Rebirth Of The Supreme Celestial Being (201-400)

297- A Nasty Character

Dong Qu sniffled and continued with reddened eyes, “The spiritual plants that you see on the shelves have all been gnawed by the Plant-Eating Worms. The herbs reached maturity after barely two years, but they’re not half as tall as they should have been, and each one is only as thick as a pinky. They’re pitiful to look at, but they’re already the best spiritual plants we can put out. The people who originally supplied us with spiritual herbs also kept their distance from us and couldn’t be relied on at all.”

Qing Zhu understood the situation now. He also went to several other small shops before this. Although they didn’t sell spiritual plants, the situations were also similar. It was nothing more than some stores being tampered with by people while others had traitors, and some even changed the shopkeeper altogether. This gave Qing Zhu a headache.

However, besides the restaurant, which had been tampered with by the Jian family, they couldn’t figure out the identities of the perpetrators responsible for sabotaging the other stores at all, which was the main reason everyone felt so vexed.

Qing Zhu composed himself and asked, “Does Shopkeeper Dong know who exactly did this kind of wicked thing?”

Dong Qu shook his head and sighed, “I can’t think of anyone who would do such a wicked thing except the Zhang family, who is our competitor.”

Qing Zhu frowned slightly. When Lin Zhan expanded his business to Purple City back then, he had already taken into account the Zhang family’s situation, for that family was the local tyrant in the region. The Zhang family also had some spiritual herb shops and did fairly well, but they weren’t very attentive to this line of business. Moreover, compared with other cities, the number and proportion of alchemists in Purple City were slightly higher. Lin Zhan really didn’t want to give up this juicy piece of meat. Therefore, when he opened the shop, he paid a personal visit to the local boss, the Zhang family.

Moreover, Lin Zhan even reached an agreement with the Zhang family where 20% of the Lin family’s profits went to the Zhang family in exchange for the Zhang family providing convenience to the Serene Herb Manor and protecting it so that it could operate normally.

Back then, Lin Zhan gave the Zhang family enough face, and he was also the Young Master of the Lin family. Therefore, the Zhang family was happy to open the door of convenience to Serene Herb Manor on the basis of benefits. The two families were quite happy after several years of cooperation. Although they competed with each other, the rivalry was relatively benign.

As a result, Qing Zhu could not help feeling a little surprised and felt that the Zhang family’s family had done a great job and shouldn’t do this kind of thing like throwing stones at someone who’s down.

So Qing Zhu asked, “Serene Herb Manor has eleven branch stores in the East Continent. This is one of those branch stores. Do you know the general situation right now?”

Dong Qu’s face was even more bitter. “Back then, the spiritual plants I had here encountered problems. For a while, I couldn’t find a way to put out the fire, so I asked for help from the Serene Herb Manor shops elsewhere. Unexpectedly, eight of the eleven shops actually had similar problems. They couldn’t even take care of their own problems and had no time to help me. Later, two more failed intermittently. There are even three stores that have already closed down.”

Qing Zhu’s heart sank as he thought to himself, This situation is really bad.

Dong Qu was an honest and dutiful person. Although he was the shopkeeper, he wasn’t actually smart enough to manage well but was loyal enough. At this time, Dong Qu actually put the blame of destroying the spiritual plant fields on the Zhang family’s heads. Any discerning person could see that someone deliberately targeted Lin Zhan’s Serene Herb Manor behind his back.