"??" Third Master didn't understand what Xiaoyao meant.

"Sometimes, when the royal family is already useless, then replace them. A small country like Flowing Stone Kingdom—even if the Luo family became the royal family, no one would feel threatened. It wouldn't be different from now, but in the future when doing certain things, we could use the country's name, which would be much more convenient," Xiaoyao said.

"Xiaoyao, you really dare to say anything! This is conspiracy to usurp power," Third Master looked at Xiaoyao with some surprise. He hadn't never thought of this, just hadn't expected Xiaoyao to say it out loud.

The people at the table were also stunned. They hadn't expected Xiaoyao to say this—their movements all stopped in unison.

"This is inevitable. The Luo family's power is already more than what a Flowing Stone Kingdom can accommodate! Prepare for it. I believe the family head also has such thoughts. If you bring this up, he'll take action," Xiaoyao said while eating fried dough sticks.

"Alright, now is indeed a good opportunity to minimize losses. I'll go talk to big brother about this later," Third Master frowned and agreed with this assessment.

"I say, you all—this is just breakfast. Don't discuss earth-shaking matters like this. I feel like I can't handle it," Ling Jiu cried out strangely.

"You can pretend you didn't hear it," Xiaoyao said.

...

...

"How can I not hear when you say it like this?" Ling Jiu rolled her eyes.

"Whether you heard it or not, you can't speak of this matter. This is just a concept," Xiaoyao said nonchalantly. He only mentioned this on a whim, feeling the Luo family needed such a breakthrough action.

Although the Luo family was secretly cultivating their own power, if they didn't demonstrate corresponding strength openly, the Luo family's momentum could only go this far. To become a truly great family and return to their former heights, they needed not only to work in secret but also have open power.

Only then could they obtain corresponding fortune. This fortune came from the Luo family itself. Originally, the Luo family members only thought they were developing here—that their purpose was here, their efforts were for this place. But if the Luo family wanted to break through this place of Flowing Stone Kingdom, their goals would be bigger. The bigger the goals, the greater their hearts would become, and the fortune on them would change. This fortune would affect the entire family's fortune.

This influence of fortune would make the Luo family stronger. This was also what the Luo family currently needed, because they had reached a bottleneck.

The Luo family could choose to leave Flowing Stone Kingdom and establish a new main family, making this place a branch family. Generally, families would make this choice—establish a stronger main family and then establish more branch families.

They could also choose to completely take over this Flowing Stone Kingdom and establish a solid foundation. Then all of Flowing Stone Kingdom's resources would be in the Luo family's hands. Although it was already almost like this now, this way the Luo family could legitimately do certain things and expand territory outward, using this method to expand family influence.

Both had benefits and drawbacks. The branch family method would be more gradual, slowly building up. It could receive less suppression from others, and if the family's main branch were destroyed later, the branch families might be preserved. Different countries had different influences—some great families and major forces had great influence in some countries but little influence in others.

Take the Luo family for example—their influence outside wasn't great, but in Flowing Stone Kingdom, no family could claim to be stronger than the Luo family. Here, the Luo family called the shots.

But it was very difficult for the Luo family to establish branch families outside now. Some super forces were still watching the Luo family, making them only able to develop in relatively small places. Wanting to establish branch families in good places was relatively difficult—there would be interference.

Therefore, it wasn't that the Luo family didn't want to choose the former path, but choosing that path was undoubtedly more difficult. It was better to seize Flowing Stone Kingdom's royal power, become Flowing Stone Kingdom's royal family, then slowly expand Flowing Stone Kingdom's territory.

Then, as long as they developed Flowing Stone Kingdom into a great country, the Luo family's strength could already contend with super families. Generally, those super families were just family forces within one country. Even if this country was an empire, it still had other competitors—resources had to be shared with others. But the Luo family would be equivalent to concentrating a great country's resources, which wouldn't be weaker than any family or sect.

For example, the Azure Dragon Imperial Clan of Azure Dragon Empire—they were indeed the imperial clan, controlling considerable resources. But their share of imperial resources might be less than twenty percent. The rest was among the other three Four Symbols families, but the Four Symbols families only possessed sixty to seventy percent. Another thirty to forty percent was in the hands of all other families and common people.

Common people definitely had resources, but there were many of them yet they possessed less than ten percent. This was the difference between commoners and noble families.

The Luo family definitely wouldn't possess all resources either, but would have seventy to eighty percent. Monopolizing seventy to eighty percent of a great country's resources would also make the Luo family a super family.

Such super families weren't nonexistent—about ten had appeared in history, with three or four still existing.

Therefore, the Luo family choosing this path originally had a seventy to eighty percent possibility. Now with opportunity before them, this possibility became ninety-nine percent.

This was just Xiaoyao's analysis of the Luo family. He didn't feel this matter would involve him—he should still be the same as usual: making pills, brewing wine, talking with Luo Yuntian, and giving Yinping martial arts guidance.

Today Xiaoyao went to buy something. Originally this could be left to others to purchase, but he urgently needed it now, so he could only go buy it himself.

"Yulong Studio, Li's Shop, Beauty Hall... what's with the queue in front?" While looking for shops, Xiaoyao suddenly discovered many people in front of one shop—it seemed like a queue coming from inside, clearly waiting in line to buy something.

Xiaoyao showed some confusion. It wasn't that he was puzzled about what was being sold here that required queuing—he just saw someone who was actually in this queue!

"Sister Lingyu, what are you doing? Aren't you supposed to be working?" The person Xiaoyao saw was Luo Lingyu, who was actually in the long queue.

"Ah, Fourth! I'm queuing to buy things. It's so tiring—help me queue while I go relieve myself," Luo Lingyu directly pulled Xiaoyao into the queue, then ran off without giving Xiaoyao much explanation.

"What's this about? This queue seems to be mostly women..." Xiaoyao couldn't understand Luo Lingyu's situation. Looking around, he discovered this queue was mainly women with only occasional men.

"Excuse me, what are you buying here?" Xiaoyao asked puzzledly.

"Don't you know? This is Beauty Hall—they have the world's best rouge and powder, plus various beauty and skincare pills," the girl in front answered.

"..." Xiaoyao fell silent. At this moment he seemed to understand Luo Lingyu's reason for being here. Everyone loves beauty, especially girls. Someone like Luo Lingyu, a strong woman, might care even more about her appearance since she often had to show her face in public.

However, Xiaoyao was somewhat puzzled—why come queue personally instead of sending someone to buy?

"Sending someone doesn't know what to buy! Beauty Hall has specialized people to help recommend and teach how to use things for best results. This varies by person—for optimal effects, it's better to come personally," the girl in front answered Xiaoyao's confusion.

"I see, so there are makeup experts supervising," Xiaoyao understood. This was actually a business strategy, and a very effective one—just look at the current results.

"It's precisely because there are experts that I came—to learn," Luo Lingyu appeared at this time, looking relaxed. "Fourth, if you have other business, go take care of it."

"Right, I still need to buy some things," Xiaoyao nodded.

"What things? Do you need my help?" Luo Lingyu asked. If Xiaoyao needed her help, she wouldn't mind giving up her current position.

"No need. Just some ordinary things—the stock just ran out and I need them urgently," Xiaoyao said.

"How could ordinary things run out of stock?" Luo Lingyu was very strange. The Luo family's inventory control was very strict—ordinary things couldn't possibly be out of stock.

"It's nothing. I've been researching some things recently and used everything up. Can't blame others for this," Xiaoyao said with a smile.

"You—never know what you're up to. Go by yourself then. Sister here needs to dress up and charm some men to death," Luo Lingyu said with a smile. Her conversations with Xiaoyao were becoming increasingly relaxed—this phenomenon wasn't just with her but with the other sisters too.

"If you want to dress up, I can teach you. Actually, I'm also a makeup expert," Xiaoyao looked at Luo Lingyu and replied.

"Just you?" Luo Lingyu didn't believe it. Generally, makeup experts were girls—men rarely did this, almost never. Even if he was previously a household guard, it wouldn't be a guard's turn to do makeup for young ladies.

"Don't believe it? I used to often dress up my boss," Xiaoyao replied. Guxing only had Xiaoyao as a household servant—everything was handled by Xiaoyao alone, including makeup and dressing, though Guxing rarely wore makeup.

"I really want to see what your boss is like..." Luo Lingyu had heard Xiaoyao mention Guxing more than once. She was very interested to know what kind of person Guxing was to have trained a household servant like Xiaoyao.

She didn't know that although Xiaoyao was a household servant, he wasn't trained by Guxing but was self-taught. Instead, Guxing was trained by him from childhood.

(End of Chapter)