The envoys from Meereen and Yunkai fled Astapor in a panic.
But the threat they left behind loomed like a dark cloud over this newborn free city.
The blockade had begun.
Just as Jorah Mormont had feared, the waters of Slaver's Bay fell into a deathly silence.
In less than half a day!
No more merchant ships, flying various flags, sailed into the harbor, bringing grain, cloth, and iron ore.
The merchants who had once relied on trade with Astapor retreated under the threat of swords from the Meereen and Yunkai fleets.
Within just a few days, the city's atmosphere had shifted from the euphoria of liberation to deep anxiety about the future.
"My Lord, the grain will only last for one more month at most."
"Even with Magister Illyrio's full support in secret, it probably won't last much longer."
In the hall, Jorah Mormont's voice was heavy.
He spread a parchment filled with numbers before Lynn, his weathered face etched with anxiety.
"Nearly three hundred thousand mouths, even if we ration, the daily consumption of grain will be an astronomical figure."
"The provisions we seized from the good master's mansion are merely a drop in the ocean."
"And rumors have already begun to spread in the city."
Missandei added, her delicate face showing a worry beyond her years.
"Some are saying that the dragon lord has only pushed us from one fire pit into another."
"They say that when the food runs out, they will either starve to death, or... be fed to the dragons."
"I suspect these rumors are being spread by other trade city-states."
These malicious rumors festered in the dark corners of the city, gnawing at the people's newly built confidence.
Daenerys sat to the side, her heart tightly constricted.
She watched Lynn, who still sat calmly in the main seat, slowly whittling a... green stick with a small knife.
The stick looked unremarkable, like a branch a country child might casually snap off.
"So, they want to use hunger to force us to kneel."
Lynn finally spoke, without even looking up.
"Yes, My Lord." Jorah nodded.
"This is the most effective and most vicious method."
"In a besieged city, the first thing to collapse is always the people's morale."
Lynn threw the whittled green skin aside, revealing the white, fibrous stalk within.
He put the stalk into his mouth and chewed gently.
A sweet juice instantly burst on his taste buds.
"Dany, try some."
Lynn handed another peeled piece to Dany.
Dany hesitated before taking it, and following Lynn's example, cautiously took a bite.
Her beautiful violet eyes instantly lit up.
"So sweet!"
It was a sweetness without any impurities, richer than mead, and fresher than summer fruit.
"What is this?" she asked curiously.
"Sugarcane." Lynn stood up.
"I've already seen it; this is just a common wild grass found everywhere on the continent of Essos."
"Those good masters only know to use it to feed livestock, or let their slaves chew on it to pass the time."
"But they don't know that within this small wild grass lies a power capable of overturning the entire world."
Jorah and Daenerys exchanged glances, completely baffled by Lynn's meaning.
"Come, I'll take you to see some real magic."
Lynn led them to a plantation on the outskirts of the city that had once belonged to the good masters.
It was filled with vast fields of sugarcane, swaying in the hot wind like a green ocean.
Lynn had immediately ordered the Unsullied to guard this place after occupying it, which was also why Lynn dared to defy Meereen and these city-states.
Lynn gathered all the stonemasons and carpenters in the city.
By the time Daenerys and Jorah arrived, the place had already been transformed.
Under the guidance of Lynn's personally drawn blueprints, the craftsmen quickly erected a set of what seemed to them incredibly strange devices.
It was a press consisting of two huge circular millstones, powered by a sturdy draft horse.
The draft horse turned, causing the millstones to slowly grind.
Bundles of sugarcane were fed between the millstones, and with a "crunching" sound, pale green sugarcane juice continuously flowed along the pre-dug stone troughs into a huge clay pot nearby.
A intoxicating sweet aroma began to fill the air.
"What... what are they doing?"
Jorah looked at the juice, mixed with grass and dirt, his face full of confusion.
Lynn did not answer.
He directed the workers to carry vats of sugarcane juice to a row of huge iron cauldrons.
Beneath the cauldrons, the fires blazed.
The sugarcane juice boiled in the pots, emitting white steam.
"Add that in."
Lynn pointed to a pile of white powder made from burnt seashells nearby.
That was lime.
As the lime powder was sprinkled into the pot, a magical scene unfolded.
The previously cloudy juice began to clear, and the grass scraps and impurities reacted with the lime, forming scum that floated to the surface.
The workers used large, long-handled ladles to skim off this scum.
The liquid in the pot gradually changed from pale green to a thick, amber-colored syrup.
The cloying sweetness almost engulfed the entire plantation.
"My Lord, is this... some new kind of mead?"
Jorah couldn't help but ask.
"No, it will be ten thousand times more valuable than mead."
Lynn had people pour the hot syrup into conical clay molds with small holes at the bottom.
As the temperature dropped, the syrup began to cool and crystallize.
A few hours later, when the workers broke open the clay molds, what appeared before everyone's eyes were rough, yellowish-brown solid blocks.
Raw sugar.
Daenerys curiously broke off a small piece and put it in her mouth.
It was very sweet, but it had a slightly burnt taste and some impurities, and the texture was a bit coarse.
"Is that all?" Jorah was a little disappointed.
Although this stuff was sweet, it didn't seem much more noble than ordinary honey.
"Ser Jorah, why are you in such a hurry? This is just the beginning."
Lynn smiled.
He had the workers place these conical raw sugar blocks upside down on a row of empty clay pots.
Then, he had someone bring wet clay.
"Seal these muds on top of the sugar blocks."
Everyone was stunned.
Adding mud to sweets?
What kind of unheard-of operation was this?
Even Daenerys showed a bewildered expression.
Lynn didn't explain, only told everyone to wait patiently.
Under everyone's puzzled gaze, the moisture in the clay slowly, drop by drop, began to seep downwards.
The water flowed through the crystal gaps of the raw sugar, dissolving and carrying away the yellowish-brown molasses coating the crystals, little by little.
Drops of dark brown liquid seeped from the small holes at the bottom of the sugar blocks, dripping into the clay pots below.
And the originally yellowish-brown sugar blocks were visibly lightening in color from top to bottom.
From yellowish-brown, to pale yellow, then to off-white... this process was slow and magical, like a silent transformation.
Everyone held their breath, staring intently at the "fading" sugar block, as if witnessing the birth of a miracle.
A day later.
When Lynn gave the order for the workers to remove the dried clay from the top and take out the refreshed sugar block.
The entire plantation fell into a deathly silence.
Jorah Mormont's eyes were wide as copper bells, and his mouth was open wide enough to fit a fist.
Daenerys, even more, covered her mouth with her hand, her purple eyes filled with disbelief.
What appeared before them was a solid block, white as snow, sparkling with crystalline luster in the sunlight.
Lynn took the white sugar block and gently squeezed it.
The sugar block instantly shattered into countless white crystals, like diamond dust.
He picked up a pinch and offered it to Daenerys's lips.
Daenerys extended the tip of her tongue and gently licked it.
Boom—!
A pure, ultimate sweetness instantly exploded in her mouth!
No impurities, no burnt bitterness, only pure, soul-shaking sweetness!
"God... food of the gods..."
Jorah Mormont murmured.
He had lived half his life, traveled all over Westeros and Essos, and had never seen or tasted anything so incredible!
He looked at Lynn in shock.
Could it be that Lynn was once a maester of the Citadel?
"This is its true form."
Lynn scattered the white powder in his hand into the air.
The sparkling sugar powder danced in the sunlight, like falling auspicious snow.
"In Westeros, those great lords, to show their nobility, would pay a high price to buy a rare type of block sugar from Lys, which they called 'white gold.'"
"A small piece was worth one gold dragon."
"But that kind of sugar had extremely low production, and it was far from as pure as ours."
Lynn looked at Jorah and Daenerys's expressions of utter shock, and he was quite pleased.
As a modern person, anything he casually brought out would be a dimension-reducing strike to this era.
This feeling was truly exhilarating.
"Now, tell me."
"What will happen when this thing, whiter than snow and sweeter than honey, appears at the court feasts of Westeros?"
Jorah's mind was buzzing.
He could almost see it now!
The nobles of the Seven Kingdoms, waving gold dragons and scrambling, all to get a small bag of this white powder called "sugar"!
Spices, silks, all would pale in comparison to this ultimate sensory temptation!
This was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted in his life!
"They will go mad for it!"
Jorah's voice trembled.
"My Lord, you... you have created... a gold mine!"
Lynn's gaze turned westward, towards the continent separated by the Narrow Sea.
"Meereen and Yunkai can blockade Slaver's Bay, but can they blockade the entire world?"
"They won't do business with us, but the lords of Westeros will cry and beg, using their ships filled with grain and steel to trade for the sugar in our hands."
Daenerys looked at Lynn's profile, her purple eyes filled with an almost worshipful affection.
Faced with a blockade capable of starving a city, Lynn not only showed no panic but effortlessly produced a supreme weapon capable of breaking all stalemates.
This was beyond mortal wisdom.
"Give my command!"
Lynn's voice echoed through the fervent plantation.
"Recruit men from the loyal Unsullied army to expand sugarcane cultivation and white sugar production!"
"I want the white sugar of Astapor to pile up like mountains!"
"Also," Lynn turned to Jorah Mormont, a flicker of cunning in his eyes.
"Send someone to Pentos and leak this news to Magister Illyrio."
"Tell him I have a business deal that could make him empty the Iron Bank, and I want to discuss it with him."
"Just say I want to rent all his ships."
"Will he agree?"
Jorah was a little hesitant.
"Illyrio is a merchant; he won't want to offend Meereen and Yunkai, and his aid to us has been covert..."
"He will."
Lynn interrupted him, pressing a small sample bag into his hand.
"No merchant can refuse a profit of three hundred percent or more."
"If there is, he is certainly not a qualified merchant."
"Go, Jorah."
"Get those merchant ships as soon as possible."
"We can't wait, and neither can those nobles of Westeros."