Xingfeng Mining and the Xingfeng Sect

"Boss, Mr. Zhang wants us to increase the shipment volume. He's already transferred the advance payment. What do you think?"

The female secretary, dressed in a business suit and skirt, looked at the young man sitting on the sofa and asked softly.

The young man on the sofa looked at his phone screen and said unhurriedly:

"Refund him. Tell him we don't have enough raw materials to make the shipment and he'll have to wait until next month."

"Well..." the secretary said hesitantly:

"But boss, I saw that there are still over a thousand tons of raw iron ore in the warehouse. With our production capacity, we could easily process it all within a month."

This was the secretary's third month working at Xingfeng Mining.

Xingfeng Mining mainly processed minerals, purchasing various ores, extracting metals from them, and then selling the metals.

There were many mineral processing plants like this in the Mountain City.

When she applied for the job, the secretary had assumed the boss would be a sleazy middle-aged man.

After all, that was the kind of boss she immediately pictured when she thought of the mining business.

Who would have thought that only after applying did she discover...

Her boss was actually a handsome young man in his early twenties.

According to what she had learned from her coworkers,

The investment in Xingfeng Mining amounted to over ten million, which made her think Chen Feng was a rich second-generation heir.

She had little faith in a business founded by a rich second-generation heir like him.

Most businesses like this would surely shut their doors after losing money before long.

And Chen Feng was in mining, of all things. Everyone knew how deep the waters of the mining industry ran.

But the truth had been unexpected. In just three months,

Orders for Xingfeng Mining's specially processed metal had exploded.

Her boss had even applied for a patent for this metal, naming it Blazing Sun Iron.

Thanks to its excellent strength and toughness, Blazing Sun Iron had been very well received in the automotive industry and many other industrial fields.

Chen Feng looked up at his secretary.

"Just do as I say. You don't need to worry about anything else."

"All right, boss."

The secretary did not dare say anything more and left the office.

Chen Feng looked at the contents of his phone, his expression somewhat grim.

It was not that he did not want to take more orders and make money, but that making certain kinds of money too conspicuously was out of the question.

At that moment, the fiftieth-ranked trending topic on Weibo read:

[New Huaren Motors car and semi-trailer truck collide in a traffic accident on the highway. Only ten percent of the Huaren Motors car is damaged, and none of its four occupants are in any danger of losing their lives]

There were thousands of comments under the trending post.

Many people were talking about the rise of domestic brands and the like.

Some were also discussing what metal the body of the Huaren Motors car was made from.

Without a doubt, the body of the new Huaren Motors car had been forged from Blazing Sun Iron.

"If things keep going like this, the higher-ups will definitely notice me. I need to make preparations sooner rather than later."

Chen Feng murmured to himself.

He then left the office and went to a warehouse in the factory where iron ore was stored.

After making sure no one was around, Chen Feng entered the code on the door's keypad lock and went into the room.

The room was over a hundred square meters, and more than a dozen different paintings hung all over the walls.

A looped conveyor belt also ran through the room, with one end connecting to the warehouse outside.

The other end was extremely bizarre: it was connected to a painting.

The painting was four meters long and one meter wide.

It depicted mountains, rivers, and a small town, outlined in simple brushstrokes.

Looking at the painting before him, Chen Feng was filled with emotion.

He had obtained this painting a year ago. It had a special function: it could connect to another world.

The world on the other side of the painting was similar to ancient China.

At first, Chen Feng had only brought small things from the Painting Scroll World to sell in the modern world.

Then he also sold goods from the modern world in the Painting Scroll World, making a business of buying and reselling.

As a result, he had accumulated a considerable amount of savings.

But as he gradually explored the Painting Scroll World,

Chen Feng discovered that the Painting Scroll World was far more complicated than he had imagined.

Not only were there martial artists in that world, but legend said immortals existed there as well.

After learning this, Chen Feng began to tread as though on thin ice.

He chose not to continue running around the Painting Scroll World recklessly and instead began to develop step by step.

Using some of the money he had saved from buying and reselling goods, he founded a small sect in the Painting Scroll World called the Xingfeng Sect.

The Xingfeng Sect's operation was simple: it hired ordinary people from the Painting Scroll World to mine ore.

The ore from the Painting Scroll World was transported to the modern world.

Then it was processed in factories in modern society and sold for profit.

Blazing Sun Stone was already considered one of the most common metals in the Painting Scroll World. This ore was used specifically to forge weapons for martial artists.

Even though he had deliberately added many other substances to the Blazing Sun Stone,

The processed Blazing Sun Iron was still stronger and more lightweight and flexible than most metals on the market.

Chen Feng was certain that his Blazing Sun Iron would soon attract the nation's attention.

After all, he had mined it in another world and processed it.

It had not been dug out of a mine in modern society.

As soon as the authorities investigated and discovered that he had acquired a special metal out of thin air, he was sure to be taken away for a cup of tea.

He had bought the dozen or so paintings on the walls as a cover.

If there had been only one painting in a factory warehouse, it might have attracted attention, but a dozen or so were much more plausible.

After all, he could say he had a fondness for calligraphy and paintings and had collected a few.

Chen Feng reached out and touched the painting.

Soon, ripples spread across it like waves on water.

After a dizzying whirl, Chen Feng appeared in a secret chamber.

This was deep inside an abandoned mine belonging to the Xingfeng Sect in the Painting Scroll World.

Chen Feng had built a secret chamber here.

The Blazing Sun Stone mined from the mountain would be brought here, then transported to the modern world through the passage.

For this purpose, Chen Feng had also installed a conveyor belt inside the abandoned mine on this side.

It was used specifically to transport ore.

There was also a small generator in the secret chamber.

Although the secret chamber here was rather crude,

After he had done some work on it, he could be said to have a suitable dwelling in this world.

Chen Feng could not live like the ancients, reading by lamplight.

After checking that no one had entered the secret chamber, Chen Feng closed the passage.

The painting's passage was fixed in place.

The first time he came to this world through the painting, he had appeared in this abandoned mine.

As long as he closed the passage on this side, nothing unusual could be seen either here or in the modern world.

Chen Feng had tested it. Only he could open the passage; no matter how anyone else studied the painting, it was useless.

When he walked out of the mine, more than a dozen burly men in fitted martial attire, each with a long saber at his waist, were guarding the entrance.

When they saw Chen Feng come out, all of them cupped their fists at the same time.

"Greetings, sect master!"

These men were all martial artists recruited by the Xingfeng Sect.

As long as one had money, it was still possible to recruit some low-level martial artists in this world.

"Has anything unusual happened recently?" Chen Feng asked.

Traveling back and forth between the two worlds, Chen Feng had limited access to information.

The martial artist in the lead spoke up to report:

"Sect master, the second chief of the Black Wind Stronghold came yesterday to tell us that we must pay tribute of five thousand taels of silver to continue mining on Hengduan Mountain."

Chen Feng's Xingfeng Sect was located on Hengduan Mountain in the Yue Kingdom, where sects of all sizes stood in great numbers.

Every region of the Yue Kingdom had a dominant power, whether a bandit gang or a sect.

The one closest to the Xingfeng Sect was the Black Wind Stronghold.

All of Hengduan Mountain fell within the territory controlled by the Black Wind Stronghold.

The small sects on Hengduan Mountain had to pay tribute to the Black Wind Stronghold every month.

Only by paying enough tribute could they freely mine Hengduan Mountain's resources.

Chen Feng frowned slightly. When he came here three months ago, he had already paid the Black Wind Stronghold three thousand taels of silver in tribute.

According to the Black Wind Stronghold's rules, he only needed to pay a hundred taels each month thereafter.

Yet now the Black Wind Stronghold had sent someone to demand another five thousand taels.

There was definitely something wrong with this.