Chapter 163 - The Storm Calms

At this point, the Purcell clan's civil strife had come to an end and the storm passed. However, no one had thought that the winner in the end would unexpectedly be Evan, who had been low-key and someone they had looked down upon.

Furthermore, no one dared to challenge the result of this election as the assembly was witnessed by the Universal Origin Sword Saint. If somebody really dared to challenge the results, then it meant that they dared to challenge the Universal Origin Sword Saint. Within the Purcell clan, no one had the guts to do so.

Moreover, the loyal elders from the greater elders faction that were present had found that they'd never thought Evan would already have the same strength as them. Their defeat this time was justified because of that.

Lastly, the three new greater elders that were elected were also very interesting. There were the two centrists, who were the backbone of Evan's faction, while the last one turned out to be from the former First Elder's faction, Stern.

Everyone from the Purcell clan knew that although Stern was the Foreign Affairs head, he was also a close follower of the former First Elder, Kaiser. It was to the point that he'd always followed him in every situation. It was beyond everyone's expectation that he would now be selected as the new Third Elder

However, they soon understood why Evan did this. Evan chose Stern as the Third Elder in order to quickly lead the former First Elder's faction to his side. Now, the loyal members of his faction had grown to sixty percent of the total number of elders in the Elders Court. This number was definitely scary; even the former First Elder didn't have this much authority and power.

This time, Kaiser and the other former greater elders understood Evan's powerful position. Just a simple elder position, which was under the influence of a former greater elder, had cut off a political veteran.

The result of this election of the Purcell clan's Elders Court had made those large firms stunned. They hadn't thought that the two people they supported would eventually collapse, and that unexpectedly, the forgotten Evan would suddenly resurge.

This caught the large firms off guard, leaving them startled about what had happened. After the elections in the Elders Court was finished, Evan suddenly announced that the Purcell clan had transported in a large amount of food and that the prices would be the same as before. When this news came out, the food prices fell.

Evan didn't lie because after he finished, they immediately saw a carriage transporting food commodities into Casa City. Although it was only bamboo rice, commoners had no problem eating them. There were also some aristocratic clans that would eat bamboo rice, so the commoners would also do so.

Those large firms calculated that the amount of bamboo rice transported by those carriages had brought nearly five hundred thousand kilograms into Casa City. There was a total of around 1.5 - 2 million kilograms transported all over the Purcell Duchy. Even if they wanted to increase the prices, they wouldn't be able to.

Everyone from the large firms understood that this time around, they had been played by Laura. This was an obvious matter. If they couldn't see it, they shouldn't be in the mercantile business.

However, they couldn't say that they were bitter. These firms initially accepted Laura's conditions, but their intentions weren't very good from the start. They were ready to support the people who held the superior position, and had collaborated with Laura just to rope her into their faction. What they hadn't thought was that Laura would move ahead of them, tidying them all up.

These large firms also knew that if they continued to oppose the current situation, they might offend the Purcell clan, which they feared would make their days a lot more harder. So the moment the carriage went into the city, the price of food within the whole Purcell Duchy went down.

The crisis was started in the past by the pest infestation and led to a series of chain reactions. However, during this time, there were only two big winners. One was Laura, and the other was Evan.

Furthermore, no one knew that there was also another winner that had been hiding behind these winners and was actually the one who gained the most. It was none other than Zhao Hai.

Zhao Hai earned a total of 20,000 gold coins during this crisis. Moreover, he earned several hundreds of gold coins a day, which went directly into his pockets. The most important thing was that this time's crisis was something he could have been left out of.

When Zhao Hai received the news Laura had sent, saying that the storm had passed, he couldn't help but want to laugh. This was because this crisis had initially been started because of him. Now, with his help, they stopped it. Most importantly, he'd made money while helping Evan, whom had helped the Buda clan back when they were in a bind. A true good person with power, for Zhao Hai, was a very important thing.

With Evan regaining his authority, he would not move to attack the Buda clan, which also lifted them out of one of their crises. They almost didn't have to worry about the Purcell clan dealing with them.

Zhao Hai didn't think that the result would turn out to be this great. It was really a big surprise for him. And now, the matters in Casa City wouldn't need him to personally manage over. Even if he wouldn't be providing the food, the large firms in the Purcell Duchy would do so, thus lowering the food prices within the Purcell Duchy. With this, the food crisis was officially lifted.

This news was not necessarily a good thing for Zhao Hai. To be precise, when Zhao Hai sold food commodities, he gained several hundred gold coins each day. Now if the large firms sold theirs, then his income would definitely decrease.

However, Zhao Hai still received nearly 200 gold coins per day just for selling food. The consequences of what those large firms had done earlier had resulted in a negative status.

Commoners also held their grudges. When they were in a difficult time, they would remember those who helped them and those who had harmed them.

Due to this, there were very few people who would buy from the stores of the large firms. On the other hand, the Higanbana firm had gotten a large number of customers who bought from their stores.

It was then that those great businessmen became convinced that this time, Laura was a lot more clever than them. Even if it was invisible, the Higanbana firm had become the flagship firm inside the Purcell Duchy.

These large firms understood that the creation of such a flagship firm was not easy. So long as there were Higanbana signboards, it would surely represent a source of wealth.

Thinking about it now would be of no use, so what they did was try to find a way to pull people into buying from their stores. Therefore, to do so, they made some superior conditions. For example, discounts on certain commodities. Or if one buys a certain commodity, then they would receive an extra gift.

These large firms were in the business for a long time. Naturally, they were clear on how to deal with this. They had discovered these methods and were ready to exploit them.

However, even after doing so, there were only a few people who went into their stores to purchase anything. The commoners were still offended by them. Fortunately, they were large firms who were still rich. They could afford to lose for now. Given some time, they should be able to recover slowly.

But if they wanted to get back their former prestige quickly, it would be impossible. Laura wouldn't miss this opportunity. There was a saying that when machines dominated the market, even when they came back to life, they could only have a part of the soup1.

The biggest issue to be considered this time was that these large firms had offended the Purcell clan. If they were supported by the person who had won, then it would be better. They wouldn't be in such a difficult situation and it might have also given them some benefits. However, they'd chosen to have little contact with Evan prior to this. Don't even speak about benefits, they were already lucky enough that Evan had given them face and hadn't pushed them out of the Purcell Duchy.

Zhao Hai didn't care about what happened in Casa City. He was now more concerned about the situation in the Black Waste2 and Carrion Swamp3.

During the time when the Purcell clan's Elders Court was in assembly, Zhao Hai had received a message from Drunk. The news stated that they had been seen by Wind Saint Buffy, but there were no movements from him. Although Buffy was curious about these zombies, they were within the Carrion Swamp and he didn't dare deal with them.

Upon hearing that Buffy was really in the Carrion Swamp, Zhao Hai felt relieved. He let the slaves out of the Space and back into the castle, allowing them to work with the oil press as well as the millstones to process the rice. This rice was generally comparable to bamboo rice and Zhao Hai had a lot of them on his hands. He intended to keep them as their own food.

The bamboo rice that Zhao Hai sold to Laura was bamboo rice that Green had originally bought. Remember, Zhao Hai's Space produced better quality bamboo rice. Zhao Hai couldn't bear to sell those good things, which was why he kept some of them for their own consumption4.

Zhao Hai had also started to improve the soil in the Black Waste along with the surrounding areas. It was now the Eighth Month, and planting something on the continent right now would be late, so Zhao Hai didn't plant anything. He had also brought other seeds that were commonly planted on the continent and let the slaves try and experiment with growing them. For the coming winter, they also started stocking up on firewood, as well as produced cotton clothing for the slaves.

Zhao Hai stood around and thought that a person must feed their family. Currently, he had a hundred people counting on him and discovered that their needs were extensive. Preparing for them would really be tedious.

First was acquiring the firewood, which was an important supply to have during the winter. With it, less people would freeze to death. Also, there was still the cotton clothing, food, and other various things, which added up to a lot.

Fortunately, Zhao Hai had made a temporary transfer point inside Casa City. This transfer point wasn't placed by Zhao Hai, but rather, it was set up by Green. It was located in a remote area in Casa City where they had bought a house. The house was to be used as the entry point into the Space, so it had become the transfer point.

Zhao Hai had bought many things through this transfer point. However, he couldn't buy glass windows for the slaves as they were too expensive. He only bought paper windows along with a bed, cupboards, a table, four chairs, a brazier, a copper kettle, and a number of things to eat for each of the slaves.

Buying things like this and that, Zhao Hai had bought them unconsciously and hadn't realized that he actually spent a total of almost 5,000 gold coins. Spending money really was faster than making money.

Notes:

- This chapter was MTL'ed. Please leave a comment for constructive criticisms and advice.

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- Please check out the Editor's footnotes, thanks.

1 My interpretation: This saying is calling these cold merchants "machines". In the end, even if the machines became living people, they wouldn't be able to get the full benefits. Yea, hard to figure out.↩

2 黑土荒原 - Hēitǔ huāngyuán. Black (黑) Earth (土) Wasteland (荒原). Another viable name is just Black Wastelands. Keeping with BlueSilver's version of Black Waste.↩

3 腐尸沼泽 - Fǔ shī zhǎoze. Carrion (腐尸) Swamp/Marsh (沼泽). Carrion basically means rotten corpse.↩

4 No idea about this paragraph.