Chapter 529: Two Successes in a Row

“Our fifteen restaurants take turns promoting themselves—introducing new signature dishes, inviting respected figures, holding calligraphy competitions… The goal is simple: attract as many customers as possible who aren’t regulars at our restaurant, and fill it with as many people as possible,” Li Yiliang explained confidently. “While this may draw in customers from other restaurants, won’t it also bring in customers from Lin’s Inn? With fifteen restaurants taking turns constantly, after one round, who will still remember what Lin’s Inn is? After two rounds, its business will surely decline significantly. For a restaurant like ours, once it becomes quiet, even its most regular customers will likely be too lazy to come back, leading to even greater decline.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, and one person laughed loudly, “Boss Li, that’s a brilliant idea! I can’t help but wonder what Lin Dong, the owner of Lin’s Inn, will do in response when he finds out.”
“In my opinion, he’ll just copy our tactics, imitating one of our promotional methods to make do with whatever’s left!”
This remark caused everyone to burst into laughter. After two collaborations, Lin’s Inn had been overwhelmed trying to cope. Undoubtedly, Lin Dong wasn’t very smart. Lin’s Inn’s ability to compete with the top restaurants and even force them to unite relied entirely on luck or some other advantage.
“Since everyone agrees, we need to plan carefully,” Li Yiliang said with a smile. “We can’t let Manager Lin underestimate us!”
They laughed again. They had no doubt that once the plan was implemented, Manager Lin would scratch his head in frustration, unable to come up with a solution. By “planning carefully,” Li Yiliang meant that all parties involved would have gains and losses, so it was necessary to balance interests and reach a plan acceptable to everyone.
Glancing at the smiles on everyone’s faces, Ling Weifeng’s gloomy expression also showed a hint of a smile. He didn’t believe Lin Dong could handle such a simple trick.
It was all just a way to draw the top restaurants into a trap, slowly ensnaring them. Ling Weifeng had no doubt that in the end, those top restaurants would be severely weakened, losing their ability to compete with Lin’s Inn, and even the wealthy Fenglin Restaurant would suffer heavy losses.

Ling Weifeng was happy to agree to this. What he wanted was to buy time. As long as Emperor Qianwei passed away and the new emperor fell within their expectations, even if Lin’s Inn had some trump card that defied imperial power and Fenglin Restaurant had imperial support, it would at least ensure they wouldn’t be at a disadvantage in the competition.

As for whether these bosses would end up failing in the end, Ling Weifeng didn’t care about it. Once the new emperor ascended the throne, even if these bosses closed down their restaurants due to poor management or became ordinary inns, no longer serving the nobles and wealthy merchants of the capital, he would use every means to knock them down. Ling Weifeng also believed that having tasted the benefits of the alliance, these bosses would likely unite immediately if Lin’s Inn failed, targeting Fenglin Restaurant, the giant among them, as their next target for division.

The discussions continued until evening, and the fifteen top restaurants still hadn’t reached a consensus, but that didn’t stop them from parting happily. With such large-scale promotion and varied suppression tactics, it was impossible to reach an agreement in one day. They would continue talking tomorrow, and if not, the day after, and so on. The bosses of the fifteen top restaurants knew that a general agreement had already been reached; it was just a matter of each wanting to get the biggest share. As the talks progressed, they would gradually reach an agreement. They weren’t in a hurry—since Lin’s Inn had just been suppressed not long ago, its impact hadn’t faded yet, so using more force would be a waste. As long as they could reach an agreement within two months, it was completely acceptable.

Ding: Congratulations! Your inn system experience points have reached full capacity. You have received an upgrade task: “Keep the customer who places the most orders the next day to stay at the inn for three days.”

A clear system notification interrupted Lin Dong’s training. When he opened his eyes, the room was still the same, but his mood had completely changed.

He quickly opened the inn system and checked the upgrade task, studying it carefully.

It was just a short sentence, easy to understand at a glance, but Lin Dong read it extremely carefully—word by word, then scanned it again. After understanding the details of the task, he read it once more to confirm he had grasped it fully.

Without hesitation, Lin Dong pushed open the door and was about to hurry off when the door next to him creaked open as well, and Yun Lan stepped out.

“Lin Dong, I’m confident I can perfectly integrate the spirit array into the spirit weapon,” Yun Lan said, her excitement barely less than Lin Dong’s.

After nearly two years of research, it was finally coming to an end. This excitement was certainly not due to the upcoming upgrade of the inn system for Lin Dong. After all, this was already the eighth time an upgrade notification had appeared.
“Great!” Lin Dong couldn’t help but feel wildly excited, for Yun Lan and for the benefits that the successful research would bring to Lin’s Inn.
“Should we give it a try?” Yun Lan asked.
Lin Dong nodded eagerly, putting aside the upgrade task, whose details would only be known tomorrow.
“Elder Feng!” Yun Lan immediately went to Feng Yue’s door and gently knocked.
“The door isn’t locked—come in!” Having stayed at Lin’s Inn for so long, Feng Yue had adopted Old Ding’s laziness. He spent his days eating Tianfeng peppers, and to avoid wasting time using spiritual energy to open the door, he never even closed it.
Yun Lan pushed the door open gently and, seeing Feng Yue curled up on the recliner chewing Tianfeng peppers, said excitedly, “Elder Feng, the spiritual array and spiritual artifacts have merged perfectly. I already have an idea.”
“Really?” Feng Yue perked up instantly and rushed to Yun Lan’s side. No matter how lazy or indifferent he was, he still showed great enthusiasm for something he could be involved in and that would last for generations.
“Elder Feng, please start crafting the artifact,” Yun Lan said firmly.
“Okay!”
Feng Yue vanished in a flash and hurried to the crafting room in the left corner of the courtyard, pushing the door open and stepping in. Lin Dong and Yun Lan followed closely behind.
The crafting room was about 200 square meters, with simple furnishings—just a huge furnace and a pool of water. Feng Yue threw dried wood made from spiritual materials into the furnace. With a wave of his right hand, the wood instantly caught fire. The flames were so intense that even Lin Dong, several meters away, had to use spiritual energy to shield himself. With ordinary flames, not to mention being five or six meters away, even if he reached straight into the fire, Lin Dong’s current strength at the eighth level of the Heart Reversal Phase would allow his energy barrier to completely block the heat.
“What level? What materials?” Feng Yue asked urgently.
“First, craft a fifth-level great sword using ordinary jade,” Yun Lan replied.
Feng Yue nodded and stepped forward, placing his right palm on the furnace. This action made Lin Dong frown in concern.
Suddenly, the flames beneath the furnace flared up violently, with intense heat waves forcing Lin Dong to take a step back. He had to increase the spiritual energy flowing into his energy barrier to reduce the heat.

“Does refining a fifth-tier spiritual artifact require such intense flames?” Lin Dong muttered. With his strength at the eighth stage of Heart Reversal, if he were to press his palm against the furnace like Feng Yue and use all his spiritual energy to resist, it might not be a problem in the short term. But over time, there would definitely be the smell of burning flesh. Although artificers all possess fire-resistant spiritual techniques, he didn’t believe that a fifth-tier artificer’s fire resistance could surpass that of someone at the eighth stage of Heart Reversal.

“Senior Feng has already reached the level of a ninth-tier artificer. Moreover, as a peak warrior, he can control his spiritual energy at will and doesn’t need to follow standard refining methods. He can simply use intense flames to speed up the process,” Yun Lan explained with some envy. With the help of the Thousand Illusion Pill, her strength was only at the ninth stage of Heart Reversal. In other words, it would take some time before she could become a ninth-tier spiritual array master.

Becoming a ninth-tier spiritual array master had been one of her major goals since she started learning about spiritual arrays. This goal was now very close, yet just out of reach.

Lin Dong nodded. So it was to speed up the process.

In the blink of an eye, the originally green furnace turned crimson under the intense flames. With a wave of his right hand, clusters of dark metal blocks fell from the storage spiritual ring on his finger, hitting the furnace and producing deafening booms.

Just from the sound of the impacts, Lin Dong could tell that these metal blocks were extremely heavy.

To see what was happening, Lin Dong ignored the loss of spiritual energy and projected his mind outward, allowing him to see what was inside the furnace.

After five metal blocks, each about fifteen or sixteen centimeters in diameter, had fallen, nothing more came out of Feng Yue’s storage spiritual ring. The flames at the bottom of the furnace became even more intense, yet the surrounding heat strangely disappeared.

“What’s going on?” Lin Dong wondered in surprise.

“Senior Feng uses his spiritual energy to trap all the heat near the furnace, which makes the flames even more intense,” Yun Lan explained.

Lin Dong was amazed. He had seen Feng Yue set up spiritual arrays before, but this was his first time witnessing artificer work. Every move Feng Yue made seemed novel to him.

After a while, the dark metal blocks seemed to give in to the flames at the bottom, slowly softening before eventually turning into pools of black liquid.

But Feng Yue didn’t stop there. With another wave of his right hand, many items fell from his storage spiritual ring—fire-red powders, black wooden blocks, light-blue soil… These items melted and merged instantly upon contact with the black liquid, which miraculously began to turn silver-white.

Only when all the black water in the furnace had turned silver-white did Feng Yue stop pouring in more materials. After that, he focused entirely on channeling spiritual energy, and the flames at the bottom of the furnace began to change rhythmically—sometimes dazzlingly bright, sometimes dim and faint—while the crimson furnace itself also shifted in brightness and color. Inside the furnace, the silver water changed again; over time, it began to emit a faint green light. Driven by the flames, this green light grew stronger, gradually turning the entire mass of silver water green. As more and more green water appeared, Yun Lan’s expression grew increasingly serious.