CHAPTER 579: CHAPTER 589: DELIBERATELY SUPPRESSING

"Please!"

Chu Feng naturally would not cozy up to someone coldly rejecting him.

A mere Chief Clerk has no right to require him to flatter shamelessly.

"Little Chu, although you hold an important position at a young age, you must not become arrogant or proud. Many have spoken ill of you before me, criticizing you as too young, lacking qualification and competence, and saying that your tenure as Manager won’t last long, only adding burden to our Medicine Mountain 106..."

Master Cheng The Third spoke today as if he had a cannon in his mouth, spewing nonsense as he opened it.

Chu Feng’s face remained indifferent, but he sneered inwardly.

There’s ill intent with this visit.

"Which Big Chief’s Medicine Field under your command you plan to start collecting from?" Manager Cheng The Third ranted at Chu Feng, but sadly Chu Feng paid him no attention, which bored him like punching into cotton.

It lacks force.

"Any Big Chief’s Medicine Field will do; let’s start with Fang Zhengda’s area!"

Chu Feng, along with Administrative Officer Cheng and others, took the lead into the Medicine Mountain area governed by Fang Zhengda.

"Greetings, Manager Chu, greetings, Administrative Officer Cheng!"

Fang Zhengda seemed somewhat nervous, standing by the roadside with his hands hanging down and bowing early.

Administrative Officer Cheng flipped through the ledger in his hands and stopped after a few pages, "Fang Zhengda, you manage the Medicine Mountain area in section 8, left side. It totals 95 acres, including 42 acres of superior Medicine Fields, 30 acres of inferior Medicine Fields, with a due quota of one hundred and forty-four hundred-year-old medicinal herbs and five thousand and six hundred ten-year-old medicinal herbs."

Superior Medicine Fields are those with plenty of sunlight and soft soil.

As for inferior Medicine Fields, they are a lower grade, possibly with less sunlight, or containing more rocks or suffering from serious pest infestations, etc.

Even some Medicine Fields are in low-lying areas, with mountain water seeping from the ground all year round.

Many medicinal herbs are not suitable to cultivate in such fields, hence they are called inferior Medicine Fields.

"According to the rules, one hundred-year-old medicinal herb can be equal to ten ten-year-old herbs. One thousand-year-old can equal ten hundred-year-old. If there are medicinal herbs from the catalogue of precious herbs, it can be doubled."

Manager Cheng The Third recited some rules.

In fact, even Chu Feng, a newcomer, knew these rules.

The higher the age of the medicinal herbs used in concocting elixir, the better the effect.

Thus, to encourage various Medicine Mountains to cultivate older medicinal herbs, the Sect deliberately came up with this exchange method.

One thousand-year-old can equal one hundred ten-year-old.

But one hundred ten-year-old cannot compensate for one thousand-year-old.

Moreover, as Chu Feng knows, if the medicinal herbs collected from the Medicine Field exceed a thousand years, there will be extra rewards from above.

Most times, the reward is merit for the Medicine Farmers who submit the herbs.

For instance, a thousand-year-old herb would equate to a thousand merits.

For a ten-thousand-year-old, that would merit ten thousand merits.

Beyond cultivating thousand-year-old medicinal herbs for extra rewards, planting some extremely rare medicinal herbs also garners merit rewards.

Administrative Officer Cheng has a catalogue of rare medicinal herbs in his hand.

It lists over three thousand kinds of rare medicinal herbs, divided into three levels.

The more precious, the lower the level.

First-class precious medicinal herbs, each has high cultivation difficulty or slow growth. Just cultivating one, even if only a ten-year-old first-class rare medicinal herb, can be worth a thousand-year-old common medicinal herb.

"Let’s start!"

At the command of Administrative Officer Cheng, the more than twenty subordinates he brought immediately went full force. Each went to a Medicine Field, assisting the Medicine Farmers to harvest the medicinal herbs grown there.

Why must we leviate taxes in the Medicine Field?

This is to prevent people from deliberately concealing some extremely precious Medicinal Herbs. For instance, some Medicine Farmers might painstakingly cultivate a ten-thousand-year-old Medicinal Herb and wish to keep it for their own use.

They do not want to hand it over to the Sect.

Once discovered by Master Cheng the Third, that Medicinal Herb would immediately be registered, integrated into the archives, and assigned a number.

At that time, this Medicinal Herb would become one of the treasures of Medicine Mountain, receiving special protection.

Even the Medicine Farmer who planted it has no right to handle it anymore.

They would not even have the right to dig it up.

If the Sect has a need, they can dispatch someone to harvest it anytime.

Moreover, since it has been elevated to a treasure of the Sect, if the Medicine Farmer were to kill it, it would be a serious crime.

If it is well-cared for, they would receive some credit, but it wouldn’t be substantial.

It can be said that any Medicinal Herb, once entered into the Sect’s archives of precious Medicinal Herbs, immediately becomes a hot potato.

Of course, for a Medicine Mountain, the more Medicinal Herbs recorded in the archives, the higher its ranking will be. There could also be numerous extra rewards from the Sect.

This time, it’s not about merits.

It could be a Cultivation Technique or even a Divine Weapon. It might even lead to the Mountain Master and the Big and Little Chiefs getting promoted to higher positions.

It is said that once, the Big Chief of a Medicine Mountain managed to get twenty-one precious Medicinal Herbs recorded in the Sect’s archives. The higher-ups of the Sect directly promoted that Big Chief to Mountain Master.

It was indeed an instantaneous rise to the top.

The harvesting of Medicinal Herbs is being carried out tensely and orderly.

Every Medicinal Herb harvested requires the prior consent of the Medicine Farmer. However, the professional Medicinal Herb Gatherers brought by Master Cheng the Third are incredibly efficient, harvesting with astonishing speed.

In less than an hour, the over seventy acres of Medicine Field managed by Fang Zhengda were completely harvested.

"This can also be called a hundred-year-old? I see it as at most seventy or eighty years old!" Master Cheng the Third criticizes harshly.

With a few Medicinal Herbs that are clearly hundred-year-olds, he stubbornly claims their age to be under a hundred years.

Fang Zhengda and the Medicine Farmers who cultivated them are so angry they are trembling, yet dare not speak out.

Growing a Medicinal Herb is not easy.

Not to mention ones older than a hundred years, even those over ten years are extremely challenging.

"These two also do not meet the thousand-year standard! Little Chu, this is not I criticizing you unfairly, but a crooked beam leads to crooked pillars. You are too eager for quick results, pursuing pragmatism is not good. This act of substituting inferior goods for good ones, obviously not meeting the age requirement, yet classifying them as thousand-year or hundred-year quality, this is not good."

Master Cheng the Third accuses first, clearly it is he who intentionally undervalues these Medicinal Herbs.

Now he turns around to lecture Chu Feng.

"Administrative Officer Cheng, these Medicinal Herbs were all painstakingly cultivated by the Medicine Farmers under me. Please review them again, their age should meet the standards!"

Fang Zhengda pleads with a smile, humbly requesting.

"Hmph, I’ve been doing this for many years, am I still unable to discern the age of Medicinal Herbs? Such a trivial matter, could I be mistaken?"

"Or are you actually questioning my capability?"

Cheng the Third’s expression immediately darkens.

"This... I dare not!" Even though Fang Zhengda is furious, he dares not contradict Administrative Officer Cheng.

He may not dare, but Chu Feng does.

With his subordinates’ Medicinal Herbs being deliberately devalued and undervalued, Chu Feng was already at the peak of his anger.

"Since Administrative Officer Cheng has stated that these Medicinal Herbs do not meet the age standards, no problem, let’s first take them out. I believe that within Ten Thousand Sword Sect, there are definitely others who understand how to assess the age of Medicinal Herbs, not just you alone, Administrative Officer Cheng."