Originally, Ning Yi's plan to head south to Muyuan County to retrieve his wife was supposed to commence in a few days. But Chen Fan's sudden arrival and the news he brought disrupted the original schedule, turning the second day of the second lunar month, the seventh day, into a busy one.

From the early morning, preparations for the southward journey began, with the arrangements for the large courtyard outside the city being the most important, as many of Ning Yi's innovative developments were located there. Out of a sense of hospitality and to prevent Chen Fan from causing trouble in the city, Ning Yi also gave him a tour, offering him freshly squeezed juice in exquisite porcelain bottles and salted quail eggs to taste. When asked for his thoughts, he naturally nodded, saying it was delicious, but his eyes slowly filled with suspicion: "So, this is what you've been doing since you came to the capital!"

Ning Yi had high standards of living, and even amidst the chaos of Hangzhou, he would try to eat well when he had the opportunity. Chen Fan was well aware of this. In fact, juice and quail eggs were not unheard of in this era, but Ning Yi's exquisitely packaged versions, and the quail eggs specifically tested for preservation effects, could potentially be profitable when sold at the Zhuji restaurant. To call it innovative seemed a bit of a stretch, but Ning Yi was amused by it, and before leaving, each of them took a bottle of juice.

Besides the courtyard outside the city, another place that needed attention was the Su Family Cloth Shop's operations in the capital. Several people had been arranged by Ning Yi to study there, originally scheduled to head south together in a few days, but now this had been brought forward. They had been notified the previous night and came today to inquire about their preparations.

Chen Fan sat on the steps of the Su Family Cloth Shop's warehouse backyard, twitching his lips as he watched Ning Yi inspect the five men.

"Are you ready!?"

"Ready!"

"Do you have confidence!?"

"We have confidence!"

"How are you!?"

"We are the best!"

"Good, that's it... go pack your things. This time it's different from selling things in the shop. Be prepared, I'm counting on you."

Speaking such embarrassing words so loudly was not in line with the standards of a modest gentleman of this era. Chen Fan, with his keen observation skills, noticed that besides when Ning Yi was giving instructions, these people showed a very calm and confident demeanor when answering. But after turning around, their eyes and temperament were mostly still a bit apprehensive and hesitant. He didn't know what they had been doing before. Soon after, the two men sat on stone benches by the river outside the warehouse, drinking juice. Chen Fan asked the question on his mind.

"You're taking these five people south. Are they assistants you've been training?"

"No, they're cloth merchants."

"Huh?"

People came and went along the road. The spring sunlight shone down from the shade of the trees. Ning Yi turned to look at the Su Family Cloth Shop that hadn't opened yet and raised the porcelain bottle of juice as a gesture.

"After our family came north, the Su Family's cloth business has been managed by my wife, and it's been doing well. But a woman managing the family seems to have offended someone from the Zuo family. The cloth industry isn't very supportive and is somewhat resistant. Actually, we could open the shop now, but to avoid causing too much backlash from the other side, we've been delaying it until now. Because of this, I've trained a few people, preparing them to promote our goods to wealthy families."

Ning Yi took a sip of juice and smiled. "Among those five people, two are former shop assistants from the cloth shop, one is a young manager, and the other two I transferred from Zhuji. The cloth shop needs them, so we'll prioritize their use. This time, I plan to have them develop business near Muyuan County, visiting some wealthy families."

Chen Fan understood and frowned. "Traveling merchants, how much money can they make?"

"It's not like that."

Ning Yi shook his head with a smile.

In this era of the Wu Dynasty, promotion was nothing more than doing business with acquaintances or making new ones. Jianghu traveling merchants, carrying a small burden around, were mostly sleazy and cunning, with a strong jianghu aura, similar to boatmen, innkeepers, and yamen runners – even if they weren't guilty, they should be killed. It was not easy for them to do business with wealthy families. Usually, rich people were regular customers of certain shops. Similar to Jiangning, when some wealthy families wanted to have clothes made, they would have familiar managers and tailors from the Su family come to their door. Or when the Su family had new styles, managers with good social skills would come to inquire whether the other party needed them.

Between these two methods, merchants were ultimately a lowly occupation. No matter how skilled a manager was in social situations, his speech and temperament would subtly show his inferiority.

In fact, speech and temperament were very telling at this time. During the pre-Qin period, strategists could use a couple of reasonable sentences to coax people around in circles. During the Three Kingdoms period, "Observing this person's speech and demeanor, which are extraordinary," could determine whether a person was worth using or immediately make people decide to form a sworn brotherhood with him. Ultimately, it was still a matter of the popularity of knowledge and culture. In a place where most people never left a radius of a hundred miles in their entire lives, the logical ability of someone who could grasp the general trend of a place or make reliable inferences about the general trend of the world was likely to be good.

Even in the Wu Dynasty, although the literary style was flourishing, the proportion of scholars in the total population was not very large. Among them, if you removed some of the fools who were driven silly by reading, people with extraordinary speech and demeanor basically had the foundation to move towards the upper echelons of society. Moreover, this kind of speech, temperament, and confidence must be based on learning and social recognition. In a strict Confucian society, there were not many opportunities to take shortcuts in this regard, but this was precisely Ning Yi's strength.

Using motivational education and modern sales concepts, Ning Yi's first step was to quickly change the way these people interacted with others. These people might not have much knowledge, but as long as their intelligence and logical ability were sufficient, Ning Yi could set a way for them to express confidence, friendliness, and professionalism. After that, every time they went to a place, they would put on an act of "I'm from the capital," visit the local wealthy landowners, first find those who were more closed off, provincial, and had a strong sense of vanity, inform them of the developments outside, the trends in the capital, and then start promoting things. Most importantly, they should try to establish long-term trade relations, so that any good things from the capital could be sent to the other party as much as possible.

During this period, when the salesmen became more professional and their ability to deceive became stronger, they would then go and gnaw at the enlightened gentry, slowly coming in the way of surrounding the cities from the countryside. At this time, the gap between the rich and the poor was large. There were many landlords who had surplus wealth but didn't take it out to use or simply couldn't find a place to use it. If the question “Do you know Amway?” could fool a large group of people in later generations, there was no reason why it wouldn't work in this era.

Of course, the training of these five people was actually not long enough. Moreover, each place had its own actual conditions. How to create a promotional framework according to the current situation could only mature slowly. But anyway, the investment was not much. Even if it failed, these five people could at least come back as managers. Ning Yi was not worried about this. People were, after all, resources that could be recycled.

Of course, these things couldn't be explained to Chen Fan clearly in a short time, and there was no need to. Changing the topic for a while, Ning Yi said, "After your teacher's matter is over, what do you plan to do?"

Chen Fan thought for a while and took a sip of juice. "What else can I do? My life has already been sold to Liu Xigua. After the fall of Hangzhou, not going over was already breaking my word. I should go to Miaojiang to see if there's anything I can do. Maybe when the time is right, I'll start a rebellion with her."

"You still want to rebel..." Ning Yi shook his head and laughed.

Chen Fan sighed. "I don't care. I used to follow my teacher. There was nothing else to do besides rebelling, but in fact, I don't know what can be done after rebelling. When I was young, I followed my teacher and saw many people who deserved to be killed. Not killing them would not appease the resentment in my heart. But after killing them, I realized that killing people doesn't solve the problem. Especially when the killers from the past slowly turned into people who deserved to be killed, I lost interest."

Since meeting Chen Fan in Hangzhou, Ning Yi had actually been quite appreciative of him. Young, highly skilled in martial arts, and although he seemed reckless in many ways, he was actually able to see clearly through many things. At that time, his status in the rebel army was not high. Although he was a disciple of Fang Qifo and the only one among the younger generation who could stop Liu Xigua from going berserk, apart from that, honestly speaking, there were not many actual tasks entrusted to him.

At that time, there was a rumor in Fang Qifo's camp that the Buddha commander cherished his disciple and hoped that he would come out to do great things after going through training. In fact, Ning Yi could see that all of this stemmed from Chen Fan's own negative attitude. He could be a brave general who took the lead in battles, and he could come out to take responsibility when no one else was available. But as soon as someone took over, he would immediately drop the burden, acting like he was getting by. The reason for all this could be seen more clearly when he assassinated Bao Daoyi for a group of students from the academy.

He was helpless when he was young. After following his teacher, he ran around for the teacher's cause. Now that the Yongle Dynasty was over and Fang Qifo was captured again, he was actually quite confused in his busyness. When Ning Yi asked him at this time, he answered in such a way. After a pause, he laughed again: "As for Xigua, I don't know what she's busy with. She has ideas and hopes that after I go over, I can find a reason to rebel." This was just his casual remark. He didn't have much confidence. After thinking about it, "Then what about you, Liheng? What are your plans for the future?"

"Mine is simpler." Ning Yi spread his hands there. "As I said before, the Jin people are powerful and the Wu Dynasty is weak. After destroying Liao, they will send troops south. I will probably do something..."

"Is it... this?" Chen Fan raised the porcelain bottle as a gesture.

Ning Yi laughed. "It's this... To do things, you have to have influence. To have influence, you have to have people. To have people, you must have the money to support them. It's like this everywhere."

"It's enough to have power. What can you do with just money?"

"It's the same. Any official has a group of people following him for food, from the prime minister and ministers to low-ranking officials of the seventh rank. Those who have no one to curry favor with or who are absolutely incorruptible can't do anything. Ultimately, countries, gangs, and factions are all combined for profit. This profit is metaphysical and also practical. Organizations without metaphysical pursuits cannot truly grow. Organizations without actual profits don't even have a foundation."

After a while, Chen Fan nodded. "But I don't think this can make much money."

"That's my specialty."

"Then... let's not talk about whether the Jin people will go south. If you stop this, then what?"

"Then... be a wealthy man, live in peace with my wife and children in a remote place, build a village and find a group of farmers to manage... I'll teach and do something like that, probably."

Chen Fan was stunned, then frowned and drank all the juice in the porcelain bottle in one gulp. "Ha."

Ning Yi shrugged. The two sat on the riverbank road with the shadows of trees falling, each with his own thoughts. After a while, Chen Fan remembered again and said, "Xigua won't accompany you to live in seclusion, will she?"

Ning Yi nodded. "That's the problem..."

It was noon. The two then talked a few more words. Regarding the matter of going south, Ning Yi would not directly participate in the rescue of Fang Qifo. The two had reached a consensus on this. After all, given Ning Yi's current identity, if he really appeared in front of Fang Baihua and others, not only would many people in the imperial court want his life, but even Fang Baihua's attitude might not be good. Because of this, he only wrote a letter for Chen Fan to take to Liu Xigua. As for him, on the surface, he would first go to Muyuan to find his wife, then go south to Jiangning to talk about business. The rest would be improvised.

Since Ning Yi was not going to meet with Liu Xigua in person, Chen Fan, whose time was precious, did not have to wait until the next day to go with him. He planned to leave immediately after noon. The two had lunch at a nearby restaurant. Halfway through the meal, Su Yanping came over in a hurry: "Brother-in-law, I heard something."

Seeing Chen Fan sitting across the table, he leaned to Ning Yi's ear and whispered, "I heard that Gao Yanei made a move this morning. They found a lot of famous martial arts masters in Bianliang, saying they were going to make trouble for brother-in-law. Among them are Chen Yuanwang, the Di-level instructor of the Royal Boxing Hall, Ma Jinfu of 'Thousand Mile Escort Agency', and Peng Xianyu of the Divine Fist School..."

Su Yanping lowered his voice, but who was Chen Fan? Among the people familiar with Ning Yi, apart from Lu Hongti, he was probably the best martial artist. Even Liu Xigua was probably slightly inferior. After Su Yanping finished speaking, Ning Yi nodded to show that he knew. "Have you eaten? If you haven't, sit down and eat with us."

"I've eaten. I still have something to do. Brother-in-law, just knowing about this is enough... Brother Chen, I'll take my leave."

Chen Fan got up and cupped his hands. After Su Yanping left, his eyes brightened. "Gao Yanei of the capital? Gao Qiu's son? Liheng, or I can help you..."

Ning Yi quickly cupped his hands and smiled bitterly. "Brother, I'm afraid of you, okay? Please don't mess around."

"Hahahaha." Chen Fan laughed happily.

Logically speaking, the two were now people on different sides. If Chen Fan really wanted to do something and ran over to kill Gao Mu'en, Ning Yi would really be unable to clear his name even if he jumped into the Yellow River. But Chen Fan was, after all, a straightforward person. Thinking of this, he directly said it as a joke. After eating, he got up to say goodbye.

"I don't know what you're going to do. I won't say much. I hope we can have a drink together when things are over."

"No rush." Ning Yi waved his hand. "Before leaving the city, go to my house."

"Hmm?"

"Meet my son. If there is a chance in the future, I hope he can become your disciple and learn something from you."

Chen Fan tilted his head and looked at him. After a moment, he slowly patted Ning Yi on the shoulder and said with a smile, "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go."