Protect Our Chief-Chapter 557 - 38 Shouda Trading Company VS Qiaan’s Trading Company
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Longzuo Northwest Five Guards!
Centered around the Northwest Guard, the terrain here is vast, yet water resources are quite scarce. Most noble families focus on livestock, mining, or growing some drought-resistant crops.
The renowned heavy draft horses of the north are a specialty of the various Northwest Guards. Many noble families in Longzuo County purchase and raise some heavy draft horses to enhance their family’s transport capacity.
Throughout the Northwest Five Guards, there are a total of eleven Seventh-Grade Noble Families, with the Eighth and Ninth-Grade Noble Families scattered countless as stars, spread across the vast grassland pastures. The vast majority of family members have ventured no further than the Northwest Guard City in their lifetimes.
The Northwest Guard City stands at the edge of the vast grassland, with its imposing city walls that can easily withstand the assault of Tier Five Ferocious Beasts. Teams of Defense Army soldiers are stationed in the arrow towers on the walls.
The sun rose over the horizon, and the world lit up.
The heavy city gates slowly opened, and the caravans, civilians, or some independent traveling merchants who had been waiting outside early, entered the guard city in succession. The boundless grassland was only occupied by a small part of humanity.
While the output of the grasslands is not as rich as the resources of the south, there are still many unique products. For example, the famous common grass mushrooms and spirit grass mushrooms grow randomly in the grasslands.
The former is delicious and, when cooked with the grassland beef and mutton, is a rare delicacy. The latter is even a rare and precious spiritual ingredient with medicinal properties for elixir recipes.
However, both types of mushrooms are best when fresh, consumed within two to three days after picking. Thereafter, their value diminishes sharply with each passing day. Thus, in slightly distant areas, only dried products can be enjoyed.
Chunyu Andong was born into an ungraded Black Tortoise Race in the Northwest Five Guards. From a young age, he exhibited excellent talent, but with the family’s resources and power, it was impossible for him to break through to the Spirit Platform Realm and become a revered Ancestor Spirit Platform.
Therefore, at the age of eighteen, Chunyu Andong became a loose cultivator and traveling merchant, his footprints spreading across the entire Longzuo County. Such individuals are numerous within the scope of Longzuo County.
Most of them eventually die quietly in foreign lands. A few settle in various places, forming one ungraded family after another. Only very few break into the Spirit Platform Realm, breaking through the solidified social hierarchy, due to luck, opportunity, and effort.
Chunyu Andong was one of the few successful ones. After stepping into the Spirit Platform Realm, he continued to organize loose cultivators in trade, establishing a small and inconspicuous trading company. After pursuing profits and expanding industries little by little, he gradually elevated his originally unranked family to a Ninth-Grade Noble Family.
Chunyu Andong also became the Ancestor of the Chunyu Family, a Ninth-Grade Noble Family, a truly meritorious achievement.
However, in his youth, Chunyu Andong was accustomed to wandering the world, reminiscing about his adventures in the Great Wilderness Marsh with loose cultivator friends during his time in Zhenze Guard, and the days of running trade back and forth between the East Sea Guard and the Hundred Islands Guard, earning meager profits.
Likewise, he also recalled the time in Chuyun Guard when his youthful self watched the sunrise with a young noble lady, only to be separated by her elders due to their disparate statuses, leaving a lifelong regret.
He wished to see the world once again, but now, in his over one hundred and some years of age, his family needed him for protection, and his descendants could not do without their Ancestor. He could no longer frivolously spend time wandering around like when he was young.
For the sake of his family, Chunyu Andong compromised. He thought to himself that those memories and hopes would be buried underground along with him.
However, a recent opportunity rekindled the once dead heart of Chunyu Andong.
Northwest Guard’s Hundred Flavors Inn Branch.
Thanks to the successful management of the Yuwen Family, this Hundred Flavors Inn is considered one of the top restaurants, hosting many high-end banquets and feasts.
Due to limited ingredients, this Hundred Flavors Inn mostly utilizes beef, mutton, and spiritual flesh. The most famous spiritual flesh is the high-end Spirit Snow Sheep, an exquisite ingredient that is top-notch whether roasted or hot-potted, tender and savory that melts in your mouth.
Next to this Hundred Flavors Inn, several storefronts had been acquired at some point in time, and after some refurbishments, the sign "Shouda Trading Company" had already been hung on the lintel early on.
Undoubtedly, this is a new trading company established in collaboration by the Wang Family and the Marriage Alliance. Initially, it was to be named Shouzhe Trading Company, but Wang Shouzhe declined, and it was eventually named after the Shou Generation, implying keeping promises.
The current Chief Shopkeeper of Shouda Trading Company’s Northwest Branch is Lei Yongbai, a Spirit Platform Realm clan elder from the Changning Lei Family. At the age of one hundred and fifty, he was sent to the Northwest Guard to serve as the Chief Shopkeeper, contributing his remaining strength to the new trading company of the Marriage Alliance.
Additionally, a number of young talents from various families have been arranged to work within the branch, serving as staff, learning, and diligently cultivating.
Such branches must have at least one Spirit Platform Realm cultivator stationed; otherwise, they do not conform to the trading company’s standards, and they might also face doubt. Although each allied family has limited Spirit Platform Realm cultivators with various tasks, many Ancestors’ work was halted for this trading company’s expansion.
Each family is also swiftly nurturing the next generation of Spirit Platform Realm cultivators to gradually expand personnel and facilitate turnover.
On this day.
It was already the second month of the Shouda Trading Company Northwest Branch’s opening. Since the Northwest Branch belongs to a remote branch, only one Spiritual Bird Flying Chariot arrives in the morning each day. After a brief rest for the Spirit Bird Master and the chariot, they depart for Longzuo County City in the evening.
