Chapter 400: Fire at the City Gate, Fish in the Pond Suffer

400. Chapter 400 Fire at the City Gate, Fish in the Pond Suffer

"Changlin, you mean we should discuss with Jiang Cheng and jointly bear this fifty percent?"

Gao Ling asked tentatively.

"What do you think of this idea?"

Gu Zhanglin asked.

"I think, in the short term, it probably wouldn't be good."

Gao Ling scratched his head.

"Because just a few days ago we just reduced his share by one tenth; if we reduce it again, anyone would object. Moreover, his enthusiasm lately hasn't been bad—originally he turned in four batches of pills per day, now he works overtime a few hours each day and turns in five batches."

"What you say is correct; that's also one of my worries."

Gu Zhanglin frowned tightly.

"Moreover, the alchemists here have at least a thirty percent share; Ding Lei and the others are like that. I think Jiang Cheng also knows this in his heart. If we reduce his share to twenty percent, that really wouldn't be justifiable. However, we could later have him refine more pills."

Gao Ling laughed:

"Now he does five batches per day; later we could reach six, even seven batches. If it's seven batches, daily profit is thirty-five million. Even if we take our share and have to give half to the family, there's still plenty left."

"Changlin, I know you're unwilling inside, but this is unavoidable. After all, you can't go against the family, right? Moreover, if you want to sit as Family Head someday, you'll need some of their support."

"I know."

Gu Zhanglin took a deep breath.

The share ratio is hard to change, and it will remain hard to change for a long time to come.

So we can only work on the quantity.

But what Gao Ling said takes too long.

"By the way, what do you think would happen if we installed a monitor on each alchemist?"

"That wouldn't be good, would it?"

Gao Ling's brows furrowed into a shape like the Chinese character for river: "The family has never done this before; it just caused a major backlash, hardly any alchemist would agree, and no other families have done it either."

As he spoke, he suddenly realized the other's intention.

"Changlin, you mean you want to use surveillance to observe Jiang Cheng's alchemy process, to see if he's privately hoarding pills?"

"Exactly."

Gu Zhanglin nodded.

"Do you remember what I told you last time? I think he likely hides a bottle of pills each day, maybe even two."

"I understand."

Gao Ling replied.

Gu Zhanglin is trying to cut costs.

He wants to think of ways to recover some losses.

"I got it; in a few days I'll send people to install it, but we might need to improve everyone's treatment, otherwise..."

"Hmm, go ahead. These people are just working for me; their treatment is already decent. If anyone objects later, just kick them out—consider it killing a chicken to scare the monkeys."

"Okay."

Gao Ling ended the communication and took a deep breath.

Gu Zhanglin doing this will surely cause some alchemists to unable to bear it, voluntarily leave, or be poached by other forces.

Fortunately, the profit these people create is insignificant compared to Jiang Cheng's.

The latter might also have objections in his heart, but fortunately he has nowhere else to go; moreover, he specifically instructed that if Jiang Cheng is found leaving this place, he must be intercepted immediately and notified.

So there's no possibility of any unexpected incident.

……

Time passed, a few more days went by. If not for the extra Moonlight Pendant that could boost proficiency, to Jiang Cheng these days would be no different from before.

Until this morning, just after he opened the alchemy room door with the key, he felt that something had appeared in the room.

A camera hung in the northeast corner, blinking a small red dot.

"Was it installed last night?"

Jiang Cheng glanced at it, then calmly withdrew his gaze.

In his heart, he sighed.

With this camera monitoring, his plan to secretly refine two extra batches of pills each day for his own use naturally went up in smoke.

Moreover, the spiritual power recovered through meditation during that period cannot be used on the visualization diagram, or it would easily be discovered.

From then on, he completely became a tool for alchemy.

Actually, staying here could still be acceptable; the key is that they gave him a Moonlight Pendant worth two hundred million, pretending it was an Azure Jade Coiled Dragon Pendant worth ten billion.

This made him seem like a sucker.

"Originally I wanted to stay here a bit longer, but now it seems unnecessary."

He shook his head and began refining pills.

At the same time, this matter also caused a considerable stir among other alchemists.

Someone directly called Gao Ling to ask what was going on.

With his appeasement and promise of a raise, it gradually calmed down, though this was only superficial; what they really thought inside, only they themselves know.

In the blink of an eye, it was noon.

Jiang Cheng was pulled by Ding Lei and a few others into a private room to discuss the morning's events.

"Other families haven't done this, not even other members of the Gu family; here, Gu Zhanglin doing this clearly shows he doesn't trust us." Ding Lei said somewhat angrily.

"Isn't that right? Nominally they gave us a little raise, but actually everyone understands."

"Jiang Cheng, what are you thinking?" the woman among them looked at Jiang Cheng.

Upon hearing that, the others also looked over.

After all, everyone understands certain things.

Among the few, Jiang Cheng's Alchemy Technique is the strongest; what Gu Zhanglin is doing causes him the greatest loss.

Therefore, if Jiang Cheng takes the lead, Gu Zhanglin will likely change his mind and remove all the cameras installed in the room.

Jiang Cheng gave a wry laugh, "I think it's fine. Although when doing Refining Alchemy, thinking that maybe someone is watching me through the camera is indeed a bit uncomfortable, but we're all working for others; them doing this isn't really a problem, right?"

Others may not know, but his inner feelings are crystal clear.

Gu Zhanglin doing this is likely aimed at him.

Ding Lei and the others are just innocent fish caught in the city gate fire.

Moreover, installing cameras for surveillance, from a moral standpoint, Gu Zhanglin really has nothing to be blamed for.

Just like a cook stealing things from the kitchen is definitely wrong.

The few people instantly looked at each other, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"Yes, that's right."

"Indeed, it's just a bit uncomfortable."

"Forget it, we're just venting; come on, let's all have a drink together."

The few people also didn't know whether Jiang Cheng was naive and ignorant or deliberately pretending not to know.

However, it's also not good to keep talking; perhaps there are Gu Zhanglin's informants here as well.

The atmosphere in the private room quieted down. (End of chapter)