Affairs Hall

Meanwhile, at the Jiang family's side.

Mother Jiang and Eldest Brother Jiang were stunned on the spot when they saw a ball of colorful light suddenly emerge from Jiang Youfu's body and turn into a glowing book.

After a long while, Mother Jiang finally found her voice. Pointing at the book in Jiang Youfu's hand, she stammered,

"Fuzi, is... is this book your immortal magic?"

Jiang Youfu hurriedly explained it to her and his eldest brother.

He told them that this was a new mental cultivation method he had just acquired, and it was not a bad thing.

Only then did Mother Jiang and Eldest Brother Jiang let go of their fear and heave a sigh of relief.

They didn't know what a mental cultivation method was, so they didn't know exactly what it meant. Anyway, as long as they knew it wasn't a bad thing, it was fine.

The three of them stayed by Grandma Jiang's side. Before long, the other family members also returned.

After the Jiang family had gathered, it only took a moment for Grandma Jiang on the bed to slowly wake up.

Seeing this, Jiang Youfu was completely relieved.

Looking at the "Origin Heart Sutra: Immortal Food Chapter" in his hand, he thought for a moment and decided not to return to the sect to tell Brother Xiao right away.

Instead, he decided to stay by his grandmother's side for the rest of the day.

He planned to tell him tomorrow.

On a summer afternoon.

Cicadas were chirping non-stop.

Some young children in the village were completely unafraid of the scorching sun. With their little faces flushed and their backs drenched in sweat, they ran around catching cicadas.

In the past, Lin Xiao and his friends were also members of the village's cicada-catching squad.

Now, they all had their own cultivation careers.

Except for the playful children, even the usually hardworking farmers avoided the harsh sun, hiding under the shade of trees or in their homes to cool off.

They just waited for the hottest part of the day to pass before getting up to work.

Under the sun that seemed to want to melt the earth, Magistrate Wen's carriage wobbled into Xiushui Village.

Behind the carriage followed a few runners riding short-legged horses.

Some villagers, who were fanning themselves and boasting under the shade not far from the village entrance, saw this and pointed it out to the people around them.

Although the villagers didn't know who was sitting in the carriage, it didn't prevent them from recognizing the uniforms on the runners.

Immediately after, someone among the cooling crowd shouted toward the nearby grass, calling out a few red-faced village kids who were catching grasshoppers and cicadas.

They told the kids to hurry and notify the village chief that officials had entered the village.

Hearing this, the kids raised their dirty little hands, wiped the sweat on their faces, and then sprinted toward the village chief's house.

At the same time, Lin Xiao, Qin Jianghe, and Liu Yunan were in the sect hall on the North Mountain, discussing some of the sect's upcoming plans.

Qin Jianghe said that one of his purposes for coming back this time was to discuss with them building another place to handle sect affairs.

He believed that as the number of people in their sect gradually increased, it was no longer appropriate to always rely on one-on-one notifications and the distribution of various items.

He had previously noticed this problem during his correspondence with Baldy.

Therefore, he suggested establishing an Affairs Hall, and then assigning dedicated personnel there to handle the distribution of stipends and rewards for the sect members and disciples.

This would save a lot of trivial time and free up Baldy to oversee and coordinate the major and minor affairs within the sect.

Hearing this, Lin Xiao felt it made a lot of sense and immediately nodded in agreement with his proposal.

The next moment, he went out to the edge of the grass hut corner, a necessary passage of the sect, and synthesized a modestly sized Affairs Hall right there.

Of course, so it wouldn't look like a dirt brick house, he generously threw five spirit stones into it.

The building synthesizer was very considerate and even included a plaque with the three large words "Affairs Hall" already written on it.

As for the position of the manager of the Affairs Hall, Lin Xiao planned to leave it entirely to Baldy to appoint.

As someone who was about to go into seclusion, acting as a hands-off boss would be conducive to their subsequent management work.

Otherwise, if there were any changes needed later, it would be awkward for Baldy, Jianghe, and the others, not knowing whether to act or not.

Lin Xiao remembered that the newcomers to the sect had not yet been issued sect uniforms.

Thinking that he would go into seclusion later and the sect would likely recruit more newcomers, he went to the field to collect some spirit silkworm silk, planning to make more sect uniforms to store in the warehouse for backup.

Several months had passed, and the initial batch of spirit silkworms had been harvested several times.

Now, a certain amount of spirit silkworm silk had accumulated.

Spirit silkworms might indeed be a bit different from ordinary silkworms.

Lin Xiao wasn't entirely sure, but he felt that ordinary silkworms definitely wouldn't have such a short growth cycle.

Finally, he used this spirit silkworm silk to synthesize a total of one hundred sect uniforms.

He took out a few sets of these uniforms and handed them to Baldy, asking him to find time to give them to Liu Chun, Mo Yuanjiao, and the other newcomers, and then gave ten sets to Qin Jianghe.

He told him to take them back when he returned to Songming County and distribute them to the disciples he had recruited into the sect.

Next, the few of them discussed the issue of stipends.

Now that the sect was on the right track, they naturally couldn't distribute silver money anymore.

Paying stipends to cultivators naturally meant distributing spirit stones.

The three of them discussed for a long time and finally drafted a plan: sect members without official positions would receive five spirit stones per month.

Hall managers would receive an additional thirty spirit stones on top of the base five spirit stones per month.

As for those tending the sect's farmland, based on the field division, a stipend of five spirit stones would be issued for every acre of spirit field they took care of.

As for Senior Liao, Lin Xiao had previously mentioned this matter to him.

Senior Liao originally intended to not take a single spirit stone.

But Lin Xiao insisted.

Finally, he had to say that it would be fine if he received the same as Baldy.

Liu Yunan and Qin Jianghe also insisted on receiving only the same stipend as the hall managers.

Thus, everyone's stipends were temporarily settled like this.

Because they were still in the initial stages.

So this stipend was set relatively low.

However, these were all temporary. With the development of the sect, if these arrangements gradually felt inappropriate in the future, they would naturally be changed.

Lin Xiao took Qin Jianghe and Liu Yunan to see the spirit stone mine under the back mountain.

He then handed over the task of arranging people to mine to them.

He himself became a hands-off boss.

Therefore, the scene inside the sect hall gradually changed from a three-person discussion to a heated debate between two people, after Lin Xiao intentionally withdrew little by little.

Lin Xiao sat in the middle, watching the two of them talk back and forth about this and that, feeling very happy.

By the time the two realized Lin Xiao had dropped out of the conversation, the matters to be discussed had basically been covered and could be directly finalized.

At this moment, someone knocked on the main door outside the sect hall.

"Brother Xiao, quickly go down the mountain and take a look. Official runners have arrived below, and it seems the magistrate has come too!"

The person speaking was none other than Yang Jinshu.

Now, their family of three all lived in the sect.