Chapter 1 2018, April 17th, 7:12 AM

Before heading to the Samsara World for the 'First Subhuti Fan Club Management Offline Meeting,' Su Zhou went elsewhere.

Invited by his friend, Su Zhou arrived at the 'Xiyue' Hotel, located near the center of Xijing City, which had recently begun its promotional campaign.

"Not bad, this place. The decor is meticulous."

When Su Zhou said this, the hotel was not yet open, and Shao Qiming stood beside him.

The two had roughly toured the entire hotel and were now carefully examining a tall spirit tree, planted in the center of the lobby as a decoration.

This was a willow tree that had awakened its spirit and could be considered a spiritual material. Its verdant branches and evergreen leaves constantly absorbed all the surrounding impurities, converting them and releasing gentle wood-type spiritual energy, permeating the entire hotel.

Eating here, even if it didn't stimulate a large appetite, would at least prevent one's mood from being disturbed by polluted air.

In this era of spiritual energy resurgence, any cultivator with a bit of wealth wanted to use spirit trees to improve their living environment.

In fact, small spirit tree bonsai were currently the most popular luxury goods on the global market.

But buying a bonsai was easy; keeping it alive was difficult.

Not to mention, keeping a willow tree, which wasn't very resilient to begin with, alive in a bustling downtown hotel.

"The people behind this Xiyue Hotel have some connections!"

Admiring the spirit tree before him, Su Zhou rarely nodded, praising, "The person who transplanted it used their power to create a cycle of spiritual energy for this willow tree and laid out invisible spirit-gathering arrays inside the hotel."

"It seems like they're just using the willow tree to suppress the hotel's impurities, but in reality, they're using the five impurities as a guide to gather the spiritual energy from nearly half a block around, forming a cycle of rotating purity and turbidity."

"Very clever, and a win-win. It can purify the surrounding pollution and gather the power of heaven and earth to nurture this spirit tree, allowing it to slowly grow and thrive in the city!"

"Is that so?" Hearing this, Shao Qiming simply smiled and continued to lead Su Zhou to the highest-level suite in the hotel.

Then, he showed him a plaque hanging in the highest-level suite.

"'Zhuzhao Group'? What does that mean?"

At first, Su Zhou was quite puzzled. He rubbed his chin, somewhat curious, "Speaking of which, it's similar to the name of my true form... Wait."

Seeing this and thinking of the tree in the center of the hotel, even though Su Zhou hadn't initially thought of it, he quickly realized. He turned to his friend, a look of surprise on his face, "I see—no wonder you dragged me here early in the morning. I was wondering why you'd call me to a hotel when it's not even mealtime."

"I didn't expect it, Qiming, you've become a hotel owner!"

This was just teasing. Su Zhou knew that since Shao Qiming had used Zhuzhao Group as the name, its business definitely wasn't limited to just one hotel. Xiyue Hotel was at most a representative example.

And sure enough, Shao Qiming's subsequent explanation was exactly what he had expected.

"To be precise, it's not just the hotel. Zhuzhao Group's current industries are not many, focusing on related spirit beast breeding and spirit plant cultivation. The hotel is just a promotional portal, a facade to attract attention."

At this time, Shao Qiming was fixing his hair, sweeping his dark, root-like strands from his shoulders to his back.

Because he cultivated a related divine tree inheritance, his hair wasn't as fragile as that of ordinary humans. Instead, it was slightly thick and tough, and it would move spontaneously with the fluctuations of spiritual energy, like an automatic spiritual energy compass—this was certainly a useful ability, but if he were in an area with abnormally chaotic spiritual energy, Shao Qiming's hair would probably dance wildly like struggling octopus tentacles.

Regarding Su Zhou's point, Shao Qiming first nodded, then shook his head, "Also, you're mistaken about one thing."

"Zhuzhao Group is not my business—it's our business."

"Ours?"

Su Zhou raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised, even easily uttering a mama's boy comment, "When? I don't remember joining? Speaking of which, I haven't seen how much my salary is, my bank card and other accounts are all with my mom..."

"You joined from the beginning, silly."

To the clueless Su Zhou, Shao Qiming sighed. He gestured for Su Zhou to sit down and told the staff to bring tea. Then, he sat across from Su Zhou and patiently explained, "Did you think only money counts as joining? Seriously, A'Zhou, without your connections, how could I have convinced my father to invest in me and applied for a loan from the bank?"

"Not to mention the various inside information you intentionally or unintentionally revealed, just the fact that the relevant departments won't make things difficult for me is already a convenience that money can't buy."

As he spoke, Shao Qiming sent Su Zhou a list of industries through his personal terminal and gestured for him to browse it, "For a while, Zhuzhao Group has been operating silently, accumulating capital, preparing to find an opportunity to make a splash.

"But when the news about Qingqiu Star came out, I keenly sensed an opportunity—you see, Zhuzhao Group is now second only to the Zhengguo Ministry of Agriculture in providing food aid and related breeding and cultivation technology guidance to Qingqiu Star. Not only are there subsidies to be had, but there will also be priority investment rights in Qingqiu Star in the future."

Speaking of this, Shao Qiming shrugged, smiling, "Of course, it's said to be semi-official, but because of your existence, Zhuzhao Group is very free. As long as we don't do anything outrageous, it's very convenient for us to do whatever we want. And I wouldn't dirty your reputation for the sake of a little money. You can rest assured about that."

At this time, Su Zhou was looking at the personal terminal on his left hand—this watch-like personal terminal was officially released two years ago and officially popularized in Zhengguo at the beginning of this year. It could be seen that the terminal projected a screen of light, on which a large amount of data flashed rapidly at a speed that ordinary people could not see clearly.

"Isn't this not so good?" After carefully browsing, Su Zhou frowned. He put down his left hand, looked at Shao Qiming, and said hesitantly, "Doesn't this make me seem like a privileged class..."

"Otherwise?"

But Su Zhou's words shocked Shao Qiming. The young man, who looked very gentle, blinked and carefully examined the other person for a while. He asked confusedly, "Haven't you already advanced to become a Hegemon, a terrestrial immortal?"

"That's true, but... you know, I've never cared about this kind of thing."

At this time, the staff brought tea for the two of them. Su Zhou picked it up, took a sip, and then frowned, "The resources I usually use, the government has never charged me money—of course, I never refuse when the government sends me on missions. But that's a working relationship. I work for the Zhengguo government, and they give me compensation."

"But this..."

"Alright." Shao Qiming knew his friend's awkwardness very well. He understood why the other person was so resistant to this aspect.

Ultimately, Su Zhou was still a very pure idealist. He didn't like his actions being tied to interests.

Su Zhou hoped that his actions stemmed from his inner desires, not because of profit—this would make him feel that his motives were impure, and he wouldn't be able to 'fairly' judge 'good and evil.'

So, Shao Qiming interrupted Su Zhou and said directly, "To be honest, the day after I started preparing to build the predecessor of Zhuzhao Group, many people came to me, saying they could provide assistance—including many people from the government. Do you understand? Zhuzhao Group isn't something I could have built alone. It's the expectation of many people."

"Su Zhou, do you think that a god or immortal who has no desires, neither loves money nor power, and has no reliance on the world other than relatives and friends, is that not very frightening to people?"

"I understand very well, but understanding is understanding..."

Su Zhou wasn't stupid. He knew that since he had strength, there would naturally be interest groups formed because of him—whether it was the New World Exploration Department specifically created to accommodate him or the Zhuzhao Group established by Shao Qiming, they were all the result of this social law in operation.

Unless he deliberately demanded that the entire society 'not form forces around him,' this would inevitably happen... and since it was destined to happen, it seemed to be the least bad choice for his best friend to control it.

So, in the end, Su Zhou just let out a breath. He didn't know what to say, just murmuring, "I just hope this world can become better—that humanity is happy and healthy, that there is no more evil in the world, that's all."

"Immortals and gods may not care about humanity's views, but humanity needs to care. They need peace of mind."

To this, Shao Qiming also took a sip of tea. He met Su Zhou's gaze and said calmly, "Don't worry, you don't have to do these things yourself... if something dirty really appears in this group in the future, then I will solve them for you and not let them affect your reputation..."

"No."

Hearing this, Su Zhou suddenly interrupted Shao Qiming.

He leaned forward, looked directly at the other person, and said seriously, "I will personally clean up those guys."

"This is my job, don't even think about taking it away."

"... Okay."

At Su Zhou's firm attitude, Shao Qiming was slightly stunned, then chuckled, "You're right, if some evildoers really appear within the group, then it would be even better for you to handle them, and it can better restore the reputation."

Speaking of this, he seemed to have remembered something. Shao Qiming raised his hand to Su Zhou, naturally showing the back of his hand, "Speaking of which, A'Zhou, it's not just Zhuzhao Group."

"In fact, if it weren't for your connections, I and the other members of my team wouldn't have been able to receive so many scarce missions to accumulate points, let alone get enough 360,000 points before the end of the academic year to exchange for the Zhengguo lineage's divine tree inheritance."

Su Zhou originally wanted to be modest and say something like, 'What's this? Do we two brothers need to be so polite?'

But soon, he noticed something was wrong.

Because Su Zhou saw that the tips of the fingers Shao Qiming was showing him had an extremely bright light, shining as pure spiritual energy condensed.