Chapter 9: A New Starting Point

  Thanks to Ning Ruxue's relationship, Ye Wen quickly found a place that satisfied him on the Book Mountain. This was a vast platform near the top of the mountain, and any further up would be steep cliffs. Without the lightness skill of reaching the peak, it was impossible to take another step forward.

  At the same time, this platform and the mountain below have only one slightly better road that leads directly to the main road up the mountain. The other small roads are impassable because most of the surrounding area is steep cliffs. If it were a sect's location, it would be able to avoid being surrounded by enemies.

  More importantly, this place is vast and even if Ye Wen finds someone to build a small palace here, he won't have to worry about not having enough space. If his Shu Shan Sect really wants to develop and grow, having enough space is also essential.

  So when Ye Wen saw this place afterwards, he immediately decided to set up a new sect here.

  "Isn't this place a bit too high up?" Ning Ruxue didn't think this was a good location, although the environment was beautiful and the terrain was treacherous. However, there was only one road leading up the mountain, which had been completely blocked by those sects below. This way, people who came to pay their respects would probably never be able to make it up here, let alone join the Shu Shan Sect.

  In Ning Ruxue's heart, the sect wanted to expand and countless disciples were indispensable. Moreover, she and her senior brother couldn't possibly rely on just the two of them to destroy Zhengquanmen and take back what their sect had lost.

  She didn't know that Ye Wen's idea was to adopt the strategy of elite soldiers, first and foremost to create a master (who would naturally be himself), then use this master as the core of the school, make a name for himself, expand his influence and eliminate his competitors. As for recruiting disciples? That can wait, at least for now there is no need to do so.

  And even if someone really came to ask for their guidance, it's likely that neither of them had any impressive martial arts skills to teach others.

  Basic fist and foot swordsmanship? Those ordinary Jianghu performers can do some of that, who wouldn't know some basic moves if they really want to practice martial arts? Unless those children have been training in a certain school since they were young. But aren't these children from families with considerable power, why would they look down on this small and declining sect?

  The Shushan Swordsmanship is even more laughable, in Ye Wen's opinion, this thing is only slightly stronger than the beginner swordsmanship, he was very curious how the seniors of the Shushan Sect managed to make a name for themselves with this lousy swordsmanship.

  These days, he roughly flipped through the book about the inheritance of the school in his hand, and knew that the second-generation leader's reputation was still loud on the border of Shushan. At that time, Shushan School was also a first-class school in this area, with some reputation.

  "Isn't there some ultimate skill that has been lost?"

  Ye Wen could only make such a guess, but he didn't feel heartbroken, after all, he was wearing that mysterious ring on his hand, and he wasn't afraid of not having any martial arts manuals to cultivate.

  Moreover, he plans to build a residence here first and then focus on secluding himself in the mountains for a considerable period of time. He even intends not to contact outsiders until all his silver money is spent.

  It can be foreseen that he will not go out for a considerable period of time in the future, and at the frequency of using the ring once a month, he can summon enough martial arts manuals to facilitate his cultivation during this period.

  He stroked his chin and looked around, the sun had just risen, standing on the mountain top, basking in the morning sunlight, Ye Wen let out a long sigh.

  "Since Master has decided on this place, let's go find a craftsman to build two rooms first!" Ning Ruxue had been silent all along. She saw Ye Wen standing there, looking around with a pleased expression, then stood in silence, knowing that her increasingly inscrutable Master was thinking about something important again, so she didn't disturb him anymore.

  Only his own question did not get any response slightly annoyed, so the tone was a bit stiff, and the complexion wasn't very good either.

  At this time, Ye Wencai suddenly remembered that he had completely ignored his junior sister Ning Ruxue when thinking about things earlier, and everything was based on himself alone.

  It wasn't until then that he remembered there was another person beside him.

  "How much silver is left in your hands, sister? After building the house, will it be enough for us to live on?" This concerns how long they can spend in seclusion cultivating, so it must be clarified first.

  Ning Ruxue replied stiffly: "It's all been used to pay for the house, and if we're frugal, what's left will be enough for the two of us to use for more than two years!"

  What she meant was that the remaining money, if only two people bought some basic food, would be enough to spend a couple of years on the mountain, and afterwards it would even benefit Ye Wen's plan for closed-door training. "If we buy some vegetable seeds and plant them on the mountain ourselves, then what's left will only need to buy some grain, which can be used for three or four years!"

  Ye Wen remembered that the two of them had taken off from those eight bandits, as well as the unused weapons and miscellaneous items they sold, plus the reward money, and the total amount of silver in their hands was less than 50 taels. At this time, it was already a considerable sum of money.

  According to what Ye Wen has seen in the past two days and from Ning Ruxue's side, it can be known that in this era, the annual food and clothing expenses of ordinary people are only a few taels of silver. If they are frugal and self-sufficient in their own food production, buying only some oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and other necessities, perhaps they would spend just over 1 tael per year.

  It can be seen that the two people unintentionally did this ticket, which actually solved a big problem. Otherwise, the two could only cut down trees and build houses by themselves, where would they have the spare money to hire someone to build a good house?

  It's just that, in order to give the newly rebuilt mountain gate a good face, this money used for building houses is likely to be spent quite a bit. If this huge sum of money is used to build houses, at least half of it will be used up (especially since it's still on such a high mountain, labor costs are likely to be much higher than in the county town).

  So in the end, if they can save about 20 taels, it's already not bad. If they use these 20 taels sparingly, they might be able to make them last for two years. But if they do something else, they'll probably spend them all in less than a year.

  "Alas... it seems that making our sect strong is also a way of making money!"

  This is quite different from the business games Ye Wen used to play, and who knows how sects make money these days. He can't just go out and rob like those bandits. As for collecting protection fees? It seems that's not something a small sect like Shu Shan would be involved in...

  Ning Ruxue didn't interrupt, because she also didn't know how to solve this problem. As for the former Shushan Sect? They relied on the few pieces of land left behind at that time, raised a few miscellaneous servants and vegetable farmers, basically all the vegetables they ate were grown by themselves, mainly buying rice and some miscellaneous items.

  These expenses are not great, relying on the original "expansive" foundation of Shushan School to hold on. Ning Ruxue knew that her master was also worried about this matter at that time and didn't know how to solve this problem.

  He originally thought that once he left, the problem would be solved by Ye Wen, but unexpectedly, Ye Wen soon lost to others, including those few pieces of land and two miscellaneous farm workers, losing everything. If Master Ye found out, who knows if he would get so angry that he'd come back to life.

  But the problem has now shifted to Ye Wen, and Ning Ruxue doesn't know if her master brother who suffers from soul loss syndrome can come up with a good idea. She was slightly looking forward to Ye Wen's next move, but instead she heard a blood-curdling remark.

  "Never mind, anyway there's still plenty of money, at least for now there's nothing to worry about! We'll talk about it later!"

  After finishing speaking, he didn't care about Ning Ruxue's ugly face and directly walked down the mountain. While walking, he also called out to Ning Shimei who seemed to be frozen in place: "Shimei, let's go down the mountain and find a few craftsmen! Let's also invite a handyman farmer! From now on, we'll have to live on this mountain waist, it's inconvenient to come and go, so let's try to solve problems that can be solved by ourselves on the mountain..."

  ……

  Time flies quickly, since Ye Wen settled the sect's residence and invited craftsmen to come down from the mountain, nearly a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

  In these days, the craftsmen who spent a lot of money to come and build a circle of walls around this vast open space, and also built a quite majestic main gate, with a huge plaque on it written "Shu Shan Sect" in three big characters, looking very impressive.

  Inside is no match for the momentum of this wall, except for a main hall used to receive guests, there are no other buildings that look more majestic.

  The empty and spacious courtyard had not even a single stone slab, let alone the main hall behind which there was only one kitchen for cooking and a side house for servants to live in, apart from a rear hall dedicated to ancestors.

  Ning Ruxue was already very dissatisfied with the large sum of money spent on the wall, after all, the renovation of the main hall and the back hall were related to the face of the sect and the respect for the ancestors, but what's the point of building such a luxurious wall?

  Although Ye Wen gave the reason "First, encircle the place, anyway, it will be used in the future, so that others won't occupy it! Moreover, walls are something that will eventually need to be built." which is not unreasonable, she still feels that this is a bit wasteful, and it's better to use bamboo fences first, and then consider building walls when the sect becomes stronger.

  But he didn't know that Ye Wen had already taken this place as his own private property, absolutely not allowing outsiders to touch it, so he circled it early. After all, here in Ye Wen's eyes was just his new starting point for a fresh start.

  What made Ning Ruxue even more dissatisfied was that for just one big house and one side room, they had spent so much money. She couldn't understand what the point of all those messy requirements Ye Wen had come up with were - the hard earthen bed, the stove-like thing that seemed to be for cooking, and the hollow iron pipes and metal chimney that connected to the roof, she had no idea what any of it was used for.

  Although the big house that Ye Wen had managed to get was divided into two separate rooms, which were not even connected, and could still be further divided into more small houses to accommodate more people. However, many inexplicable things still made her wonder what the point of spending all that money was.

  He didn't explain to her at all, just said "You'll know after a while!" and then ignored her. Instead, he ran into the bedroom and started doing something, but she never saw him come out to practice his skills.

  Ning Ruxue didn't know, Ye Wen had been waiting for a long time and finally waited until this day, so he hurriedly rushed back to his bedroom, then transferred all his internal energy to the index finger of his right hand.

  To be exact, it's the ring on the index finger!