Reverence

The one who came bearing gifts to pay a visit

was Zhao Hantao, the village chief of Zhao Family Village, some sixty or seventy kilometers from Great Bay Village.

Zhao Family Village was the closest cultivator village faction to Great Bay Village.

Its founding had not differed much from that of Great Bay Village.

Several decades or over a century ago, low-level cultivators had discovered a Spirit Spring nearby, then reclaimed spirit land around it and built a village.

It was only that Zhao Family Village had far less Spirit Field than Great Bay Village, possessing merely around two mu.

And Zhao Hantao, Zhao Family Village's strongest cultivator, looked to be around fifty years old.

Yet his strength was not particularly great; his cultivation was only around the Qi Gathering Fourth Level.

At his age, that level of strength could be called meager.

"Greetings, Young Master Shen!"

Inside the reception hall at the center of Great Bay Village,

the moment Shen Changchuan entered, before he could even greet the other party, Zhao Hantao hurriedly rose and gave Shen Changchuan a deep bow.

He looked as awestruck and reverent as a servant meeting some high lord of the imperial court.

He was only one step short of kneeling.

"Brother Zhao, there is no need to be so courteous. You are making me uncomfortable!"

Shen Changchuan was startled as well and quickly helped him up.

"I would not dare, I would not dare."

Zhao Hantao repeatedly replied in alarm and trepidation,

as though Shen Changchuan's attitude toward him had left him flattered beyond measure.

Even when Shen Changchuan asked him to sit in the guest seat,

he only rested half his backside on the chair, ready to rise at any moment, not daring to truly sit down.

And when he saw Shen Changchuan pick up the teapot to make him tea,

he hurriedly stood up, took the pot, and poured himself tea and water.

He clearly did not dare trouble Shen Changchuan in the slightest.

"Young Master, Young Master! This humble one comes from a lowly background and cannot accept such gracious hospitality from you. Please, let me do it myself!"

"Well... Brother Zhao, I am merely at the Qi Gathering Third Level. Surely this is unnecessary?"

Zhao Hantao's reaction

left Shen Changchuan staring, utterly tongue-tied.

This sort of treatment

was something he had never encountered within the Shen Family Manor, where people looked down on others with dog eyes.

For a moment, he had not even known how to react.

"It is necessary, it is necessary!"

"Young Master, you are the son of the Shen Family Patriarch. The Shen Family is an aristocratic powerhouse in Tiannan City's Cultivation World. Your status is noble. For the likes of us lowly people to be granted an audience with you is already more than we could ever ask for."

Zhao Hantao's wrinkled face was filled with a fawning smile.

It was as though Shen Changchuan speaking to him

was itself an honor.

For a moment, Shen Changchuan did not know what to say.

Fortunately, his temperament was steady,

and he did not show anything on his face.

Still, driven by curiosity,

while speaking with him, Shen Changchuan tactfully probed for information about the surrounding area.

After quite some time,

once he had gained a rough understanding of the situation around Great Bay Village, realization dawned on him, and he roughly understood why Zhao Hantao was acting with such humility.

The whole matter

was a long story.

Great Bay Village lay several thousand li south of Tiannan City.

It was a relatively desolate region, where one could travel a hundred li in many places without seeing a single person.

It stood at the boundary between uninhabited wilderness and the footprints of human civilization.

Long ago,

this place had still been a desolate wilderness devoid of human traces.

Until Three Hundred Years Ago,

the century-long war that had led to the destruction of Elephant Mountain Sect swept through the entire Southern Marsh Domain, causing enormous casualties and chaos.

Thus, many low-level cultivators, along with great numbers of ordinary people hauling their families with them, fled south into the wilderness to escape the brutal war in the Cultivation World.

Only after the refugees settled here did the southern wilderness gradually gain human habitation.

But such wilderness was, after all, land that had yet to be developed.

Demon Beasts filled the wilds here, and even settlements continued to suffer frequent Demon Beast attacks.

As a result, population growth had been very slow in the beginning.

Only over the past century, as the humans who had migrated here gradually adapted to every aspect of the region, and cultivators continuously hunted the Demon Beasts in the wild, did this place gradually become stable.

But even so,

people traveling through the wilderness still occasionally encountered attacks from wild beasts.

The surroundings remained steeped in a primal Aura where the weak were meat and the strong devoured them.

And it was precisely because of this

that, despite possessing Twelve Mu Spirit Field, Great Bay Village remained an undesirable assignment within the Shen Family, and Shen Changchuan had been sent here.

After all, near Tiannan City, the development of all kinds of Spirit Fields and spirit veins was already highly mature and complete. Not only were the revenues high, but it was also safe.

Even by staying peacefully within a village, one could earn a substantial income every year.

But that was beside the point.

As for Zhao Hantao's attitude, it had much to do with how the Shen Family had acquired Great Bay Village twenty years ago.

Great Bay Village was thousands of li away from the Shen Family's main stronghold,

so naturally, it could not have been opened up by the Shen Family.

Twenty years ago,

the village had belonged to another small cultivation family.

The ancestor of that small cultivation family had moved here a century earlier and discovered a Spirit Spring in the mountains that gushed forth springwater containing spiritual energy.

Afterward, using that Spirit Spring rich in spiritual energy as their source, they continuously diverted its water to soak suitable farmland, tirelessly fertilized the soil, and benefited from the abundant power of the earth veins in this place. Through generations of reclamation and management, they had gradually developed it into the current twelve mu of Spirit Field.

By the later stages of its development, it had become a fairly renowned large village in the area, and its family had gained a modest reputation among the nearby villages and towns.

But twenty years ago,

the Patriarch of that cultivation family had gone mad for some reason and actually killed a Shen Family branch member who had come here to adventure and train.

And because he had not acted carefully enough, someone noticed the clues and reported the matter to the Shen Family.

Then, naturally, there was no afterward.

Although the Shen Family had been filled with lively struggles for power and profit at the time,

it was not so indifferent that one of its own clansmen could be killed by some country bumpkin tycoon

and, with the matter already exposed, receive no response whatsoever.

Thus,

the small cultivation family that had once occupied Great Bay Village was gone.

The Shen Family sent a Nascent Soul cultivator, and every problem was resolved.

And so, Great Bay Village, with its twelve mu of Spirit Field, became the Shen Family's spoils of war.

Twelve mu of Spirit Field could produce at least over 2,400 jin of Spirit Grain each year; calculated in Spirit Stones, that amounted to more than 240 Spirit Stones.

Two hundred and forty Spirit Stones a year

was not much to the Great Figures within the Shen Family.

But it was certainly not so little that it could simply be discarded.

And while the journey was somewhat far, it was still situated on the edge of Shen Family territory. If it could settle some branch clansmen, that would be good as well.

Thus, Great Bay Village was incorporated into the Shen Family's assets.

It became a place for settling branch members of the Shen Family.

Although this matter had a just cause,

the outside world did not know much about its inner details. Even though the Shen Family had declared that they acted only because that small cultivation family had killed one of their own,

some of the nearby minor cultivation families remained somewhat uneasy about the truth of the matter.

After all, this was not a world with surveillance cameras, and the Shen Family had not displayed all the evidence before them. Who knew whether the cultivation family of Great Bay Village had truly killed a member of the Shen Family back then?

As a result,

the surrounding factions naturally lived in constant fear and anxiety.

Since Great Bay Village changed hands twenty years ago, the surrounding small cultivation families and minor factions had all taken Great Bay Village as their leader.

Nearly every holiday and festival, the leaders of the nearby minor cultivation factions came bearing gifts to pay visits, flattering and currying favor, doing all they could to build ties with the Shen Family.

Nothing else mattered;

at the very least, they did not want some enormous charge to suddenly descend upon them out of nowhere, ending with their entire families wiped out.