The Overlord of Puluo

Late at night, Li Banfeng was sitting in the fifth room, enjoying a movie with the Film Projector.

After the Film Projector edited the movie, the plot was more coherent, the characters looked more vivid, and the frequency of the frame drops had reduced considerably. Additionally, the female lead in the feature film had become increasingly lifelike.

Li Banfeng praised him, ”You managed to turn a story on paper into such a complete movie. Your skills have improved tremendously. Looks like you found yourself a good teacher.”

The light in the Film Projector’s lens flickered, and he replied, ”It’s all thanks to your excellent guidance, Director Qi.”

Li Banfeng shook his head. ”Don’t flatter me. I’m not worthy. When it comes to making movies, I’m not even one-tenth as skilled as you. You really unwilling to introduce that teacher to me?”

The Film Projector answered resolutely, ”You mean that young lady, right? She really is from my imagination.”

Li Banfeng looked at the Film Projector for a long moment.

The Film Projector said calmly, ”Director Qi, I am utterly loyal to you. That has never changed.”

The Film Projector might still harbor some resentment over what had happened in the past, but he would not deceive Li Banfeng because of it. From his perspective, the woman in question had truly emerged from his imagination.

What exactly is that woman trying to do? Li Banfeng wondered.

Whatever her intention was, Li Banfeng had already warned the Gramophone that she absolutely could not let the woman hurt the Film Projector.

As the movie reached its end, Li Banfeng noticed a vase on the female lead’s table that looked extremely familiar.

”This vase is...”

”Director Qi, this vase belongs to our family. I borrowed it to use as a prop.”

It’s the missing vase the Glove mentioned. What kind of ability is this?

”Director Qi, the newspapers from Blackstone Slope are really good. They’re practically ready-made scripts.”

Li Banfeng stood up and said, ”I’ll go buy some more.”

***

Li Banfeng left the newspaper office, intending to go buy some newspapers. That was when he saw a rickshaw parked outside the building’s entrance.

Rickshaws were uncommon in Blackstone Slope. People generally took a small train when they went out.

The rickshaw driver, a short, stocky man, stood up and said, ”Sir, where are you headed? I’ll take you—it’s you?”

He recognized Li Banfeng. ”Little brother, you’ve come to Blackstone Slope?”

Li Banfeng nodded. ”Elder brother, why have you brought your rickshaw business here?”

”Business is good here! Little brother, you work at this newspaper office? That’s good. I told you before, there’s no shame in finding a job. It’s much better than making a living by risking your life. Do you know the shopkeeper of this newspaper office?”

Li Banfeng smiled. ”At newspaper offices, the owner generally isn’t called a shopkeeper.”

”Right, they call him ’boss’ here. The boss’s name is Li Qi. I’ve come here to find him.”

Li Banfeng nodded. ”Then you’ve come to the right person.”

The rickshaw driver looked Li Banfeng up and down. Then, looking at Li Banfeng’s suit, he exclaimed in pleasant surprise, ”You’re Li Qi?”

Li Banfeng gave a slight nod.

The rickshaw driver beamed with delight. ”Brother, get in. Your big bro will take you for a ride.”

”Where are we going?”

”To Yellowclay Bridge!”

”We’re taking this?”

”This is faster than the train. Your big bro has wheels of fire beneath his feet!”

***

Li Banfeng and Ma Wu took the train to Yellowclay Bridge.

After leaving the train station, Li Banfeng saw the empty streets and sighed. ”This is a bad place to do business.”

Ma Wu knew that it would be difficult to do business in Yellowclay Bridge, but he really wanted to give it a try. If a New Land could be turned into Qi Qiu City, there was no reason Yellowclay Bridge could not be brought back to life.

The rickshaw driver waited at the intersection with his rickshaw and called out to Li Banfeng from afar, ”Brother, you’re here. Who’s your friend?”

Ma Wu introduced himself.

The rickshaw driver nodded in understanding. ”So, you’re Brother Ma Wu. I’ve heard a lot about you. You two, hop in. I’ll take you around.”

In the past, it was not unusual for members of various great aristocratic families like Ma Wu’s to interact with local land deities. However, those interactions had been limited to the core members of those families.

After meeting Li Qi, Ma Wu had met quite a few local land deities. Despite them being vastly superior in status and power, Ma Wu could still stomach calling them brothers. But today, a local land deity was letting Ma Wu ride in his rickshaw, which he was going to pull. How could Ma Wu possibly dare ride in it?

”You’re too kind, sir. We can just walk,” Ma Wu replied politely.

The rickshaw driver was displeased. ”What’s that supposed to mean? Look down on your big bro? Think a rickshaw driver like me is too shabby?”

Ma Wu repeatedly shook his head. ”I’m worried you’ll get tired, sir.”

”Walking slowly with you is what will make me tired. Hurry up and get in.”

Li Banfeng and Ma Wu got into the rickshaw, and the rickshaw driver pulled them around the town.

Yellowclay Bridge was rich in coal and yellow clay. A river with coal sediment wound around the town, and there were more than a dozen bridges of various sizes throughout the town itself. The four largest bridges in the east, south, west, and north divided the entire town into four sections named after the bridges.

Not every part of Yellowclay Bridge was sparsely populated. The Eastern Bridge, the Western Bridge, and the Southern Bridge were relatively desolate, while the Northern Bridge still had many residents, and occasionally, there would be people setting up stalls on the street.

Ma Wu asked, ”What do these people do for a living?”

The rickshaw driver answered, ”There are several coal mines nearby. They work there, but they don’t earn much. It’s barely enough for them to get by.”

”Are all the coal mines in Yellowclay Bridge under them?”

The rickshaw driver shook his head. ”How many of the coal mines could be under them? Less than one-tenth! If you two want to get into the coal business, I’ll take you there. Those vast stretches of coal mines can all belong to the two of you, brothers.”

The rickshaw driver took Li Banfeng and Ma Wu to the Western Bridge and exited the town. He kept going until they reached the outskirts of Yellowclay Bridge, where they finally saw the coal mines.

The place was indeed quite large. When Ma Wu saw the coal mines, his eyes lit up like he was looking at a mountain of gold.

The rickshaw driver continued introducing the place to them. ”Look, the mine shafts, mine carts, and the rail tracks for them are all ready to use—”

Clatter!

A mine cart fell apart.

Looking a little embarrassed, the rickshaw driver said, ”It’s nothing. Fix it up a bit, and it can still be used.”

Li Banfeng did not know much about coal mines, but Ma Wu was an expert.

Ma Wu turned to Li Banfeng. ”Old Qi, this elder brother isn’t lying to us. This is a good mine. Most of the equipment here is broken, but if we call over our Artificer Cultivators and have them fix everything up, we can have the mine up and running in no more than half a month.”

Li Banfeng asked, ”Why start with a coal mine?”

”Firstly, coal mines make money. Secondly, they need a lot of workers. A mine this large can accommodate three to five thousand workers. Once the workers come, they’ll need food, clothing, lodging, and transportation. That means the businesses in town will gradually flourish, and Yellowclay Bridge will gain an increase in human presence.”

Ma Wu was full of confidence, but Li Banfeng was concerned.

He asked, ”If running a coal mine is so simple, why hasn’t anyone come to do it?”

Ma Wu smiled and shook his head. ”This isn’t a business just anyone can get into. Even if an ordinary person emptied his wallet, all he could do was open up a small coal pit. Running a mine requires an enormous initial investment. However, we have the capital, so we’re in a position to enter this business venture.”

Li Banfeng and Ma Wu certainly had immense financial resources, but the four great aristocratic families were hardly short of money either. Why had they not come to Yellowclay Bridge to do this business venture? Li Banfeng remembered Qiu Zhiheng once saying that doing business in Yellowclay Bridge brought a lot of trouble.

Ma Wu had already looked into the matter. ”The main reason is that there are too few people in Yellowclay Bridge. The residents are insufficient as the labor force. That means workers will have to be recruited from out of town, so their food, lodging, and travel expenses will have to be covered, resulting in somewhat higher operating costs than coal mines at other locations. The other problem I heard about was that the merchants in Yellowclay Bridge aren’t particularly accommodating. They’re always making things difficult for outsiders.”

On that last point, Ma Wu glanced at the rickshaw driver, looking for confirmation as to whether that was true.

The rickshaw driver waved his hand, dismissing the idea. ”That’s not true. They’re plenty accommodating. Aren’t they just those few small coal mines in the Northern Bridge? Leave this to me. If there’s anyone who dares cause trouble for you, I’ll send them on their way. You two brothers, don’t worry about it, and just get stuck in it!”

Ma Wu wanted to start straight away, but Li Banfeng first settled the terms with the rickshaw driver.

”All domains in Yellowclay Bridge, except for domains that already have owners, must be ours to operate from in the future.”

The rickshaw driver gave his chest a hearty smack. ”You can have even the ones that have owners. I’ll drive them all away!”

Li Banfeng waved his hand. ”We don’t covet domains that already have owners. We’re here to do legitimate business.”

The two sides reached an agreement and drew up a contract. With a local land deity looking after them, Ma Wu felt confident about the business venture and got straight to work. He took the train to Blackstone Slope to recruit workers.

However, Ma Wu had a genuinely difficult time recruiting workers. Mining was grueling work. On top of that, the workers had to go all the way to Yellowclay Bridge to do it. Ma Wu doubled the wages, but after three days, he had recruited only just over two hundred people. Still, that number would do. It was enough for them to get the coal mine up and running first.

Ma Wu was feeling optimistic about the situation. ”Old Qi, the coal mining business is a great one. Once it gets going, we can just have a subordinate supervise it for us. I still have to go back to Qi Qiu City. That’s the most important place for us.”

The miners were brought in and sent down into the mine to mine for coal. Meanwhile, Ma Wu brought over Artificer Cultivators, purchased equipment and materials from outside Yellowclay Bridge, and had the Artificer Cultivators repair the railway leading from the mine to the train station.

This was not one of the railways that operated in the Outer Provinces. It was a railway for a small train transporting coal, so its construction was not particularly demanding. There were a few dilapidated sections, but once they were repaired, the railway could be used again.

By the time the railway was repaired, the miners had also finished mining the first batch of coal. Ma Wu had arranged for someone to contact buyers in Greenwater City in advance and succeeded in making their first deal for the mining business.

Despite the slightly higher costs of operating out of Yellowclay Bridge, Li Qi and Border Controller Liao Zihui had an agreement that gave Li Qi and Ma Wu advantageous lower transportation costs, so the business was still profitable.

Watching the first batch of coal leave the mine, Ma Wu was in an excellent mood. However, before the mine cart even reached five hundred meters, a malfunction occurred, and the mine cart was tipped over.

This was a railway that had been in disrepair for many years, so it made sense that a malfunction would occur. Fortunately, there were no casualties. Ma Wu had someone investigate the cause and repair it quickly.

The railway was repaired that very night, but all sixteen carts of coal were stolen.

It was absurd, so absurd that Ma Wu could not believe it. ”Sixteen carts of coal, how could someone possibly steal all of the coal? Even if we just stood there and simply watched them do it, there’s no way anyone could possibly carry it all away!”

The train driver said, ”I don’t know what they used to steal the coal. In the blink of an eye, they’d emptied all the carts, and in the next blink, the thieves themselves had disappeared.”

Ma Wu frowned. ”This is probably those people from the Northern Bridge causing trouble, right?”

Li Banfeng did not care about the sixteen carts of coal. The thing he cared about was the means they had used to steal the coal. The culprits likely possessed a high-grade enchanted artifact, considering they were able to relocate sixteen carts’ worth of coal instantly. Anyone who possessed such a high-grade enchanted artifact was certainly no ordinary person. It seemed they had underestimated these coal mine owners.

The rickshaw driver was still trying to console them. ”Brother Ma Wu, this is my fault. I should have accompanied the train the whole way. I didn’t think things through.”

Ma Wu did not complain. They had only just started the business, so it was normal for them to suffer a few setbacks.

He went to the train station first. There were people waiting at the train station for the shipment, so he had to explain the situation to them. There were also people in Greenwater City who were waiting to receive the goods, so he had to explain the situation to them as well.

After taking care of that, Ma Wu returned to the mine and supervised the mining. Meanwhile, Li Banfeng tightened the security measures to prevent anyone from targeting the mine.

That very night, something did indeed happen at the mine, but it did not happen in the mine shafts. It happened in the living quarters. The miners’ barracks had been set on fire, leaving the miners with nowhere to stay that night.

When the fire broke out, Ma Wu had hurriedly taken people to put out the fire. Then when he returned, he found that the mine carts had been smashed, the steam dome on the locomotive had been punctured, and the connecting rods had been broken.

Little Chuan cursed angrily, ”Those bastards, they targeted all the critical components!”

The steam dome and connecting rods were special parts, difficult to replace and difficult to repair.

More importantly, this time the perpetrators had acted right under Li Banfeng’s nose. Li Banfeng had the two cultivation paths at the eighth level of the Terranean Layer, yet he had failed to notice any traces of them.

Where did that rickshaw driver go? He’s a local land deity, a cultivator at the Cloudborne Layer. If even he had failed to notice them, then that means the culprit must be way more powerful! But why would such a powerful opponent set their sights on a coal mine like this?

Little Chuan worked on contacting people to repair the train.

Meanwhile, the foreman came running over in a panic and said to Ma Wu, ”The ledger is gone.”

The foreman’s ledger recorded the amount of work that each miner had done. With it gone, there was no way to calculate their wages.

The miners had all been recruited from Blackstone Slope. How could they possibly put up with such treatment? They all went to Ma Wu to demand an explanation.

One of the workers was quite agitated. He even stepped over and gave Ma Wu a shove.

Ma Wu did not take offense to it, but he was furious at the situation. ”This is fucking strange. Could there still be a Mourning Cultivator around here? I reckon they’re not low-level!”

Li Banfeng shook his head. ”This wasn’t done by a Mourning Cultivator.”

He had fought Mourning Cultivators in Medicine King Gully and knew a lot about them.

Ma Wu asked, ”Then which Daoist path did this?”

”I can’t tell, but I feel like there’s some ruthless person causing trouble.”

But if that’s the case, why were they only causing trouble instead of dealing a hard strike?

Li Banfeng could not make sense of it.

As he pondered this, the Tang Saber at his waist trembled incessantly.