Chapter 506 — Rebecca's Hunt
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 5
It was a dark age. The once-glorious light of civilization lay scattered on the ground, and the iron chains of theocracy and royal power bound both land and people. Far off there was the demon tide upon the wasteland; near at hand there were the savage beasts of the wild. To survive was a matter requiring immense courage and effort.
But it was also an age of "innocence"—an iron aristocratic order upheld an iron "aristocratic spirit," and the rule-makers, drunk on their own "glory" and "orthodoxy," stubbornly enforced dogmatized morals and regulations. The existence of the transcendent had established the law that "power triumphs over wisdom," and everyone was accustomed to settling matters of high and low on the open battlefield by sheer strength; schemes and machinations beyond that became shallow, half-hearted things, stagnating for a thousand years without progress.
So people of this era, anywhere outside the battlefield, were fated to be outmatched by an old schemer who had been hanging up in the sky for hundreds of thousands of years.
Naturally, Gao Yang himself rather thought that every one of his plans was quite upright and honorable...
Heidi had studied under Gao Yang for two years now, yet she still often failed to follow the Xuanmai Sect's way of thinking. It took her a moment to catch on: "You... intend to do business with the Eastern Legion and the Royal Army at the same time?"
"They have gold coins and resources, and we have industrial products. It is a highly profitable trade," Gao Yang said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Heidi hesitated. "But the Eastern Legion has very likely already been secretly colluding with the cultists... If we sell potions to them, would that not amount to helping those Wanmingji heretics..."
Gao Yang looked at Heidi. "First, do not forget that even before the civil war broke out, some of the Cecil Chamber of Commerce's retailers had already made contact with the Eastern Legion. A small-scale potion trade has been going on all along; it simply was never expanded. Second... do you really think that if we sell potions to the Eastern Legion, they will truly come out ahead?"
Heidi thought for a moment, and the vanished faces of the last batch of "friendly trade partners" to whom Cecil had dumped industrial products surfaced in her mind...
Ah, the grass on Viscount Carroll's grave must be a foot tall by now, mustn't it? And Earl Horsman's corpse still seemed not to have been pieced back together completely...
"Broaden your horizons, loosen your thinking," Gao Heng said unhurriedly—though the Heidi before him was already an adult, he had lately, perhaps because he was constantly being addressed as "Ancestor," grown ever fonder of lecturing people. "Do not cling to immediate profit; there is great learning in the balance between gain and loss."
"I understand," Heidi said, nodding repeatedly with a serious expression. "I will go contact Patrick."
"Have Patrick organize a group of sufficiently clever yet relatively low-profile merchants to handle this matter. We must do business with everyone, but certain business cannot be conducted too ostentatiously," Gao Yan nodded. "In addition, send someone to the weapons design bureau to study how 'export-model weapons' ought to be made..."
...
While Gao Yang and Heidi were discussing plans for the Cecil Duchy's "foreign trade," deep in the dense forest west of Xuanyao City, a special company was moving swiftly and cautiously among vines and undergrowth.