Chapter 426: Ponzi Has Arrived

“What exactly is this plan?” Ram pressed, unwilling to let it go.

“What’s the typical return on investment in the Empire these days?” Wu Qingsong asked.

“Return on investment?”

“I mean, if you invest money into a business, how much profit can you expect to make over a year? For example, when those smugglers used to trade with the beastkin, say they invested ten thousand renals, how much pure profit could they expect after a year’s work?”

“That’s hard to say,” Ram replied. “If you open a shop inside a castle, sure, it’s relatively safe, but you get taxed at every checkpoint, have to bribe the local lord and sheriff regularly, and sometimes even face extortion from the garrison. Factor in labor, purchasing costs, transport risks, and spoilage. If you invest ten thousand and net six or seven hundred after all that, you’re already doing quite well. If you’ve got connections and face less extortion, maybe you make a thousand at best.”

Ten percent pure profit?

Wu Qingsong nodded. That wasn’t a small figure.

Ram shook her head. “That’s why most honest merchants don’t bother with remote locations. Commercial cities are more competitive and the taxes are high, but at least the corruption is more standardized. It’s easier to turn a profit. Border shops are often just a front.”

“What about smuggling?” Wu Qingsong asked.

“That’s all luck,” Ram answered, now speaking with the ease of someone well-versed in the trade. “To smuggle successfully, you either need safe and secret routes, overwhelming force to resist taxation, or obscure paths where no one goes. And you need reliable buyers. Secret routes cost a lot to maintain and are always at risk of exposure. Forceful resistance requires mercenaries, which isn’t cheap, and if you run into a patrol, you lose everything. Taking the backroads is pure luck—you might strike gold or die trying. No matter the method, the riskiest leg is always the trip from the border to the buyer. If civil war breaks out like what happened on the Stampede Plateau, most people will cut their losses and run. And if the beastkin decide to rob you, they’ll usually kill everyone to avoid witnesses.”

Her words were laced with blood and hard truth, making Wu Qingsong shake his head.

“If your buyers are unreliable and decide to screw you over, it’s game over. Even building trust with good buyers takes time, effort, and money. In the best-case scenario, if luck’s on your side, invest ten thousand, smuggle a few times a year, and you could earn twenty, thirty thousand—maybe even fifty or eighty thousand. Worst case, you lose your life, your goods, and everything you own.”

“What about the soap and seed smuggling we used to do?” he asked.

“In the beginning, we didn’t really smuggle ourselves,” Ram explained. “We just sold the goods at prices below market value to actual smugglers. Profits were modest, mostly saved on taxes, transport, and storage loss. But once we started using Ling’s airships, most of the risks disappeared.”

No wonder Ram’s attitude toward Ling had shifted dramatically after the airships came into play.

“So, why are you asking all this? Is it related to your plan?”

“Let me put it this way. If you were a half-elf steward running smuggling operations for the Elves at the border, and someone offered you a pure profit return of 30%, maybe even 40% per year… and you didn’t have to do anything. Just invest money. That’s it. You could dismiss all your men, eliminate overhead, avoid all risks and taxes, stop groveling to petty officials, you just stay home and wait for the money to roll in. Would you take the offer?”

“Thirty percent profit? Of course I would. But where in the world would something like that exist?”

“And if it did?” Wu Qingsong smiled.

“I wouldn’t believe it. It has to be a scam,” Ram said flatly. “Unless someone unified the entire plateau… no, even then it wouldn’t be possible.”

“That’s why we need Red Moon to handle this,” Wu Qingsong said. “She has to convince those people that this dream can come true.”

“You want to run a scam? But what’s the point? The moment they can’t get their money back, the Elves will realize something’s wrong, and we’ll be in serious trouble. Isn’t that the exact opposite of what we’re aiming for?”

“What if they do get their money back? What if the returns are real, at least for a while?”

“How would that even work? You’re not going to cover the payouts using Nagrand’s profits, are you? Didn’t you just say we can’t use that kind of method?”

“Not a single coin from Nagrand,” Wu Qingsong said. “And Nagrand’s name can’t be tied to this in any way. This is a demon we’re about to unleash—one that, if handled properly, can run for years. And in the end, it can drag countless half-elves into the pit. When it finally collapses, the damage it’ll do to the Empire could be devastating.”

“That’s impossible,” Ram said again.

“Trust me, Ram, it’s absolutely doable,” Wu Qingsong replied. “All it takes is one thing. Something nearly every steward and manager has. Greed.”

Wu Qingsong’s insight came from his previous life. 

In college, there had been widespread Ponzi scheme scams targeting fresh graduates, prompting his school to organize seminars and distribute flyers to raise awareness. Then came the infamous Ezubao scandal, which made national headlines. That piqued his interest and led him to study the mechanics of such schemes.

Of course, pyramid schemes and MLMs wouldn’t work here—this world didn’t have the right environment or consumer culture. The math was too complex, and Wu Qingsong barely understood the deeper mechanics. They also required an army of brainwashed, amoral recruiters—and that kind of cultish operation was far too conspicuous.

No, what he intended to unleash through Red Moon was the simplest form of Ponzi scheme. The very model perfected by Bernard Madoff. Anton would be the perfect front—a figurehead that made people believe this was the personal investment venture of Duke Fantali’s son. Safe. Reliable. Guaranteed returns.

And he’d also be the perfect fall guy.

The ideal targets? The half-elf stewards—the ones who actually controlled the Empire’s grassroots systems.

These were men like Anton: tax officials, guild managers, regional administrators.

They had access to staggering sums of money, but none of it belonged to them. They saw the Empire’s luxury every day but lacked the means to enjoy it. Constantly exposed to wealth, constantly tasked with squeezing every last coin from others, they were greedy, resentful, and unfulfilled.

Given the opportunity, Wu Qingsong was certain—they wouldn’t hesitate to use that money to enrich themselves.

Why wouldn’t they?

How much did Madoff scam in the end? Sixty billion dollars?

Then what kind of miracle might this Anton Scheme bring into this world?