Chapter 330: Chapter 252: Exchange Meeting_2
 

As long as the exchange meeting included things that interested high-level cultivators, they would naturally take the initiative to participate.

So what interested high-level cultivators?

Jiang Cheng decided to use the connections he made while selling wine to gather some related information.

The first person Jiang Cheng sought out was naturally his mentor, Master Yun Shu.

Master Yun Shu didn’t live in the standard buildings constructed by the engineering team. She built herself a cave dwelling on the back mountain, by the water, enjoying her own company.

“You’ve taken on a new task?”

Yun Shu looked at Jiang Cheng strangely. If she remembered correctly, Jiang Cheng had only just started selling wine.

It was good that his disciple was ambitious, but was Jiang Cheng perhaps too eager?

“Indeed, this time I’m helping the Inner Propaganda Hall organize an exchange meeting. The goal is to find a number of high-level cultivators to interact with visiting Sect Masters about Immortal Skills and Spells,” answered Jiang Cheng.

“You want me to join, don’t you?” Yun Shu thought about how to extract some Memory of a Thousand Years from Jiang Cheng.

To her surprise, Jiang Cheng said, “No, I want to ask Master what high-level cultivators typically care about. I plan to add items of interest to high-level cultivators in the exchange meeting, allowing sect members to voluntarily interact.”

Without the chance to extort wine, Yun Shu was a bit disappointed, but she still made an effort to think seriously.

“I don’t know about others, but if it’s me, I’m more concerned about how to make money!”

Jiang Cheng was taken aback, thinking to himself that with her Cultivation Level at the Divinity Transformation Realm, she could easily get a handful of Spirit Stones and Contribution Points by taking on a few tasks, right?

“Master, have you considered taking on some tasks? The Task Hall always has plenty of long-term tasks but few people,” he suggested.

Yun Shu shook her head, “Making money through work is so boring. I want ways to earn money without working at all.”

“That goal seems a bit difficult,” Jiang Cheng remarked.

“That’s why I need to think about it!” she replied.

“So have you thought of anything?” he asked.

“Nothing yet, I thought too hard today, planning on thinking more tomorrow.”

Jiang Cheng bid his mentor farewell and left. On the way, he said to Liu Qing, “I’m sorry, I misunderstood you before.”

Liu Qing didn’t understand why.

After meeting Yun Shu, Jiang Cheng had realized that Liu Qing wasn’t avoiding work; she simply had no work to do. It was Yun Shu who truly avoided proper tasks.

Setting aside the exception of Yun Shu, Jiang Cheng then sought out Master Bai Liu.

Master Bai Liu had been in a great mood recently, as the success of Memory of a Thousand Years had made him much more famous, and his other works were selling even better as a result.

“May I ask, Master Bai Liu, what concerns you the most?” Jiang Cheng inquired.

Master Bai Liu stroked his beard and said, “In the short term, naturally my brewing skills. In the medium term, I’m considering taking on a favored disciple. Long term, of course, would be progress in cultivation.”

The focuses of Master Bai Liu seemed much more normal, but the problem was they were too broad, like saying “I like money.”

Who doesn’t like money?

“Do you have anything specific and urgent that you’re concerned about? Perhaps a secret you’re particularly keen to uncover, or something you really want to possess,” Jiang Cheng pressed.

After some thought, Master Bai Liu replied, “According to what you said, I indeed have one matter of great concern to me.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know if it’s appropriate to discuss, but oh well, you’re not an outsider anyway.”

Master Bai Liu covertly shared the matter with Jiang Cheng using a voice transmission spell.

Upon hearing it, Jiang Cheng frowned.

Honestly speaking, what Bai Liu cared about was indeed specific, even to the point of excess. To be precise, he wanted to gossip—about a cultivator who went into seclusion for twenty years and emerged to find a daughter who was eighteen years old.

Since it was hearsay, the authenticity of the news couldn’t be guaranteed.

But considering what Master Bai Liu knew about the marriage of that cultivator, the story seemed quite credible. Amidst the atmosphere of truth mixed with fiction and widespread speculation, this piece of gossip had indeed attracted significant attention.

After bidding farewell to Master Bai Liu, Jiang Cheng proceeded to visit another master he knew.

As expected, yet somewhat surprisingly, this master was also interested in gossip.

Although the specific gossip differed from Master Bai Liu’s, it was undoubtedly another internal rumor.

Jiang Cheng paced thoughtfully, then set off for the third time to visit a high-level cultivator.

The result was the same; the third master also had a quiet interest in rumors and gossip.

All the high-ranking cultivators have similar long-term goals, like improving their cultivation levels, but when it comes to their immediate interests, it turns out they are highly similar as well, fixated on all sorts of strange and unusual gossip.

Compared to many other cultivators, Yun Shu actually seems to be the most normal one, as she doesn’t concern herself with other people’s gossip!

Jiang Cheng fell into deep thought, and after meticulous analysis and reasoning, he obviously thought too highly of the complexities of high-ranking cultivators.

High-ranking cultivators are human too, and undoubtedly have a need for entertainment. Some baseless gossip naturally became a common topic of discussion among them.

It gave many cultivators something to talk about besides their hobbies and cultivation.

They can’t just start comparing whose disciples are stronger as soon as they meet, right?

Perhaps, gossip could be an opportunity to mobilize high-ranking cultivators to participate in exchanges.

However, if Jiang Cheng used those dubious pieces of gossip for publicity, there might be a risk of infringing on others’ privacy.

After going back and forth in his mind, Jiang Cheng decided to create some reliable but fake news to use.

The fake news had to coincide with the discussion topics of several visiting sect leaders, achieving an effect akin to teaching through entertainment.

Jiang Cheng approached Elder Wu and obtained the discussion topics of the sect leaders:

Yuan Wu Sect’s topic was about the commonalities between martial arts and spells.

Flying Feather Sect’s topic was about the difficulties and taboos of beast taming.

Cloud Thunder Sect’s topic was about speculations and conjectures on the Heavenly Dao’s Heavenly Tribulation.

“Elder Wu, I’d like to apply for a budget of one million low-grade Spirit Stones.” Jiang Cheng said.

“What do you plan to do?”

“I want to post some tasks in the Task Hall.”

It sounded quite normal.

With that thought in mind, Elder Wu didn’t ask any more questions and approved the funds for Jiang Cheng.

As soon as Jiang Cheng received the allocation, he headed straight to the Task Hall.

He then submitted question-and-answer tasks to the Task Hall in the form of inquiries.

For example:

Seriously inquire whether Sect Leader Lu of Cloud Thunder Sect and Peak Lord Lu of Thunder Cloud Peak could possibly be long-lost siblings. Set a price of ten thousand low-grade Spirit Stones.

What views are there regarding Flying Feather Sect’s visit to Tongtian Sect at a critical moment? What signal did Flying Feather Sect convey with this visit to Tongtian Sect? Priced at one hundred thousand low-grade Spirit Stones.

What advantages does Yuan Wu Sect’s martial arts cultivation techniques have compared to the traditional cultivation techniques of Tongtian Sect? Priced at one hundred thousand low-grade Spirit Stones.

To maintain the heat of the sect exchange meetings, Jiang Cheng would remove the previous batch of tasks every two to three days and replace them with a brand new batch of challenging new tasks.

Sometimes, he would even play multiple roles, imitating different people’s tones to post tasks for “intense discussion.”

About three days after posting the related tasks, voices other than Jiang Cheng’s began to appear in the Task Hall, discussing the visits of various sects to Tongtian Sect.

As more discussion tasks were posted later, Jiang Cheng simply let things take their own course without any further guidance or interference.

As the exchange meeting approached, Elder Wu learned that Jiang Cheng had been posting tasks in the Task Hall.

Fuming with anger, Elder Wu confronted Jiang Cheng: “Jiang Cheng, you took our Inner Propaganda Hall’s funds just to hang a few question-and-answer tasks in the Task Hall?”

“Not a few, but over thirty.” Jiang Cheng corrected.

“By wasting funds like this, if someone with bad intentions takes advantage, both you and I will be in trouble.”

“Elder Wu, the task postings were very effective. The exchange meeting shouldn’t lack in attendance. I’m already prepared to adopt a lottery system to select participants from the limited exchange meeting slots.”

“That’s a separate matter. The types of questions you posted, and the excessive rewards paid with the funds, might already involve embezzlement of activity funds.”

The problem sounded serious, but Jiang Cheng didn’t seem worried at all.

He said, “Elder Wu, are you suggesting that I squandered the funds? But actually, no, the one hundred and twenty thousand you gave me is right here, not a single Spirit Stone missing.”

After Elder Wu took the storage bag and scanned it with his divine sense, sure enough, there was one hundred and twenty thousand.

“Didn’t I only give you one hundred thousand? Where did the extra twenty thousand come from?”

“Here’s the thing, while I was posting new tasks, I saw others asking questions about the visits from the three sects, so I answered a few. It added up to this amount.”

After hearing the explanation, Elder Wu exclaimed in admiration.

After all this time, you didn’t spend a penny, and actually ended up earning quite a bit.

This kid is a talented individual who doesn’t seek excessive gains.