103 Bluffing

Flor had made a dramatic return and announced that he had taken back the mineral rights of Goblin Forest.

Wenger received the news at once, and he merely smiled.

For Wenger, the trade in Goblin Forest’s minerals was, one way or another, always to his advantage.

Even if Flor succeeded in working with the necromancers to mine the ore, Wenger would still be the biggest winner.

For one thing, after decades, perhaps even centuries, of extraction, no one knew how much ore remained in Goblin Forest. Even if it could still be mined for another few decades or even another century, exchanging it for two-thirds of the Silver Coin Merchant Guild’s holdings would still mean Wenger came out ahead.

More importantly, the Silver Coin Merchant Guild had never been involved in mining before. Those businesses had always been in Wenger’s hands, and the channels had always been under his control. Even if Flor succeeded in mining the ore, he would still have no choice but to cooperate with Wenger.

When the time came, the profits Wenger ought to make would still be there for the taking. So he did not pay the matter much attention. After hearing the news, he simply continued busying himself with taking over the Silver Coin Merchant Guild’s assets.

Of course, during this entire process, Wenger was also keeping an eye on the internal situation within the guild.

He had seen the recent upheaval within the Silver Coin Merchant Guild with his own eyes. He understood the guild’s true situation more clearly than Flor did; otherwise, he would not have been able to sell the Goblin Forest assets to Flor so quickly and so ruthlessly.

Wenger even knew clearly that Flor should never have been able to come back. Now that he had returned alive, there was going to be a fine show to watch in the Silver Coin Merchant Guild.

Wenger was rather curious to see how the guild’s steward planned to deal with Flor.

While Wenger watched from across the river, Flor had already returned to the Silver Coin Merchant Guild with those twelve tier-three undead.

As one of the former magnates of Sand Silver City, Flor still had the standing to bring undead into the guild. Of course, if those twelve undead caused any trouble, Flor would have to bear the corresponding responsibility.

Inside the Silver Coin Merchant Guild, though almost no one there was Flor’s confidant at this point, many of the guild members still broke into smiles when they learned that Flor had truly reached an agreement with the undead.

Whatever the case, Flor’s success in securing the Goblin Forest mines was indeed excellent news for the guild at present.

Whether they were goblins who truly cared about the Silver Coin Merchant Guild or goblins who hoped to seize the opportunity for themselves, all of them wanted the guild to grow as strong as possible.

Of course, not everyone inside the Silver Coin Merchant Guild welcomed this development. After Flor’s steward learned that Flor had returned safely, his mood remained poor.

It was not that he feared Flor and the necromancers joining forces against him. He had watched Flor for more than ten years and considered himself to know him inside and out.

Given Flor’s temperament, if Flor ever discovered that he was the one behind everything, he would probably collapse on the spot.

In his view, Flor’s ostentatious, high-profile return clearly meant that he did not know who had orchestrated the murder of his father, nor did he know that the steward had sent men to kill him.

In his estimation, this had most likely been the work of those three fools, who had tried to use magical beasts to kill someone and ended up making a complete mess of it.

As a result, Flor had survived and returned, forcing the steward’s carefully prepared plan to be put on hold for the time being.

And just as the steward was growing increasingly displeased, Flor had already returned to the guild and gone straight to him.

The moment he reached the steward, Flor showed no trace of anything unusual. He threw himself into the steward’s arms at once. Gone was his earlier smugness and swagger; now he was weeping in a loud, miserable wail, sobbing out phrases like, "I’m not a wastrel. I’m not worthless," and the like in a voice choked with emotion.

At that moment, the steward could not help but stiffen.

There was one thing the steward had not been wrong about: after his father’s death, Flor had clearly come to regard him as his last support.

Seeing Flor in tears, clinging to him as his final reliance, even the steward’s heart softened a little. He thought to himself, Fine. So he’s back. In any case, he is only an ignorant child. As long as I keep an eye on him and make sure he does not ruin my business again, keeping him alive is not impossible.

After that outburst of astonishing acting, Flor finally calmed down under the steward’s comfort, after a round of heart-rending sobs and tears.

Once his emotions had steadied, Flor began boasting to the steward with great enthusiasm.

He basically repeated what the steward had already heard, but perhaps because he was speaking before the steward, the version he gave this time was slightly different from before.

There was far less exaggeration, and his emotions were far more believable. When he spoke of the guards fleeing, his face was full of anger; when he spoke of Commander Karron, he was bright with excitement. In the end, he even told the steward smugly about the cooperation between himself and Karron.

Flor said that Karron had saved him and cooperated with him for his own reasons.

Since Karron had saved him, Flor had to pay him for it. At this, the steward frowned, but then the frown eased, because Flor went on to say that Karron did not want anything else as payment. He only wanted the Whisper of the Dead and corpses.

Moreover, for their future work mining the Goblin Forest’s ore, they would not want gold or silver or anything of the sort. They wanted only corpses and the Whisper of the Dead.

At that, the steward’s eyes lit up at once.

He had not been particularly surprised when he first learned that Flor had reached an agreement with a necromancer, but hearing that Karron’s payment was only the Whisper of the Dead and corpses instantly put him on his toes.

As a seasoned merchant, he had sharply caught the scent of an opportunity.

And just as the steward’s attention was fully drawn in, Flor very promptly produced a list of the mined goods.

That list recorded the ore Karron had obtained after taking control of Goblin Forest. Being extremely sensitive to money and assets, the steward roughly calculated that the value of that ore alone was at least fifty gold coins.

What did fifty gold coins mean? It was equivalent to fifty million RMB. For the Silver Coin Merchant Guild as it stood now, that was wealth no one could afford to ignore. Yet all Karron wanted was merely ten thousand blooms of the Whisper of the Dead, along with one hundred tier-two corpses and ten tier-three corpses.

After doing the math, the steward realized that he could obtain everything Karron needed for less than five gold coins. With tenfold profits staring him in the face, his eyes instantly turned red...