In Tivian during the daytime, thick clouds covered the sky, and the entire city was under a gloomy overcast, with the drizzling rain having just stopped.
On a street somewhere in the East District, the road surface was still damp after the rain. A few pedestrians passing by still held closed umbrellas in their hands. Only sporadic horse-drawn carriages moved on the cold, clear road. The damp, cold wind had dissuaded many citizens from going out, making the originally bustling street exceptionally deserted at this time.
Inside a high-end restaurant by the street, near a window seat overlooking the street, Maxie, a man in his fifties with a long beard and wearing a well-fitted brown suit, sat there with a solemn expression.
On the dining table in front of Maxie was a lavish feast: steak, roasted chicken, sausages, cake, fine wine... various delicious foods were laid out before Maxie, but he was completely unmoved, his eyes fixed straight ahead, staring at the figure of another man sitting across the table.
This man, who looked to be in his early thirties, wore a trench coat, had a pale complexion, a high nose, and deep-set eyes. The short top hat he had been wearing was placed to the side. Unlike the serious-faced Maxie, he was leisurely enjoying the feast on the table, occasionally sipping a bit of fine wine and occasionally savoring a piece of tender meat. After eating another biscuit, he shifted his gaze to Maxie and then spoke.
"Mr. Maxie, you don't need to be so serious. Let's eat first."
Listening to the man's words, Maxie paused slightly, then took a breath and leaned back, before responding to the man across the table.
"Let's hold off on eating for now, Mr.. I think it's better if we discuss business first. You said you wanted to buy my goods?" Maxie said to the man in front of him, and the man nodded in affirmation.
"Yes, a total of forty-five boxes of high-quality tobacco from the North Bank of the New World, currently being shipped to Tivian by sea. I want to buy them now." Facing Maxie, the man repeated the words he had spoken not long ago. After hearing the man's words, Maxie, being a businessman, gave him a strange look and then spoke.
"How did you know I have goods at sea?"
"That's none of your concern. Since I know, I naturally have my own channels."
"If you want to buy my goods, I have some readily available here. You don't need to wait for the batch at sea."
"No, I don't need the readily available ones. I want the batch that is currently being shipped over, Mr. Maxie, name your price." The man said this to Maxie. Hearing the man's abnormal words, Maxie, being a businessman, became vigilant and continued to speak.
"To be honest, Mr., you don't seem like you're in business. Although I am a businessman, I don't do just any kind of business. I'm sorry... your behavior makes it difficult for me to trust you. Business without trust carries risks for me..."
Maxie said seriously to the man in front of him. The other party's action of specifically wanting to buy a particular batch of goods was excessively suspicious, which made Maxie directly doubt the other party's motives. The man, hearing these words, showed no fluctuation in his expression. He softly interrupted Maxie's words and said.
"500 pound..."
"What?"
"I said I'll pay 500 pound to buy this batch of your goods, Mr. Maxie, is that enough?"
The man softly said to Maxie, while Maxie's face showed an expression of disbelief. The reason was simple: this batch of his goods, even if sold completely at the current market price in Tivian, would fetch at most around three to four hundred pound.
The price offered by this man in front of him made Maxie, being a businessman,'s heart pound. His batch of goods wouldn't sell for this price even at the best market conditions.
"500 pound... are you serious?" Maxie said like this. At this moment, he still had a trace of doubt in his heart about this strange matter before him. Seeing the doubt in Maxie's heart, the man did not say much, but quietly took out genuine pound from his coat pocket and placed them on his table.
A businessman's nature is to pursue profit. In the face of this pound, all of Maxie's concerns almost vanished into thin air. His originally cautious expression immediately revealed a bright smile. With this smile, the subsequent dining process became pleasant.
...
At this moment, far from this restaurant, a regular horse-drawn carriage was parked on a street corner. On the seat inside the carriage, Dorothy, who was sensing the scene transmitted by the Corpse Puppet in the distance, slightly let out a sigh of relief, then looked out the carriage window and murmured.
"It seems it's handled. For ordinary businessmen, as long as the money is in place, everything is easy to discuss."
Dorothy said softly like this. The businessman named Maxie was none other than the owner of the batch of tobacco Dorothy had used to swap the essences in the warehouse in the New World. Dorothy learned the owner's information from the label, then used the information to find Maxie and conduct the transaction.
Now, the goods with the tobacco label, sealed with the Wooden Hoof and dozens of essences, were being transported across the ocean by the Endeavour, heading towards Tivian. They would reach their destination soon. Dorothy needed to officially become the owner of this batch of "tobacco" so that after this batch of goods arrived at the port, she could logically transport them away. After all, these were forty-odd large boxes, not something you could just pick up and leave with, so becoming the legal owner of this batch of goods was the best choice.
'Over forty boxes of high-quality tobacco... finally settled for five hundred pound. The original market price was only around three hundred pound, which is about the cost of one secret transmission. As expected, financial investment involving the extraordinary is a bottomless pit...'
Dorothy thought this in her heart. This method of transaction would definitely arouse suspicion. To dispel Maxie's suspicion, she chose to pay a premium of five hundred to acquire it directly. Now, Dorothy only had 1850 pound in cash.
"Hiss... I originally thought I was just helping Kapak that kid a little, but I didn't expect to invest so many resources into it now. If I can't extort more things from the Netherworld Coffin Society this time, it will be too much of a loss."
Dorothy continued to murmur. To help Kapak escape, she used three Raw Consumption Symbols and spent three "Cup" points. Controlling the Living Puppet Tom for a considerable time cost two "Cup" points.
Besides that, Dorothy had provoked the Netherworld Coffin Society this time. After they discovered the goods had been swapped, they immediately used divination to search. They divined for Dorothy three times. Only after the three attempts yielded no results did they feel they had encountered a tough opponent, and they stopped divining to conserve Spirituality. But Dorothy also consumed three "Shadow" points for this.
5 "Cup" points, 3 "Shadow" points, plus 500 pound in cash. Dorothy had already invested a considerable amount of resources into this matter. Now, she was thinking about how to use the Netherworld Coffin Society to earn back more resources.
'Three days have passed since the goods set sail. If those guys really have the intention to trade, they should be contacting me by now. I'll go see Beverly when I get back later...'
Dorothy thought this, while contemplating, she manipulated the Corpse Puppet to reach an agreement with Maxie in the distance. After signing the contract, she now only needed to wait for the Endeavour cargo ship sailing across the ocean to successfully dock.
Dorothy was not worried that the Netherworld Coffin Society could trace the whereabouts and location of the essences. The only information they obtained was that their goods had been swapped for tobacco, but due to the lack of a label, they did not know the detailed information about this batch of tobacco.
The New World has a large number of tobacco plantations, and the tobacco trade with the Main Continent has always been very prosperous. In that warehouse at the time, there were many batches of tobacco goods being shipped to the Main Continent. It would be very difficult for them to figure out where this batch of tobacco in their hands was originally supposed to be shipped to. Now, that batch of essences was completely in a state of disappearance for them.
Finally, after waiting for a while, Dorothy's Corpse Puppet finally finished handling the matters with Maxie. Then, Dorothy drove the carriage forward, recovered the Corpse Puppet in a hidden place, and finally took the carriage and drove all the way north.
After several hours of carriage travel, Dorothy finally returned to Green Shade Town in the Tivian North Suburb. During this time, there were intermittent drizzles in the sky again. Upon arriving at Green Shade Town, she did not rush home first, but instead went to Beverly's place first. When she got out of the carriage and walked to Beverly's doorstep with an umbrella, she saw Beverly holding an umbrella, preparing to go out.
"Oh, I was just about to look for you to see if you were home, and here you are. That's perfect, I hate rain, so one less trip out is just right." Seeing Dorothy arrive, Beverly raised her eyebrows and said. Hearing Beverly's words, Dorothy instead asked.
"Looking for me? Is something wrong?"
"The postman business we started has been getting more and more popular recently. Just now, someone sent a telegram to "Thief K" through us. Didn't you say before? If there are letters or telegrams addressed to Thief K, then find you."
With a hint of playful expression, Beverly said this. After hearing Beverly's words, Dorothy thought to herself that it had finally arrived, then smiled and spoke to Beverly.
"Heh, I've been waiting for it. Let's not stand around, come in and talk." Saying this, Dorothy walked directly into Beverly's house without looking back, as if she were coming home. Beverly glanced at her neighbor and inwardly complained, 'Why does it feel like you're inviting a guest into your own house?'
Dorothy entered Beverly's house, then skillfully brewed a cup of coffee using her automatic coffee machine, sat down in her usual spot, and started drinking. A short while later, Beverly also came in, holding an envelope which she placed in front of Dorothy.
"Here you go~ Miss Meisihuos, who is both a Detective and a Thief. Next time, do you want to be a Sheriff? Or do you want to be a Pirate?" With a teasing tone, Beverly said to Dorothy, while Dorothy put down her coffee, shrugged, and took the letter in her hand. After opening the envelope, she began to examine it carefully.
The words on the letter paper were not handwritten but machine-printed. Dorothy knew this was not a letter but a telegram. This was actually the result of the content of a telegram transmitted from afar being transcribed and printed by a telegraph machine.
Dorothy had asked the Netherworld Coffin Society to contact Thief K within seven days through the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild as a medium. Sending a letter might not be fast enough, so the other party chose to transmit the information by telegram.
Under Beverly's promotion, the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild had now expanded its postman business to many large cities. The Craftsmen's Guild branches in these cities could contact each other and even exchange information through telegrams and other means. To specifically receive letters from the Netherworld Coffin Society, Dorothy had opened a second account at the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild besides the Detective account: Thief K.
Dorothy scrutinized the telegram in her hand. The content was very simple, just a single sentence.
"To the despicable Thief, may your soul be cursed for eternity! We are willing to exchange certain compensation for the souls you shamelessly stole. Name your price."
Looking at the message on the telegram, Dorothy's heart stirred. Clearly, after their divination failed and they couldn't find the goods, the Netherworld Coffin Society finally decided to try to recover that batch of essences through negotiation, which was exactly what Dorothy wanted.
Without thinking further, Dorothy put the telegram aside, then asked Beverly for paper and a pen, and quickly wrote a response on the paper.
"To the esteemed members of the Netherworld Coffin Society, I am very happy that you saw my message and took the initiative to contact me. Your goods are very safe in my hands now. You only need to pay me 12000 pound, and I will return them, without fail."
After writing, Dorothy handed the paper in her hand to Beverly, asking her to convert it into a telegram and send it back. Beverly's expression became playful after seeing it, and she also asked curiously.
"Wow... you're quite capable, aren't you? You just learned about the Netherworld Coffin Society's intelligence from me, and in the blink of an eye, you've provoked them... Twelve thousand pound, that's quite an appetite. What did you steal from the Netherworld Coffin Society? Asking for such a high price for them to redeem it?"
"This... who knows?"
Picking up another cup of coffee, Dorothy smiled mysteriously as she drank. She didn't expect the Netherworld Coffin Society to actually pay that much money; she was just asking for an exorbitant price.
Dorothy understood that the final price wouldn't be settled without several rounds of negotiation. Since the Netherworld Coffin Society had the intention to get this batch of goods back, and she had already established contact with them, she had plenty of time to slowly haggle with the other party.
...
After sending the reply telegram to the Netherworld Coffin Society, Dorothy said goodbye to Beverly and went home to rest. Just one day later, she received a reply.
The content of the reply was simple; amidst the insults, it stated that Dorothy's condition was too high and unacceptable, and proposed their bottom line. Dorothy was not in a hurry. Using the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild's telegram, she slowly negotiated with the Netherworld Coffin Society.
Thus, over the next day or two, Dorothy engaged in multiple rounds of bargaining with the Netherworld Coffin Society regarding the price via telegram. Telegrams went back and forth between the two sides. Finally, after Dorothy had spent about a hundred pound on telegram fees, their negotiation finally reached a conclusion.
The final transaction plan agreed upon by both parties was as follows.
The Netherworld Coffin Society agreed to give Dorothy 6000 pound in cash and three secret transmission as compensation in exchange for the forty-odd boxes of essences in Dorothy's possession. Among those secret transmission, there needed to be some related to the deity 'King of the Underworld', and a holy emblem of the King of the Underworld needed to be included as a gift.
Both parties also discussed the specific transaction method. At the strong request of the Netherworld Coffin Society, the transaction had to be conducted face-to-face, ostensibly for on-site inspection of the goods and to facilitate the exchange of money and goods simultaneously. Additionally, both parties in the transaction had to be present in person, not any form of puppet, and neither party could perform any extraordinary concealment on themselves.
Throughout the series of negotiations, the Netherworld Coffin Society deliberately proposed various requirements regarding the details of the transaction between the two parties. In response, Dorothy secured the opportunity to determine the time and location of the transaction. Under her arrangement, they would ultimately conduct the transaction in Tivian on the 15th, whereas initially, the Netherworld Coffin Society had hoped to set the transaction location in Dankoto.
Therefore, on the 15th, the two parties would have a face-to-face "direct meeting" in Tivian.