Molting the Mortal Coil

After the meeting with Wan Ling, Sage learned that none of the other leading figures in the Prosperity Company had come along for the trip. Sage wouldn’t get to meet up with his three friends from so long ago, nor did Wan Ling bring her Beast Tamer Uncle. When he asked her about it, she said, “Since I had to come, I want as much of the Prosperity Companies other strength available to handle difficulties back in the Shihu Kingdom.”

Her glare was also a bit accusatory, since he’d been gone so many years and hadn’t contributed at all during that time. He started to apologize, but that meant he just slipped into his shameless suck up guise and she immediately cut him off. The next day, she was true to her word. Sage thought she would want to send her personal bodyguards away to better use their manpower, but she surprised him by taking the full Legion with her. In addition, she took along a large number of clerks, porters, and attendants. They traipsed through town and walked right up to the local branch of Thousand Treasures. She specifically instructed Sage to keep his mouth shut unless she asked him a question so he followed along quietly.

His business dealings in the past were pretty cut and dry, even the negotiation with the Cloudmetal Consortium had been quite terse. Last night he’d explained the deal to Wan Ling and she had shaken her head. She didn’t say why she was disappointed, but he knew he’d done something stupid along the way. I got access to a monopolized material basically for free and even gained a great channel to sell goods. What did I do wrong?

In the meeting with Thousand Treasures, Sage was a little lost. Wan Ling and the local branch leader were both talking quite calmly and politely over a cup of tea. For some reason, he felt like they were speaking in a code he didn’t understand. Eventually they got down to business and Sage was dumbfounded. Weren’t the terms that Thousand Treasures offered extremely terrible? Why was Wan Ling immediately accepting them with a smile? After a few hours they left Thousand Treasure and Wan Ling was smiling widely.

“What just happened? Why did you let them become our exclusive distributor with such a high cut? I know we need to work together with them, but giving them fifty percent of the profit seems absurd! You even signed over rights for all our future products in Shihu Kingdom. Isn’t this the worst deal ever?”

“Haha, that’s why I told you to stay quiet. You drastically underestimate the power of the Four Major Businesses in Dou Kingdom. The deal we just made will secure our products even more than in the Shihu Kingdom.”

“What? Secure? I thought the goal was to make money, what are you talking about?”

“How much money will we be making when others copy your ‘engines’ as you call them? Do you think nobody can break the protection arrays? We’ve already been facing this issue in the Shihu Kingdom, and competitors have started to appear. The Holy Flame Sect has become involved to wipe out all those who have copied your devices. Thousand Treasures may have set some harsh terms, but they have a stranglehold on the magical tool market in Dou Kingdom. Nobody will dare to copy their designs once they’ve declared exclusive ownership.”

“So, you mean?”

“The Airship Engine market in Dou Kingdom will now exclusively belong to Thousand Treasures and as their supplier, we will benefit the most. Unless you wish to sell them the production rights. That would be a lot easier logistically, but will drastically shrink our revenue.”

Sage wasn’t sure how Wan Ling knew so much already, nor how she negotiated all of that with Thousand Treasures so quickly. He could only think that she’d been in communication with them beforehand and this meeting had been planned in advance. When he’d been telling her about the Four Major Businesses, she hadn’t seemed all that surprised. Only now did he realize that she was likely just humoring him. He’d told her of his plans years ago, so she must have done a lot of groundwork before this. Sage was just glad he didn’t have to handle more business.

After the meeting they went to the City Lord’s Manor and Sage introduced Wan Ling to all of his subordinates as the City Lord. Then he instructed them to give her the same deference that he enjoyed. He put Jiyao, Juzui, Baozhai, Tujiu, and Songji into Wan Ling’s hands. Sage only planned on taking Ruanfu along with him to continue his plans outside Lionheart Town, but then Wan Ling stopped him.

“You can’t take the most powerful defender away at the most vulnerable time. I wouldn’t even agree with you leaving either, but securing your territory can prevent future problems. Ruanfu needs to stay, but you can take the others instead.”

Sage felt very close with Ruanfu and so he was eager to help her get her revenge all these years. Now that he was planning on moving out once more, he immediately thought to take her along, but now he realized that was a bit risky. She was right, Lionheart Town was at its most vulnerable and he needed to ensure it was well defended. Baozhai jumped out and ran over to him, “Yay, let’s get going Boss!”

He smiled at her response, but he shook his head, “Sorry, Baozhai. I was getting too excited. Wan Ling is right. I need most of you here to protect our position. It’s been my goal for nearly a century to recover my ancestral home and rebuild my clan. Now that we’ve finally got it back, I can’t lose it again.”

Sage’s golden eyes traveled over each of them before stopping on the girl in a catsuit, “Songji is the only one I’ll be taking along this time. The rest of you stay here with your Legions and defend Lionheart Town. If you can’t handle the responsibility I’ll just have to bring your mother’s out to give you some motivation.”

At the mention of moms, they immediately stood up straight and cupped their fists, giving Sage a salute, “We will work hard, Boss!”

“Sorry, Ruanfu. If I catch up with Whitestaff I will try to catch her and bring her back to you.”

Ruanfu nodded and the others were reminded of their own reason for doing all of this and their faces became more solemn. Sage wasn’t planning on chasing Whitestaff down just yet, but they hadn’t been able to pin down just where she’d gone to. It was possible to run into her at any time.

While the others were jealous, they were dutiful and now they had time to keep playing around in Lionheart Town. Sage left Wanqian Lei with Ruanfu and then took Songji with him. They brought along two Legions, the two thousand Dragoon’s lifting into the air. Sage brought an airship of his own and boarded with Songji. The thousands of bug soldiers surrounded them like a cloud as they took to the air. Their first goal being to round up all the squads of the Jade Horde that were working as mercenaries in 10,000 Wave Province. Wu Chang had been quite arrogant and there were only a few squads operating in each of the counties of the province. That meant only a little more than a thousand of them in the whole province and spread out into groups of a hundred.