Chapter 224: Fude Zhengshen Earth God Temple
It was only at this moment that Wu Xian understood the root cause of the recent soaring grain prices.
“What? The recent soaring grain prices are due to the Wang Family stirring things up behind the scenes?” Wu Xian exclaimed in surprise, “Can they even control the grain supply?”
Mayor Chen spread his hands helplessly: “The Wang Family’s grain industries alone, Yaoyang City could withstand them, but the problem is that major grain merchants within the province, out of deference to the upper class people’s might, all give the Wang Family some face.
Now rumors are spreading everywhere in the city, and I can barely suppress this momentum anymore.”
“Just because we discovered his secret last time?” Wu Xian asked doubtfully, looking at Cui Wenxuan.
“Probably,” Cui Wenxuan frowned and shook his head, “I just didn’t expect them to dare go this far, directly targeting the lower layer people.”
“Doesn’t the provincial capital and the upper layer care?” Wu Xian couldn’t understand.
“Normally speaking, they definitely couldn’t act so recklessly,” Cui Wenxuan said with a headache: “But the key is Yaoyang City’s special independent autonomy status; the upper layer and provincial capital don’t have to take responsibility.”
In short, the Wang Family’s operation had seized Yaoyang City’s vital point.
“…” Wu Xian was silently speechless inside and inquired: “Strange, why is Yaoyang City in a state of independent autonomy?”
“This involves some ancient historical reasons,” Mayor Chen was clearly concealing something, “Not only our Yaoyang City, but the surrounding brother cities are in similar states.”
“Can’t we break away from autonomy?” Wu Xian was puzzled.
Mayor Chen spread his hands helplessly: “Several generations of mayors have thought about it before, but they simply won’t accept it, unless we lead the three million people to abandon the entire Yaoyang City and migrate to cities within the system.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” Mayor Chen pondered: “Perhaps those new cities built by the upper class people are different from our batch of old cities?”
“Do you mean that all the current cities within the system were created by upper class people?” Wu Xian gasped in shock, suddenly feeling a chill upon deeper thought, “Could those cities hide some kind of mystery?”
Cui Wenxuan spoke up: “All sides have actually always suspected it, but no one has discovered the problem yet.”
Wu Xian couldn’t help but fall into contemplation.
They were only willing to accept the people, but not willing to accept Yaoyang City, this ancient city outside the system.
That meant the people were useful to the upper layer, but Yaoyang City, this old city outside the system, held no meaning for them.
Could it be that those cities within the system were collecting incense through some special method? Or power of faith?
Or perhaps, hiding some even more brutal truth and conspiracy?
“Let’s not talk about that,” Mayor Chen said with a worried expression: “The top priority right now is how to solve the grain problem. Do any of you scroll painters have any temporary countermeasures?”
The association scroll painters present looked at each other.
“My domain scroll paintings can produce some meat and water sources, but the production volume is limited.”
“I have a plant element scroll painting that can improve the soil to a certain extent, but the process is very slow, and some farms in the city are already using my scroll painting.”
“What about the mechanical system?” Cui Wenxuan asked with a frown: “Does the mechanical system have any countermeasures?”
“Hydroponic vegetables are no problem, but the key is that greenhouse production of grain is quite troublesome and hard to mass produce.”
Wu Xian listened to the discussion among the scroll painters present, feeling heavy-hearted.
He, who once lived in the shantytown, although he didn’t eat well, had no issues with basic food and clothing. Now that he had money, he realized this world also had food and clothing problems.
Logically speaking, with the abilities of scroll painters, the food and clothing problem should have been thoroughly solved long ago.
But someone was maliciously creating survival difficulties behind the scenes.
Wu Xian took out his phone and searched for some information on scroll painting farms.
As he expected, this world’s grain, materials, and even water sources, etc., were all produced by scroll paintings, using the scroll painting’s power to convert various spiritual substances produced by otherworld monsters into corresponding grain resources.
Therefore, there were no farmers in this world.
Or rather, ordinary people had no qualification to become farmers.
This was also the fundamental reason why shantytown residents would pick up trash rather than reclaim wasteland to cultivate farmland.
On one hand, the city’s land was limited.
On the other hand, even wasted land had long been polluted by otherworld invasions, making it impossible to cultivate.
After some research and searching, Wu Xian found that the biggest difficult problem was with the land.
As long as cultivable land could be produced, various scroll painting black technologies could then produce grain.
This led to two lines of thought: either use high-quality domain instances to provide land, or purify and improve the current city’s land.
The former was firmly controlled by upper layer forces as the core resource for ruling the scroll painting world.
With Wu Xian’s current ability, he couldn’t produce it, and no scroll painter in the lower world could produce it yet.
Because land of this level required perfecting land-related heaven and earth laws to a certain extent; the land in ordinary domain instances could not allow grain crops to grow normally.
Therefore, Wu Xian could only start from the second line of thought.
“Mayor Chen, how much idle land does Yaoyang City currently have?” Wu Xian suddenly spoke up.
The people present instantly cast excited gazes.
“Little grand-disciple has a plan?” Cui Wenxuan’s eyes flickered.
“We can give it a try.” Wu Xian pondered.
Hearing this, Mayor Chen was inevitably overjoyed. If the grain problem could truly be solved, it would undoubtedly be a great blessing for the entire Yaoyang City.
All along, because of Yaoyang City’s autonomy status, generations of mayors had tried every means, selling various resources, just to ensure Yaoyang City people didn’t have to worry about food and clothing.
This was also the fundamental reason why Yaoyang City’s development had been slow for so many years, with little construction.
But thanks to this, Yaoyang City still had quite a bit of idle land.
Back at the small villa, Wu Xian began organizing his thoughts.
【Laurel Tree】 here is absolutely capable of purifying soil, even allowing surrounding land to grow various spirit herbs.
But currently, even just the 【rubbing】 costs are outrageously high, making it hard to equip on a large scale.
“Improving land, huh?” Wu Xian chuckled inwardly.
Perfect, the research on the special 【City God Temple】 domain scroll painting had made some progress in the past couple of days.
No rush on the City God Temple for now; first make an Earth Temple to try.
He didn’t believe that under the effect of the true god of fortune Earth Temple, grain still couldn’t be grown.
For two straight days, Wu Xian was completely immersed in this line of thought.
Using some materials sponsored by Mayor Chen and Cui Wenxuan, as well as the batch of otherworld outpost materials and domain materials sponsored by alliance big shots.
After numerous failures, finally, a special scroll painting combining character scroll painting and domain scroll painting was born.
Buzz~!
The moment the scroll painting formed, the heaven and earth laws trembled violently, and visible law waves surged toward this scroll painting.
Next door, Third Master Xue was once again startled and curiously jumped through the window to watch, thinking Wu Xian had produced another awesome scroll painting.
But when he saw the appearance of that scroll painting, he couldn’t help but be stunned.
“This is… a scroll painting? Why does it look like this?”
Wu Xian was also startled by the new type of scroll painting before him. Rather than calling it a scroll painting, it was more like an exquisite terracotta temple model, and there was no distinction of gold, silver, or copper scroll painting levels. The entire “model” emanated a unique scroll painting aura.
It had the feel of a domain scroll painting and also the feel of a character scroll painting.
Like a domain scroll painting, this 【Earth Temple】 scroll painting did not form a “scroll painting imprint” in the sea of consciousness, but instead formed a light spot containing wondrous law network in the periphery of the sea of consciousness void.
