Chapter 31
Flying Sword Cutting
“Half a year is too long.” Chen Daoxuan shook his head.
He looked at Chen Beiwang, who was silent. He thought for a while and said, “Forget it. I will go over to your stone processing workshop to take a look later.”
“Yes, young clan leader.”
Chen Beiwang heaved a sigh of relief when he heard that.
After briefing Chen Beiwang, who was responsible for the construction of the clan’s public infrastructure, Chen Daoxuan turned his head and looked at Chen Liangyu, who was the person formerly in charge of the red copper mine.
Seeing Chen Daoxuan looking at him, Chen Liangyu had a fawning smile on his face.
“Manager Chen, how is the mine doing now?”
Hearing Chen Daoxuan talk about the mine, Chen Liangyu’s expression fell sharply.
He said with a slightly complaining tone, “Young clan leader, all the work in the mine has ceased, and all the workers have been sent home to rest.”
“Oh, right, the red copper ores extracted from the mine are all being kept in the storage building. During this period of time, I have been personally responsible for guarding it. I guarantee that there will be no problems.”
After hearing this, Chen Daoxuan nodded non-committally.
This was Shuanghu Island, and all the people living on the island were all part of the Chen clan. In addition, only cultivators could use the red copper ores, so ordinary clansmen would naturally not steal the red copper ores.
However, Chen Liangyu’s insistence on guarding the red copper mine, even though it had ceased operations, made Chen Daoxuan very satisfied.
Thinking of this, his gaze became a bit more amiable.
“Manager Chen, you’ve worked hard during this period of time.”
Hearing this, Chen Liangyu displayed an expression of fear and trepidation as he said, “It’s all for the clan. I wouldn’t dare to receive praise from the young clan leader.”
After pondering for a moment, Chen Daoxuan continued, “How about I give you a new task? If this task is done well, in the future, it will definitely not be worse than being the manager of the red copper mine.”
Chen Daoxuan saw through Chen Liangyu’s thoughts from a glance and said with a smile, “What do you think about this?”
Hearing that there was a new task for him, Chen Liangyu almost jumped up in joy.
He suppressed the excitement in his heart and said in a trembling voice, “Chen Liangyu is willing to go through fire and water for the clan. I will do anything!”
“There is no need for you to go through fire and water.”
Chen Daoxuan smiled and waved his hand. Then, his face turned serious. “I want you to pick a group of men from the clan who are between 16 to 18 years of age. They must be literate and intelligent.”
You should choose fifteen people first. They will gather at the clan’s earth fire chamber tomorrow morning.”
“Understood!”
Chen Liangyu cupped his hands and replied excitedly.
After watching Chen Liangyu leave, Chen Daoxuan looked at Chen Beiwang, who was waiting at the side, and said, “Let’s go. We will go to the stone processing workshop to take a look first.”
“Yes, young clan leader.”
…
Changping County, stone processing workshop.
As the only stone processing workshop in Changping County, the stone bricks produced here were divided into three categories.
They were redstone bricks, whitestone bricks, and the best quality bluestone bricks.
When they arrived, Chen Beiwang, who was an old craftsman, introduced the workshop to Chen Daoxuan as they walked around, “This is the clan’s stone processing workshop. Every household in Changping County gets their stone bricks from here.”
The workshop was only a few hundred square meters in size, and there were only a dozen craftsmen working here. Although everyone was perspiring from exhaustion, their work efficiency was still shockingly low.
Chen Beiwang continued to elaborate, “The stone first needs to be extracted from the mountains by quarrymen, and then processed into this finished brick by the workshop.”
As he spoke, Chen Beiwang took a completed green brick from the basket beside one of the craftsmen and handed it to Chen Daoxuan, “Young clan leader, please take a look.”
The green brick in front of him was about seven inches long, three inches wide, and two inches thick. It was green and faintly glowed with a jade-like luster. It did not resemble a stone, but looked more like a piece of jade.
This was the best stone brick that the Chen clan could produce.
Compared to the people of ancient times from Earth, the Chen clan of Shuanghu Island did not seem to have mastered the method of making clay bricks.
Of course, this also had to do with the fact that the cultivation world’s resources were much more abundant than Earth’s.
Mortals did not need to mix and bake bricks at all; just the various stone and wood materials in this world were inexhaustible and sufficient to fulfill their needs.
Moreover, they were beautiful and practical. As such, mixing and baking bricks would be a pointless exercise in this world.
Looking at the work efficiency of the craftsmen in front of him, Chen Daoxuan finally knew why Chen Beiwang had said that it would take half a year to build the factory.
It was not that the craftsmen that would build the factory worked slowly, but rather that the supply of raw materials was insufficient.
After thinking for a while, Chen Daoxuan turned his head and asked, “Can the supply of the raw stone from the quarry be increased?”
Hearing this, Chen Beiwang did not respond immediately. After a long while, he nodded vigorously and said, “Yes! The work in the quarry is all simple manual labor. It is very easy to find people.”
He had finally heard a piece of good news.
Chen Daoxuan instructed, “I’ll give you half a day. Go look for Chen Zhi and ask him to organize his clansmen to transport all the raw stones back from the quarry.”
Although he did not know what Chen Daoxuan was up to, Chen Beiwang did not dare to disobey the orders of the young clan leader, who had just taken over the mantle of authority.
Soon, Chen Zhi, who was in the middle of organizing a census of the clan’s population, received Chen Daoxuan’s instructions.
Chen Zhi did not dare to be negligent in complying with Chen Daoxuan’s instructions.
He immediately organized people to head over to the quarry to transport the raw stones.
Fortunately, most of the mortals in Shuanghu Island were martial artists. Within less than the span of a single afternoon, more than three thousand cubic meters of raw stone was transported back to the courtyard of the stone processing workshop by the Chen clansmen.
By late-afternoon, the courtyard of the stone processing workshop was filled with onlookers.
These were all the temporary workers that Chen Zhi had gathered up to transport the stone; no one knew what the young patriarch was going to do.
In the courtyard, Chen Daoxuan looked at the mountain of bluestones in front of him and sighed in his heart. He was going to be a coolie again.
He used the true Qi from his dantian, and raised the bluestones so that they floated in the air under the control of his true Qi.
Then, the Red Shadow flying sword flew out of his storage bag and began to shine with spiritual light.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Sword lights shot out in all directions in the courtyard of the stone processing workshop.
In the blink of an eye, the huge block of bluestone, which was ten cubic meters in size, was cut into small bricks by the flying sword.
“This…”
Outside the courtyard, the members of the Chen clan looked as if they had seen a ghost when they saw this scene.
Although they knew that cultivators were very powerful, the scene before their eyes was beyond their imagination.
Under the sharp motions of Chen Daoxuan’s flying sword, soon there were fewer and fewer uncut bluestones in the courtyard, and more and more bricks gradually piled up.
In just a quarter of a day, Chen Daoxuan had cut all 3,000 stones into bricks of good quality.
“Gulp!”
Chen Beiwang stood in the courtyard and unconsciously swallowed his saliva.
He finally understood why the Chen clan leader could only be a cultivator and not a mortal.
With that much stone, even if all the stonemasons of the Chen clan had worked overtime, it would have taken them at least a few months to process all the stones into bricks.
Now, in just six hours, all the stone had been single-handedly processed by the young clan leader.
This kind of supernatural power was not something that ordinary people could compare to.
Thinking of this, Chen Beiwang became even more respectful of Chen Daoxuan.