Chapter 38: The Village Elder’s Doubts (Part 1)

If Luo Pei heard that Luo Yan actually accused him of “visiting the pleasure quarters,” he would certainly have been very dissatisfied. What did he mean by visiting pleasure quarters and living in luxury? He was on a business trip!!

Well… okay, it seemed that Luo Yan didn’t actually say he was “living in luxury,” he said it himself… However, Luo Pei really wasn’t using public funds for a private vacation; he had gone out to investigate the market for Talim Village.

To be honest, as the sponsor of Isaiah Thomas, it was truly inappropriate to leave the village for more than half a month at this time, especially since this was a critical moment for Isaiah’s foundation. But Luo Pei really had no choice. If there had been any other way, he would not have chosen to go out at this time.

Luo Pei was not only the sponsor of Isaiah Thomas, but he was also the Director of Talim Village.

—The purpose of Luo Pei’s business trip this time was actually to help the village find a market.

Luo Pei had come to Talim Village a year ago. When he first arrived, his main focus was naturally on familiarizing himself with the situation and taking control of the circumstances. Once everything was sorted out, his attention naturally shifted to people’s livelihoods and economic development. This led to his decision to organize hunting parties to go up the mountain. After all, these days, economic development was the key to achieving political success.

But… organizing hunting parties to go up the mountain at such great risk was not just about catching prey. Hunting was only the means; getting actual money into their hands was the goal. Otherwise, why bother fighting with the animals on the mountain? It wasn’t as if he wanted to bring back their furs just to display them at home.

[But the key problem now was—Talim Village did not lack prey, but it lacked merchants to buy the prey… Oops.]

Talim Village was located in a remote area where few people traveled. In the past, there were no large hunting parties. Occasionally, a few hunters operated individually. In the harmonious terms of the time, this was a “low-efficiency, small-scale family workshop model.” Naturally, such harvests were extremely limited. Aside from what the families used themselves, most of the hunted prey was sold to fur traders in Wooden Bucket Town.

However, Wooden Bucket Town was just a small border town, and its economic situation was mediocre. There was only one fur shop in the entire town that bought these animals. Moreover, it was said that the owner of this shop had some ambiguous and unclean relations with the second-grandmother’s sister-in-law’s nephew’s cousin’s brother’s neighbor’s classmate’s second uncle of the Mayor of Wooden Bucket Town’s third concubine… In short, he had a power ful backer, so he was consistently arrogant and domineering. When the residents of Talim Village brought their prey to them, they were often brushed off with only three or five Silver Krongs. Sometimes, if they were unlucky, they would even receive a few indifferent glares. Over time, people liked selling their goods there even less.

As for the peddlers who came to the village to collect goods, there were actually one or two every year. But these people had limited strength, and their consciences were only slightly brighter than that of Laclan Sass from Wooden Bucket Town. If Laclan Sass offered three Silver Krongs for something, they would offer four if they were in a good mood. Truly, one was a black pig and the other was a crow; neither could laugh at the other’s darkness.

Luo Pei was naturally not satisfied with such profits!

The residents of Talim Village were simple and lacked information. They had not seen much of the world. Most people worked hard for a year and only earned a few Gold Plangs. In their eyes, those few Silver Krongs were already unexpected wealth and enough to be satisfying. But Luo Pei was different; he had seen the world and naturally knew the tricks involved.

Furs bought for three or five Silver Krongs could be sold for several times the price in Hall City or the main county, Lons Pompey City, with just a bit of processing. If they were taken to the Imperial Capital, Saia City, they could be sold for dozens or even hundreds of Gold Plangs… If there weren’t such profits, why would Luo Pei have any interest in this?

Therefore, Luo Pei’s trip to Wooden Bucket Town this time was intended to have a proper talk about cooperation with that fur trader. Talim Village could guarantee the supply of goods, but he hoped the other party could give a sincere price… To be honest, Luo Pei was quite confident about this trip. After all, this should be a win-win cooperation. The villagers of Talim Village would have more motivation once they had a satisfactory income, and the other party would have a stable supply of goods. Expanding the business would only be a matter of time, which meant earning even more.

In Luo Pei’s mind, this simple logic should be clear to the other party without much explanation. After all, that was the only way a business could last. How much money could one save just by being stingy?

However, it seemed Luo Pei had been too optimistic about some things…

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“Nonsense!! I told you that everything you did before was total nonsense!! You people from the city only know how to talk big, shout slogans to get political credit, or make decisions based on whims and fantasies. If any actual good work ever got done, it definitely had nothing to do with you…” An acidic voice came from the Village Office. Slamming the teacup heavily on the table, a lean old man looked at Luo Pei with disdain and said mockingly, “…Tell me, Great Director, what do we do now? You were the one who insisted on organizing the hunting party. Not only did it waste time, but it almost caused an accident… Now every household in the village is piled high with those useless furs, and you say the goods can’t be sold? Aren’t you just playing around?! I’m telling you, this is total nonsense!”

The old man speaking was named Belikov. He was over one hundred and seventy years old this year and was one of the “Village Elders” of the village, a well-known stubborn old man.

…

[Village Elder]: The lowest-level position in the Davoma Empire, or rather, the human empires of the entire Amelia Continent. Usually, there were four or five per village. Because they were collectively elected by the villagers, they were often held by elderly people who were deeply trusted by the village. They were not necessarily wealthy, but they were definitely people of high prestige.

…

Do not think that these “Village Elders” were just a useless organization of old men who were basically ready for the grave and had no power. In fact, since the “Iron-Blooded Emperor” Rize Ding personally ordered the creation of the “Village Elder System,” the monarchs of various empires, large and small, had paid close attention to the operation of this system for ten thousand years. Local administrative officials naturally did not dare to be negligent and often valued the opinions and suggestions of the Village Elders. It was they who built the foundation of power that spanned the entire continent for the various empires.

Specifically within a village, although Luo Pei was the Director of Talim Village, he did not dare to overlook the role of the “Village Elders.” For example, right now, Luo Pei’s face turned pale from the man’s cold sarcasm, but he could only endure it in silence.

—The “taking control of the situation” mentioned earlier actually referred to communication and exchange with these Village Elders. After half a year, Luo Pei had basically established his authority before most of the Village Elders, except for this Old Belikov…

Old Belikov was the oldest and most stubborn among the Village Elders of Talim Village. He usually had the biggest ego and complained the most. When Luo Pei was transferred to Talim Village as the Director, Belikov was the one who respected him the least. All day long, he loved to say things like “no hair on his lip.” When Luo Pei first organized the hunting party, Belikov was the most fierce opponent. He cursed Luo Pei for making a decision on a whim, called it a fantasy, and described it as irresponsible playing around. He even claimed he would go to the town to report Luo Pei. Now that Luo Pei’s plan had failed, he felt he had found his rhythm, and his words flowed very smoothly~~