Ever since the night of the “Summoning the Winds in the Yu Lin River”, the Ye Family had been bustling with people seeking an audience with Perfected Master Windwalker.
Zhou Jing would meet with all kinds of people every day. He now roughly understood the situation of the upper class in the Ning Tian Prefecture.
As the auxiliary capital of Great Xia, Ning Tian Prefecture had a long history and many powerful families. The nobles who lived here were divided into several categories.
The first was the large aristocratic families that had existed for hundreds of years. Their ancestors had produced all kinds of high-ranking officials who had been in power throughout different dynasties. They were indescribably noble and extremely illustrious. During the process of the founding of the country, these large aristocratic families had sent their elites to submit and bet on the Emperors.
Naturally, the Great Xia Ancestors would not refuse the help. Therefore, the large aristocratic families received the credit and continued after the dynasty changed. Most of the descendants of the families entered the court as officials, and some were even relatives of the royal family.
The second type was those who followed the founding ancestors of the Great Xia Dynasty to conquer the world. These people had Dukes and Marquis in their family tree, and their statuses were also illustrious.
The third type were the noveau noble families. Most of them were new families that had continued in the past hundred years after having a family member getting a position as an official. They also had some status, and most of the heads of the families were current officials.
Zhao Xing’an was one of them. He did not come from an aristocratic family, and a few generations ago, his family was poor. However, his ancestors had managed to become ministers, and his family had jumped up the ranks and was no longer part of the commoners. He had taken the examination to become an official of the court and climbed to his current position in the Ning Tian Prefecture step by step, allowing the Zhao family to prosper again.
However, most of the power of such new noble families belonged to the head of the family, and their descendants had no way to inherit that. Once the head of the family lost his power, the family might quickly decline. There was still a huge gap between them and the established noble families.
Only by operating for a few more generations and spreading their branches would their descendants constantly enter the court as officials to accumulate the reputation of the family and stabilize their footing. Only then could they gradually turn into a large and prosperous family.
These three types of prominent families were considered the upper echelons of Ning Tian Prefecture. Although they lived here, their power was not limited to the local area. In addition, there were also former court officials who had retired from their jobs, famous cultural celebrities, and so on. The situation could be said to be quite complicated, with crouching tigers and hidden dragons.
One of the more special nobles was the relatives of the royal family who lived in Ning Tian Prefecture. Although their identities were the most noble, they usually kept a low profile and usually did not provoke others, nor did anyone dare to provoke them.
There were in fact not many people who tried to curry favor with them, but once they appeared, no one dared to ignore them. They gave off a sense of detachment from the political scene.
After Zhou Jing experienced it, he realized that this was a huge net of benefits that was intertwined. To ordinary people, it was as if it was invisible. This commoner could not come into contact with it at all. It was unknown and unpredictable to them.
In comparison, a wealthy merchant like the Ye family was really not ranked high in Ning Tian Prefecture.
The waters in this place were very deep.
Fortunately, the wealthy aristocrats within the prefecture thought that he was an expert of the world and were intimidated by his magical methods. They needed him to do a favor by producing pills for them and thus treated him warmly and politely.
This was especially true for the rich and powerful families who had successfully obtained the pills. After experiencing the divine effect of the pills, they believed it without a doubt and supported it even more.
Now, no one addressed him as Ling Fengzi anymore. They felt that calling him by his full name was not respectful enough, so they directly addressed him as Perfected Master Windwalker.
Zhou Jing had developed two new pill formulas for the needs of these wealthy families.
One was a cooling pill. When taken during the hot summer, it would cool the body from the inside out, and one’s entire body would feel light and agile. Although it was still spring, the summer in Ning Tian Prefecture was well known to be scorching and humid. The wealthy families were used to making preparations early, so this kind of pill was very popular.
The other was the Longevity Pill. After taking it, one could adjust their health in their old age and become more healthy, achieving the effect of extending their lifespan. This pill was the main focus of the wealthy families. However, Zhou Jing strictly controlled the output of this pill. He said to the outside world that this pill was extremely difficult to refine, so there was no market for it. This made the wealthy families yearn for it.
Moreover, Zhou Jing deliberately claimed that this kind of longevity pill was only a primer. The pill that could really greatly extend one’s lifespan was called the “Purple Mansion Longevity Pill”. Just consuming one could extend one’s lifespan by decades. However, it required many of the world’s rare herbs to refine it, and it also required a lot of effort. It could not be refined for the time being.
He knew the importance of expectations, so he took out this big pie and ruthlessly whetted the appetite of these wealthy families.
As for whether the Purple Mansion Longevity Pill existed… it did not matter if he could refine it or not. As long as everyone was willing to believe it, it was true.
It was a pity that he had to maintain the image of an expert. Otherwise, Zhou Jing really wanted to pick up his old profession and create the “Golden Spear Stands Tall Pill” and the “Dragon-Tiger Confluence Pill”. They would definitely become popular in the world and make these wealthy families unable to leave.
…
On this day.
In the guest hall of the Ye family, Zhou Jing was meeting an elder of the Liu family. This person was Liu Ping’s father, and he had specially brought his son to apologize.
In fact, this was the third time the Liu family had sent an invitation to see him. It was just that Zhou Jing had refused to see him the first two times and only agreed to meet him today.
The servant carried a few boxes of gold, silver, jewelry, antique paintings, and calligraphy in. Liu Ping’s father and son followed him in.
Liu Ping’s father lowered his posture and did not dare to sit down. He instead remained standing and cupped his hands at Zhou Jing, who was sitting on the main seat.
“A few days ago, Ping’er spoke out of turn and offended Perfected Master Windwalker. It’s really my fault for not disciplining him well. Today, I brought my son to visit you and apologize for what happened that day. I also prepared some small gifts as an apology. I hope that Perfected Master Windwalker will let bygones be bygones. My Liu family has admired you for a long time, and we just want to form a good relationship with you…”