Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time-Chapter 644: Qing Luan’s Cultivation

The men blinked. Merchant Gulo forced a smile.

"Miss Luan, adjustments must follow market conditions. Surely a review would be wise before—"

"No."

The second merchant frowned. "Miss Luan, if we follow the plan exactly as written, we might suffer losses for the first few weeks."

"You will not suffer losses," Qing Luan replied calmly. She pointed to the ledger. "You will gain twenty percent."

The merchants looked at each other, confused.

Qing Luan slid the ledger across the table.

The rows were neat, the calculations flawless, and the projections were beyond their own crude estimations. She explained the flow of goods, the shift of supply, the hidden market demand in the next district that the Birch Leaf clan used to monopolize, and how redistributing manpower for a month would reap long term benefits.

Her voice was sharp and firm.

"If you follow my plan, you gain twenty percent. If you resist, you lose ten percent and upset Steward Yun. You may choose whichever path pleases you."

The men stiffened. Qing Luan looked up, her eyes emotionless.

"And if you wish to challenge my projections, I invite you to bring your own ledgers. I will correct them for you."

The room fell silent. The merchants swallowed their pride and accepted everything without further argument.

Han Yu nearly burst out laughing behind his teacup.

'Cold and efficient. A perfect merchant lord in the making. And only thirteen.'

Her natural talent was terrifying, even beyond cultivation, even beyond her calm cruelty during the torture of Huamu Ye.

Han Yu knew that if the Qing clan had given her even a sliver of education in business, she would have risen like a phoenix. But instead they suppressed her. Ignored her. Dismissed her because she was a girl.

How foolish they had been.

Han Yu leaned back each time she performed like this and thought in amusement:

'The Qing clan was sitting on a mountain of golden jade and treated it like dirt.'

On the family side, Fen Dugong's health steadily improved.

The old man's coughing stopped, his appetite returned, and his posture straightened. The regular medicinal herbs and low-grade but gentle alchemical pills he now consumed repaired many weaknesses in his body.

He would never return to youthful vigor, but he regained twenty years of vitality in just two weeks.

There were even days when Dugong practiced light footwork in the courtyard, his steps steady and strong. Han Yu saw potential. If the old man could gather enough spirit stones and get the proper pills, he might break into Core Condensation. And if he did that, he would add decades to his life, enough to witness Qing Luan's rise.

Driver Yun also trained diligently, though his talent limited him severely.

Still, his loyalty was absolute, and Han Yu rewarded loyalty. He provided enough spiritual nourishment for Yun to at least advance at a slow but steady pace. A loyal steward was worth more than twenty half-talented rogue cultivators.

Once these matters were settled, Han Yu finally turned his attention to Qing Luan's cultivation itself.

He observed her diligently.

Her physical form was lean, agile, built more for evasion and speed rather than raw strength. Her Qi was clean and bright with the signature refinement of the Qing clan's technique. Her footwork was elegant but shallow in potential. Her martial skills were basic and lacked bite.

Han Yu quickly reached a conclusion.

Her cultivation technique was not bad.But it was far below the standard she would need.

Not if she was to become the blade he intended her to be.Not if she was to cut her way through her enemies.Not if she was to reclaim the Qing clan one day.

Han Yu exhaled quietly.

'She needs a better technique. One far better.'

And as he watched her meditate beneath the lantern light, eyes closed, Qi circulating softly, he could not help but think that perhaps fate had given him more than a pawn.

Perhaps it had given him a prodigy.

Han Yu sat alone in the upper study of the Birch Leaf estate, the renovated and newly claimed stronghold of the Fen remnants. The lantern light flickered beside him while he sifted through scroll after scroll.

Rows of cultivation manuals lay stacked on the table, their bindings cracked from age or use. Most were inferior. A few were decent. None satisfied him.

He leaned back in the patriarch's former chair and let out a long sigh.

"Too much of trash."

He needed something suitable for Qing Luan. Something powerful. Something that would complement her frightening talent. Something that would let her carve her way through enemies and rebuild what had been stolen from her.

But it could not be the Moon Slaughter Arts.

Those belonged firmly and exclusively to the Slaughtered Moon Divine Blood Sect. Anyone outside the sect caught practicing them would be executed by the sect without hesitation.

Han Yu had seen a couple such punishments during his time there. Entire families were wiped out for even copying one page of the sect's techniques. Even the government trembled at the thought of offending them.

He respected Qing Luan. He even liked her potential. But not enough to hand her something that would sign her death warrant.

The other techniques he knew from the sect were similarly unsuitable. Many required the absorption of blood qi. Some were too violent in nature. A few would twist the mind if practiced without a certain mental foundation.

He had no intention of turning Qing Luan into a blood crazed lunatic even if he wished her to be cold and ruthless.

A ruler needed clarity. A merchant needed calm. A clan head needed strategy.

Not madness...

He then examined the cultivation manuals stored by the Birch Leaf Merchant clan. He found a few martial manuals, several basic cultivation methods, some movement arts and a handful of crude techniques that were barely worth reading.

None were superior to the Qing clan's own technique. If Qing Luan switched from one mediocre method to another, she would be worse off.