Establishing the Shop

After listening, Liu Yunan rubbed the teacup in his hands and fell into deep thought.

Qin Jianghe did not speak further, but took out a ledger to start making preparations. He was just waiting for the royal family to receive the demand lists from the various sects in a couple of days so he could register them one by one.

This was the sect's second stable business after their trades with the Duobao Pavilion, so he had to treat it with careful attention.

After a long while, Liu Yunan thoroughly pondered and digested Lin Xiao's thoughts as relayed by Qin Jianghe. Once he completely figured it out and understood, he suddenly felt as if his mind had been cleared of all obstructions.

Looking up at Qin Jianghe opposite him, his eyes were clearer than ever before.

Seeing him organizing the ledger, Liu Yunan asked, Are we still going to open a shop in the capital?

Qin Jianghe nodded and replied, Naturally, we have to. With a shop, we will have a cover for our future transactions with the royal family. Otherwise, it would be too conspicuous if our people had to enter the imperial city for talks every time we made a trade. Besides, this shop will have many other uses in the future.

With the foundation of their previous conversation, Liu Yunan felt that he understood the underlying meaning in Qin Jianghe's words much better now.

A sense of accomplishment inexplicably welled up in his heart, and he spoke with more confidence.

Then let's hurry up and find a shop recently to settle this matter. After that, we need to rush back to the sect; there is still a whole pile of matters waiting for us there.

Qin Jianghe also wanted to finalize this early so he could go back, bring his core team over, and start running the business.

Alright.

Thus, over the next few days, the two began searching all over the capital for a suitable location.

They figured that since they were opening a shop, it naturally couldn't be situated in a place that was too deserted. Although their original intention was not to actually do business on the streets of the capital, they still needed to keep up appearances. Furthermore, a somewhat bustling shop would look more normal in the eyes of others.

However, it couldn't be too bustling either. If the foot traffic was too high and the shop was overly lively, it would attract too much attention and become a hassle.

Therefore, the location had to be carefully weighed and considered.

Fortunately, Mo Yuanjiao had previously taken Qin Jianghe through the streets and alleys to familiarize him with the area, so the two of them now had a rough idea of every part of the entire capital, which saved them a lot of time.

Now, they merely needed to find a specific shop that suited their needs and happened to be for sale.

As for a sect station, Lin Xiao had already discussed this issue with them previously.

Given the current scale of the Lingxian Sect, they unanimously felt that there was no need to establish something like a sect station within the capital for the time being.

The task of transmitting information from the capital was temporarily taken over entirely by Mo Yuanjiao.

Mo Yuanjiao had already set up an intelligence department in his own home. He also had Baojian select some capable and reliable people from the household to specifically organize his own intelligence team.

He had already informed his father and his two older brothers about this matter, asking them to notify his intelligence department if there was any news in the imperial court that might be relevant to them.

Consequently, the study in Mo Yuanjiao's courtyard within the Mo residence was temporarily serving as the Lingxian Sect's station.

It just so happened that there were no female family members left in their home right now, making it much more convenient for the intelligence department personnel to go in and out.

Li Zhouxuan also knew about this.

After all, if there was anything he needed to contact the Lingxian Sect about in the future, he would have to go through here on the surface.

As for the covert matters like their business, Qin Jianghe and the others had told him that they would inform him once they had secured a location.

Thus, two days later, Qin Jianghe and Liu Yunan purchased a shop in an area that was neither too bustling nor too deserted.

The front of the shop was of average size, standard enough for opening a store to sell goods.

The main draw was the backyard.

The backyard was actually quite large. Aside from a particularly massive warehouse, it was divided into a small two-courtyard layout with quite a few rooms. It was exceptionally suitable for the Lingxian Sect, which had a bunch of disciples urgently needing to come out, walk around, and broaden their horizons.

So, after earnestly haggling with the seller, Qin Jianghe and Liu Yunan sealed the deal at a price that both parties found acceptable.

It cost a total of nine thousand six hundred taels.

After all, this was the capital.

And it was a shop capable of operating a business.

Even though the location was relatively average, the land prices in the capital dictated that it could not possibly be cheap.

This price almost emptied the Lingxian Sect's current savings—referring, of course, to the sect's current silver reserves.

A large portion of this was also thanks to the inventory found in the storage bag of that Nascent Soul cultivator, Wei Hai.

He had probably kept it in his storage bag for the convenience of traveling through the mortal realm.

It certainly saved Qin Jianghe and the others the trouble of exchanging for silver.

Throughout the entire process of finding and buying the shop, both of them wore disguise masks and altered their figures.

Coupled with the Peach Leaf Pendants they wore and their use of concealment spells, no one noticed anything. For the household registration used in the purchase, Qin Jianghe used Gu Yuxiao's register. A while ago, Qin Jianghe had set up a female household register for her in Songyang County, so she now constituted her own independent household.

Because of all this, absolutely no one in the capital noticed their actions.

A couple of days after the shop was secured, the imperial court and the three major sects finalized the various details regarding the crusade against the Huanyou Kingdom, and Liu Yunan and Qin Jianghe were summoned into the imperial palace once again.

They met in the emperor's study as before.

This time, aside from Li Zhouxuan, there was no one else in the study.

As soon as Qin Jianghe and Liu Yunan entered, the tall, heavy doors were closed from the outside. Liu Yunan lightly swept the area with his divine sense and found that there was absolutely no one else around.

Because Qin Jianghe had been staying in Songyang County and rarely had the chance to return to the sect to cultivate properly, Liu Yunan, who had been cultivating alongside him, had already reached the Foundation Establishment stage. This was despite Qin Jianghe diligently cultivating whenever he had free time and seizing every opportunity to slip into the cultivation room whenever he returned to the sect.

However, the ambient spiritual energy outside was fundamentally far inferior to that within the Lingxian Sect. Even with the assistance of the Peach Blossom Spirit Gathering Array, the cultivation environment was still much more difficult than inside the sect.

Therefore, Qin Jianghe's cultivation was currently only at the seventh level of Qi Condensation.

As such, he could not yet project his divine sense outward.

After Liu Yunan confirmed the surrounding environment, he gave him a slight nod.

The two then walked further inside and took their seats.

Li Zhouxuan greeted them politely.

This time, he did not sit in the seat of honor on his dragon throne, but instead sat opposite the two of them.

After they sat down and took a sip of tea, Li Zhouxuan exchanged a few pleasantries, then picked up three thick ledgers and one ledger that was more than half as thin from the adjacent desk, saying:

These four ledgers are the demand lists from the Qinghe, Yunyan, and Shangyang sects, as well as our Li clan, for this occasion. Among them are some items that were not on the list provided by your esteemed sect. Please look them over, you two, and see if those items can be procured.

Saying this, he was just about to hold the ledgers, stand up, and walk over to hand them over, when Liu Yunan immediately and highly skillfully raised his right index finger and gave a slight hooking motion toward the four ledgers in Li Zhouxuan's hand. As if supported by an invisible force, the four ledgers slipped out of Li Zhouxuan's grasp and flew over to Liu Yunan.