You're Strong But Now You're Mine-Chapter 159 - 158 Jing Family Patriarch

The Silver Blood council meeting was surprisingly quick.

There were no courteous chats or hidden tricks, the entire Silver Blood council meeting consisted of just two steps: Acting President Ting Jiu brought up a topic, everyone raised their hands, agreed, or rejected it.

If you didn’t raise your hand, it meant you rejected it by default.

A majority vote approved the topic.

The President had a voting power of 1.5 votes.

It was this nearly rule-less democracy that raised the efficiency of the Silver Blood council meeting to a level that even Le Yin found shocking.

After persuasion by the ’fair Silver Blood members,’ Ting Jiu proposed a ’punishment’ for the six captains and vice-captains: forfeiting their patrol salaries for the last few months.

Patrol team members have salaries, so naturally do the captains and vice-captains, but this salary is almost ceremonial. To the heirs of the Six Chambers, it’s not even pocket money. This punishment is equivalent to no punishment at all, it would be better to self-impose three cups of wine as a penalty.

At the time, Le Yin thought many people would abstain to show opposition, using collective democracy to pressure the Six Chambers. After all, democracy in some sense is an internal mechanism for the weak to band together to force the strong.

But during the voting, the stimulating Sea of Consciousness made Le Yin’s thoughts extremely clear, almost forcing Le Yin to make a decision:

——The attack incident was not the fault of the six.

——Pursuing responsibility from the six will only cause internal friction within the Silver Blood.

——I will benefit from this topic.

——For myself, for the Silver Blood Association.

——Agree.

"Sixty-eight agree, passed."

When Le Yin came back to his senses, he had already raised his hand agreeing to this topic. Although he himself was a beneficiary of this topic, his hand-raising was inevitable, but Le Yin was shocked that he could not control himself to oppose!

Earlier when Ting Jiu asked everyone if they agreed to him presiding over the meeting and representing the Ting Family to punish Ting Chaozao, Le Yin directly raised his hand to agree without much thought, thereby not noticing the influence of the Sea of Consciousness.

This time, when he consciously wanted to oppose the topic, the power of the Sea of Consciousness in the council hall finally emerged.

Just like how the Sea of Consciousness in the training ground forces all recruits to fully exploit their potential and train hard, the effect of the Sea of Consciousness in the council hall is to force attendees to make choices that maximize their interests!

As long as you sit here, you can’t go against your true self and vote contrary. You will inevitably make the most favorable judgment for yourself on each topic, based on the information and analysis you have, and vote!

At the same time, the Sea of Consciousness will also enhance goodwill and recognition among attendees, planting the ’Silver Blood Glory’ firmly into personal will. Even if they no longer think this way after leaving, during the meeting, they will surely consider the ’interests of the Silver Blood Association’ and ensure maximizing those interests!

The Silver Blood members sitting here almost turned into absolutely rational decision-making machines!

This is the secret of why the Silver Blood Association has stood for over a hundred years.

No matter how intolerable the Silver Blood Association may seem outside, how they exploit the lower classes, how bloated they may be, they possess an excellent and efficient decision-making mechanism and team cooperation almost devoid of internal division, allowing them to make timely corrections even if they take a wrong turn.

In this world, one is often more afraid of pig-like teammates than god-like opponents, simply because god-like opponents are too few, while pig-like teammates are too many.

It’s only possible for the Silver Blood Association to create such a Sea of Consciousness and decision-making mechanism because, in essence, there is no exclusivity among merchants. Everyone is out to make more money, and they don’t care where that money comes from. But other decision-making bodies are different, like Imperial Court officials who mostly fight for power and gain, and ’power’ is exclusive—you either listen to me, or I listen to you, with no middle ground.

So it’s about ’getting rich together,’ not ’being emperors together.’

Rotating emperors, maybe.

The subsequent agenda also progressed with the same efficiency: ’Establishing a patrol battalion of 150 people,’ ’replanning the Half City area,’ ’worker placement plan,’ these proposals affecting the entire Xuanzhu County and even the Dongyang area, were arranged here almost as a joke.

Not all topics were passed though, such as in the ’worker placement plan,’ where Ting Jiu’s proposal was extremely harsh on the workers, receiving only 32 votes in favor, so he put forward a second, slightly more favorable plan, which received 59 votes and was passed.

Le Yin discovered that although the Silver Blood Association President’s power wasn’t so great as to cover the sky with one hand, it wasn’t small either—they couldn’t control other members to support their excessive topics, but they could gradually lower conditions and test everyone’s reactions. As long as a majority of members agreed, the agenda could be smoothly implemented.

Moreover, aside from the President, others had no proposal power, or rather they had only one kind of proposal power—to propose the dismissal of the President.

After resolving the issues of Half City and the patrol team, the meeting moved to the next agenda: how to deal with the Backlight Particle.

As Yin Minghong had previously said, there were quite a few turncoats within the Xuanzhu White Night, so the Silver Blood Association was well aware that among the two groups that attacked Half City yesterday, one group was the White Night Walkers, and they could even pinpoint that there were thirteen people.

As for the other group, Ting Jiu hadn’t found specific information and could only initially classify them as part of the White Night faction.

Ting Jiu first proposed a plan that made Le Yin’s scalp tingle: Transfer the hatred, purge Xuanzhu, and smear both sides.

This plan could be divided into three steps: First, unite with the Governor’s Office and the Heyang Army to massively arrest workers and civilians usually dissatisfied with the Silver Blood Association, publicly convict them as Backlight Particles, and execute them;

Second, have Silver Blood merchants lament everywhere about losing their factories and being unable to support other workers, inflaming workers’ righteous anger towards the White Night;

Third, hire foremen to organize other workers into street marches, calling for everyone to report Backlight Particles disrupting the harmony of Xuanzhu society. While workers are marching, send people to attack workers, smearing Backlight Particles; simultaneously send people into the workers’ ranks to smash, loot, and burn, reducing others’ perception of workers.

"In short, we must kill and let the blood of Xuanzhu County flow like a river, to deter Backlight Organization and other ill-intentioned elements, and never expose the Silver Blood Association’s weakness!"

"Then shift the hatred onto the White Night, showing that we and the workers are also victims, making workers resent the White Night."

"But the workers are also our enemies. During the rebuilding of Half City, there will certainly be many disgruntled workers gathering, so we need to act first—let them gather for marches, then send people for violent attacks inside, smearing both the White Night and workers, causing other Xuanzhu residents to dislike them."

"In this way, the crisis resolves itself, and Silver Blood is at peace."

No wonder White Night couldn’t defeat the Silver Blood Association.

Even while inside the Silver Blood’s Sea of Consciousness, Leyu couldn’t help but feel a chill—

The difficulty of the battle between the two sides wasn’t on the same level at all.

With the Silver Blood Association having already brainwashed and manipulated most of Xuanzhu County’s populace, in order for White Night to overthrow the Silver Blood Association and start a revolution, they must enlighten the people and make them fully aware that they are living in a flawed society.

But in dealing with White Night, the Silver Blood Association takes the opposite approach.

What they exploit is precisely the foolish sympathy of the people, and their weakness in wanting merely to survive!

They can openly slander White Night, but White Night can’t even clear their own name!

If this proposal truly passes, Leyu thought he might as well pack up and go on vacation—staying here would only lead to drowning with White Night eventually; it would be better to seek out the Divine Demon Well.

Yet to Leyu’s surprise, this seemingly foolproof proposal garnered only 11 votes in favor.

Other members of Silver Blood voiced their reasons for opposition:

They didn’t trust the Governor’s Office and Heyang Army, nor did they trust the workers.

No one could be sure whether the Patrol Execution Guard and Heyang Army, when arresting people, would expand the scope and extort a hefty bribe from the Silver Blood Association. Not only could the proposal not be passed, but they even had to stop the Governor’s Office — this matter should be resolved by the Silver Blood Association; government troops shouldn’t interfere.

As for a workers’ parade, that was even more dangerous.

What if they rioted on a large scale?

What if they stormed the inner city?

With conspiracies involving so many people, no one could be sure they would unfold ideally as planned. However, if a blunder occurred, the cost might not be something the Silver Blood Association could afford.

After all, even though Silver Blood had been severely hit by White Night once, the Silver Blood Association was vast and substantial; there was no necessity to risk their lives clashing head-on with those worthless stones of White Night.

After a brief discussion, only the risk-free proposal of ’Silver Blood merchants lamenting to workers’ was passed.

Leyu re-evaluated the Silver Blood Association — although their decision-making was efficient, due to the merchants’ inherent short-sightedness, their overall decisions tended towards conservatism.

In reality, being conservative wasn’t a bad thing, as hesitating leads to defeat while being decisive leads to unnecessary risks. At other times, the conservative style of the Silver Blood Association wasn’t problematic, but now it was evident even to a dog that the era was changing. This group of merchants were still thinking about peacefully exploiting workers for profit and pleasure; sooner or later, they would be swallowed up by others.

Thinking of this, Leyu instinctively glanced at the nearby Qin Leyin, noticing his expression had a hint of mocking with his smile. He turned to look at Ting Jiu and saw that this acting president had a shadowy gaze, corners of his mouth slightly upturned, evidently disdainful.

No wonder the Four Guardians of Radiance intended to topple the Silver Blood Association, even desiring to swallow a larger entity with a smaller one. This entirely stemmed from confidence given by the Silver Blood Association.

With such a large piece of fat sitting idly, waiting to be devoured, who wouldn’t want a bite?

The Ting Family had spared no effort to control the patrol team; wasn’t it also a preparation to annex Silver Blood?

Qin Leyin claimed to fear that Silver Blood would side with other warlords, which wasn’t entirely a lie — he surely believed that once the warlords around the Dongyang District became powerful, the Silver Blood Association would always be at risk of being devoured!

Actually, Leyu didn’t catch all the nuanced expressions from Qin Leyin and Ting Jiu; most were his own fabrications, but likely not far from the truth.

Frankly, the mechanism of the Silver Blood Association was already remarkably advantageous and efficient.

But, the times were about to change.

How to deal with the Backlight Particle’s agenda quickly concluded; proposals to increase the bounty for reporting White Night Walkers, and to defame and discredit Backlight Particle through various media swiftly passed — due to Youth Daily, Leyu was even specifically asked to write defamatory articles about White Night, to which Leyu immediately declared he was perfectly skilled.

After the two agendas ended, Ting Jiu stood up and said, "Meeting adjourned."

He placed his right hand over his left chest: "For the greater Silver Blood."

Everyone saluted, "For the greater Silver Blood."

For the greater Silver Blood... Even though the influence of the Sea of Consciousness hadn’t faded, and the strong sense of identity with the Silver Blood Association still lingered, Leyu still felt a bit like laughing.

People began to leave their seats, exiting the meeting hall, and Leyu saw Jing Shou was about to walk away without stopping, so he quickly went over to block his path: "Uncle Shou."

Jing Shou’s expression was calm: "Young master, what is it?"

"Someone just said that I’m already the general manager of the Jing Family Chamber of Commerce. What does that mean?" Leyu looked at the seats in the meeting hall: "In the future, I can represent the Jing Family Chamber to attend Silver Blood meetings; does that have any special significance?"

"The implication inside is just what you’re thinking right now."

"I hope you can tell me clearly to avoid any misunderstanding."

Before Jing Shou could speak, Leyu felt a pat on his shoulder. He turned around to find Qin Leyin and other scapegoat squad members approaching.

Ting Chao had a face full of congratulatory smiles, Luo Zhen looked displeased, Lan Jianbo was expressionless, and Quan Xin’s face was full of envy.

"A permanent seat in Silver Blood meetings only means one thing."

Qin Leyin slightly bowed and respectfully said:

"Good afternoon, Jing Patriarch, care to join us for lunch?"