Qi Haoran was thrilled to hear Mu Yangling call him 'Brother'. Just as he was about to ask her to repeat it a few more times, Mu Yangling had already turned around to talk to Fan Zijin.
She told Fan Zijin about the few merchants. She didn't mention that Butler Chen had the intention to stop the merchants from going north. She only said that a few merchants wanted to import goods and sell them south.
Given Fan Zijin's shrewdness, it would definitely occur to him to ask about this when he saw them. Therefore, there was no need for her to play the bad guy here.
When Fan Zijin heard that a customer had come to ask about the diced rabbit meat, he was in a good mood. Since no one had approached him about this so far, he'd thought that they could only do the diced rabbit meat business themselves.