Chapter 1699

Fishing captain Wei Yu led the fishermen as they darted through the Dahe.

To reduce wear on their outfits and lessen the drag of the current, they had all stripped naked.

In the water they looked like sleek, pale, glistening mermaids.

Only these mermaids were lethal to fish.

The small boats originally used for fishing and angling had now become entirely temporary floating warehouses.

All manner of fish were piled on the wooden boats, leaping nonstop.

Occasionally a few fish would flop out of the small boats and back into the water.

The river's current was no slow trickle, but Wei Yu and the others moved through it with perfect freedom.

Those smiles and joyful feelings were almost on par with soaking in a Carefree Spring.

Because they all carried the "Underwater Breathing" and "Water Affinity" genes, they were in their element.

On the riverbank stood several warehouses.

Inside were all sorts of fishing gear and some daily supplies.

But Wei Yu and the others could simply go to Penglai Town to eat and rest, so there really wasn't much need for them here.

Right now Cloud Dream Village was still basically undeveloped, more like a wild park, with mountains and water.

Or rather, was this place one giant fish-catching zone?

Zhao Chi planned to promote one of his territories to county level this time, and his target was this Cloud Dream Village.

First of all, Peach Blossom Village was definitely not suitable.

After all, jumping straight from a village to a county—anyone could tell something was off, and everyone would guess Zhao Chi had an unregistered territory.

Penglai Town was also out of the question.

Penglai Town was Zhao Chi's current main territory.

Both popular support and public safety were close to perfect scores.

If he wanted to promote it to a county, he'd have to rapidly convert 8,000 Flower Demons.

The Flower Demons were indeed obedient, but after conversion to residents, their loyalty would probably only be around 4–5. After all, the bulk of the Flower Demons had only just been purchased and still needed time to cultivate loyalty.

Low loyalty would drag down the average popular support.

The happiness rating in the monthly assessment would end up low.

Compared to last month's evaluation, this sharp drop in popular support would affect Penglai Town's final monthly rating.

It would also affect the rating of Zhao Chi's "Administration" attribute.

As well as the current "Administration" rating of Penglai Town's mayor, Gu Qing.

Moreover, compared to last month, Penglai Town's development this month had been mediocre.

Agriculture still had only 275 farm plots, with no growth.

Although those crops were still very strong, against a county's standards they no longer stood out so clearly.

Industry and other sectors hadn't developed much either… but that was obvious—it's only been a month, how much could they have developed?

Promoting to a county with these sectors undeveloped would immediately make those sectors look terribly weak.

That way, he definitely couldn't obtain an S+ level county evaluation.

Better to keep an S+ rated town.

So Penglai Town was also unsuitable.

Chaoge Town was also unsuitable for promotion to county.

This place was Zhao Chi's agricultural base; he absolutely couldn't let anything happen to it.

Once promoted to a county, the danger level would jump by an order of magnitude.

And there was no protective formation here either—if some outside magical beast took notice, the loss would far outweigh the gain.

Even if they ultimately killed the magical beast, once this place became a battlefield, a fair number of crops would inevitably be destroyed.

Zhao Chi still hoped to keep this place stable.

Chaoge Town was definitely out.

Qingsi Village was also unsuitable.

After all, nominally that was Gu Qing's territory.

Of course, Gu Qing was also Zhao Chi's, so her territory naturally belonged to Zhao Chi as well.

But after all, it didn't belong directly to Zhao Chi.

And Qingsi Village had only been established a little over ten days ago; it had barely developed at all.

So the most suitable—and the only suitable—choice was this Cloud Dream Village.

Cloud Dream Village had decent terrain.

It was surrounded entirely by the Dahe, and this Dahe was an even larger river formed by Zhao Chi selecting and joining multiple rivers together.

Calling it a river was definitely an exaggeration, but it was absolutely much bigger than an ordinary river.

The fish and shrimp inside were never in short supply.

Having such a large river encircling the entire territory was essentially a natural moat.

On top of that, Cloud Dream Village had mountainous terrain, with a small hill in the center—naturally easy to defend and hard to attack.

Best of all, this place also had basically no construction yet.

Even if magical beasts invaded, they could fight freely.

At worst the shipyards would be destroyed, but a few Quick-Build Talismans could rebuild them, so the losses were practically negligible.

Moreover, after promotion to county, merchant caravans or pirates might also appear upstream and downstream of the Dahe.

That didn't matter either.

At most they'd snatch some fish...

And it's not even certain who's robbing whom — Zhao Chi might just confiscate everything from them and make them go farm.

Then let's choose this place.

Later, have Gu Qing come handle the conversion — convert all 10,000 flower demons into villagers before the end of this month.

But it's foreseeable that this Cloud Dream Village's monthly rating will definitely be F-.

But a county-level F- should still have something, right?

Maybe even better than Peach Blossom Village's.

Thinking of this, Zhao Chi immediately began adjusting settings on the system.

Set the territories participating in the lottery to 【Penglai Town】, 【Chaoge Town】, 【Cloud Dream Village】.

After all, at most 3 territories can participate in the lottery.

At dinner that evening, Zhao Chi told Gu Qing about the villager conversion matter.

Gu Qing nodded in agreement.

Every time they eat, these women always giggle and chatter while eating.

It's clearly all very ordinary topics, but they're just very happy.

Zhao Chi laughed along with them, when he suddenly received a message from Li Ruanyu.

Li Ruanyu 【Zhao Chi, I'm done with my side. Are you coming over?】

Of course he has to go.

There are many questions to ask.

Zhao Chi 【Mm, where are you?】

Li Ruanyu 【Still in the room from noon. Here are the coordinates, save them.】

Zhao Chi 【Okay, coming right away.】

Gu Qing asked: "Su Qin? Tell her to come eat with us. She loves this milk the most — I saved her two big bowls, both still hot."

Zhao Chi shook his head: "It's Li Ruanyu."

All the women turned their heads around.

Gu Qing laughed: "It's her~ Seems like she's going to cling to you too. Every woman's the same."

Zhao Chi said: "It's not that exaggerated. I have some things to ask her."

Gu Qing asked: "Then, my lord, are you coming back tonight? Will you be staying over there?"

"Definitely coming back. Still need to give you some inheritance."

Gu Qing laughed: "You don't have to give the inheritance at the crack of dawn — daytime works just as well. If she wants you to stay, then stay there and keep her good company. Anyway, my system is already complete now, so I can notify you of anything at any time."

"Okay."