Beast Taming Immortal Clan

Chapter 258 Lin Hongyu's Plans

The mysterious reward that Zhou family received after entering the top 30 of the "Hundred Clans Tournament" is now known to all the elders of the Zhou family.

Therefore, the elders were not surprised that Zhou Mingde said the Zhou family would need to hire a large number of people in the future.

However, Zhou Chun's answer made several elders frown.

Zhou Mingde frowned slightly and said, "Hiring outsiders is certainly one solution, but can outsiders be trusted?"

"Those rogue cultivators are all selfish and opportunistic. They'll do anything to anyone who offers them benefits. Hiring them as henchmen is fine for things like fighting off beast tides, but when it comes to dealing with other forces or mining resources, even with supervision, there's no guarantee they won't try every means to betray their family's interests!"

Zhou Chun was certainly aware of this as well.

At this moment, he calmly said, "What the Supreme Elder said makes a lot of sense, but he overlooked the composition of rogue cultivators."

"In the eyes of our great families, those cultivation families without a fixed mountain gate or a Foundation Establishment cultivator are all rogue cultivators!"

"But as everyone knows, aside from not having a sect headquarters or Foundation Establishment cultivators, those people are actually cultivation families too, with families and children!"

"In addition, there are many couples, fathers and sons, and master and disciple among the independent cultivators. These people also have mutual concerns."

At this point, Zhou Chun glanced at Zhou Mingde and the elders who seemed to be deep in thought, and continued, "Therefore, in my opinion, we can have two sets of standards for hiring rogue cultivators. When it comes to things like clearing out demonic beasts and defending against beast tides, we can hire anyone. For more delicate tasks, we can only hire those who have families and responsibilities."

"Of course, to do this well, we need to allocate more manpower to collect information on independent cultivators on a regular basis. This way, when we need to hire someone, it will be easier to find them directly. Moreover, we can hire those independent cultivators to do this kind of work as well!"

"We can even make some investments in some independent cultivators with good character and decent talent. For example, we can allow them to meditate and cultivate at the Zhou family's mountain gate for free, sell them some cultivation resources at cost price, or give them a magic weapon in the form of half cash and half loan."

"Perhaps not every investment will yield a return, but as long as half of the investments generate a useful return, the family won't be so short-handed in terms of manpower in the future!"

After he finished speaking, Zhou Mingde and the other elders of the Zhou family lowered their heads and pondered his words.

After a while, Zhou Daoyi spoke first, saying, "Excellent! Zheng Chun, what you said is truly enlightening, and all of it is practical!"

Zhou Mingde nodded repeatedly, saying, "That's right. If you hadn't brought this up, I really wouldn't have realized it."

Their inability to realize this is related to their own upbringing.

They grew up in the powerful Zhou family and have always held a deep contempt for rogue cultivators. They have also witnessed many ugly things that rogue cultivators do for petty gains.

Such experiences naturally made them distrust and dislike rogue cultivators from the bottom of their hearts.

Therefore, even when they need to hire outsiders for help, they will instinctively reject independent cultivators.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Zhou family had never encountered a situation that required hiring outsiders on a large scale before, and naturally they had no experience in doing so.

Zhou Chun didn't have the deep-seated aversion or disgust towards rogue cultivators, and because of the influence of his past life's experiences and memories, he was very familiar with how servants worked, so it was easy for him to think of these things.

However, Zhou Chun kept these things to herself and naturally wouldn't say them aloud.

Seeing that everyone was satisfied with his suggestion, he took the opportunity to put forward a reform proposal that he had thought of before the war began.

"Since the two Supreme Elders and all the other elders have no objection to employing rogue cultivators, I'd like to share another idea of ​​mine."

"I had previously discovered that many family matters consumed a lot of the clan members' time, which seriously hindered the development of the clan's cultivators in other cultivation techniques and also deprived them of the opportunity and time to go out and hone their skills."

"So I was thinking, could we outsource some less important tasks, such as feeding and raising the demon beasts, and taking care of the medicinal herbs in the fields, to independent cultivators?"

"If we can't trust ordinary rogue cultivators, we can select cultivators from small families to do these things, and even cultivate these small families into vassal families specifically for raising beasts and growing herbs for our Zhou family!"

As Zhou Chun had expected, someone immediately raised a different opinion after hearing his suggestion, and that person was none other than the rather conservative Second Elder, Zhou Chongshan.

Zhou Chongshan slowly said, "Zhengchun, I think your idea is inappropriate. The reason why my Zhou family lets our clansmen do the work of raising demonic beasts and taking care of medicinal fields is not to save money, but to train them so that they can have a clearer understanding of the habits of demonic beasts and spiritual herbs and be able to apply what they have learned."

"If we hire independent cultivators to do these things, not to mention the considerable expense in spirit coins, what if they do something bad behind the family's back? What if they learn the family's beast-taming skills?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Chun replied, "I have naturally thought about what the Second Elder said, but people are all different. Even if my Zhou family has passed down the art of beast taming, not every member of the clan will like it. As elders and seniors, we don't necessarily have to make them learn these things."

"While beast taming is certainly a specialty of our Zhou family, we can't rely solely on that. We should also train people in areas like formations, weapon crafting, alchemy, and talisman making. At the very least, we should be able to produce our own commonly used low-level talismans, pills, and magical artifacts!"

"And as you know, Second Elder, to achieve something in these skills, each one requires a lot of resources and a lot of a cultivator's time."

"As for the concern that rogue cultivators might cause trouble, we can adopt a tiered system. We can classify important demon beast species such as the Crimson-Eyed Dragon Vulture, Dragon Claw Giant Lizard, Dragon Scale Horse, Eight-Horned Water-Splitting Deer, and Crimson Flame Vajra Monkey into the highest level, allowing only family cultivators to take care of and interact with them. The other ordinary demon beasts can be taken care of by hired people. In this way, the damage caused by their mischief will not be too great."

"As for skills, there's even less to worry about. So what if rogue cultivators learn some of our Zhou family's beast-taming techniques? Can they establish beast gardens and raise demonic beasts like our Zhou family? Can they master the methods of refining Beast Spirit Pills and Demon Spirit Pills? Can they learn our Zhou family's secret beast-taming techniques?"

"Without the Zhou family's secret elixirs and techniques, how could merely learning some methods of taming demonic beasts pose a threat to the Zhou family!"

At this point, Zhou Chun continued, "I know that training cultivators who understand formations, alchemy, weapon crafting, and talisman making will be very expensive, but if we don't do it, we'll never have any!"

"The family has reaped enormous benefits this time, and will be able to generate a continuous stream of income from the wilderness in the future. I think it's time to do these things!"

After he finished speaking, Zhou Chongshan also looked thoughtful, pondering what he had said.

In terms of family reforms, Zhou Chongshan has indeed always appeared somewhat conservative, but he is not a truly rigid, inflexible person.

Conservatism can also be a form of caution, because he is cautious about every change he makes to the family and cares deeply about the impact of such changes on the family, which makes him appear conservative when faced with such changes.

If, after careful consideration, he believes that the benefits of change far outweigh the drawbacks for the family, then he will not oppose the reforms.

Zhou Chun had already learned this from his many interactions with him.

Therefore, whenever Zhou Chun wanted to make any changes, he would consider things from Zhou Chun's perspective and find points that Zhou Chun could accept.

From this perspective, it was precisely because of his conservatism that Zhou Chun was able to do better.

After some thought, Zhou Chongshan turned his gaze to the two Supreme Elders at the head of the table.

Then he asked softly, "What do you two elders think of the clan leader's idea?"

"I think Zheng Chun is right. If our Zhou family wants to rebuild its glory in the future, we can't just focus on the small world within the family. We should also open our eyes to the outside world."

"If the family's cultivators could have more time to go out and see the world, to hone their skills, and to discover and develop their talents, the family's foundation would naturally be enhanced in all aspects."

Zhou Daoyi nodded slightly, being the first to express his support for Zhou Chun.

Looking at Zhou Mingde's side, after frowning slightly, he also said, "I generally agree with what Zheng Chun said. However, even if the family is now wealthy, we should proceed slowly when training those family members who are good at alchemy and weapon crafting. We must not be too hasty and take too big a step, so as not to waste the family's resources."

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Chun replied respectfully, "Yes, this junior will certainly keep in mind the teachings of the Supreme Elder and will proceed with this matter with utmost care."

Seeing this, Zhou Chongshan nodded and said, "Since both of you Supreme Elders think this is feasible, then I have no objection."

Next, Zhou Chun talked about the family's income and expenditure and some future development plans, and then the meeting ended.

After the meeting, Zhou Chun took out the second-tier magic artifacts he had acquired and allowed the elders to choose them first. The rest would be temporarily stored in the family treasury and sold at a later time.

Having just experienced a great war, which resulted in the deaths of many cultivators and the acquisition of enemy relics by others, the prices of magical artifacts in the market have plummeted.

A magical artifact that originally required 400 spirit coins can now be bought for less than 300 spirit coins.

Therefore, apart from some cultivators who urgently need spirit coins, most cultivation families will not choose to sell magic artifacts for spirit coins at this time.

Half a month after Zhou Mingde and his group returned to the Zhou family, a person who was expected to arrive at the Zhou family came.

"Fellow Daoist Lin, have you come to the Zhou family this time to deliver a message from Senior Lin?"

On Pagoda Peak, Zhou Chun personally welcomed Lin Wan'er into the mountain gate and then asked her about her purpose without any attempt to hide it.

Ever since Jin Chixuan and his men killed the fourth-tier mid-grade Crimson Fire Dragon of the Crimson Dragon Hall, Zhou Mingde had been waiting for Lin Hongyu to take the initiative to contact the Zhou family.

Now, more than half a month has passed, and Lin Wan'er, Lin Hongyu's adopted daughter, has finally returned to the Zhou family.

When Zhou Chun asked her, Lin Wan'er nodded without hesitation and replied, "It was indeed my godmother who sent me, but I can only personally deliver her letter to Senior Zhou."

"Understood, then I, Zhou, will take you to pay your respects to the Supreme Elder."

Zhou Chun nodded and immediately took Lin Wan'er to Zhou Mingde's cave on the mountaintop.

Upon arriving at the cave, Zhou Mingde was overjoyed to see Lin Wan'er. After she explained her purpose and handed him the jade slip containing Lin Hongyu's letter, he eagerly took it and began to examine it.

He quickly finished reading Lin Hongyu's message in the jade slip, then looked up at Lin Wan'er with a slight glint in his eyes and asked, "Miss Lin, have you met Fellow Daoist Lin?"

Lin Wan'er was slightly taken aback upon hearing his words, then respectfully replied, "I met my godmother four days ago, and she gave me this jade slip at that time!"

"Then take a look at the contents of this jade slip yourself!"

As Zhou Mingde spoke, he handed the jade slip back to Lin Wan'er.

Upon seeing this, Lin Wan'er's eyes narrowed slightly, and then she took the jade slip and began to read it.

After she finished reading the contents of the jade slip, her expression changed drastically, and she remained silent for a long time.

After waiting for a quarter of an hour without her speaking, Zhou Mingde had no choice but to speak first, saying, "I have no right to comment on Fellow Daoist Lin's arrangement. If Miss Lin has no intention of serving the Zhou family, neither I nor the Zhou family will force you."

Upon hearing his words, Lin Wan'er, who had been silent all along, finally responded.

He shook his head slightly and said, "No, that's not what I meant. Since it's my godmother's arrangement, I naturally won't object!"

After saying that, he added in a dejected tone, "I just don't understand, since my godmother is going to Cheng Kingdom to recuperate, why didn't she take me with her? Even if my cultivation level is low, I could at least help her by guarding the gate and running errands!"

It turned out that although Lin Hongyu had not forgotten the benefits she had promised the Zhou family, she dared not meet with Zhou Mingde and Zhou Daoyi in private now that she was seriously injured.

So she went to Chengguo to recuperate, and planned to return to meet Zhou Mingde and Zhou Daoyi after she had fully recovered, to present the promised benefits.

Perhaps to gain the trust of Zhou Mingde and Zhou Daoyi, or perhaps because she genuinely wanted to find a place for Lin Wan'er to stay, she wrote in the letter that she would keep Lin Wan'er to serve in the Zhou family.

Furthermore, in order to reassure the Zhou family and make them accept Lin Wan'er, she suggested that Lin Wan'er use the spiritual blood of the Azure Flood Dragon to cultivate the "Dragon Transformation Secret Technique".

This is the first update of the day; there will be another update tonight.

(End of this chapter)