I look at his face of resignation, smiling.

“It’s good that you know your situation well. I want enough goods to fill 30 stores.”

His pupils enlarge, shakily pointing his finger at me, he lets out, “T-that’s impossible! That’ll put almost all my shops out of business!!”

I know this of course. If the Bao family was financially capable enough to support this amount, they wouldn’t just be a merchant house, they’ll find some way to become nobility already.

“That’s a problem then... “, I pretend to frown in dissatisfaction.

“That’s not a request I can do, you may as well take my old life.”, he mutters strongly.

I was expecting him to negotiate, but he’s putting on the strong stance from the get-go, huh… I don’t think the owner of a merchant group would be riled up so easily of course, he’s merely doing it to leave himself more room for negotiation later by making me think he has nothing to lose.

I’ll play along in any case, It suits my wishes anyway.

“That’s really a problem, Father told me to have it ready…”, I mutter to myself, looking away.

This doesn’t escape his keen ears of course, he starts deliberating a bit, since if it’s the Duke’s plan, there’s little room for him to manuveur. It’s like if an ant were to try to fight an elephant, the ant can poke all it wants, but as long as the elephant stomps down, that’s the end of the ant.

Their positions are just too far apart. My father wouldn’t find it hard to destroy him, either physically or financially. He has good relations with the finance minister afterall.

As he hem and haws, suddenly, I seem to have been struck by a flash of inspiration, “How about you loan the products to us?”

“Loan you say?”, he asks quizzically.

“Yes, loan, I can’t say the reason, but I need to establish shops quickly. You can loan the products to us, and any portion of the product sold, we’ll give you 50% of the sales price. This way, you won’t be put in too much of a spot, and I’ll be able to fufill my task.”, I say confidently

He thinks to himself for a few seconds, before breaking out in laughter, “Alright then, since you thought for this old man so much, I’ll accept.”

I am still extorting him, but he’s still so happy to be extorted. The ‘reason’ i mentioned, he probably assumes to be the Duke, and since he can’t go against him in any case, paying this amount is more than fair. If he were to gain a connection to our house, it’ll be even better of course, which is why we have this situation where the extorted party thanks the extorter.

“Hahaha, it’s good that you are accepting, let’s keep this a secret between these four walls though.”, as I say that, I look at the Bao young master.

“Of course, of course, I won’t let the young master get punished for this, I’ll keep him in the house for a while.”, he says casually, staring at his son for a moment before returning back to his smile.

“I’ll be taking my leave then, Leticia here will handle the administrative work for the moving of goods.”, I wave my hands, casually walking away.

“Let me see you out, young lord.”, he says courteously.

“No need.”, I say without turning back.

After Leticia talks to him for a while and leaves, his lips let out a ‘tsk’.

“Can’t believe that there’ll be a day where I, Bao Jia Jun get extorted, by a Duke nonetheless. Sigh, this must be karma.”

He orders a servant in, instructing him to move the goods, adding that they should only move the goods for the storefront, and the remaining they would move slowly. He also asked the servant to break half of his carts after the first move.

“This should do it. At least with this connection ongoing for longer, I may be able to get some benefits elsewhere.”, he mutters to himself after dismissing the servant.