Chapter 158: Chapter 156: Spirit Plant Garden? Spirit Plant Ranch!
 

Due to the haphazardly grown small fruit tree’s existence being too abstract.

After the small fruit tree moved into the Spirit Plant Garden, within two days, the news had spread among the sophomores and juniors of the Spiritual Planting Department.

Some senior students, even without tasks at hand, would squat outside the wasteland just to see what kind of plant performance the small fruit tree could put on next.

Outside the wasteland leased in Jiang Cheng, more than a dozen students from the Spiritual Planting Department were orderly squatting on small stools.

Some held melons in their hands, some clutched sunflower seeds, and others brought out Eyesight Enhancement Talismans, ready to observe any movements from the small fruit tree.

“It moved two hours ago; I bet it’s going to move again soon.”

“I bet it will move in ten minutes!”

“I bet half an hour!”

“Damn it, I also want to raise one; do you guys know how to get one?”

“I don’t know!”

“Seems like it’s a new variety.”

“It’s not a new variety; I heard Mr. Zhang say it’s about talismans! That one drawn by… what’s his name, the freshman who won against the teacher in a one-on-one without even drawing a talisman.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about it too, the freshman assessment, right? What’s his name?”

“His name is Jiang Cheng,” said Jiang Cheng.

“Ah right, brother’s awesome! How do you know… holy shit! Jiang Cheng!”

Jiang Cheng instinctively took a step back, but the dozen or so seniors and juniors around him from the Spiritual Planting Department all stood up at once, surrounding him in a circle.

They were serious-faced, most at the ninth level of Qi cultivation, with two at the Foundation Establishment Stage.

Unless Jiang Cheng used a Liu Talisman to summon his true body for salvation, there was no way he could wipe them all out.

“Seniors, what do you want to do?”

“That Blood Orange Tree, do you know how to grow it?”

“I know,” he said truthfully.

The previously serious-faced senior suddenly showed a warm and friendly smile.

“Hehe, Junior Jiang Cheng, can you raise one for me to play with?”

“Yeah, yeah, we also want to raise one to play with.”

“Don’t be shy, just tell us how many Spirit Stones you need.”

“Exactly, money is no issue.”

Although Jiang Cheng was always happy to help others, he also upheld professional ethics.

Selling semi-finished talismans that were still in experimental stages for money was disrespectful to clients, something Jiang Cheng would not do.

After Jiang Cheng explained the situation, the seniors also expressed their understanding. Their only request was to pay a deposit in advance, ensuring that once the experiment succeeded, they would be the first to receive the product.

As the Plant Autonomy Talisman was an updated version of the Smart Puppet Talisman, both the production cost and development cost were very low, so for the time being, Jiang Cheng had not decided on a price.

Previously when he sold talismans, it was the buyers in the Task Hall who set the price; all he had to do was accept the task. He didn’t need to worry about pricing.

In the end, Jiang Cheng symbolically accepted a single low-grade Spirit Stone as a deposit.

After sending off the seniors, Jiang Cheng went to check on the growth state of the haphazardly grown small fruit tree.

Good news: flower buds were appearing; the Blood Orange Tree was entering the flowering stage.

Bad news: there seemed to be too many flower buds.

Having grown the Blood Orange Tree for so many days, Jiang Cheng had already made sure to replenish his knowledge on Blood Orange Fruits.

Ordinarily, a Blood Orange Tree growing in the wild would produce two to three fruits, while under human cultivation with ample nutrients, it would yield four to five fruits.

The haphazardly grown small fruit tree had sprouted thirty-three flower buds.

This meant it could bear thirty-three fruits.

It was a bit outrageous.

But that wasn’t the most outrageous part.

The most outrageous part was that these flower buds were all growing on a single branch.

Making it look like a string of flowers or like the panicle atop the head of grass family plants.

In any case, it was peculiar!

Jiang Cheng pondered: Could it be that autonomy also introduces mutations? Or, did the Translation Talisman collect some information that it wasn’t supposed to during data collection?

Since the haphazardly grown small fruit tree had already been growing for so many days, Jiang Cheng decided to let it continue to grow and see what it would turn out to be in the end.

After checking the small fruit tree, Jiang Cheng hurried back to the dormitory; he had classes in the afternoon and couldn’t linger in the Spirit Plant Garden for too long.

In the dormitory, there were no changes in Song Junsheng and Ding Guangming, but Zhu Hongcai had undergone a significant transformation—he suddenly became quiet and started to study hard.

“Guangming, what’s happened to Hong Cai?” Jiang Cheng asked.

Ding Guangming replied, “Hong Cai, brother, has fallen for a senior sister from the Talisman Drawing Society. Now he is trying to find a way to join the society.”

“I see.”

After learning of the situation, Jiang Cheng was happy for Zhu Hongcai, but then put the matter out of his mind.

He had no interest in joining clubs and didn’t know anyone from the Talisman Drawing Society.

This wasn’t really related to him.

The priority was still to focus on the Blood Orange Fruits and the Qi Blood Pills.

Taking advantage of the time before he had to attend class, Jiang Cheng assumed the productivity of the haphazardly grown small fruit tree to be thirty fruits and then, based on this yield and the time it took to achieve it, excluding the cost of land and talisman drawing, calculated how low the price of Blood Orange Fruits, which originally cost twenty-five low-grade Spirit Stones each, could be pressed down with the aid of the Autonomy Talismans.

After crunching the numbers, Jiang Cheng arrived at a conclusion: 0.28!

Excluding land rent and talismans, the cost per Blood Orange Fruit was less than 0.3 low-grade Spirit Stones!

A 24-day cycle, with a yield of 30 fruits per tree, could press down the price this much?

Jiang Cheng, taking the median value between Muscle Relaxation Talisman and Animal Encouragement Talisman, set the price of the Plant Autonomy Talisman at one thousand low-grade Spirit Stones and then factored it into the cost of the Blood Orange Fruit.

He ended up calculating the cost of Blood Orange Fruit to be: 34 low-grade Spirit Stones.

Jiang Cheng was taken aback; the Blood Orange Fruit originally cost only twenty-five, so how could his use of talismans raise the cost even more?

Could he have been unwittingly driving prices down in reverse?

After carefully examining the calculation formula, Jiang Cheng found he had placed the cost of the Plant Autonomy Talisman entirely on one cycle of Blood Orange Fruits.

Yet a Blood Orange Tree can bloom and bear fruit ten times in its lifetime, producing ten cycles of Blood Orange Fruits.

After adjusting the calculation formula, Jiang Cheng found the cost of Blood Orange Fruit to be: 3.63 low-grade Spirit Stones.

Even with land rent, seeds, and labor included, the cost of Blood Orange Fruits cultivated with Autonomy Talismans should not exceed five low-grade Spirit Stones.

That’s effectively a reduction of a full twenty low-grade Spirit Stones per fruit compared to the original price.

With this in mind, as long as Jiang Cheng provided Plant Autonomy Talismans to the Tongbao Pavilion, the cost for them to produce a single Qi Blood Pill could drop from forty-seven or forty-eight to twenty-seven or twenty-eight low-grade Spirit Stones!

They could completely take on the Weapon Department’s order for Qi Blood Pills!

Jiang Cheng just needed to calmly wait for the fruit trees to blossom and bear fruit, and then all difficulties would be readily solved.

One day later, the fruit trees bloomed.

Three days later, the fruits were full.

Five days later, the Blood Orange Fruits were preliminarily mature, of one-year quality.

Jiang Cheng picked two Blood Orange Fruits and went to consult Mr. Zhang from the Spiritual Planting Department, received the answer “indeed they are one-year quality,” and then took the fruits to find He.

The Tongbao Pavilion on Huayuan Road was as desolate as ever.

Under the combined factors of a weakened overall brand power of Tongbao Pavilion, lack of pricing advantage in the commodity channels of the Tongtian Sect, and the mistake in the choice of location for the shop, the outcome of the Tongbao Pavilion on Huayuan Road was foreseeable.

Bai Xiaohe had tried to take on other orders from the Weapon Department but the results were no different from the Qi Blood Pill. The prices given by the Weapon Department were even lower than the cost for Tongbao Pavilion; Bai Xiaohe simply could not take on the orders.

Avenues for business with ordinary cultivators and the court were both impassable.

Now, the only things that could save the Tongbao Pavilion on Huayuan Road were Jiang Cheng and a miracle.

Pat!

Bai Xiaohe heard the sound of something being placed on the table.

“He, you can’t be sleeping during work hours,” Jiang Cheng said seriously.

Bai Xiaohe lifted her head blankly from the desk, first noticing a brocaded pouch that wasn’t there before, and then two familiar figures.

Jiang Cheng, and Liu Qing.

“Jiang Cheng? How come you’re here?”

“I’ve found a solution for the Qi Blood Pills.”

“You’ve found a solution!?” Bai Xiaohe’s eyes widened, her voice soaring octaves higher.

The order for Qi Blood Pills from the court was not a small deal!

Despite overall peace in the realm, in order to maintain the defense of eight provinces, three prefectures, and ninety-one counties, Liang Kingdom still kept a military force close to two million strong.

This time the order from the Weapon Department, involving only six hundred thousand, was still six hundred thousand pills, and that too, one every month, amounting to seven million two hundred thousand pills a year!

Even if they earned one low-grade Spirit Stone per pill, that would mean an income of seven million two hundred thousand a year.

If converted into Spirit Stone turnover, it would create a revenue of two hundred eighty-eight million for the Tongbao Pavilion on Huayuan Road!

Even if Tongbao Pavilion on Huayuan Road did not profit from this order, they could use the turnover of this scale as a bargaining chip to get better prices from the Tongtian Sect’s channels.

In short, as long as they could secure the order for Qi Blood Pills, Tongbao Pavilion on Huayuan Road could turn things right around, transforming from being the last in the Capital to one of the top in terms of turnover.

And they would no longer have to worry about bankruptcy and staff reassignments!

Jiang Cheng pulled out the employee handbook of Tongbao Pavilion from a stack of books on Bai Xiaohe’s desk, casually flipped through it, and said, “He, according to the employee handbook, sleeping on the job results in a deduction from performance.”

“Oh, alright.”

Deputy manager Tao Fang stood in the corner, thinking: This male cultivator has hardly visited the store a few times, so why do his words and demeanor seem even more like a manager than Bai Xiaohe? He’s an outsider, so why does he have the audacity to pick up the employee handbook and instruct the manager on what to do?

Jiang Cheng put down the handbook and picked up the brocaded pouch, the seriousness on his face giving way to a smile.

“Take a look. What’s inside?”

Bai Xiaohe opened the brocaded pouch and saw two one-year Blood Orange Fruits.

“Blood Orange Fruits?”

“Right.”

“What does this mean?”

“They are very cheap, to be precise, less than five Spirit Stones each.”

Bai Xiaohe nodded, “Indeed, one-year quality is not expensive, but the Qi Blood Pills require ten-year Blood Orange Fruits, which are about twenty-five each.”

Jiang Cheng helplessly said, “These two are just samples. What I mean is, I can reduce the price of Blood Orange Fruits, ten-year ones for just five Spirit Stones each.”

“Wha”

“What!” Tao Fang’s voice was even louder than Bai Xiaohe’s.

She disregarded propriety and rushed directly from the corner to Jiang Cheng.

Liu Qing had been standing by placidly the whole time until Tao Fang became excited, and, at that moment, her gaze turned exceptionally sharp.

She was confident that she could erase Tao Fang from this space without a trace before she could lay a hand on Jiang Cheng.

But the subsequent scent told her that Tao Fang meant no harm.

Tao Fang, having reached Jiang Cheng’s side, said with excitement, “The price of Blood Orange Fruits has always been stable in Liang Kingdom, twenty-five low-grade Spirit Stones for a decade, unchanged for years. How could it now be five?”

Jiang Cheng confidently produced his new invention: the Plant Autonomy Talisman.

“I know what I’m about to say might sound a bit fantastical, but it’s okay, we can test it with this Memory Sphere to understand the current functions of this new talisman.”

In the half hour that followed, Jiang Cheng, with his narration and corroborating evidence from the Memory Sphere, managed to articulate the conclusion of getting Blood Orange Fruits for five Spirit Stones each.

Tao Fang murmured in wonder, “Does that mean our Tongbao Pavilion on Huayuan Road is finally saved?”

Jiang Cheng smiled, “Yes, with the Plant Autonomy Talisman, we can bring down the cost of each Qi Blood Pill to thirty low-grade Spirit Stones.”

Tao Fang could hardly believe her ears.

A cost of thirty Spirit Stones each!

That would mean their store would have a net profit of ten Spirit Stones for every pill!

Just the order from the Weapon Department would generate a profit of six million a month!

That’s seventy-two million a year!

We’re soaring!

While Jiang Cheng’s smile and Tao Fang’s joy were evident, Liu Qing, who was indifferent to wealth, remained unaffected throughout.

Her heartbeat was steady and her expression unchanged.

Seventy-two million meant far less to her than the little puppet Jiang Cheng gave her.

Amidst many scents of joy and happiness, a whiff that represented worry caught her attention.

This faint scent of worry was stable, unlike the intermittent scent that sometimes came from Jiang Cheng.

Liu Qing’s gaze followed the direction of the faint worry, landing on Bai Xiaohe not far away.

Bai Xiaohe sat upright, smiling as well, but her mood was far from as joyful as her expression.

Why was that?

Liu Qing couldn’t understand.

Hadn’t Jiang Cheng already solved the problem for her?

Could it be that even if they made affordable Qi Blood Pills, they still couldn’t secure the court’s order?