Building a sect from scratch.

Although the barbecue restaurant was very popular, the numbering system wasn't slow. Since Jing Jiezi and her companion, along with Ling Xuan and her fellow apprentice, had received their numbers around the same time and hit it off immediately, the four of them decided to share a table.

By the time everyone sat down and ordered their food, Jing Jiezi had already learned a great deal about Chang'an City from the other three. He even learned from Ling Xuan how to cheaply "use" players—that is, disciples of the Taiyin Sect.

"You just need to grab some cheap but uncommon pills and trinkets, preferably with exclusive formulas, basically anything that's not sold on the market. Then go to them and ask for a quest. Nine times out of ten, someone will take it. Or there's an even simpler way: once you buy a house, put up a notice board at the entrance, posting the quests you need players to do and the rewards. A bunch of Taiyin Sect disciples will be scrambling to take your quests! Anyway, I don't have to sort the herbs myself anymore, and I can get fresh spirit spring water for players every day! It's so convenient!"

Ling Xuan deliberately lowered her voice, glanced around to make sure that the people nearby didn't seem like players, and then carefully began to teach the techniques. At the end, she added a note: "Just remember to mark the time of the mission, otherwise those Taiyin Sect disciples will drag you out of bed in the middle of the night!"

Jing Jiezi was stunned, and even felt a pang of conscience: "This, isn't this a bit inappropriate?"

Ling Xuan said matter-of-factly, "What's wrong with that! It's a win-win situation! There's a group of people among the Taiyin Sect disciples called 'collectors' or 'junk collectors,' who specialize in collecting all sorts of strange things. Last time, they even bought a pill that I ruined, supposedly because it's 'very useful for pranks,' and they even wanted to pay extra to customize it, but unfortunately, I can't even replicate it myself! In short, these Taiyin Sect disciples are the cheapest labor force in Chang'an City! They're incredibly cheap!"

He couldn't help but exclaim, "So that's how it is! After listening to the introductions from you fellow Daoists, I feel that everyone in Chang'an, even the ordinary mortals, is very wealthy. It's truly a rare sight!"

"I've heard my professor talk about this before; it's essentially a matter of labor liberation versus GDP disparity,"

Ling Xuan had enrolled in a large course on socioeconomics and happened to know a bit about it. Now, she began to show off proudly, trying to explain in simple terms: "Simply put, in the past, ordinary people were so busy trying to fill their stomachs and survive that they naturally couldn't engage in other industries and fields. In other words, their labor force was trapped in the fields! Chang'an City is different. First of all, as long as you're in the city, you don't have to worry about safety. Secondly, even when farming, there are many ways to improve efficiency. For example, you can ask players to pray for rain during droughts or for sunny weather during harvest. Unlike before, when you could only leave such weather disasters to fate or spend a lot of money to ask local cultivators for help."

"Furthermore, take wheat harvesting, for example. Ordinary people use sickles, which is so slow. But if you hire a cultivator to harvest it with flying swords and wind blades, several acres can be harvested in the time it takes for an incense stick to burn! The efficiency is quite different!"

"Furthermore, there are now special low-priced spirit fertilizers on the market that can not only shorten the ripening time of crops but also increase yields! If you calculate it this way, in the past, a family of seven or eight people had to work hard all year just to make ends meet, but in Chang'an City, the grain grown by one person can feed several hundred people! Wouldn't that liberate a lot of labor force?"

"Those who can eat their fill without farming can then devote themselves to other industries, such as handicrafts and manufacturing. Farmers have spare money to buy food and drink and send their children to school, which in turn supports other peddlers and laborers. Over time, everyone in the society becomes wealthy!"
"In the end, it's because other sects don't treat mortals as human beings! Putting aside everything else, although it's difficult for those with disabilities to cultivate, making clothes, firing bricks, building bridges, and paving roads—all these tasks don't necessarily have to be done by cultivators. But those sects either use demon cultivators as servants or menial disciples and outer disciples. There's no need for them! Those who know some magic and can read and write clearly have better places to go!"
"For example, some demon cultivators who have cultivated from wildflowers, grasses, and trees are much better at planting trees, growing grass, cultivating flowers and fruits than those menial disciples in major sects! Everyone has their own expertise. As long as there is no discrimination against professions, we can always put the right people in the right positions, which will greatly increase the total social output!"

Du Cihuai had heard Ling Xuan ramble on about these random things countless times. When his junior sister first came to Chang'an City, she could hardly accept living with mortals. Later, she inexplicably made a few player friends, and her personality suddenly turned upside down. She admired everything in Chang'an City and even resented him more than once for not being able to go to the Blue Star Realm to see the "holy land" in her heart.

So, whenever she had the chance, Ling Xuan would desperately try to instill her own ideas into the newly arrived cultivators. Du Cihuai was already used to it, and when he heard her launching into another long-winded speech, he immediately laughed and said, "Hahahaha, junior sister, in the words of these players, you've been 'dyed red'!" Ling Xuan was somewhat embarrassed and angry upon hearing this: "Hmph! Putting everything else aside, I don't believe you don't like Chang'an City? This barbecue restaurant alone can keep you under control for a hundred years!"

Just then, the waiter brought over the first batch of dishes. Du Cihuai quickly set aside a piece of roast meat on Ling Xuan's plate and pleaded, "Okay, okay, I'm scared! You should eat it while it's hot!"

Then, he divided the dough into two portions and placed them on Song Bozheng's and Jing Jiezi's plates respectively. Only then did he take a small pancake and a few chopped scallions and skillfully roll it up.

While rolling it up, Du Cihuai praised, "Fellow Daoist Jing, Fellow Daoist Song, I learned this way of eating from a disciple of the Taiyin Sect. I heard it's very popular there, and the taste is really good!"

Ling Xuan scoffed, "Tch! All that fancy stuff. Barbecue is for eating meat! Flatbread just fills up your stomach!"

Du Cihuai glanced at him sideways and deliberately asked, "Really? But it seems like you eat grilled squid the most every time, right?"

"Seafood is meat too! Humph!"

As Ling Xuan spoke, she generously added a layer of bright red chili powder to a skewer of squid, swallowed hard, and began to devour it with gusto.

It was the first time Jingjiezi had eaten this kind of roasted meat, and she could hardly control the speed at which her saliva was secreted, so she ate it in a rather messy manner.

As a cultivator who had been practicing for a long time, Jing Jiezi hadn't had a proper meal in a long time. He did occasionally eat roasted meat, though. For example, when he saw the chef next door eating heartily and felt cravings, he would go out into the wild to catch a couple of pheasants or rabbits, add some salt, and roast them. It was a rare delicacy.

But compared to the richly seasoned and intensely flavorful barbecue in front of me, the rare deliciousness I remembered was simply "unbearable to recall"! (End of Chapter)