Chapter 4357 — A Conspiracy
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Rest easy, Young Master Cheng. His procurement work may have nothing to do with dealing with Ling Yi, but he has the right to advise the academy's higher-ups. A few words from him, and Wei Zhao is dead—dead beyond any doubt," Wei Zhaotong said with certainty.
"Oh, I see. Then will he help?" Cheng Qitian was still somewhat uneasy.
Kinship of the distant-cousin sort was often utterly unreliable. In easy times one might nod to them in passing, but come calling with a favor to ask, and they might well turn their backs and pretend not to know you. These days even blood brothers had to guard against one another, let alone some distant relation barely connected at all.
"Of course. Given the ties between us, a trifle like this is nothing," Wei Zhaotong said with great confidence. Shrewd and worldly as he was, he would never be so foolish as to rely on mere distant kinship—but this distant cousin was different. The two of them were bound tightly together as a community of shared interests.
Before coming to take up the post of branch manager here in the Weihu Sea of South Continent, Wei Zhaotong had been deputy branch manager of the Hong Clan Trading Company in the Gaolin Sea of East Continent, and he had held that post for five full years. It was precisely during those five years that he drifted further and further from the likes of Hong Zhong, sliding gradually into corruption and *.
The key figure who led him down the path of corruption was none other than this distant cousin of his, the procurement steward at Morning Star Academy. One handled procurement, the other handled sales; after a chance encounter brought them into contact, they instantly discovered the enormous profits hidden within!
A power as lofty and vast as Morning Star Academy spent, on its monthly material procurement alone, an astronomical sum beyond all reckoning—and the positions the two men occupied placed them squarely atop that astronomical sum.
Once the two were connected, all of Morning Star Academy's procurement needs fell to the Hong Clan Trading Company. To outsiders this seemed perfectly proper; after all, the Hong Clan Trading Company was a top-tier merchant house known to all, its reputation beyond question.
What outsiders did not know was that in these monthly procurements, the procurement steward invariably quoted high prices to Morning Star Academy, while Wei Zhaotong quoted low prices on the Hong Clan Trading Company's side. With one buying in and the other selling out, the profit they pocketed from the difference was enough to make anyone's eyes burn with envy.
Not only that—while lining his own pockets, Wei Zhaotong not only escaped suspicion on the Hong Clan Trading Company's side, but was even highly regarded by the headquarters' higher-ups for consolidating the long-term trade with Morning Star Academy!
After all, this was bulk procurement. Even if he quoted a low price, from the Hong Clan Trading Company's perspective it merely meant compressed profits, not a loss. So long as the volume was large enough for thin margins to yield good returns, this in itself was a rare merit.
Moreover, if through this he could cultivate good relations with a transcendent power like Morning Star Academy, that would be of great benefit to the Hong Clan Trading Company—something no amount of spirit jade could buy.
Pocketing vast quantities of spirit jade and quietly making a fortune on one side, while earning so-called "hard-won merits" on the Hong Clan Trading Company's side on the other—during those five years, Wei Zhaotong's days could only be described as a fish in water. He had even, for a time, fantasized about leaping straight from deputy branch manager to branch manager on the spot!
But in the end Wei Zhaotong did not get his wish. He did become a branch manager—only not in the Gaolin Sea of East Continent, but here in the Weihu Sea of South Continent. (To be continued) R1071