Chapter 87 You must treat the root cause if you treat a problem
“Control the river?” Count Sean knit his brows and looked out the window at the river before saying in a thoughtful voice, “Xu Yi, you don’t suspect that Cimila Porter is deceiving you because of his grudge?”
“He can lie to me, but the water situation won’t lie.” Xu Yi shook his head, “I didn’t pay attention to this before, so I never noticed it. But after being reminded of this by chairman Porter, I’ve carefully observed the situation and asked many fishermen about this matter, they’ve all said that there were visible changes with the river during this time.”
“This change might not mean…..” Count Sean suddenly took a deep breath and shook his head before saying to Xu Yi with a smile, “I was wrong. Since I am Banta City’s City Lord, this is something that I should consider. You’re right, since there is a hidden danger with the river, we should prepare for this ahead of time.”
Count Sean lowered his head to think before calling for an aide, having him summon someone who was familiar with the situation of the river.
When the aide left, Count Sean thought for a bit before saying to Xu Yi, “If what this Cimila Porter said is true and we really need to control the river, there will be a problem.”
“What problem?” Xu Yi asked.
Count Sean spread his hands and said with a bitter smile, “This is an old problem, there’s no money.”
Xu Yi couldn’t help rolling his eyes. He already expected this as he said with a sigh, “Alright, since I was the one who brought up this matter, then our Frestech Chamber of Commerce will take care of it. But Lord City Lord, we have to agree on something before this. Managing the river is something that kingdom officials should be responsible for and I can help solve this problem, even help you pay for this, but we must make it clear that this amount is not an investment from our company. So the City Lord’s Manor must return our money and give us compensation.”
Count Sean helplessly shook his head, “Although I know that what you said is reasonable, can’t you give me the City Lord some face? Alright, you’re right. Managing the river is my responsibility and as for returning your money and giving you compensation, we can talk about that later.”
Xu Yi nodded, not continuing with this question with Count Sean.
Although the Frestech Chamber of Commerce could lose a bit of money from this, compared to earning the trust of Count Sean, he could handle this small loss.
Not to mention that Xu Yi’s main goal wasn’t this. Compared to the interest that he could earn in the end, this bit of investment could basically be ignored.
After solving the problem of money, there weren’t any other problems.
After a while, the official in charge of the river was called and Count Sean asked him about the situation of the river. After confirming that the river had indeed changed, he ordered him to perform a serious inspection of the river and detail what needed to be fixed in a detailed report.
As for requests to Xu Yi, other than money, they also required some magic machine, which Xu Yi agreed to.
Other than this, the Amrit Chamber of Commerce had experience upstream and the Amrit Chamber of Commerce was responsible for the river project outside the city, so the Amrit Chamber of Commerce naturally couldn’t be excluded.
Only Count Sean needed to discuss with chairman Cruise and this was unrelated to Xu Yi.
After their initial talks, Xu Yi left the City Lord’s Manor. Still came to welcome him.
Xu Yi was surprised to find that Sophia was actually following behind Still and looked at her with an expression of worship.
As expected, Kennard was by Sophia’s side.
“What did the Lord City Lord say?” Still asked Xu Yi.
The Lord City Lord said that this matter is very important and he has already started convening people to deal with this.” Xu Yi replied, “As for me, it’s the same as before. I’m taking out money and manpower.”
Still revealed a faint smile and took Xu Yi’s hand as she said, “It’s good that the Lord City Lord treats this matter as something important. I think that since they could change the river upstream, there’s no reason why they can’t clean up the sediment here.”
“It isn’t anything hard, but the problem is that these are only temporary solutions and not solutions for the root problem.” Xu Yi turned to look to the northwest.
This was here the Falling Rain Forest and the upstream river was.
Agnes had appeared last year because the river in the Falling Rain Forest was blocked with sediment, causing the flow of the river to change.
After a year of fixing it, the Falling River Forest’s river was now completely controlled. There were stable cement banks constructed on the sides of the rivers, forcing the river to return back to its normal flow, solving the problem of water for the Night Song Tribe.
But this was also a temporary solution and not solving the root problem.
If they couldn’t stop the sediment flow problem, no matter how they controlled the river downstream, it was no use in the end.
Thinking of this, Xu Yi called out.
“Agnes, come out, I have something to ask you.”
Still wasn’t surprised, but Kennard and Sophia on the side were a bit confused.
Who was Xu Yi calling?
When they had this question in their heart, there was a strange spatial distortion beside Xu Yi and Agnes appeared out of space.
Kennard and Sophia were both surprised, with Sophia even gasping in shock.
Then when they saw Agnes more clearly, the shock on their faces became even stronger.
Sophia’s eyes popped out in disbelief and she covered her mouth as she shouted, “Elf! My god! It’s actually an elf!”
While shouting this, she pulled on Kennard’s clothes, “Big brother, look! It’s an elf! Do you see it? An elf!”
Kennard’s expression was more calm than Sophia. He was only surprised for a bit before calming down and talking to Agnes with a friendly smile, “I’ve already heard that chairman Xu has a beautiful female elf following him, but I haven’t seen her after all those days of following chairman Xu. If those rumours were false, I would have been very disappointed, but I never thought that I could see you today. Being able to see the legendary beautiful elves, it really has opened my eyes. Young miss Agnes, is it? I am Kennard Emma, I’d like to extend my regards.”
After following Xu YI for a while, although Agnes didn’t like appearing in front of strangers, she wasn’t as against contact with humans like before.
Seeing Kennard greet her, Agnes gave a slight nod, “Hello mister Emma, I’m very happy to see you.”
Sophia quickly jumped out and reached out her hand towards Agnes with an excited look. She said in a very friendly manner, “Big sister Agnes, hello. I am Sophia Emma, I am his little sister. I really am too happy being able to see you! I’ve heard of the legendary elves since I was young and I have always wanted to meet one. I never thought that I would see one today! I’m so happy that I’m about to faint!”
Agnes looked at Xu Yi with a confused expression.
Xu Yi gave a shrug and explained, “This is this little girl’s way of expressing her happiness, it doesn’t mean that she’ll really faint.”
Agnes gave a nod to show she understood and looked back at Sophia. After thinking for a bit, she didn’t reach her hand out and just gave a nod towards Sophia, “Hello young miss Emma, I’m very happy to see you.”
Still couldn’t help whispering in Xu YI’s ear, “Hey, it can’t be that you only taught her this greeting, right?”
Xu Yi said in a small voice with a bitter smile, “This is already very good, alright?”
When teaching Agnes how humans interacted, what gave Xu Yi the biggest headache was having her understand how to use different greetings in different situations.
This was because although elven greetings were meaningful and elegant, their greetings were also very monotonous or even straightforward. It wasn’t like humans were there were countless ways to answer many questions.
Xu Yi had put in all that effort, but he could only have Agnes learn what to say when she met strangers for the first time.
Sophia didn’t care at all about Agnes’ indifferent attitude. She just excitedly looked at Agnes and chirped out a bunch of questions.
Agnes just looked at her and didn’t answer a single question. She just calmly said, “The chairman wanted to ask me a question, I need to answer him first.” After pausing, she seemed to have thought of something and added, “I’ll answer your questions later…..alright?”
Sophia was stunned before looking at Xu Yi. Although she wasn’t willing, she could only agree and move back. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝐧𝗼𝐯𝐞𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
“Agnes, how much do you know about the situation upriver?” Xu Yi asked.
Agnes thought about it before shaking her head, “I just understand a bit, it shouldn’t be much.”
“Then tell me, isn’t the area upstream being occupied by the beastmen tribe?” Xu Yi asked.
“It should be like this.” Agnes replied with a nod, “I’ve gone to the Black Rice Wastelands and there isn’t much water there, so the only places with water will have beastmen tribes.”
“Then that means the area upstream should be completely occupied by the beastmen tribes.” Xu Yi thought for a bit before suddenly revealing a smile to Agnes, “Agnes, it seems like you and I need to go on a business trip.”
When his voice fell, Xu Yi suddenly felt killing intent coming from beside him.
Turning over, he saw that Still’s large eyes had already been narrowed.
Chapter 88 I want to fly into outer space
“Ha, ha, charman Xu, with a beauty like young miss Still as your lover, don’t you think there is quite a bit of pressure?” Kennard looked at the bitter smile on Xu Yi’s face and he gave a soft laugh.
Xu Yi looked at him and let out a breath before saying with a sigh, “I think that you are the same. You have such a beautiful and lively little sister, it must be quite a bit of pressure on you.”
“Beautiful and lively?” Kennard’s face twitched a few times before his smile also became bitter, “I can accept the appraisal of beautiful, but as for lively…..I rather that Sophia wasn’t this lively.”
The two looked at each other before breaking out in laughter.
Just this between them made the two of them seem much more friendly.
After laughing, Kennard asked with a serious face, “Chairman Xu, why do you care about controlling the river? This matter no matter what shouldn’t be related to your Frestech Chamber of Commerce, right?”
“It seems like that on the surface, but Kennard, have you ever thought of the benefits that come with controlling the river?” Xu Yi asked back.
“Benefits?” Kennard thought for a bit before saying with a frown, “Other than preventing floods, are there any other benefits?”
“No, preventing flooding is just a basic requirement. The real benefit is that after controlling the river, river transport can play a more vital role.” Xu Yi replied.
“River transport?” Kennard knit his brows even more, “Chairman Xu, it can’t be that you want to help chairman Porter after seeing his bitter experiences, right?”
“That is only one reason. The real reason is that the current Banta City indeed requires river transportation.” Xu Yi said, “Kennard, the Walmart Chamber of Commerce deals in groceries, so what is the most important thing to the Walmart Chamber of Commerce?”
“That is…..” Kennard hesitated a bit, “It should be having enough inventory, otherwise uncle Hank wouldn’t have added the condition of being given priority.”
Xu Yi knew that Kennard was speaking for Hank Wilson, so he revealed a smile to show he understood before he kept asking, “Then how do you guarantee that all the cities of the Walmart Chamber of Commerce have enough inventory?”
Kennard thought about it before his eyes suddenly lit up.
“Chairman Xu, I understand what you mean. You’re saying that transportation is important for business?”
“That’s right.” Xu Yi nodded with a look of praise, “Right now Banta City is developing this fast, so it could be imagined that it would be producing countless different goods. Since it’s like this, Banta City needs a powerful transport system to send out all this produced cargo.”
Kennard nodded, “Right. Like the magic machines that you and uncle Hank talked about, if all those magic machines including the ones made by your Frestech Chamber of Commerce isn’t sent out and they just remain in Banta City, it would create heavy losses.”
“It’s fine if it’s just money losses, but the key is that without the support of a transport system, it would be a strong hit to the developing magic machine industry of Banta City. There are many small companies that have spent most of their money on building these magic machines, so if they can’t sell them out, it would be complete destruction for them.” Xu Yi honestly said, “I always hoped that there would be many companies related to magic machines in Banta City, so naturally I don’t want to see this happen.”
Kennard looked at Xu Yi for a while before suddenly asking, “Chairman Xu, after observing you and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce for a few days, I’ve always wanted to ask you something.”
“Speak, it’s not good to keep questions in your heart.” Xu Yi said with a smile.
“I want to ask, why does it seem like many things you do aren’t for yourself, but rather to train competitors for your Frestech Chamber of Commerce? With the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s current lead, you can easily take away the entire magic machine industry. Like that, whether it is you or the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, you will receive a large amount of benefits and become so big that people will find it hard to imagine. So why don’t you do this?”
“You want to know the real answer?” Xu Yi asked.
“Of course. I hope that chairman Xu can honestly answer my question because it is related to a large decision that I have to make.” Kennard said with a nod.
Seeing Kennard’s honest expression, although Xu Yi was a bit surprised, he still honestly answered after thinking about it, “Actually before you, there have been many people who have asked me this question. I’ll repeat for you again. I studied magic machines and created the Frestech Chamber of Commerce at first for money, but now, it is no longer just that goal. Do you believe me?”
Kennard nodded without hesitation, “I do. If you did it just for money, there are many things that you’ve done that couldn’t be explained.”
“It’s good that you’re willing to believe this.” Xu Yi gave a smile before continuing, “Since it’s not for money, of course there is another goal, or rather it should be called a target. My target, or rather the closer one, is to let people enjoy the benefits of magic machines. I want to improve the quality of life of everyone on the Sines Continent and give everyone better lives.”
“This is only the closer target?” Kennard was a bit surprised, “Then what is your further target?”
“The further target is to increase the magic and technological level of the Sines Continent and create a large change in the world. Not only will people be able to live on every part of the continent, they will be able to enter the bottom of the seas and fly in the sky. Even going to…..outer space.”
“Outer space?” This was a strange word that Kennard was hearing for the first time, “What is that?”
Xu Yi pointed at the sky and asked Kennard, “You can see it now. There are clouds floating in the sky, but do you know what is above those clouds?”
Kennard raised his head and looked at the untouchable sky before shaking his head.
Although Wind Attributed Magicians have flown up very high before, up until now, there has never been a magician that has touched the clouds. Not to mention a place above the clouds.
“Let me tell you, there is a place even above the sky. It is incomparably big, bigger than you can ever imagine. And in that space, separated by an incredible distance, there is a continent that is like the Sines Continent. I want to go to outer space and go see that continent in outer space because perhaps I can find my real home on that continent.”
Seeing the inexplicable depressed expression on Xu Yi’s face, Kennard was very confused.
First not mentioning how Xu Yi knew that there was an endless void, what did he mean by him being able to find his true home on that continent?
Could it be that calm and cool chairman Xu was actually a poet?
Xu Yi was lost in thought as he stared into the sky. When he looked down, he looked back at Kennard.
He saw Kennard’s surprised face, but Xu Yi didn’t plan on explaining, so he asked with a smile, “How about it, do you know why I’m training my competitors? It’s because I want this industry to develop as quickly as possible to ensure that I achieve my dream while I’m still alive.”
Kennard shook his head, thinking that chairman Xu’s dream really was crazy.
But it’s said that everyone that achieved great things was a bit crazy in the end.
Right now, chairman Xu was someone who had achieved great things.
Thinking of this, Kennard made his decision in his mind.
“Chairman Xu, to realize your dream, it’s not possible to do it alone. I think you need some helpers.” Kennard said, “I’ve heard Hannas say that you always wanted to hire someone to manage the general affairs for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce…..Eh…..A general manager, right?”
Xu Yi looked at Kennard in surprise as he nodded, “That’s right, I am indeed looking for a general manager to take some work for me, but I’ve never found the right candidate.”
Kennard revealed a faint smile and pointed at himself, “Chairman Xu, do you think I can be the general manager?”
Although he had guessed it from Kennard’s attitude, Xu Yi was still surprised when he heard Kennard say it.
“Kennard, you are the eldest son of the Emma Family’s head, how can you work for our company?”
“I am not the eldest son, so I don’t have succession rights. Moreover, I don’t have a title now, so there is no problem for me to enter the business world and become a merchant. In fact, the family has trained me since I was young to become a merchant and when I was fourteen, I’ve already begun handling some matters for the Walmart Chamber of Commerce. Up until six months ago, I was the assistant to the Walmart Chamber of Commerce’s vice chairman and was handling all kinds of small and large matters in the company. Chairman Xu, do you think that…..this kind of me is qualified to be the general manager of your Frestech Chamber of Commerce?” Kennard asked.
“Of course.” Xu Yi nodded without any hesitation, “But I’m very unclear on why you want to be our Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s general manager. With your identity, if you want to enter the business world, the Walmart Chamber of Commerce is clearly the better choice.”
“Chairman Xu, you just told me your dream and I also have a dream. Although my dream is not as big as yours, there is something in common, which is that I hope to change the world with my power. I cannot see that hope in the Walmart Chamber of Commerce, but at your place, in your Frestech Chamber of Commerce, I can see that hope. So I want to grab that hope and give my best effort to truly change the world.”
Seeing Kennard with his honest and serious expression, Xu Yi fell silent.
With Kennard’s identity, his training from the Emma Family, and his experience in the Walmart Chamber of Commerce, he was indeed very qualified to become the general manager.
Although he was still a year younger than Xu Yi, in terms of business, he had more experience than Xu Yi.
For such a person to want to become the general manager of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, it was beneath his skills.
Xu Yi wanted to agree, but he was still worried about a few things.
“You are still someone from the Emma Family in the end and must return to the Walmart Chamber of Commerce. If you work at our Frestech Chamber of Commerce, that is basically a waste of time.” Xu Yi said.
Kennard revealed a faint smile, “Chairman Xu, although I was born in the Emma Family, that does not mean that I will be fettered by that family forever. The reason why I had Hannas bring me here was to see if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce could give me the possibility of my dream of leaving the family. Now that I’ve found this possibility, do you think I would let it go?”
Seeing Xu Yi looking like he was considering it, Kennard then said, “Chairman Xu, actually I already received my father’s approval before coming this time, so you don’t need to worry about pressure from the Emma Family. Other than that, you wouldn’t lose anything from hiring me as the general manager, right? Even if I do leave, at least during my time here, I can contribute to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and I believe that I’m capable of achieving that. Since it’s like this, what is chairman Xu worried about? Could it be…..you don’t even have a bit of courage?”
Xu Yi looked at him and thought for a bit before saying with a smile, “Don’t try to push me. Alright, since you’re willing to be our Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s general manager, then for this time, you will enter a probation period. I must remind you that although you have an outstanding background and experience, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce is different from the Walmart Chamber of Commerce, so things will be done differently. If you can’t do it, don’t blame me for not giving you face and directly dismissing you.”
Kennard revealed a grin, revealing his shiny, white teeth.
“Please be assured, I definitely will not give you the chance to dismiss me.”