CH 24

Chapter 24: Development Planning

“Boss, what are we doing?”

Huang Sanyuan asked, confused. He got woken up very early today by Cheng Dalei and was forced to accompany him as they circled around Toad Peak.

“Checking the mountain!” Cheng Dalei spat out those words with an exaggerated act.

“Checking… What mountain?” Huang Sanyuan was even more confused now.

Cheng Dalei didn’t answer that question. He just appraised the boulder in front of him, thinking about climbing on top of it.

“Butler Huang, you’re worldly and knowledgeable. So the, if our camp wants to recruit more people, where do you think we should start?”

“That will probably be quite difficult.”

“Where’s the difficulty? Lay it out on me.” Cheng Dalei gave it a few tries, but was unable to get up on that boulder.

“The people of the Empire can generally be split into four classes. Has boss every heard of this saying?”

Cheng Dalei stopped for a moment, “Which four classes? How are they split up?”

“The first class is naturally the imperial family. The Li family who founded and ruled over the Wu Dynasty for the past 120 years. They’re unmatched in authority, nor do they need to labor, and is simply supported by the Empire. The second class is the nobility. This class includes great clans, city lords, and wealthy merchants. The third class is the citizenry. This includes the landlords, local gentry, and merchants. The fourth is the peasantry, covering the serfs, refugees, and domestic slaves, etc.”

“Which class are bandits a part of then?” Cheng Dalei asked, uncomprehending.

Huang Sanyuan spoke with some difficulty, “Bandits aren’t in any of those. One could also say that they’re at the lowest class period. The Empire completely doesn’t recognize bandits as people of the Empire, lower than even refugees, slaves, and beggars. For normal people, if they’ve completely run out of options, some would still rather die than become a bandit. If a bandit arose from a family, then they’d be the shame of the entire family, a shame to their ancestors.”

As he got to that point, Huang Sanyuan peeked at Cheng Dalie. He didn’t have a good grasp of Cheng Dalei’s character yet, so he’s terrified that he might have angered Cheng Dalei with his words.

Cheng Dalei wasn’t angered though. He finally got on top of that boulder and started surveying the entire Toad Camp from up above.

“So bandits are actually such lowly existence!”

Cheng Dalei suddenly let out a laugh, “Butler Huang, I’m going to be setting up an outer wall around the Toad Camp and add some defenses.”

“That’s good, sure, but we don’t have the people for that.”

“I’ve already considered this issue, and I’ve also thought of a solution.” Cheng Dalei said to Huang Sanyuan, “We can hire more people if we’re lacking in manpower. I’ll give you a blueprint in a bit.”

Huang Sanyuan’s eyes widened, “Boss, you known how to draw blueprints?”

“Hn.” Cheng Dalei confirmed without the slightest thought or worry.

Huang Sanyuan can’t be blamed for his shock though. This is an age where less than 10% of the population is literate. The fact that Cheng Dalei is capable of such is already enough for him to be considered a genius.

His gaze toward Cheng Dalei now held some amounts of respect. Seeing Cheng Dalei standing up on the boulder like that, it really did give a feel of being deepness and sagacity.

Cheng Dalei was currently appraising the geography of the Toad Camp. From where he is, the Toad Camp really did resemble a toad crouched on the ground. The head of said toad was pointing toward the south, and below is was an unfathomably deep cliff. To its sides are tall cliffs, and the only path to it is a hill covered in trees to the north of it. The camp itself was set on the only piece of flat land on the toad’s head.

What Cheng Dalei needed to do is to rebuild all the original defenses for the camp before then using all the wood and stone materials around to fill in any gaps still remaining. Then, after all that, fill the area outside the camp with traps.

Cheng Dalei brought Huang Sanyuan with him to wander around the camp because this was actually the first time that he’s fully surveyed the entirety of the camp. Truth be told, there wasn’t any real organization to it. From the looks of it, the ones who originally built this camp must have just decided to build whatever they wanted, and then put up whatever extra that was lacking.

All of that needs to be demolished and rebuilt in this redesign.

Beep. Exploration of Toad Camp complete.

Following the notice in his mind, a made slowly unfolded within Cheng Dalei’s mind. Every single building within the camp was clearly shown on said map.

After Cheng Dalei gave it a once over, the entire setup of Toad Camp was completely imprinted in his mind. At the same time, the system reward map in his mind already started changing. It started making appropriate edits based on the geography present, showing where certain places are weakly defended and is in need of reinforcements, or where certain gaps and holes need to be closed.

Of course, since it’s only a beginner rank defense blueprint, everything is still fairly simplistic and ugly. However, Cheng Dalei is certain that, as the Camp grows and develops, the stuff given by the system will definitely also slowly improve.

He returned to his room and easily produced that blueprint. After he handed it to Huang Sanyuan, Huang Sanyuan was left with his mouth utterly agape.

“Boss. You really, really are…”

Cheng Dalei just pursed his lips, “Butler Huang, don’t go bringing all that useless flattery from Blackstone here, alright. We here care about ability, not that kind of stuff.”

The hidden words behind it though are: Praise me, praise me all you want.

Huang Sanyuan nodded, “You’re right, boss.”

…

“Great news, great news!”

Clang! Clang!

“Great news, great news!”

Clang! Clang!

At the Flying Tiger Camp, Gao Feihu was cooling himself in the shades below a tree when that voice suddenly came from down the mountain. Gao Feihu leaped up in surprise. Given his experiences from the previous time, he already has a bad feeling about this.

As expected, when he walked out of the camp, he once again saw that the trees near the camp were covered in papers… That, advertisement, or whatever it’s called. At this moment, a large crowd gathered below the tree, staring at the words written up on the papers.

“Boss, read it for us. What’s written there.”

Gao Feihu already had a bad premonition from this. He really didn’t want to see what’s written there, and he wanted even less to read it to others.

“Come on now, don’t be so impatient everyone. I’ll read it to everyone.”

Who was that? Are they blind? Gao Feihu turned his head and saw his little brother walking on over with a super satisfied expression on his face.

“Great news, great news!”

Gao Feibao cleared his voice and started loudly reading the contents of those papers.

“Young heroes, you’re still forced to eat wild plants and rough grains! But here, you can eat white noodles and flatbread.

Are you still troubled with the lack of a weapon? There are high quality weapons here for you to pick from here.

Are you still uncertain about your future? A bright future await you here.

Great news, great news!

Toad Camp is currently recruiting talents!

Your dreams start here and now. Your new life starts now!

Our motto is: Ride the wildest horse, sleep with the most beautiful women.

Join the Toad Bandits. Nothing will merely remain a dream!”

At the very bottom of the paper is also drawn a portrait. That person carried an axe on his shoulder, with a hand sticking out, pointing down at the large crimson words written below.

I WANT YOU!

Gao Feihu’s face twitched uncontrollably. A wave of uncontrollable anger burned in his chest.

“Right the wildest horse, sleep with the most beautiful women.” Gao Feibao appraised appreciatingly, “Those are some nice words. Very well written.”

“You piece of shit!” Gao Feihu angrily charged forward and ripped the papers into smithereens before roaring out in rage, “I’ve never seen anyone so utterly shameless.”