Chapter 47 (1/2)
Ling Tian jumped in exultation, Mister Qin actually agreed so readily. In that case, both matters should not be a problem if he left them to Mister Qin. This was because Ling Tian had neglected a point: Mister Qin’s students were far and plenty, not just for an ordinary n.o.ble house; even for the current Imperial Court, many of them were actually under Mister Qin’s tutelage! So long as Mister Qin was willing to open his mouth, this sort of matter like Ling Tian’s was not worth a fart to him!
Ling Tian smiled, ”Since that’s the case, I can put myself at ease. Tomorrow I shall get some banknotes from grandma and pa.s.s them to Mister Qin for you to use as you see fit. Hmm, I estimate 5 million taels should do the job.”
”Five million?!” Mister Qin staggered, nearly slipping and falling! Even if one wanted to buy a large residence, one would not need so much! Five million taels, this was enough to build a palace!
”Mm.” Ling Tian nodded his head, smiling at Mister Qin as he continued, ”Mister, regarding the military workshop left to me by the Xiao family, I will only need a few of the experienced smithers. If I were to take them all, the Xiao family would not be able to bear it, while I would have reservations even in using them.”
Mister Qin sucked in a breath of cold air, ”In that case, I need to find two thousand people to replace those inside at least?”
Ling Tian grinned, ”Mister does not need to panic for as long as the laborers have strength, that would be good. Two thousand people will not be difficult to find; the majority of the silver would be spent on the residence. The residence must firstly be big, as big as possible. Secondly, it has to be deserted, best outside the city where it will not attract anyone’s attention. Thirdly, the location must be good, being able to account for an all-round defense. Yep, just these three. After you have found one that fits, no matter what the residence is, I will still give it a total facelift. And the silver will be mostly used for the facelift!”
Mister Qin let out a breath in relief, ”So that’s the case.” However, he furrowed his brows soon after, saying, ”For those requirements that you have stated before, this old man does have a place which will fit in all three criteria.”
”Oh?” Ling Tian’s interest was piqued and he hurriedly asked, ”Where is it?”
Mister Qin replied, ”It’s at a forested riverside, south of the city, below Mount Victory. It is the Liang dynasty’s King Fu's Courtyard. The position is strategic, with mountains on a side and a river on the other, making it hard to attack but easy to defend. It is just that this is built by the Liang dynasty emperor for his royal brother. However, before it had finished building, the Liang dynasty was annihilated by our army and thus, people started to claim that it was an ominous land. Although the location is good, the place has literally turned into ruins, with n.o.body showing interest. The foundations are still intact, with a bit of renovations and building, it would be considered to be barely fit for use. As long as young n.o.ble wills it, we do not even need the silver to buy it. We only need to send people to fix it and there would be no one poking their noses in.”
Ling Tian rested his chin on one hand and thought for a while, before saying, ”If that is so, Mister, how about I follow you out of the city to visit your friends tomorrow?”
Mister Qin blanked out for a while before coming to an understanding. Ling Tian wanted to make use of this time to check if the King Fu's courtyard was up to his expectations or not. And to use the excuse of visiting friends would be the perfect cover! Who said that a student could not accompany his teacher to visit his friends? Thus, Ling Tian planned to go there in an upright and righteous fas.h.i.+on, and he could even avoid scrutiny and undue concern. A flawless plan!
This was even more true now that Ling Tian had just flipped the entire residence upside down, and thus he had to lie low a while, else he would be stuck at Ling Zhan and Ling Xiao’s side listening to them nag, or even worse, getting beaten up. In addition, given that Xiao FengHan was still staying inside the Ling residence, Ling Tian did not want to see that shrewd old thing come out with stunts to wreck his plans.
After realizing this point, Mister Qin gave a bright smile, looking at Ling Tian with an undisguised mischief in his eyes.
Now that matters were settled, Mister Qin had no reason to stay, and after a few teasing words, he bade farewell and left for his own room. On the other side, Ling Jian who had been training non-stop while the other two were discussing, had almost reached his bodily limits, looking entirely as though he had been pulled out from the water. Every strand of his hair stuck onto his scalp and his body constantly emitted steam. Ling Tian let out a smile of praise when he saw this, and threw a few more pieces of charcoal into the brazier, letting the dying embers blaze up once again. In just a few short moments, the room was so warm that people did not need to wear clothes any longer.
At this point, Ling Tian realized that he forgot to refill the brazier whilst in discussion with Mister Qin. No wonder Mister Qin did not bother staying on afterwards, it was because he felt cold….