White Cloud City was the economic heart of the Yan Clan. The city prospered behind towering walls, its streets filled with medicinal shops supplying cultivation pills across the southern region.
But today, the market was sluggish.
The disappearance of the Second Elder, Yan Bohai, and his forces had thrown the Yan Clan into paranoia. They withdrew liquid assets, tightened security, and imposed new protection taxes. Merchants complained, and the common people grew uneasy.
Amid this unrest, a simple black merchant carriage entered the city gates. There was no sect banner—only a small golden scale emblem painted on its door.
Yan Kesh stepped down from the carriage. He wore a maroon silk merchant robe, his face concealed behind an elegant half-mask. Behind him, He Qiu played the role of a silent guard, carrying a large chest on his back.
"Remember the plan, He Qiu," Yan Kesh whispered through voice transmission. "We're not here to kill. We're here to dump the market."
They walked toward the Thousand Medicine Pavilion, the largest shop owned by the Yan Clan.
Inside the store, the shop manager—a fat man named Yan Fu—was scolding his employees over the shortage of Blood Ginseng.
"Blood Ginseng takes fifty years to mature! Where am I supposed to get more on short notice?!" Yan Fu roared.
"I heard you need aged goods, Manager."
Yan Fu turned and saw Yan Kesh standing at the entrance, an aura of mystery and wealth radiating from him.
"And who might you be, sir?"
"You may call me the Time Merchant."
Yan Kesh gestured to He Qiu.
He Qiu opened the chest.
Wush.
A dense medicinal fragrance instantly filled the room. Inside the chest lay ten neatly arranged stalks of Blood Ginseng. They were large, with long roots like an old man's beard, their color a perfect deep crimson.
Yan Fu's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
"T-This… Blood Ginseng… Five hundred years old?!" he shouted hysterically. "Even a single stalk is rare… and you have ten?!"
Yan Kesh smiled behind his mask.
Of course they were 500-year ginseng.
Technically.
Yesterday, they had merely been ordinary ginseng seedlings barely a month old. Yan Kesh had placed them near Qiu Moren's chamber for one hour. The temporal radiation leaking from the Stasis Cage had forced the ginseng to age hundreds of years in an instant.
The result?
They looked old, smelled old, and carried the aura of age.
But at their core, they were hollow. Artificially ripened by entropic radiation. Consuming them wouldn't extend lifespan—instead, the accumulated aging would be transferred to the eater.
"What price do you offer?" Yan Kesh asked casually.
"I… I…" Yan Fu trembled. The Yan Clan desperately needed medicine to treat their Young Master. "I'll buy them all! Five thousand Spirit Stones!"
It was an extremely high price—enough to nearly drain the shop's reserves.
"Deal," Yan Kesh said as the chest snapped shut. "Cash. Now."
Yan Fu rushed to the vault, scraping together every bit of wealth the shop possessed before handing it over.
Yan Kesh accepted the spatial pouch filled with Spirit Stones.
He had just traded radioactive trash for real money.
"Pleasure doing business with you," Yan Kesh said.
"Sir, do you have more stock?" Yan Fu asked greedily.
"Of course. I'll return tomorrow with One-Thousand-Year Lingzhi Mushrooms."
Yan Kesh left the store.
Inside the carriage, he tossed the pouch to He Qiu.
"One shop drained of liquidity. And soon…" Yan Kesh looked toward the Yan Clan's main pavilion in the distance. "...their leader will consume that time poison."
"Master," He Qiu asked, "will the ginseng kill the Yan Young Master?"
"Not immediately. It will make him feel better for a moment… and then he'll begin aging rapidly. They'll panic—and they'll need more medicine."
"And guess who will be the only supplier of aged medicine in this city?"
Yan Kesh grinned.
"We'll drain the Yan Clan dry until they sell their ancestral treasure—the Moon-Reversal Mirror—just to buy fake medicine from me."