Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 159 The Human Trafficking Scheme
“So,” Baili Shuang said with a smile, “one person’s ascension is not true ascension, and one person’s enlightenment is not true enlightenment. I have escaped the suffering of the mortal world, so naturally I should help others.”

Upon hearing this, the players began to laugh again.

"Oh no, I think I've been turned red in the game!"

"What, were you originally yellow?"

"Minions?"

"Is this plotline correct? It's unnecessary, isn't it? I'm quitting the game!"

"Go ahead and delete your account if you dare!"

"Hilarious! A basic sense of collective mission and dignity as a Chinese person is causing you such a strong reaction?"

"What does it have to do with me! I'm just an ordinary person!"

"Is it possible that precisely because we are all ordinary people, we should uphold this belief even more? Because only in this way can we ordinary people live with more dignity!"

"No, my surname is Liu, and my ancestors were wealthy!"

"Wake up! The Qing Dynasty is gone, and you still call yourself a Han Chinese?"

……

Meanwhile, Fang Xianyu's "big brother" was still discussing with Lu Ying.

"They won't agree."

Fang Xianyu took a deep breath and explained, "The so-called indifference to fame and fortune, and the lack of pursuit of territory and nominal importance among those immortals, gods and cultivators, is only because there is no profit to be made. If it comes to real interests, they are more ruthless than anyone else."

"They no longer care that we attract lower-level cultivators and mortals; on the contrary, it's because we've solved a major problem for them—those lower-level cultivators and mortals require a lot of effort to support, yet they don't bring them any substantial benefits. Even the offerings are barely enough to sustain them, and they have to expend a great deal of energy to maintain them..."

Fang Xianyu sneered, "Perhaps right now, they're still laughing behind their backs at the Taiyin Sect for being so lowly and only knowing how to curry favor with ordinary people and cultivators of low aptitude!"

Such things had happened before when she was building Zhongzhou City in her first playthrough, so she knew all too well!

“The people are the main force for social progress,” Lu Ying sighed, her tone unusually somber. “Human civilization in the Guixu Realm has a history of tens of thousands of years, how come they haven’t even figured out this simple principle!”

"Because the land is rich in resources, but survival is difficult!"

Fang Xianyu had indeed thought about this question before.

The current state of human civilization in the Guixu Realm is quite similar to the "rich" regions of the Blue Star Realm.

For example, the famous South Asia region.

The land was rich in resources, so people didn't need to farm and wouldn't go hungry; the environment was harsh, so no matter how careful they were, they could easily die unexpectedly.

Diseases and disasters are amplified in warm, humid regions with abundant rainfall. It is precisely because of this unique climate and environment that a distinctive religion has developed, one that is detached from worldly affairs and only fantasizes about the afterlife—because struggling is basically useless. Today you might be able to eat a handful of sticky rice, but tonight you might develop dengue fever. Those with weaker constitutions might soon see their great-grandmother.

The Guixu Realm is largely similar.

The unique spiritual energy resources have brought about extremely abundant produce. Even the most ordinary fruit trees bear fruit that is much larger than the fruit before the Blue Star Realm's breeding! Not to mention various grain crops, let alone three harvests a year, if you make offerings to some immortals and gods and use some special methods, one harvest a month is not a problem!

Of course, abundant resources do not mean a lack of material goods.

Sugar, salt, oil, cloth, tea, silk, and so on, are still luxuries for ordinary people. Just like Southeast Asia in the Blue Star Realm, which is very suitable for growing tea and sugarcane, these two things, which were once more valuable than gold and could grow wildly wherever they were scattered, failed to make that region rich, precisely because the resources were too abundant.

People are content with just having enough to eat and live day to day; who would bother to work hard to build a fortune? They don't even see tomorrow!
In other words, this mentality is less common in towns protected by sects, and the people there tend to be more diligent.

After all, without the protection of sects and powerful forces, how could ordinary mortals possibly stand a chance against wild demons and strange beasts!
"Of course they won't understand this principle, but do they know that if we completely smooth out the threshold for cultivation, it will harm their short-term interests?"

Fang Xianyu's eyes held a hint of hatred: "Therefore, some methods to conceal one's true intentions are still necessary. For example, in the Chang'an Library, I only opened up cultivation techniques and secret manuals for those below the Golden Core stage. If I had also made public the cultivation techniques and insights for the Nascent Soul and Divine Transformation stages, the sect's grand ceremony back then would not have been so harmonious!"
"As for absorbing ordinary people on a large scale, that's too sensitive a move; they won't agree to it."

Lu Ying frowned: "But economic development cannot be separated from a sufficient population, especially a market economy. Only when the economy is active can the Taiyin Sect truly 'come alive'."

"Then let's cover it up,"

Fang Xianyu curled her lips into a smile: "Let's do human trafficking."

……

Half an hour later.

"Human trafficking!?"

Upon hearing these four words, Wang Ergou was terrified, and his voice changed tone.

"That's right. We need to adapt to local customs. Although ordinary people aren't of much use to those cultivator sects and forces, they are still a kind of 'resource.' If we openly try to attract them to the Taiyin Sect with generous conditions, in the logic of the Guixu Realm, that's no different from blatant robbery."

Elder Lu Ying patiently explained, "Therefore, we need to 'buy' from them, and we need a good excuse. Isn't this a perfect opportunity with all the reasons readily available?"

Wang Ergou asked curiously, "What reason?"

Lu Ying smiled mysteriously: "There is a huge labor shortage in sugarcane plantations and sugar production bases!"

She paused slightly, then continued, "The Taiyin Sect has a guest elder named Bamboo Immortal, but it's a sugarcane spirit. According to the sect leader, its cultivation is extremely high, and it can easily produce countless sugarcanes every year, all of which are spirit sugarcanes—oh, their values ​​as spirits and demon cultivators are quite different from ours as humans. After they achieve success in their cultivation, they generally don't have a very high sense of identity with their own race. Of course, most of them will still retain some instincts, but they won't have the mentality of viewing their own race through human ethical logic. So, having Bamboo Immortal cultivate sugarcane won't make it feel embarrassed or uncomfortable..."

"Well, it might still feel uncomfortable. Sect Leader Fang said that if it's too exhausted, it might get very tired, so he told us to take some time to soothe it and maybe even give it a little brainwashing..."

Wang Ergou was still very puzzled: "But where are we going to sell all this candy? Cultivators don't consume much of this stuff. Are we going to make money off ordinary mortals? How much money can we make from that!"

Elder Lu Ying said, "Of course it's not sold to ordinary people, it's sold to the Quanxian Clan to make money from the sea!"

(End of this chapter)