Chapter 630 - Two Familiar Names
Lin Mu got interested in this so called Council of merchants and asked more about it. He discovered that it was composed of ten merchants, some of which represented large and prominent merchant families.
Though there were two names that caught Lin Mu's attention. The first name was none other than the Mu clan which Wu Hei had visited in his younger years. This was also the clan from which Lin Mu had disguised himself as.
The second name that caught his attention was actually an individual merchant who had made his own company and grown it quite a bit. He recently reached the point where he had managed to buy a position in the council by outbidding others.
This individual merchant was actually someone Lin Mu had met before, Jingming Shang!
"Tell me more about the Mu clan and Jingming Shang." Lin Mu asked.
"Hmm… the Mu clan is in a difficult state right now." The waiter spoke.
"Oh? Why's that?" Lin Mu questioned.
"We do not know exactly why, as the matter was suppressed by both the royal family and the other members of the merchant council, but we do know that the Mu clan has fallen greatly in their status.
Even their position in the merchant council is now threatened and could be taken away at any moment." The waiter replied.
"But how could such a drastic change happen?" Lin Mu asked further, having a bad feeling about it.
"It hall happened around three years ago. The people of the Mu clan suddenly went into hiding, and only a few external workers were left to run their businesses. Of course, this couldn't be kept up as without the guidance of the main members, the businesses started to fall into a loss.
The clan didn't reappear for about two years and even the merchant council wondered if they were okay or not. They sent many letters to the clan, but all of them were unanswered. If it were not for the fact that the Mu clan had several cultivators, the merchants might have even gone to visit them directly.
But then about a year ago, the clan reappeared, or more like their people did. The person that appeared was not someone we had expected though. The person was the youngest son of the Mu clan patriarch, Mu Tao.
He is the one who took over the administrative part of his clan and declared that their patriarch had passed away. The merchants were suspicious about it and did their own investigations.
They ended up finding out that the majority of Mu clan's people were killed two years ago one a single night!" The waiter revealed.
Lin Mu's brows were raised after hearings the words of the waiter. He even doubted the authenticity of his words, but then realized that he could confirm this very well himself.
'That's one thing I definitely need to find out more about… if it's who I'm thinking it is, then…' Lin Mu thought to himself.
"What about Jingming Shang?" Lin Mu asked next.
"This man joined the council about a year and a half ago. Because there had been an increase in trade in the kingdoms that surround the top sects of the world, the overall wealth of merchants that got involved in it has also grown.
This made it so the council decided that they can now add another seat to it. Originally, the Mu clan was in disagreement but then they were placated by the other merchants who wanted new positions to be opened. And since the Mu clan was in need of money to pay back their debts, they finally accepted it.
Jingming Shang is said to have capitalized on the trade boom and made a sizable fortune. He easily outbid his competition for the tenth seat in the merchant council and was even said to be one of those that sent a big gift to the Mu clan.
Plus, he is also a cultivator that is at the Core Condensation realm and thus not many can afford to oppose him either." The waiter explained.
"Hmm… I see. A rather interesting man." Lin Mu muttered to himself.
Lin Mu sat in silence for a couple of minutes, analyzing the information that he had just been given. The waiter also sat patiently, not daring to interrupt Lin Mu. From Lin Mu's demeanor, he could tell that he was not simple and the ease with which he tipped him also showed that he was definitely wealthy.
'Since he's asking questions about the merchant council, he must be a rich merchant too…' The waiter thought to himself.
"What can you tell me about the cultivators of this kingdom? Oh, and also the royal family." Lin Mu questioned.
"The Fenlong Kingdom isn't particularly known for our cultivators, but we still do have quite a few of them. While we don't have any cultivation sect in our borders, we still have a lot of martial schools.
Every rich merchant would either be a cultivator himself if he had the talent or would have other cultivators as his guards and assistant. As for those that belong to merchant families, they have plenty of cultivators of their own.
The strongest cultivator in the Fenlong kingdom is said to be the General of the Fenlong kingdom. He's at the Nascent Soul realm and is the uncle of the current king. The king himself is at the Core condensation realm while the patriarchs of the merchant families, who are also the aristocrats of this kingdom, are also at the Core Condensation realm.
Even the Mu clan's patriarch was at the Core Condensation realm, which was one of the reasons why all the other council members were shocked after hearing of his demise. They were scared that whoever did that to the Mu clan could come after them as well and thus they were very cautious during that time.
As for the Qi refining realm cultivators, there are plenty of them spread around the kingdom, but most of them should be concentrated around the capital and this city." The waiter answered.