By the time he slipped back into the secluded courtyard in the Silent Stone District without a soul noticing, the dense darkness at the eastern horizon had already begun to thin into the faintest trace of pale grey.
Dawn was nearly upon him.
He pushed open the chamber door. With the inheritance now almost within reach, his heart gave several involuntary, violent beats.
But his iron self-control reasserted itself in the very next instant.
"Not yet. Absolutely not — not now."
Lin Mu splashed cold water on his face and looked at his own bloodshot eyes in the bronze mirror, issuing himself a stern internal warning.
Digging laterally from the dry well all the way to the Grand Hall's foundations would be an enormous underground undertaking.
If he attempted it during the day — the students who rose early at the clan school, the elders who occasionally passed through — any one of those small variables could bring ruin down upon him.
"Last night's gains are more than enough. There's no need to tip anyone off just to rush the timetable."
Lin Mu drew a slow, deep breath and let the restlessness settle completely.
He sat cross-legged on the stone bed and ran through a brief cycle of breathing exercises to restore himself.
Then he reorganized his priorities in his mind.
"The half-jar of 'bitter wine' Jia Fu promised — I can collect that in a couple of days."
"For now, while the grand market is still running, I need to use the opportunity to source the remaining three premium wines from the bazaar. Full preparation for refining the Rank 2 Four-Flavor Liquor Worm comes first."
Full daylight arrived.
Black Blood Stockade woke to another day of noise and bustle.
Lin Mu changed into a set of entirely unremarkable clothes, blended into the flowing crowd, and walked with long strides into the roaring caravan encampment.
He passed through the outer ring — packed, reeking of sweat, free of charge — and made his way with practiced ease into the middle ring he had so carefully designed.
Shops lined every lane. The cries of vendors and the back-and-forth of haggling filled the air without pause.
Lin Mu's gaze swept across the wine stalls and caravan supply points, searching for premium vintages that would meet the refinement standard.
Then, as he passed a shabby, barely-noticeable wandering cultivator's stall tucked into a corner, his footsteps came to a dead stop.
Through the press of the crowd, Lin Mu spotted a face that caught him completely off guard.
Behind a low table draped with a worn cloth sat a scrawny, bare-chinned old man, cross-legged on a small stool.
"Old Ma?"
Lin Mu raised an eyebrow. Beneath the shadow of his bamboo hat, his expression turned distinctly peculiar.
This man — the black market intelligence broker who ought to have been skulking like a rat in the lightless back-alley shop on Grey Street for the rest of his days — was sitting brazenly in broad daylight, running a street stall in full public view.
At that moment, Old Ma had cornered a young low-rank Gu Master who looked barely past his first steps in the world, and was spinning him a tale with great enthusiasm.
"Young brother, today is your lucky day! See this Rank 1 Golden Root Gu?"
"I nearly died nine times over in the depths of the Ten Thousand Mountains to get my hands on this treasure!"
"I can tell you've got exceptional bones — you're a man of destiny. Tell you what: normally eighty Primeval Stones, but today I'll take the loss. Fifty. Take it."
The young man's eyes were practically shining. He had clearly swallowed every word. Face flushed with excitement, he was already reaching into his chest pocket to count out his meager savings.
"Shameless swindler."
Lin Mu gave a quiet internal shake of his head. That was plainly a Rank 1 Gu worm on its last legs, nearly dead of old age. And this old scoundrel had the nerve to ask fifty stones for it.
Lin Mu didn't hesitate. He pushed through the crowd and walked straight up.
"Shopkeeper. I'll take this one."
He deliberately lowered his voice, spoke flatly, and pressed his hand down on the Gu worm — cutting the transaction off before it could close.
Old Ma had been in full swing, the mark practically reaching for his coin. Being cut off mid-swindle sent a flash of fury across his face.
"Do you know how to behave?! Ever heard of first come, first served?! This young brother here saw it first—"
Old Ma snarled and swatted at Lin Mu's hand.
But when he looked up and his eyes met that pair of cool, faintly amused pupils peering out from beneath the bamboo hat's shadow, his hand froze mid-swing.
"Well if it isn't you, you little rascal!"
Old Ma blinked, then his expression shifted in an instant — the irritation dissolving into a thoroughly familiar grin.
He turned to the bewildered young man and waved him off like shooing a fly. "Go on, go on. This old man's not selling anymore. Off with you."
The young man looked utterly lost, but one glance at Old Ma's suddenly sharp eyes was enough. He clutched his coin pouch and slunk away.
Once the bystanders had dispersed, Lin Mu pulled over a stool and sat down, arms folded across his chest, regarding Old Ma with an expression of dry amusement.
"How do you have the nerve to come out and run a stall in broad daylight? Aren't you worried some old enemy spots you in the crowd and follows the thread back to settle a score?"
"Psh. So what?"
Old Ma stiffened, clearly stung, and put on an air of deliberate bravado. He jabbed a finger toward the Jia Clan Caravan's banner flying in the distance.
"This is the Jia Clan Caravan's encampment. Who would dare make a move here? If they've got the guts, let them come kill me in front of everyone — the Jia Clan's guards will mince them into paste!"
The words were bold enough.
But Lin Mu caught the brief, telltale flicker of unease that passed through Old Ma's eyes before it was suppressed.
Old Ma recovered quickly. He leaned a little closer to Lin Mu, dropped his voice, and launched into a boast with a face full of smug, barely-contained excitement.
"What do you know, boy? For a true merchant, having a market this size right on your doorstep and not showing up — that'd be worse than killing me!"
He jabbed a finger at the patch of ground beneath his feet — barely a zhang across — and spoke with great conviction.
"You know what this spot is? This is the middle ring. The highest foot traffic, the best conversion rate in the entire market outside the core zone."
"Word is, some brilliant figure in Black Blood Stockade came up with this whole system — a genuine commercial genius!"
"I paid a small fortune and called in favors three layers deep just to get this little stall."
"Envious, aren't you, boy? You couldn't dream up a money-making scheme like this in your lifetime!"
Lin Mu sat there listening to Old Ma praise the mastermind behind the market layout with breathless admiration — the same mastermind who was currently sitting directly in front of him.
The expression hidden beneath his bamboo hat became extremely difficult to maintain.
He nearly laughed out loud.
If this simple old fool ever found out that the 'brilliant figure' he's raving about — the shadowy hand behind all of it — is the very 'boy' sitting right in front of him, I wonder if his jaw would ever go back into place.
He had no intention of telling him, naturally.
"Alright, enough showing off your little stall."
Lin Mu reined in his amusement, straightened up, and cut to the point. "I came to find you today — good timing, as it happens."
His gaze sharpened on Old Ma as he spoke a single name, cold and flat.
"Wild Dog."
"The man I pulled out of that ruined temple when I was running your escort job. I need his current whereabouts."
The moment that name landed, Old Ma's self-satisfied expression vanished. He asked, almost reflexively:
"Wild Dog? What do you want with him? Did the two of you... have some kind of falling out?"
"Oh?"
Lin Mu let out a short, contemptuous laugh. "Old Ma. A few days apart and you've already forgotten the black market intelligence broker's oldest rule — no questions asked, only Primeval Stones accepted?"
"That's..." Old Ma faltered.
Lin Mu gave him no time to deliberate.
He flipped his wrist and produced a heavy cloth pouch from inside his robe, dropping it onto the worn stall table with a solid thud.
The mouth of the pouch fell open, revealing a neat stack of gleaming Primeval Stones inside.
On a middle-ring street stall in the middle of a bustling market, that sum was a visually staggering amount of money.
Old Ma's eyes went glassy. He swallowed, looked at the stones, looked at the young man in front of him, and stared with undisguised shock.
"You little... which money house did you rob lately? How are you this loaded?!"
Lin Mu had no intention of revealing the windfall from the market's rental income.
"Money's on the table. Give me the intelligence."
He tapped the surface once with his fingers. No room for argument.
Under the absolute weight of that sum, whatever small curiosity Old Ma had harbored was instantly devoured.
He swept the Primeval Stones into his robe with practiced efficiency, then fished a crumpled slip of paper from an inner pocket and handed it over — selling out Wild Dog without a moment's hesitation.
"Specific route's on there."
Lin Mu took the slip, glanced at it, and tucked it away.
He rose, dusted himself off, and turned to leave.
In that moment of turning, he caught sight of Old Ma still quietly gloating over the Primeval Stones. The corner of Lin Mu's mouth curved into a faint, cryptic smile.
"Old Ma. Since we know each other — I'll give you a heads-up."
He tilted his hat brim down and left behind a single remark that made no apparent sense.
"Don't worry. Stay here and run your stall. Before long, a very big piece of business is going to come looking for you."
"Hah? Big business? What big business? Speak plainly, boy!"
Old Ma stared after Lin Mu's retreating figure, calling out twice at full volume — but Lin Mu had already dissolved into the crowd and was gone, leaving the old man sitting at his stall, turning the cryptic parting words over in his head without making any sense of them.
Not long after Lin Mu left that out-of-the-way stall.
A young man in clean grey short-clothes, with refined features, wove through the crowd for some time before finally making his way to Old Ma's stall.
The young man looked at Old Ma, who was still sitting there in a daze, and spoke with polite, hopeful courtesy.
"Excuse me, elder. I was wondering — do you happen to carry any fine wine here?"
The newcomer was Lin Ping.