The long queue became shorter after some of the buyers broke off and left with the other rice merchants' men.

Hun Xiong Kun shook his head when he saw it, but he was too busy to be bothered with it.

Soon, all the other rice stores were back to business as usual, and they had unanimously decided to sell the rice at what Hun Xiong Kun was selling.

However, most of the buyers still preferred to buy from Hun Xiong Kun's rice store, and his business was apparently much better than the other rice stores.

Overall, the mood had finally lightened up in the city with what was happening, and it made the Governor very happy.

The Governor had gotten the news of what was happening from his men and all that he could think of was how Lin Xuan Qi was right.

Lin Xuan Qi's plan had made use of the cunning and suspicious nature of the rice merchants to make them doubt each other.

And once the first rice merchants wanted to save their own skin and sold off their stock of rice, the dominoes would begin to fall.

He stood up and sighed when he thought about how Lin Xuan Qi would be able to benefit the poor citizens of the Da Qian Dynasty if he wanted to.

The Governor thought about Lin Xuan Qi and the Dark Lord again.

Both of them were so similar and so different.

They were similar in some of their thoughts about how things would work, but they were different in what they had sought after.

The Dark Lord's goal was to overthrow the emperor and become the new emperor to rule the Da Qian Dynasty according to his ideal of everyone having a chance of getting a good life.

Cultivators and clans would be abolished.

But Lin Xuan Qi was apparently more interested in his own business.

The Governor wasn't sure if Lin Xuan Qi wasn't keen to salvage the citizens of the Da Qian Dynasty, or if he thought that it was impossible.

Thoughts about how he might be able to steer Lin Xuan Qi in the directions he wanted came into the Governor's mind.

But he would have to be able to do it discreetly.

The Governor walked over to the windows and glanced into the distant mountains.

...

In the mountains to the north of Hong Feng City.

Candlelight flickered with the wind in the cave's hollowing.

Shadows of two men danced as the flames of the candles swayed left and right.

"Hehehe, Dark Lord, where shall we be going?" Eunuch Xin bowed at the Dark Lord and asked.

The Dark Lord put down his teacup and sighed.

Everything hadn't gone according to his plan, and it was time for him to have a change of plan.

Autumn was coming and the farmers would be dealing with the harvest.

They wouldn't be interested in his sermons of an equal society, so he had to figure out something else before he could take down the corrupted officials of the Da Qian emperor.

And with Qing Feng Sect and the other sects on his trail, it was time for him to lie low and recuperate.

The Dark Lord glanced over at Eunuch Xin and said, "Follow me to the secret realm nearby."

"Secret realm?" Eunuch Xin was intrigued.

He had never heard of any secret realm in the vicinity but he wasn't too surprised with it.

The Dark Lord had been able to travel through the lands of the Da Qian Dynasty and knew many of its secrets.

Even the historians in the imperial palace weren't as knowledgeable as the Dark Lord.

"It's a secret realm left by the ancestors of the Storm Fist Thunder Sect.

"Their sect leaders had a power struggle after their ancestors passed away.

"Hence, secrets like these weren't passed down and the sect began its fall to oblivion soon after."

The Dark Lord explained, and Eunuch Xin nodded.

Eunuch Xin didn't know what level of cultivation the Dark Lord was at, but he figured that the Dark Lord might have been at least eight hundred years old to know so many things.

He kept quiet as he saw the Dark Lord standing up from his seat and waving at him.

Eunuch Xin quickly got to work and took out a jade bottle from his sleeve pocket.

The jade bottle glowed in a green glow and everything that was in the cave began to be sucked into the jade bottle.

Tables, chairs, teapots and other items miraculously became smaller and went into the jade bottle.

He quickly followed closely behind the Dark Lord.

...

"What should we do now!" An old woman cried her lungs out, wailing on the ground.

In front of her was a rice merchant who had aged within a day.

His eyes looked soulless, and he glanced away from his mother.

The gamble he took had backfired, and now he owed the loan sharks a hundred taels of gold.

High interests from his loan to buy more rice supplies had snowballed and with what was happening, the loan sharks had come to his house and grabbed all the valuable things he had as collateral.

The once lavish and luxurious house he had was now empty.

His servants stood by the side still reeling from the beatings from the loan sharks.

They glanced at their master to see if he had anything for them.

But their master was out of any other options.

"Leave if you want to... I will give you back your slavery contract..." Their master sat onto the ground and said.

He couldn't afford to feed them now, and it was best to let them go before they ganged up and turned against him.

The stock of rice he had would have to be sold at a cheap price and even then, it wouldn't be able to cover the loans that he took from the loan sharks.

It was over for him and as he had expected, some of the servants came up to him for their slavery contract.

There were no words exchanged between master and servant for one last time.

Only silence.

One by one, the servants left after getting their slavery contract and tore it up.

The same thing happened across Hong Feng City for many of the rice merchants.

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