Even before leaving the mountains, Chen Ping'an could already sense that the town was undergoing drastic changes. At the peak of True Earth Mountain, he could see dust and soil flying in all directions, and on the pinnacle of Distant Scene Mountain, he spotted close to 100 fit and strong young men, most of whom were manual laborers working at the kilns, and they were in the process of cutting down giant trees.

Chen Ping'an approached one of the men, whom he had worked with in the kilns, and he learned from that man that the town was planning to construct a county office, a wenchang pavilion, a martial sage temple, and a city god temple, all at once. The construction jobs had been ordered by the new kiln supervision official, Wu Yuan. 

As for his other title of county governor, the town's residents had no idea what that entailed, nor what his exact duties were. However, they didn't care about all of that anyway. All they knew was that these construction jobs were a stable source of employment, and the wages being offered were far more alluring than what had been offered in the dragon kilns in the past.

With the town stripped of its right to produce imperial ware, all of the kilns had been forced to cease operations, leaving the kiln's workers in a very difficult situation. They could only offer their manual labor services to farmland owners for meager wages that were barely enough to feed their families. Hence, they were all extremely grateful for this opportunity, and they viewed Wu Yuan as a generous messiah. 

Furthermore, even the wealthy old men of the four surnames and ten clans treated Wu Yuan with the utmost respect, despite the fact that they were far older than him. The way that they spoke to and interacted with him all indicated that they were trying to get on his...