"Changchuan, be careful of that man."
Once Shen Shiyin and his party were completely out of sight, his maternal grandfather, Han Qinhu, hesitated for a moment.
He finally stepped forward and whispered a reminder in his ear.
"Such unsolicited kindness means he's either a scoundrel or a thief!"
"That Shen Shiyin didn't show his face at first, sending his son instead. It's clear he didn't take us seriously. And from the way Shen Shaochong was acting just now, he obviously wanted to pick a fight and put us in our place."
"But for some reason, he changed his mind later on."
"He claimed he wanted to take some local specialties back with him and used that as an excuse to take things from the village's public stores. That reason is a bit of a stretch. In my opinion, his original plan was probably to clean out the entire village!"
"I just don't know why his attitude changed so suddenly."
Han Qinhu whispered his analysis into Shen Changchuan's ear.
He might not be a Cultivator,
but he had traveled far and wide and lived for more than half a century. He'd seen a lot.
The contradiction in his behavior was just too obvious.
Nine times out of ten, the man was up to no good from the very beginning!
"Don't worry, Grandfather. I understand."
"You're probably right. These five Spirit Stones and the Spiritual Eye Technique are most likely his way of apologizing and making amends."
"I'm not going to think he's a good person just because he made a nice gesture."
"But there's no need to worry."
"Besides, the Shen Family is huge. It's anyone's guess if we'll ever see him again."
Shen Changchuan weighed the small cloth bag of five Spirit Stones in his hand. His eyes flickered as he spoke.
After surviving two and a half terrifying years in the treacherous environment of the Shen Family Mansion,
and having witnessed the cruel internal struggles of a great clan, Shen Changchuan was no longer the same naive rookie from his past life, fresh in the workforce with that wide-eyed, foolish innocence.
Naturally, he wouldn't let his guard down so easily around a stranger.
One thing was certain:
if he ever ran into Shen Shiyin again, Shen Changchuan would remain vigilant.
Of course,
he wouldn't deliberately make an enemy of him because of this.
The man may have had ill intentions from the start and might have been hiding some other scheme.
But at least, whatever he'd been planning didn't actually happen.
In fact, the man had even paid him a handsome sum as compensation, hadn't he?
For something that never happened,
Shen Changchuan wasn't about to go out of his way to make an enemy over nothing.
'The reason Shen Shiyin changed his mind so quickly probably has something to do with that huge beast, doesn't it?!'
Shen Changchuan recalled the look on the man's face when he saw the giant boar's carcass on the cart, and a rough guess formed in his mind. He understood.
'Perhaps he saw the carcass of the giant boar—a beast at least at the Qi Introduction Fourth Layer that I killed in a single strike—and grew wary, scrapping his original plan.'
This wasn't hard to understand.
Someone once said that after you become famous, you're suddenly surrounded by good people.
The same holds true if you replace "fame" with "strength."
When you're powerful, you'll find a lot of "good people" appearing around you as well.
"Whatever, who cares about him."
"If we meet again, that's a problem for another day. Let's head back. The most important thing now is to get Dawan Village completely under our control. We can't afford any slip-ups."
Shen Changchuan said.
Han Qinhu, standing beside him, nodded as well.
"That's true."
The group then turned and left.
....
After some effort, Shen Changchuan and his party moved into the Half-Mountain Courtyard and smoothly took over Dawan Village, completing the transition of power.
The process went off without a hitch.
There were some minor difficulties and confusion, but thankfully, no one resisted, and everything proceeded smoothly.
This wasn't surprising, really.
Dawan Village had been established to serve an Immortal Family by cultivating their Spirit Fields. Its population was mostly composed of Martial Artists, and some were even criminal Martial Artists who had been captured and forced into labor here.
But the gap between a Cultivator and a Mortal Martial Artist was simply immense.
So immense it was nearly insurmountable.
Any who were truly defiant or didn't know their place had likely already been killed by Shen Shiyin and his men over the years.
The ones who were left had long since been broken.
They might not be loyal or submissive from the heart, but at the very least, they wouldn't resist. They would obey the orders of an Immortal Master.
With the help of his grandfather Han Qinhu, his uncle Han Dayong, and the others,
Shen Changchuan quickly assumed power and gained control over all of Dawan Village.
However, after he had his people report the relevant information and he sorted through it to get a grasp of the village's situation,
Shen Changchuan couldn't help but feel a headache coming on.
The village struck him as chaotic.
Utter chaos!
The entire Dawan Village had about a few hundred households, with a population of around two thousand.
Among them were the old Martial Artists from the first batch that had followed the Shen Family twenty years ago, when they first took over the village.
There were also Mortal Martial Artists conscripted—or rather, apprehended—from the forces of the Mortal World every few years.
Some left once their term of service was up. Others were killed for stealing Spirit Grain or for defiant rebellion.
And still others simply stayed, married, and had children, establishing their families in Dawan Village in the hopes of earning a sliver of immortal fate by serving an Immortal Family.
These many changes made the household registration and population records of Dawan Village a complete mess.
The management style of the previous Garrison commander, Shen Shiyin, had also been extremely crude.
The authority to manage the village had been mostly delegated to his household's steward, who in turn had his underlings handle daily affairs.
When it was time to sow the Spirit Grain, he'd have the steward drive the villagers to the Spirit Fields with a whip to till the soil and plant the seeds. Afterward, the steward would select a few villagers to form patrols that would guard the Spirit Fields day and night, occasionally clearing out weeds and pests.
When it was harvest time, he'd have all the villagers swarm out at once to bring in the Spirit Grain from the Spirit Fields.
The most he'd do was personally show up to supervise during the harvest, to prevent the villagers from secretly pocketing any of the mature Spirit Grain.
But overall, it was a very crude management style.
It was like a feudal lord managing his serfs' production. Aside from putting some thought into the Spirit Fields, every other aspect of management was extremely hands-off.
It got to the point where even Shen Shiyin himself probably didn't know the total population of Dawan Village!
Regarding this,
having been a Transmigrator for two and a half years and possessing some knowledge of this world, Shen Changchuan could actually understand it.
In this world, Cultivators were high and mighty.
Even a struggling Cultivator with only an Entry-Level Cultivation could carve out a massive enterprise for themselves in the Mortal World.
Asking such a person to manage farmland...
was like asking the son of a noble house—a Crown Prince, even—to go manage crop production in the countryside!
The fact that he'd done that much was already quite impressive!
But understanding was one thing.
As a Transmigrator, Shen Changchuan was clearly unsatisfied with the messy state of Dawan Village.
'Reform! I have to reform this place!'
'This crude, serf-like management style is a massive waste of manpower and resources!'
'Since Dawan Village is now the territory I'm garrisoned to manage, the greater its output, the more I'll benefit. Production here is directly tied to my future path of Cultivation. This has to change!'
After getting a general grasp of the situation in Dawan Village, Shen Changchuan made a firm decision.