Shameless Immortal: Emperor of Ten Thousand Beauties

Chapter 237: Chapter 237: Where Is the Ge Clan?

While the Golden Cauldron Merchant Union echoed with triumphant laughter and the mad rush of greedy cultivators, a suffocating, glacial terror had completely gripped the grand hall of the Cao Clan estate.

Crash!

A priceless celadon teacup shattered violently against the marble floor, splashing hot liquid across the silken boots of several trembling elders.

At the head of the long chamber stood Cao Yan, the patriarch of the Cao Clan.

His face was entirely deformed with rage, his veins bulging like thick purple earthworms against his temples as he clutched a freshly delivered intelligence talisman.

"A fifty-one percent discount?!" Cao Yan roared, his voice trembling with a mixture of disbelief and raw fury.

"They undercut us by a single percentage point?! How?!"

"Patriarch, it’s not just the low-tier market!" a logistics elder cried out, his voice cracking as he fell to his knees, sweat pouring down his pale face.

"The union just finished a surprise auction! They successfully refined the Tier 3 Iron-Cleansing Hearth Pill with a staggering ninety-three percent purity!"

"The entire high-end market, the clan elders, the core miners, the wealthy merchants, they have all abandoned our outlets! Our primary stores are completely empty! Dead! Not a single spiritual stone has crossed our counters in the last hour!"

The grand hall erupted into absolute, panicked chaos. The elders began talking over one another, their faces pale, their traditional composure completely shattered.

"This is a disaster! We poured every single scrap of our liquid treasury into the morning rush to sustain the fifty-percent discount!" an elder shouted, wringing his hands frantically.

"We have thousands of boxes of low-tier pills sitting in the warehouses, produced at a premium! If we can’t sell them, our capital chain will completely snap by nightfall!"

"We must fight back! Patriarch, let us lower the prices further! Lower them to fifty-five percent, no, sixty percent! We must draw the crowd back from the Golden Cauldron at all costs!" another elder suggested desperately, slamming his fist against the table.

"Are you an idiot?!" the finance elder shrieked, turning on him with bloodshot eyes. "Lowering our prices to sixty percent means we are selling at a massive loss!"

"We don’t have the deep foundations of a merchant union! If we run a sixty-percent discount for more than three days, our clan will go completely bankrupt from raw materials alone! We are already bleeding out!"

As the elders argued like rabid dogs, Cao Yan’s grip on his throne tightened until the solid mahogany wood began to crack and splinter under his immense physical strength.

His mind wasn’t just consumed by the Golden Cauldron’s commercial strike, a deeper, far more terrifying realization was beginning to choke him.

"Silence!" Cao Yan bellowed, a wave of 7th-stage Golden Core aura flaring out, instantly freezing the bickering elders in their tracks.

The room fell into a tense, breathless silence. Cao Yan scanned the pale, anxious faces of his subordinates, his eyes narrowing to sharp, dangerous slits.

"The pricing war is secondary," the patriarch muttered, his voice dropping to a low, vibrating growl that sent a cold shiver down everyone’s spine. "Where... is the Ge Clan?"

The question hung heavily in the air, thick with an ominous weight.

"According to the previous messenger, their delegation should have arrived hours ago!"

Cao Yan slammed his fist onto the armrest, cracking the polished wood.

"If we can just finalize the marriage alliance with them today, we will absolutely have the financial backing and martial support to endure this commercial war!"

"We could easily lower our prices even further and bleed the union out! It is already late afternoon! Why have I not received a single piece of news regarding their arrival?!"

"We... we don’t know, Patriarch," the intelligence head stuttered, wiping cold sweat from his brow with a trembling hand.

"We sent three high-grade message talismans directly to the Ge Clan’s estate over the past two hours, but every single one of them sank into the void like stones dropped into a bottomless ocean. There has been an absolute, terrifying silence from their side."

A heavy, suffocating sense of dread settled over the entire room.

The Ge Clan was supposed to be their ultimate shield in this high-stakes gambit.

If something had gone wrong on their end, it meant the Cao Clan was currently standing entirely exposed, caught in the jaws of an economic trap they couldn’t possibly fight their way out of alone.

"Patriarch, could it be that the Ge Clan has betrayed us?" an elder whispered, his voice trembling as he looked around the room.

"What if they saw the union’s Tier 3 pill breakthrough and decided to pull out of the alliance to save their own skin?"

"Impossible! Patriarch Ge is no fool!" Cao Yan snarled, though a seed of panic was firmly taking root in his own chest, making his heart pound violently against his ribs.

"He knows that if the Golden Cauldron completely captures the market of Crimson Iron City, they will undoubtedly expand to the neighboring regions."

"Flowing Spring City is the closest, they would be the very first to get swept away and crushed by the union’s growth! They need this alliance as much as we do!"

Yet, despite his reassuring words, the perfect, flawless victory he had envisioned this morning had completely transformed into a horrific nightmare.

Turning his gaze toward the back of the hall, Cao Yan pointed a trembling, authoritative finger at his personal core disciple.

"You! Take the swiftest spirit-steed from the stables immediately! Ride directly to the Ge Clan’s primary estate and find out exactly what the hell is happening over there! Discover why Young Master Ge has not arrived to sign and finalize the marriage contract! Tell Patriarch Ge that if he doesn’t follow through with our agreement right now, this market war is lost!"

"Yes, Patriarch!" the young disciple shouted, bowing frantically before turning on his heels and sprinting out of the grand hall at maximum speed.

Cao Yan collapsed heavily back into his throne, his bloodshot eyes staring blankly at the shattered celadon pieces on the floor.

Outside the estate, the commercial stampede of the city was growing louder, a distant, mocking roar that signaled the rapid, exquisite collapse of everything his family had built over generations.

He could only close his eyes and pray that the Ge Clan would follow through with what they had already decided.