Chapter 4827 — Bargain Hunting
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"What choice did she have but to consent? The East Sea Vice Dean may hold an exalted position, but Morning Star Academy is not hers to decide alone. With so many academy higher-ups coming forward together, never mind the East Sea Vice Dean—even the Dean, Ling Yuanqing, could not simply overrule them with a word," Old Chai said, shaking his head.
"Not only that—from what I hear, Morning Star Academy's chief alchemist has already privately allied with the great families' guilds. He played a major role in this; it was his intervention that led the academy to finally decide on holding this grand auction," Cui Mingshan added.
The chief alchemist holds an extraordinarily lofty status in any East Continent Yellow-Tier academy. Take Xiangyun Academy before—Ren Tiansuo's position was second only to the dean's. At Morning Star Academy, even if it was not quite so extreme, it was still no small matter, especially since he naturally had considerable say in matters of partnership.
No academy would ever slight its own chief alchemist for the sake of some outside merchant guild. After all, there were plenty of powerful merchant guilds, but if the chief alchemist up and left, finding a qualified replacement would be very difficult—it could even affect the strength of a great many academy disciples. Not a thing to be taken the least bit lightly.
Wei Zhao nodded thoughtfully, then suddenly recalled the sixth- and seventh-grade pills he had seen in the display cases downstairs and asked, "Since the academy alchemists are already allies of other guilds, where did those sixth- and seventh-grade pills downstairs come from? Were they supplied by other branches?"
"You jest, Vice President Lin. The two of us are new here—we haven't even met the managers of the other Hong Clan branches. Who would be kind enough to supply us? Pills of that grade bear directly on performance records; everyone's too busy hoarding their own. Only if the relationship were especially good might someone tide you over in an emergency—and you'd have to pay it back right away, or no amount of begging would help!" Old Chai said with a bitter laugh.
In a sense, competition among the various Hong Clan Merchant Guild branches was even fiercer than with outside guilds. After all, competition with other guilds only concerned the guild's interests, whereas competition among branch managers bore directly on one another's prospects.
"Then where did they come from?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled. As far as he knew, sixth- and seventh-grade pills were not something ordinary supply channels could provide. Either the Hong Clan Merchant Guild supplied them internally, or one worked with academy alchemists—there was hardly a third path.
"To be frank with you, Old Cui and I bought every one of these pills bargain-hunting, one by one, from other cities. It's basically all loss-making business, but we had to keep up appearances—no way around it," Old Chai said miserably.
Wei Zhao was rather taken aback at this and looked at Old Chai and Cui Mingshan with a touch of pity. For the manager and deputy manager of a Hong Clan Merchant Guild branch to have fallen to such a state—truly, they had it rough. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you are welcome to cast
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