The Legend of Fangren

Chapter 116 If you say it again, I'll add more.

Outside the appraisal room, a long line of people were waiting, carrying and holding various packages.

Fang Shi silently joined the queue, estimating that he would be able to enter the house soon. However, it seemed that a dispute had broken out ahead of him, and the people in the queue stopped queuing and crowded to the door to watch the commotion. Since he was going to wait anyway, he decided to follow along and take a look.

Upon closer inspection, the person in the examination room was none other than Attorney Chu. His face was flushed red, and it was unclear what he was arguing about with the old man in front of him.

On the table between the two was a large package, the very one Fang Shi had given him; it was unexpected that he would bring it here.

Fang Shi squeezed through the crowd, and as soon as Attorney Chu saw him, his expression changed immediately, and he exclaimed with delight, "Brother Fang, what brings you here?"

Fang Shi asked him, "What happened? Is there something wrong with the package I sent you?"

"No." Attorney Chu shook his head and pulled him over. "Brother Fang, you've come at the right time. You have to put in a good word for me. This thing really was a gift from you. I didn't steal it."

"Yes, of course you didn't steal it."

"But he doesn't believe it." Attorney Chu pointed at the old man in front of him with a speechless expression, and Fang Shi finally met his gaze.

The old man spoke first, his face showing some disdain: "What, after arguing for so long, this is the fellow Daoist you're talking about? He's not even as tall as you, yet he dares to bring this along to make up the numbers."

Seeing that the old man hadn't even looked at him, Fang Shi said, "I gave him this. Is there a problem?"

"Hmph, a mere child with no cultivation dares to meddle? Go back to where you came from. Do you even know what's inside? And you dare to come and help him out?"

Fang Shi was puzzled and said, "Isn't it just gray iron ingots?"

"See?" The old man looked at Chu the Attorney with an air of certainty, "You've been fooled by him without even realizing it. This isn't ordinary gray refined iron; it's gray refined iron gold!"

Ah—the onlookers were all amazed.

Are you sure you're not mistaken? The rectangular object in this package is as thick and long as a leg. How much ore would it take to smelt such a large piece of gray refined iron?

Fang Shi thought for a moment, this thing is gray iron ingot, but what he gave me is refined gray iron smelted in a blast furnace. He thought this thing should just be gray iron of better quality, so how come it has now come up with the name "gray iron gold".

So he asked, "Even if this thing is made of gray-refined iron and gold, what makes you so sure he stole it?"

The old man snorted and said, "You brat, how could you know? Ordinary gray-refined iron ingots are already second-tier forging materials. If that were all, it wouldn't be so bad, since ordinary weapon shops can also smelt them. But gray-refined iron not only requires a large amount of ore to smelt, but also requires a weapon refiner to combine them with superb smelting techniques. A cartload of ore can barely produce a sandbag-sized amount. Looking at the entire Emerald City, it's a military material that only the Ministry of War of the imperial family can provide. Although it's nominally still second-tier forging material, its actual quality is comparable to third-tier. Even if other organizations had it, they wouldn't sell it. And he, of all people, carried it all in like this. If he didn't steal it from somewhere, how else could he have gotten it?"

The old man had been in this appraisal business for decades. He knew the tricks of the trade at a glance and had seen plenty of stupid thieves who were so greedy in selling stolen goods, even bringing them to jade shops. This one was even more outrageous; they actually wanted to put it on auction. Didn't they know that such stolen goods would be investigated as soon as they appeared on the display stand?

As a veteran appraiser in the jade business, if he were to let this item be displayed today, damaging the business's reputation, wouldn't he be ruining his reputation in his later years?

After listening, Fang Shi said, "In that case, why don't we just have the merchants send someone to the city to inquire? We can find out which shops are missing with just one look."

"Hahaha—" The old man burst into laughter, and after laughing, he shooed them away in a bad mood, "You two are really funny. Although gray refined iron gold is expensive, do you think the jade merchant cares about just one piece of gray refined iron gold?"

Moreover, the amount of gold in stock is a secret for every organization, and such a probing act of inquiring is extremely offensive. The business values ​​neutrality and reputation above all else, so don't even dream about it.

"Never mind—" Attorney Chu was used to being turned down. Since the old man had already said so, he wouldn't argue. He would just take the things away and avoid causing Brother Fang any more trouble.

Just as he was about to pick up his things and leave, Fang Shi stopped him and turned to ask the old man, "In your opinion, how much of the Gray Essence Iron Gold can those wealthy families with it sell at once?"

"We don't even have enough of this stuff for ourselves, why would we sell it? Even if we really wanted to sell it, the Ministry of War, various families, and sects have plenty of places that post notices to buy crude ore. With a little inquiry, we can find out who is offering the highest price. Why bother refining the crude ore into iron and gold? Selling the crude ore directly wouldn't make much difference in price, and the time saved would have been earned back several times over."

To put it bluntly, it's absurd to refine crude ore into refined iron without actually selling it yourself. Even if you refine the iron and sell it, it's no different from not refining it at all. The most valuable step in processing a batch of crude ore is finding and mining it. The subsequent steps are fixed and can be done in the city by paying money. You're just making a little money from transportation fees, aren't you?

"So I mean, what if?"

"————" The old man's patience was almost exhausted, and he said through gritted teeth, "I dare not speculate on the officials and the Ministry of War, but even some of the major sects in the city can only come up with a dozen or so times the amount of cash at most."

Upon hearing this, Fang Shi clapped his hands and said, "That makes things much easier."

Guess what? I still have more than thirty ingots left.

To everyone's astonishment, he tapped the Heavenly Ring on his hand, pretending to retrieve something, and then took out eighteen gray refined iron gold ingots from his backpack, placing them on the stone floor, where they were piled up into two complete squares.

Then he said, "Now you can prove that I didn't steal it, right? Even if I have a storage magic treasure, no sect would be so stupid as to not notice that so much of my stuff has been stolen."

"This—this—" The old man was speechless, still trying to argue, "Well, maybe he stole a little from each of the various sects—"

"Smack."

Fang Shi did not answer again, but silently took out another ingot.

Come on, old man, keep being stubborn, or I'll add more.

"Well—" The old man had lived most of his life, and he really was all talk and no action.

"Snap." Fang Shifeng casually added another coin.

The old man's lips trembled as he tried to open and close them, before he finally asked with difficulty, "Are you selling all of these?"

If such a large amount of gray iron and gold can be brought to the auction stage, tonight's auction will definitely be the most important one since the beginning of spring this year.

Fang Shi nodded and said, "If possible."

I still prefer your defiant attitude from just now.

"Okay, I'll go ask the manager right away." The old man was so excited that he stopped doing his appraisal work, grabbed a random apprentice to fill in, and went to the manager himself. He was afraid he wouldn't get a timely reply otherwise.

This is military supplies, an absolute hot commodity. If the jade merchant can bring this out, the value of this year's auction will definitely rise even higher.

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