Starting Today, I’ll Work as a City Lord - CH 30

Ba Fu left with a lot of questions in his mind. He couldn’t understand the reason behind Liu Feng’s actions.

Could there really be a noble that would do so much for commoners? Ba Fu had been to many cities before but had never seen that kind of noble.

He had only met a few noble ladies who were kind enough to distribute some wheat bread that was as hard as wood to starving commoners in the city.

The paper in his hand said that a person could get a catty of wheat or a days worth of food if they worked for Liu Feng.

Wasn’t this just helping the citizens of Xi Yang City? Could it be that Liu Feng knew the evil deeds of the grain merchants? But this kind of help would make the city lord go bankrupt.

Work for Liu Feng? There’s still 20 days left before the autumn harvest, what kind of work is there other than harvesting wheat?

Ba Fu also saw some strange notices under the paper. The paper said that the city lord was going to rebuild the city and was going to expropriate many houses. After demolishing the houses, there would be a new house given to the owner. The size of the house would depend on the size of the land.

For people that were willing to sell land, the City Lord’s Mansion would buy it for 20 copper coins per square meter.

Ba Fu didn’t understand the point of demolishing houses and then giving the residents new ones to live in. Everyone would probably fight to give their old houses to the City Lord.

As for selling land, Ba Fu couldn’t think of anyone who would be stupid enough to do so. After all, it costed 30 copper coins for a square meter of house. A family would have to work for months to be able to buy a few meters.¹

Being able to get a new house after demolishing their old one was an extremely good thing that they wouldn’t be able to find anywhere.

The more Ba Fu looked, the more he wanted to go back and tell Liu Feng to take back his order, as they would make him accrue huge loses. However, he didn’t have the guts to question Liu Feng’s decisions as he was just a commoner.

“Sigh. I hope that there wouldn’t be any problems with Lord City Lord’s decisions. It’s impossible to find such a good city lord these days.” Ba Fu walked away with the paper.

Nicole had the same questions that Ba Fu had. She looked at the leaving Ba Fu and put down the dessert in her hand. She was the one who had wrote the document; Liu Feng read the words what he wanted and she wrote down what Liu Feng said.

“Young master, the gold coins in the vault won’t last long if we go along with your request,” Nicole said, deciding to speak out her doubts.

Liu Feng chuckled, “What, you also think that I would make loses?”

“This…” Nicole hesitated for a moment before nodding her head. “Young master, you would definitely accrue loses if you help everyone rebuild their houses for free and give them them wheat to eat.”

“Ha ha ha.” Liu Feng laughed and took out a drawing from the drawer and put it in front of Nicole. “Take a look at this drawing first.”

Nicole curiously took the drawing, and her eyes immediately widened, and her mouth opened into an o shape.

The drawing showed a beautiful city that had wide streets, many houses that were two stories tall, and a bunch of neatly aligned trees on the two sides of the road.

“Y- young master, is this the city that you want to rebuild?” Nicole was a bit shocked.

Liu Feng nodded and smiled. “Yep, the two story houses has more than one house per floor.² One house could be used to exchange for many plots of land, so we wouldn’t accrue any loses. We can sell the extra houses that we don’t need.

“Plus, labor is required to build these houses. I can give people wheat or a day’s worth of food as salary, so the grain merchants wouldn’t be able to sell their wheat.

“Of course, the premise is that the wheat can successfully be transported here tomorrow. Otherwise, we need to delay this plan.

Liu Feng’s plan was a common method used by real estate companies on Earth. A person that had land but had no money to build a house but didn’t want to sell their land either could have a company build a building for them at the cost of owning part of the house. If the company built a 20 or 30 story building, for example, 5 of the floors would be the person’s property and the rest of the building would be the company’s property.

Nicole understood. She knew about the magical cement. Thinking about it like this, it was like hitting multiple birds with an arrow. All they had to pay was wheat or food as salary, but what they would receive in return was Xi Yang City’s change.

Owning many new houses, indirectly hurting the grain merchants, allowing the commoners to not starve and own new houses and obtain food through labor.

There would be nearly 2,000 people working according to Xi Yang City’s population. Many houses could be built in a short time with cement.

“Young master, you- you’re amazing.” Nicole was so excited that her face turned red. Her breasts were jiggling and her eyes were full of water as she gazed at Liu Feng.³

A capable man is like a magnet to girls. They were extremely attractive.

“Cough cough.” Liu Feng lightly coughed when he felt the catgirl look at him strangely.

“Ah…” Nicole returned to her senses and ran away while covering her face. She couldn’t believe that she had just been fangirling over Liu Feng like that .

Liu Feng shook his with a chuckle and turned his head to look at Mina. “You’re a bit weird today. Are you worrying about the beastkins that appeared in the forest?”

“Ah… This, that…” Mina hesitated. She was indeed worried about the beastkin that appeared in the forest. They made her think of Anri.

Even though she thought that Anri should have been taking the beastkins to the South, she was still worried that Anri might not have done so. She wanted to confirm the sudden appearance of the beastkins.

But Mina was worried that Liu Feng would misunderstand and think that she was the one who brought over the beastkin. Although she didn’t know why, she didn’t want Liu Feng to misunderstand her.

“Go, this will always be your home. Just remember to come back,” Liu Feng said with a warm smile.

“I’ll be back tonight!” Mina said, walking to the door with a charming smile on her face, her tail swinging. “No other place has such a good city lord!”

Translator’s Notes:

¹ I’m not sure who “stupid” but I think it’s referring to people that would actually sell their land. Please tell me if you know, this is the raw sentence:”至于卖掉地皮的人,巴夫想不到谁会那么白痴,一平方米20枚铜币，现在城中的房子，一平方米都要30多枚铜币了，一家子工作一个月才能买几平方米.”

² Think of it like apartments. A “room” in an apartment could be considered a “house” since it has multiple rooms.

³ Don’t ask me what does breast jiggling have to do with anything. The author wrote it.

⁴ 花痴. Don’t really know how to explain, like a person who is obsessed with faces and looks. Idrk the english term for it.