Dual Cultivation God Returns - Chapter 1056 - 1056: Not settling for small fish

The mansion in the Emerald Falls City was yet to start undergoing reconstruction, since they needed to set up some things in motion beforehand, which Old Yen’s team was working on at the moment.

One of those things was setting up a fake construction crew consisting of Old Yen’s subordinates they could ‘hire’ to rebuild the mansion.

They could then discreetly send a large number of Symbol Arts Masters and simple construction workers of the Soaring Feather Trading Company to do the actual work.

At the same time, Sui Luxiao proposed not to set a direct branch of the Soaring Feather Trading Company in the city, and instead search for a local small one they could take over as a proxy – already implementing the Inner-Outer Valley strategy.

This made Kwon Qianhong shed tears of happiness as he wouldn’t have to use blood-coughing amounts of money to purchase large amounts of properties suitable for a successful trading company – perhaps the most expensive property in any city.

Liang Yuhan followed suit, seeking to overtake one of the local information brokers in the city rather than establishing a direct branch – a task given to Nie Guanting-led trio, with full cooperation of Thousand Eyes Palace personnel.

—

“Hmm, there are no real giants here, right?”, Nie Guanting and his two companions sat around a small table in the quiet Emerald Falls City’s Wu Family Manor at night, looking at a prospective list of targets.

“By giants, you mean…?”, Old Yen carefully asked, already having a bad premonition about Wu Long leaving this job’s leadership to this former prince.

“The big ones, the Three Palaces or whatever…”

“None of those here, only locals, though they do readily cooperate with the Palace of Secrets”, Old Yen nodded, “But the Palace of Secrets only has eyes for the biggest one here, the Quiet Lake Hall, the rest are only trying to please them without much acknowledgement as far as we know”

“Mm, then we’ll take over that biggest one, Quiet Lake Hall”, Nie Guanting decisively nodded, crossing his arms with a satisfied expression.

“Wha-…? D-didn’t you hear what I just told you? They’re the only ones operating basically under the Palace of Secrets even if not directly subordinate. We’ll be picking a fight with the Palace of Secrets!”, Old Yen’s eyes turned round.

“Bahaha! Brother, you really never like to go for small fish, do you?”, meanwhile, Kwon Qianhong laughed, slapping Nie Guanting’s shoulder, which the latter barely felt.

“Of course!”, Nie Guanting grinned, “If we’re gonna take over someone, it should be the biggest fish in the pond!”

And then turning to Old Yen added, “And of course we’re picking a fight with that Palace of Secrets, do you think Boss is trying to avoid one? You heard him, right? The moment he gave me the reins on this one, it was basically like saying ‘start smashing things’ instead of treading carefully. It would be one thing if they had a direct branch here, but since it’s just a marginal local organization it’s not even a blip in the corner of the mind for them, they’ll not even blink at losing that, at least for now”

“That…”, Old Yen raised his finger to object but suddenly became hesitant as that finger froze and then slightly lost it’s momentum, “… actually does sound plausible”

After all, Wu Long rarely did things without meaning.

The moment the mission changed from simply taking over a location, perhaps even using some rough means, to taking over an already working organization, Wu Long would have switched the leadership role for the mission if he intended for them to be careful about who to take over, but instead he left Nie Guanting in charge regardless of the mission change.

“Meanwhile, we’ll not only take out their most reliable source of local information, but also place it under us, making us the dominant information brokers here displacing the Palace of Secrets influence – when they try to find another connection point here they’ll have to settle for a mediocre one that would be suppressed by us”, Kwon Qianhong traced his chin, seeing Nie Guanting’s intentions.

“Hehe, if we even let them back in”, Nie Guanting chuckled, “But that’s for Boss to decide”

“Alright, how are we going to proceed?”, Old Yen quickly shifted to another mindset.

“Smash in their door and go for their leader”, Nie Guanting placed his fist on the table, which made everything on it slightly jump, but then slowly opened that fist palm up, “…is what I’d like to say but Boss didn’t say I was doing this one alone, only the one in charge, so I guess we’ll have to make a plan like you guys love doing, so there is no spillover that would inconvenience Boss”

“Hehehe, don’t worry, brother, you’ll have plenty of smashing in doors and heads to do even if we do add some legwork before that”, Kwon Qianhong chuckled, “This one won’t go down quietly despite what its name might say”

Old Yen shook his head at the cavalier attitude of the two in the face of a job that required them to go against an organization with multiple Essence Gathering Realm experts at the top, and a leader at the 8th level, but his mind was already running calculations of what angles they could use to put pressure.

“Ah, about the construction crew… we can just use Lu Mang’s gang of dock workers to make up a cover for us, right? In fact, I think we’re going to closely cooperate with them on the whole taking over of the Quiet Lake Hall as well”, Kwon Qianhong asked, interrupting Old Yen’s thoughts.

“It seems that after our Princess swept through the competing violent gangs, there wasn’t much for them to protect, so Lu Mang and the core of his gang left the city. He did leave someone behind to manage things so that there isn’t a power vacuum in which other more violent gangs could spring up though, so I guess we’re going to cooperate with whoever he’s left in charge instead”

“That whoever won’t need another ‘lesson’ to cooperate with us, will he?”, Nie Guanting asked, raising his eyebrow.

“Heh, don’t worry, it’s someone from Lu Mang’s close circle as I heard. Someone who was there on the day Boss turned Lu Mang’s face into a swollen balloon, and who also knows who to thank that the more violent gangs terrorizing the docks are now gone”, Old Yen shook his head with a smile.

—

While Wu Long took the trio of Old Yen, Kwon Qianhong and Nie Guanting to the Wei Dynasty capital, their work in the Silver Wing City was taken over by the duo of Li Weifang and Steel Hand.

With the final minor auction finished, more intricate work involving Kwon Qianhong maximizing profits of the auction with background schemes was already done, and he already set up everything for the Main Auction in advance, so what remained was intercepting any attempts at interference or outright threats to the Soaring Feather Trading Company from both the Silverleaf Trade Hall and the Crow King’s Nest that finally carefully began its movements – a work more suited for the two who at this moment vastly outmatched the trio in terms of fighting prowess and lethality but still slightly lacked the resourcefulness.