Chen Mu was frightened by what he saw.
Ten people were lined up in a neat row in front of his house's door, their upper bodies bare and covered with dew and grass scraps.
What surprised Chen Mu was that each of them was carrying a bundle of grass on their shoulders, which was as thick as two people's waists combined!
Huge bundles of gold-mottled grass and star leaves!
The two kinds of materials that Chen Mu had just ordered the day before to make blank cards.
But this amount … Chen Mu stood in the doorway with his mouth wide open, stunned!
They were casually bundling the gold-mottled grass and star leaves into a pile with rattan as thick as a finger. When Chen Mu saw the expensive gold-mottled grass and star leaves being twisted out of shape by the rattan, his heart was bleeding!
Those guys are really wasting things!
Chen Mu murmured unconsciously.
The ten of them, each carrying a bundle of gold-mottled grass or star leaves as thick as their waists, all stood in front of him with their faces full of vigor, giving him a very strong visual impact.
The gold-mottled grass's long and narrow leaves were like sawblades, with specks of golden light flashing, as though they had been sprinkled with gold dust, which was how it got its name.
The gold-mottled grass's leaves were very thin when they first grew, but the longer they grew, the wider they became, and the more expensive they became.
Each piece of gold-mottled grass on those guys' shoulders was wider than a palm.
He knew that outside, a piece of gold-mottled grass of that grade would be shockingly expensive.
He had never used gold-mottled grass of that grade at the base.
And the star leaves had silver-gray star patterns on them, each about the size of a coin. Without a doubt, those were top-grade star leaves.
None of those guys realized the value of the thick bundles of gold-mottled grass and star leaves on their shoulders. In their eyes, those things were about the same as thatch.
They were just curious why Mr. Chen would be interested in those things.
Peng, peng, peng!
The ten of them didn't even look at it as they casually threw the "thatch" on their shoulders to the ground, sending dust flying.
Their movements were neat and uniform, which was very nice to look at.
Don't look down on that bundle of thatch. Each bundle weighed dozens of kilograms, and they had been carrying it for almost a night, which was quite tiring.
That action made Chen Mu's heart skip a beat, and he had to restrain his impulse to check if the gold-mottled grass and star leaves were broken.
"Sir, is this enough?"
Colin asked anxiously. Ever since he had suffered at the hands of Cheng Ying, as soon as he heard Elder Bafu say Chen Mu needed the gold-mottled grass and the star-patterned leaf, he had volunteered to lead a few people out of the village.
He still remembered Elder Bafu's instructions to get as much as possible.
It was just that he didn't know how much was enough, so he simply brought back one bundle each. They wouldn't be able to get any more than that.
"Enough, enough," Chen Mu rushed to answer.
This was no longer a question of enough.
Colin breathed a sigh of relief, "That's good." He had been worried that they wouldn't be able to satisfy Chen Mu's needs.
However, he immediately asked curiously, "Sir, what can these thatches be used for?"
Thatch …
Without waiting for Chen Mu to respond, a villager to the side came up and said smartly, "Should we burn it?
Sir.
However, I have already tried. These two kinds of thatch are not easy to burn!
Do you want us to get some thatch that's easier to burn? "
Chen Mu was speechless, and black lines appeared on his forehead.
It wasn't easy to wait until Colin and the others had satisfied their curiosity and left. Chen Mu looked at the ten bundles of materials and was a little dumbfounded.
He wouldn't be able to use even a tenth of that much gold-mottled grass and the star-patterned leaf.
If he dealt with so much by himself, he wouldn't have to do anything that day.
But if he didn't deal with them, the materials that were so precious in his eyes would all lose their value.
Once the gold-mottled grass and the star-patterned leaf weren't dealt with within five days of being picked, they would wither and turn yellow. They would then be of no use and could only be used as thatch.
They couldn't be wasted! They couldn't be wasted!
Chen Mu walked into the house and woke up Alphonso, who was sleeping soundly.
Facing the sleepy Alphonso, he said very directly, "I need manpower!"
"Oh." Alphonso responded without thinking, as he staggered toward the door.
He went all the way to the door, where he called out to a passing villager, and said with a heavy sense of sleep, "Mr. Chen needs manpower. Anyone who wants to come can come, and I want a young one."
"Ai." The villager's face lit up, and he ran back.
Alphonso staggered toward the house once again, entering the room in a daze. After a moment, he started snoring again.
Chen Mu didn't go to wake him up. The two of them had been tossing and turning the night before, and he was still a little tired.
Chen Mu labored alone to carry the gold-mottled grass and the star-patterned leaf back to the warehouse, his heart full of satisfaction.
He believed that no card master would be able to see so many materials of such outstanding quality and not be moved in the slightest.
He suddenly heard what seemed to be some movement coming his way. His hearing had always been excellent.
The movement was getting louder and louder, as though there were a lot of people running in his direction.
He was a little startled. What was happening?
He got up and walked toward the door. Before he left the room, he heard a hubbub outside.
"I heard that Mr. Chen needed someone to help him. Did you bring your Ah Xi along?"
"That's right. Mr. Chen is such a big shot that even Alfonso is working for him.
If my Ah Xi could learn a trick or two, he might be able to stand on equal footing with Alphonso. "
"Hey, I'm thinking the same thing.
How could our village be short of warriors?
It was Alphonso who didn't want to teach him before.
Now it's all good. Mr. Chen has come, and he's even more capable than Alphonso.
Didn't I just hear that you brought a child here? "
"Yes, yes!"
…
Chen Mu finally understood what had happened, and he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Bo Wen was very depressed, very depressed.
He didn't need to worry about his life, but the other things were completely beyond his expectations.
The clan elder wasn't interested in his so-called cooperation, and he had noticed that the terrifying guy called Wei-ah was always watching him in the dark.
That made him not dare to make any strange movements, since Wei-ah's power was unfathomable, and he didn't want to have a conflict with him when his life wasn't in danger.
Looking at it from the way things were going, it seemed like getting out of the village would be an indefinite thing.
What made him most indignant was that Chen Mu was enjoying a lot better treatment there than he was.
The enmity between the Night of the Cross and the Ning family could only end with one side annihilating the other, and he naturally wasn't happy to see his enemy living a better life than he was.
If he really couldn't get out of the jungle, he would certainly kill Chen Mu first!
But he still couldn't move. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Wei-ah standing quietly in a corner not far away, which sent a chill through his heart.
He didn't understand why Wei-ah would be so interested in him, since it was reasonable to say that he hadn't had anything to attract anyone's attention from the moment he'd entered the village.
But very quickly, his face darkened again.
That was because he had discovered that not even half of the students had come to him that day.
Looking up, the front of Chen Mu's house was packed with people.
Quite a few of his students were being led by their parents, trying desperately to squeeze in.
Damn it!
Bo Wen's teeth rattled as he ground them.
The day before, he had been asked by his own students how many points he could get in close-range dodging and evading training with a difficulty of 80.
How could a long-range card artisan like him have any close-range dodging and evading training?
But he had no way to explain it to those kids who didn't know any better.
Bo Wen's face was livid. Ever since he'd run into that guy, he'd been at a disadvantage in every way.
What had happened that day had pushed the anger that had been building up all along the way to the extreme.
His whole body was trembling imperceptibly, which was an expression of his extreme anger.
If Chen Mu were in front of him, he didn't know if he could hold it back.
Seeing the scene in front of him, Chen Mu also felt it was tricky, and so he simply called Alfonso out again, throwing the matter over to him.
Alfonso was quite efficient in his work, and after a while, he had left behind several dozen kids who looked very clever.
But Chen Mu hadn't thought that Li Duhong would be among them.
Chen Mu didn't have much of a good opinion of that naughty kid.
They hadn't had any malice toward Li Duhong from the beginning, and Cheng Ying had been very good to him.
He hadn't thought that the kid would play tricks in the dark, without the slightest regard for their lives.
What he didn't like most was that Li Duhong's face was innocent and unaffected, but underneath it was hidden a deep scheme.
He had sighed more than once that the kid would certainly be somebody when he grew up!
But Li Duhong's relationship with the clan elder wasn't shallow, and Alfonso couldn't do anything about him, so Chen Mu simply didn't care about him.
He didn't target him, and he didn't attach any importance to him, only treating him as an ordinary youth.
Chen Mu discovered that the other kids seemed to be rather afraid of Li Duhong.
Processing the gold-mottled grass and the star leaf wasn't complicated, but it was very meticulous work.
Every time he saw the kids processing the gold-mottled grass and the star leaf with serious expressions, Chen Mu couldn't help sighing that they were a lot luckier than he had been to be able to practice with such high-quality materials in their early years.
While the kids were processing the gold-mottled grass and the star leaf, Chen Mu and Alfonso had been setting up the lab.
Alfonso's superb metal-making skills amazed Chen Mu, who would often be able to get a rough idea of what he was making after Chen Mu had spoken.
After some adjustments to the details, Chen Mu believed that whatever Alfonso was making could be sold in the Heavenly Federation.
All of the equipment in the lab had come from that middle-aged man who was famous for being stingy.
After the two of them had worked hard, Chen Mu's lab finally took shape, and it was named the Chen Family Lab.