The youth took a deep breath and looked around the place. He had purchased the entire two-story building. On the first floor, he planned to have a convenience store kind of establishment, and on the second, he planned to have a residence. Old man Yu had already packed up and left on the day the purchase was made.

On the floor, the rows and rows of shelves still stood. Since he requested for the shelves to be kept, he had to pay a little extra. “Well, that’s still good. I had to pay slightly less than I would’ve if I had bought them anew.” The youth inspected the shelves closely and remarked, “Good, good, they have less wear and tear than I anticipated. All I have to do is just apply a new layer of polish on them, and they’ll look good as new!”

He had to purchase some wood varnish as well as products for the store. After buying the building, he had about 62 gold and 75 silver taels. The youth brought the table out from his space ring and a chair. He sat in the middle of the store and wrote a to-do list. He still had to decorate the insides, make and hang up a signboard, get in contact with a supplier to buy groceries and produce in bulk, get in touch with some herbalists as well, and so on.

He was going to have a long few days ahead of him, maybe even weeks. Just as he was jotting down the possible expenses for the tasks, the doors to his shop opened, and Hao Yunan stepped in, closely followed by Fang Mingkong.

The youth smiled but didn’t go up to receive them. As he wrote, he invited them in, “Come in, come in, take a seat.” Two more chairs materialized from his space ring. The other two paused, and Fang Mingkong sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Such a waste….”

Hao Yunan slowly took a seat and asked, “How…many chairs do yo- no, why do you keep furniture in there?”

“For moments like these,” the youth replied.

Hao Yunan didn’t question it. As Fang Mingkong stood behind Hao Yunan, the youth could sense that the Hao clan’s third young master was hesitating to ask something. Exhaling, the youth put down the brush and looked at the guests, “So, what’s the problem now?”

Hao Yunan fidgeted and explained, “Well, some of the orphans we tried to recruit seem to be part of the Beggar’s Sect.”

“And?”

“And they won’t come under the young master,” Fang Mingkong finished the sentence.

“Why wouldn’t they?” the youth looked at the two of them. With a sarcastic tone, he continued, “Certainly, you wouldn’t just nod your heads at their refusal and go back without trying. T-That would be crazy!”

Looking at their embarrassed expression, he sighed and massaged his temples, “You idiots.”

“W-Well, what were we supposed to do!?” Fang Mingkong raised her voice, speaking defensively.

“Have you tried…you know, insisting them to join? They’re from the Beggar Sect. It’s not like you have to teach them Martial Arts, and their Sect can’t give them better materialistic offers than you. So, what’s the issue? Just coax them into joining and then corrupt them with worldly riches. Easy as that. Honestly, it’s a miracle you’re still alive, Yunan.”

Hao Yunan’s face flushed red, and he coughed to wade through the embarrassment, “Ahem, so what you’re saying is I have to promise them money or something that would entice them?”

“Now, you get it.”

“But don’t the beggars in the Beggar’s Sect have their own creed?” Hao Yunan asked in an unsure tone, “I don’t think they would betray their own Sect for some clan in a town.”

“Well, no one told you to make them defect. From what I know, the Beggar’s Sect fulfills the same purpose in Murim as the Hao Sect: gathering information through numbers. However, the place where the Hao Sect succeeds is where the Beggar’s Sect fails. Because while you can find ‘low-lives’ pretty much everywhere, beggars can’t be everywhere because they aren’t allowed everywhere. And people treat low lives better than beggars. So, if you can give them an opportunity to gather information from someplace where they usually won’t be able to get information from, I’m pretty sure they’ll jump at the opportunity.”

“So, how do we give them this opportunity?”

“Just being a part of your clan would allow them to be in some places they couldn’t get to before and hear things that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to hear. So, being a part of your group without actually leaving their sect should be a great deal for them.”

“So, kind of like hiring a mercenary?” Hao Yunan mused.

“Exactly!” the youth nodded.

“Well, thanks for the advice!” Hao Yunan looked around and remarked, “So, is this the new shop?”

“Yup, got it for relatively cheap.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No, because the last time I had any meaningful interaction with you, your brothers sent assassins after me. Let’s not start that entire thing again.”

“Oh, alright,” Hao Yunan, slightly dejected, changed the subject, “So, what kind of shop are you going to be making it?”

The youth acted mysteriously, “Oh, you’ll see….” Immediately after, his expression changed as though he just remembered something, “Right, do you happen to know any good blacksmith?”

Hao Yunan scratched his head, unsure why the youth would want a blacksmith, “Well, personally, no. But I can introduce you to some through my servants. Our clan’s name has some worth in this city.”

“Excellent!” the youth brightened up. “Well, I’ll thank you in advance.”

“No problem. Glad to be of help.”

“Well, how’s the fight against your brother going?”

Hao Yunan placed his elbows on the table and leaned his head on his hands, “Well, it’s going better than I expected. Our forces are growing, and per your instruction, I’ve kept them all inside the clan premises until they reach a certain strength. And then I send them to do missions. The orphans we’ve picked up have indeed gained more strength than most of the clan members under my brothers, and there have been no traitors.”

“Oh? I’m glad to know that [Heaven’s Oath] has been of good use to you.”

“Yeah, who’d know that you could use the [Heaven’s Oath] like this?” Hao Yunan marveled.

The [Heaven’s Oath] was a sacred contract between two parties under the watchful eyes of the guiding force of this world – the unconscious will of Spiritual Haven. Yet as time passed from the genesis of the three worlds, this unconscious will come to be called Heaven. It’s uncertain whether it was one of the Heavenly Kings’ schemes because not even the knowledge he gained from the Monarchs had anything regarding this. This term suddenly appeared between the death of the second Monarch and the crowning of the third Monarch.

Back to [Heaven’s Oath], the guiding force would ensure that the contract or oath would be kept. And if broken by any party, they would be smitten by a bolt of Divine Lightning that would rip the asunder. So, he had advised Hao Yunan to form a contract with airtight conditions with the orphans he enlisted and to make them swear by the contract by [Heaven’s Oath]. This was done to make sure the enlisted did not betray Hao Yunan afterward. As the contracts were signed with people who were at their lowest when they were being promised luxury, they happily signed the contract and swore by it without thinking further ahead.

So, now, whenever Hao Yunan’s older brothers would try to entice the rapidly growing draftees from Hao Yunan, anyone actually tempted to defect would meet a swift end. And once the first traitor was seen being struck by lightning, it set a pretty nice example for the rest. It was certainly a shock to Hao Yunan’s first brother, who saw someone disintegrated right in front of his very eyes. Now, even if they wanted to defect, they had no choice but to accept their reality and stay under Hao Yunan.

The youth replied, “You just have to keep an open mind. And the weaker you are, the more schemes you have to use. So, always try to find ways to supplement your weakness. I think it’s about time you find an advisor.”

“And advisor?” Hao Yunan looked at him with a strange gaze and asked, “Don’t you fill that role?”

“Me? No, no, I meant a dedicated advisor, like an in-house advisor. Someone you don’t have to go out to seek advice from.” The youth paused when he saw that Hao Yunan wasn’t really convinced. He mused for a bit and continued, “Let me put it this way. While I can offer you novel ideas from time to time, I can’t do it consistently or conveniently. However, should you get an advisor, he’ll be able to offer you reliable advice for nearly every situation. You should have an advisor for a reliable information output and me as a wildcard.”

“Oh~” Hao Yunan dragged his words, thinking they made sense, “I kind of get what you’re saying. Okay, I’ll look into it.”

“Hmm, good choice.”