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Chapter 205: Affairs Hall
🕑 Added 2024-09-17 05:16:12 +0000 UTCMeanwhile, at the Jiang household.
Jiang's mother and elder brother were stunned when they saw a cluster of colorful light suddenly emerge from Jiang Youfu’s body, transforming into a glowing book.
After a long moment, Jiang's mother finally found her voice and stammered as she pointed to the book in Jiang Youfu's hand:
"Fuzi, is… is that book your immortal technique?"
Jiang Youfu quickly explained to her and his elder brother.
He told them that this was a new cultivation method he had developed and that it wasn’t something bad.
Only then did Jiang's mother and elder brother relax and feel relieved.
They didn’t understand what a cultivation method was, so they didn’t grasp its significance. All that mattered to them was that it wasn’t something harmful.
The three of them stayed by Grandma Jiang's side. Not long after, the rest of the family returned home.
Once everyone in the Jiang family had gathered, it wasn’t long before Grandma Jiang slowly awoke.
Seeing this, Jiang Youfu finally felt at ease.
Looking at the Chapter of Immortal Cuisine in his hand, he thought for a moment but decided not to return to the sect right away to inform Brother Xiao.
Instead, he resolved to spend the entire day by his grandmother's side.
He would tell Brother Xiao tomorrow.
A summer afternoon.
The air was filled with the incessant chirping of cicadas.
Some young children in the village, undeterred by the scorching sun, ran around catching cicadas, their faces flushed red and drenched in sweat.
In the past, Lin Xiao and his friends were also part of the village's cicada-catching team.
Now, they all had their own cultivation paths.
Apart from the playful children, even the diligent farmers took shelter from the blistering heat, resting in the shade of trees or inside their homes to cool off.
They would only resume their work after the hottest part of the day had passed.
Under the searing sun that seemed intent on melting the earth, Magistrate Wen’s carriage slowly made its way into Shushui Village.
Following behind the carriage were a few constables on short-legged horses.
Some villagers, lounging in the shade near the village entrance and fanning themselves while chatting, noticed the carriage and pointed it out to those nearby.
Although they didn’t know who was inside the carriage, they recognized the uniforms of the constables.
Soon, one of the villagers shouted into the nearby bushes, calling out to a few children with flushed faces who were catching grasshoppers and cicadas.
He instructed them to quickly inform the village chief that officials had arrived in the village.
The children wiped the sweat from their dirty faces with their grubby hands, then darted off toward the village chief’s house.
At the same time, Lin Xiao, Qin Jianghe, and Liu Yunan were in the sect hall on North Mountain, discussing future plans for the sect.
Qin Jianghe mentioned that one of his main reasons for returning was to propose the construction of a place dedicated to handling sect affairs.
He believed that as the sect continued to grow, the current practice of one-on-one communication and distribution of resources was becoming inefficient.
He had noticed this issue during his correspondence with Baldy.
So, he suggested establishing an Affairs Hall, where a designated person could manage tasks like distributing salaries and rewards to the disciples.
This would save a lot of time and free up Baldy to oversee the sect's larger affairs.
Hearing this, Lin Xiao found the idea reasonable and immediately agreed.
The next moment, he stepped outside to a spot near the corner of the grass hut—a place everyone in the sect would pass by—and there, he synthesized a modest-sized Affairs Hall.
Of course, to make it look more impressive than a simple mud-brick building, he generously tossed in five spirit stones. The building synthesizer, not wanting to disappoint, even provided a plaque with the three large characters "Affairs Hall" engraved on it.
As for who would manage the Affairs Hall, Lin Xiao decided to leave that entirely up to Baldy.
Since he was about to enter seclusion, delegating responsibilities would help ease the sect’s management in the future.
Otherwise, if something needed changing later, it would be difficult for Baldy and Qin Jianghe to make adjustments on their own without his guidance.
Lin Xiao then remembered that the new sect members had yet to receive their sect uniforms.
Knowing that the sect might recruit more members during his seclusion, he decided to harvest some spirit silkworm threads and prepare additional uniforms to store in the treasury.
Months had passed since he last collected, and the spirit silkworms had already produced several more batches of silk.
Lin Xiao wasn’t entirely sure, but he figured that spirit silkworms must have a shorter growth cycle compared to ordinary silkworms.
In the end, he synthesized a total of one hundred sect uniforms from the spirit silkworm silk.
He handed a few sets to Baldy, instructing him to distribute them to the newly admitted disciples like Liu Chun and Mo Yuanjiao. He also gave ten sets to Qin Jianghe to take back to Songming County and distribute to the disciples he had recruited into the sect.
After that, they discussed the issue of salaries.
Now that the sect was operating smoothly, it was time to switch from paying in silver to paying in spirit stones.
After some deliberation, the three of them agreed on the following:
For disciples without any official duties, a monthly salary of five spirit stones.
For hall managers, an additional thirty spirit stones on top of the base salary.
For those managing the sect’s farmland, they would receive five spirit stones per mu of spirit field they tended.
As for Senior Liao, Lin Xiao had already discussed this with him.
Initially, Senior Liao didn’t want any spirit stones, but Lin Xiao insisted.
Finally, Senior Liao agreed to receive the same amount as Baldy.
Both Liu Yunan and Qin Jianghe also insisted on receiving the same salary as the hall managers.
And so, the salaries were tentatively set.
Since the sect was still in its early stages, the salaries were relatively modest.
However, these were temporary measures. As the sect grew, adjustments would naturally be made if the system became unsuitable.
Lin Xiao took Qin Jianghe and Liu Yunan to see the spirit stone mine at the foot of the back mountain.
He then entrusted them with the task of arranging mining operations.
He had now fully adopted the role of a hands-off leader.
As a result, the discussions in the sect hall gradually shifted from a three-person conversation to a lively debate between the two of them, with Lin Xiao intentionally stepping back.
Sitting in the middle, Lin Xiao watched them discuss various topics, clearly enjoying the lively exchange.
By the time they realized that Lin Xiao had withdrawn from the conversation, most of the matters they needed to discuss had already been settled and finalized.
Just then, someone knocked on the main door of the sect hall.
"Brother Xiao, you should come down and take a look—there are officials in the village, and it looks like the magistrate is here too!"
The speaker was none other than Yang Jinshu.
Nowadays, he and his family of three lived within the sect.
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