Beast-controlling fairy clan.

Chapter 258 Lin Hongyu's Plan
Now all the elders of the Zhou family know the mysterious reward after the Zhou family enters the top 30 of the "Hundred Clans Conference".

Therefore, the elders were not surprised when Zhou Mingde said that the Zhou family would still need to hire people on a large scale in many areas in the future.

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

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

"Those independent cultivators are selfish and will follow whoever feeds them. It's fine to hire them as thugs for things like resisting the beast tide, but if it involves dealing with other forces or resource exploitation, even if there are people supervising them, there is no guarantee that they will not try every possible way to sell out the interests of the family!"

Of course Zhou Chun also knew this.

At this time, he said calmly: "What the Grand Elder said makes sense, but he ignored the composition of the independent cultivators."

"In the eyes of big families like us, those immortal cultivation families that don't have a fixed mountain gate and a foundation-building cultivator are all independent cultivators!"

"But I think everyone knows that except for not having a mountain gate station and no foundation-building cultivators, those people are actually also immortal cultivation families with families and children!"

"Also, there are many independent cultivators who are in a husband-and-wife, father-and-son, or master-and-disciple relationship. These people also care about each other."

At this point, Zhou Chun glanced at Zhou Mingde and the elders who were deep in thought, and continued, "So in my opinion, we can have two sets of standards when hiring independent cultivators. When we encounter things that require clearing monsters and resisting beast tide attacks, we can hire anyone. For more delicate tasks, we only hire those who have families and cares to do."

"Of course, if we want to do this well, we have to invest more manpower to collect information about independent cultivators. This way, when we need to hire someone to do something, it will be convenient to find someone directly. Moreover, we can also hire independent cultivators to do this kind of thing!"

"We can even make some investments in some independent cultivators with good character and decent talent, such as allowing them to meditate and practice at the Zhou Family Mountain Gate for free, selling them some cultivation resources at cost price, or giving them a magic weapon in the form of half cash spirit coins and half loan."

“Maybe not every investment will yield a return, but as long as half of the investment can yield a useful return, the family will not be so short of manpower in the future!”

After he said this, Zhou Mingde and the elders of the Zhou family all lowered their heads and pondered over his words.

After a while, Zhou Daoyi spoke first: "Dashan, Zhengchun, what you said is really enlightening, and it is all practical!"

Zhou Mingde also nodded repeatedly and said, "That's right. If it weren't for you, Zhengchun, saying this, I would have found it difficult to realize this."

The reason they find it difficult to realize this is related to their own growth experience.

They grew up in the powerful Zhou family and have always looked down on independent cultivators. They have also witnessed many ugly things independent cultivators have done for the slightest bit of profit.

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

Therefore, even when the time comes when they need to hire outsiders for help, they will instinctively abhor independent cultivators.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Zhou family has never encountered a situation where they needed to hire outsiders on a large scale to do things before. Naturally, they have no experience since they have never done it before.

On the one hand, Zhou Chun did not have the kind of deep-seated aversion and disgust towards independent cultivators. On the other hand, due to the influence of his past life experiences and memories, he was very familiar with the practice of hiring people to do things, so it was natural for him to think of these things easily.

However, Zhou Chun just knew all this in his heart and naturally wouldn't say it out loud.

Seeing that everyone was satisfied with his suggestions, 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 elders have no objection to hiring independent cultivators, I would like to share another idea of ​​mine.”

"I have discovered before that many family matters consume a lot of the family members' time, which seriously hinders the development of other cultivation skills of the family cultivators, and also makes them lack the opportunity and time to go out and hone themselves."

"So I was thinking, can we take out some unimportant things, such as feeding monsters, taking care of medicinal herbs and other related matters, and entrust them to independent cultivators to do it?"

"If ordinary independent cultivators are difficult to trust, we can also select cultivators from small families to do this, and even train these small families to become vassal families that specialize in raising animals and growing medicine for our Zhou family!"

The result was just as Zhou Chun had expected. After hearing his suggestion, someone immediately expressed a different opinion, and that person was the second elder Zhou Chongshan, who had always been more conservative.

Zhou Chongshan said slowly, "Zhengchun, I don't think your idea is right. The reason why my Zhou family assigned the work of raising monsters and taking care of the medicinal fields to the clansmen is not to save money, but to train them so that they can have a clearer understanding of the habits of monsters and medicinal herbs and put what they have learned into practice."

"If we hire independent cultivators to do these things, not to mention the spiritual coins spent, it will be a considerable expense. What if they do something bad behind the family's back? What if they learn the family's animal taming skills?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Chun replied, "Of course I have thought about what the Second Elder said, but life is different. Even if my Zhou family is a family with a tradition of taming beasts, not every member of the family will like it. As elders and senior officials, we don't have to force them to learn it."

"The art of taming beasts is certainly a specialty of our Zhou family, but it cannot be limited to this. For things like formations, refining equipment, refining pills, and making talismans, our Zhou family should also train some people to do them. At the very least, we should be able to produce the commonly used low-level talismans, pills, and instruments ourselves!"

"And Second Elder, you also know that if you want to achieve something in these skills, each one will consume a lot of resources and also take up a lot of the cultivators' time."

"As for the worry about the mischief of independent cultivators, we can also adopt a grading method, classifying the important monster species such as the Red-eyed Dragon Vulture, Dragon Claw Giant Lizard, Dragon Scale Horse, Eight-horned Water Deer, and Red Flame Vajra Monkey into the highest level, and only let the family cultivators take care of them, and let the hired people take care of the rest of the ordinary monsters, so that the damage caused by their mischief will not be too great."

"As for skills, there is even less to worry about. Even if the independent cultivators learn some of our Zhou family's beast taming skills, what good can they do? Can they build beast gardens and train monster beasts like our Zhou family? Can they master the methods of refining beast spirit pills and monster spirit pills? Can they learn the secret beast taming techniques of our Zhou family?"

"Without the secret elixirs and secret techniques of my Zhou family, how can you pose a threat to my Zhou family if you only learn some methods of taming monsters!"

At this point, Zhou Chun continued, "I know that it will cost a lot to train some monks who know how to form formations, make pills, refine weapons, and make talismans, but if we don't do it, we will never have it!"

"This time, our family has made a huge profit, and we will be able to obtain a steady 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, thinking about what he had said.

When it comes to family changes, Zhou Chongshan has indeed always seemed a bit conservative, but he is not a truly rigid and conservative person who is inflexible.

Conservative can also mean cautious, because he carefully views every change made to the family and cares very much about the impact of such changes on the family, which makes him appear conservative when facing such changes.

If he thinks that the benefits of change far outweigh the disadvantages for the family after careful consideration, then he will not oppose the change. Zhou Chun has already understood this from his repeated dealings with him.

So every time when making a change, Zhou Chun would consider it from his perspective and look for points that he could accept.

From this perspective, it is precisely because of his conservatism that Zhou Chun can do better.

At this time, after some thought, Zhou Chongshan turned his gaze to the two supreme elders.

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

"I think what Zhengchun said makes sense. If our Zhou family wants to regain its glory in the future, we can't just focus on the family's small piece of land, but also open our eyes to the outside world."

"If we can allow the family's cultivators to have more time to go out and explore, hone themselves, and explore their own talents, it will naturally improve the family's foundation in all aspects."

Zhou Daoyi nodded slightly and was the first to express his support for Zhou Chun.

Looking at Zhou Mingde, he frowned slightly and said, "I generally agree with what Zhengchun said. However, even if the family is rich now, we should train those clan members who can make pills and weapons slowly. We must not rush into things and take big steps, so as not to waste the family's resources."

As soon as the words fell, Zhou Chun responded respectfully: "Yes, I will definitely keep in mind the teachings of the Supreme Elder and will implement this matter with caution."

Seeing this, Zhou Chongshan nodded and said, "Since the two 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 ended the meeting.

After the meeting, Zhou Chun took out the second-level magic weapons he had obtained and let the elders choose first. The rest would be temporarily stored in the family treasury and would be sold slowly in the future.

Now that we have just experienced a great war, many monks have died in the war and many monks have obtained the enemy's relics, causing the prices of magic weapons in the market to plummet.

A magic weapon that originally required four hundred spirit coins may now be purchased for less than three hundred spirit coins.

Therefore, except for some cultivators who are in urgent need of spirit coins, most immortal cultivation families will not choose to sell magic weapons in exchange for spirit coins at this time.

Just half a month after Zhou Mingde and his friends returned to the Zhou family, an expected person came to the Zhou family.

"Did Brother Lin come to the Zhou family this time to pass on Senior Lin's message?"

On the Pagoda Peak, Zhou Chun personally welcomed Lin Wan'er, who came to visit, into the mountain gate, and then asked her the purpose of her visit without any reservation.

Ever since the fourth-order intermediate-grade red fire dragon from the Red Dragon Hall was killed by Jin Chixuan and his men, Zhou Mingde has been waiting for Lin Hongyu to contact the Zhou family on her own initiative.

Now, more than half a month has passed, and Lin Wan'er, Lin Hongyu's goddaughter, has finally come to the Zhou family again.

At this time, facing Zhou Chun's question, Lin Wan'er nodded and replied without hesitation: "Indeed, my godmother asked me to come, but the letter from my godmother can only be delivered to Senior Zhou by me personally."

"I understand. I will take you to meet the Grand Elder now."

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

When Zhou Mingde arrived at the cave, he was delighted when he saw Lin Wan'er. After she explained her purpose and handed him the jade slip of Lin Hongyu's letter, he couldn't wait to take it in his hands and examine it.

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

After hearing what he said, Lin Wan'er was slightly stunned, and then she said respectfully: "I met with my godmother four days ago, and this jade slip was given to me by her at that time!"

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

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

Seeing this scene, Lin Wan'er's eyes suddenly condensed slightly, and then she took the jade slip and began to read it.

After she finished reading the contents of the jade slip, her face suddenly changed and she was speechless for a long time.

After waiting for a quarter of an hour without her saying anything, Zhou Mingde could only speak up first: "I can't say anything about Fellow Daoist Lin's arrangement. If Miss Lin has no intention of working for the Zhou family, I and the Zhou family will not force you."

After hearing his words, Lin Wan'er, who had been silent all this time, finally responded.

He just 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 that, he said in a low voice: "It's just that I can't understand, since my godmother is going to Chengguo to recuperate, why doesn't she take me with her? Even if my cultivation is low, at least I can help her watch the door and run errands!"

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

So she went to Chengguo to recuperate first, and after she recovered, she came back to meet Zhou Mingde and Zhou Daoyi and give them the benefits she had promised.

Perhaps she wanted to gain the trust of Zhou Mingde and Zhou Daoyi, or perhaps she really wanted to find a place for Lin Wan'er to settle down, so she told them in the letter that she would keep Lin Wan'er to work for the Zhou family.

And in order to allow the Zhou family to accept Lin Wan'er with confidence, she also suggested that Lin Wan'er use Qing Jiao's dragon blood to practice the "Secret of Dragon Transformation".

This is the first update today, and there will be another update in the evening.

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(End of this chapter)