Youth, who was one of many assassins trained by Ling Chenyue through numerous channels, all of which had now been severed. These assassins had been trained to be utterly devoid of humanity and emotion, with exceptional endurance. If not for their insufficient strength, they could have been considered the best assassins in existence. Even the Tianwei Pavilion would be unable to uncover their true identities.

Furthermore, Lin Dong could never imagine just how crucial Zi Han’s strength was to Ling Chenyue. Although its importance was beyond his comprehension, Ling Chenyue still wasn’t willing to hand over nearly 90 million taels so easily.

All of those banknotes were fake.

Ling Chenyue had at his disposal a genius who had been forging fake banknotes for decades. These banknotes—whether in terms of paper, seals, or hidden marks—were identical to genuine ones. The only difference was that, to prevent banks from privately printing large quantities of fake banknotes to cash them out and disappear anonymously, all such banknotes had to be accompanied by an equal amount of silver as a deposit to the imperial court. The court would then stamp them with a special ink produced only by the Tianwei Pavilion. This ink turned sky blue when applied and had a very distinct texture when touched. When heated with a lighter, it not only wouldn’t burn the area where the ink was applied but would also reveal a series of numbers matching the amount on the note, along with the name of the bank that issued it.

Ling Chenyue’s genius for forgery could replicate the color of this ink and its texture after stamping, but after decades of effort, he still couldn’t create ink that wouldn’t burn when exposed to fire while still displaying the information on the banknote.

Ling Chenyue took a gamble—he bet that the employees of the spirit materials shop would never believe that someone would bring fake banknotes to them, seeking death. He assumed they wouldn’t care about gold or silver and wouldn’t bother checking each one with a lighter, given the huge quantity involved.

Undoubtedly, he won the gamble.

Of course, none of this had anything to do with the process. The things Lin Dong didn’t know were only related to the preparatory work. Ahead, Ling Chenyue, like most medicinal material merchants, curiously turned to look at the warriors standing at the door. Yet in his heart, he was filled with rage. The target was undoubtedly Lin Dong. The plan seemed simple on paper, but it required meticulous attention to detail, allowing no room for the slightest mistake. To ensure everything was taken into account, he stayed up for three days and nights without rest. According to his calculations, the success rate should have been over 90%. Yet, despite such a high probability, it still failed. He had considered various possible failures—such as a peak-level expert detecting the young man in the green robes through mental sensing, or another strong figure risking offending a major sect to snatch the Snow Red Grass as soon as it was obtained—but he never thought that someone might guess his plan and sabotage it at the most critical moment, just as the Snow Red Grass was delivered without a trace. He had been confident that no one could figure out his plan in such a short time, but instead, things went wrong in a way he hadn’t anticipated. And it was Lin Dong who caused the trouble. The moment Lin Dong spoke, Ling Chenyue even thought that this man might become the nemesis of Maple Forest Restaurant, even ruining the plan he had been working on for fifteen or sixteen years.