Time rewinds two months.

In the Coldwind City, the Winter Hall of the City Lord's Mansion. This is the temple of Auluel, the goddess of frost.

The Longlegs were driven out of the city by a combination of the city's magnates a few months ago, and their huge mansion and temple were occupied by the Arad family.

Porticoes and columns support the vast space of the temple. The floor is a whole piece of ice, translucent and slippery. Even in summer, snowflakes fall from time to time in the temple, and statues and murals of winter invade the earth everywhere.

Many of the statues are completely living creatures frozen, with trees, flowers, animals, and people. They are lifelike and rich, but they are already dead.

Auluel is fickle, vain, cold, and unkind. She likes to torture her followers to madness with illusions of tenderness and comfort, and finally freeze them to death.

In order to curry favor with this biting cold master, the artworks created by the believers are all cold, as if everything in the world is only meaningful in the harsh winter.

Zhou Qingfeng stood in front of a mural called 'Embracing Frost', looking up at the female believers on the painting who had stripped off all their clothes and ran barefoot and naked to be tested by the biting cold wind.

"Tut-tut, Aulul is so perverted that he actually came up with this method to test the faith. The style of this female believer's painting is quite exaggerated, and it seems that all the gods like to play this set. ”

The voice was not deliberately muffled, at least Todd and the elder Borg, who were nearby, heard it. The two hurriedly dodged like an electric shock, and looked back at Zhou Qingfeng but there was no.

The dwarf witch doctor scratched his bald head and whispered to Todd, "How can this kid not be struck by lightning when he openly blasphemes in the temple of the Frost Maiden?" ”

Todd shook his head humbly, "I don't know." Probably because he believes in 'Grandpa Mao'. ”

The elder Borg was even more confused.

The orc shrugged, "Victor said that if you believe in 'Grandpa Mao', you will have money, which is probably true."

When I first met him, the boy was so poor that he couldn't even take out a copper plate. But look at how rich he is now. 'Grandpa Mao' must be a powerful divine power. ”

Oh...... old Borg seems to get it. But he still shook his head, "I still have to stay away from this kid in the future, lest he be implicated by lightning." ”

The three of them were muttering nonsense, and hundreds of people were crowding into the hall of the temple.

Old Arad stood on the big platform in the center, holding a riding boot from nowhere, slamming the table hard, and shouting repeatedly: "Silence, silence, you all give me silence!" ”

Hundreds of people didn't pay attention to old Arad, and they continued to quarrel when they should have argued, and the scene was like a vegetable market. The magnates of the city gather here every day to waste time and saliva, and they can't do anything.

This is the Coldwind City that drove away the Longlegs. The magnates, led by Arad the Elder, thought they would be able to make more money, but eventually found that managing a city was more complicated than they thought.

Although he fished out a large amount of real estate left by the Longleg family, the real estate could not be eaten or drunk. Without effective management, it's a pile of dead things.

On the contrary, it was Zhou Qingfeng who pitted the long-legged family and the powerful people in the city, desperately buying materials and population, and making every effort to build the territory.

After about half a year since last winter, more than 5,000 acres of land have been reclaimed by the 'rich and powerful leaders'. When spring arrives, cultivation begins in the territory.

The poor of the Northland were forced to learn how to be farmers.

Erin, the tree spirit, learned scientific farming methods from the real world, and got a lot of good seeds.

The first crop of fast-growing vegetables has been harvested and marketed. The first soybeans are also growing well, and the oil can be extracted after two months. Wait until June to plant winter wheat.

On the other hand, the magnates in the city did nothing all winter, and sat back and watched the slaves on their farms starve to death and freeze to death. For them, it's an annual occurrence, and it's not unusual.

Even because of the departure of the Longleg family and the containment of the 'rich and powerful leaders', most of the poor ghosts who died last winter were reduced, and there was no need to expand the cemetery.

By the way, because Faerun's calendar is too confusing. Zhou Qingfeng simply used the time when he arrived in the other world as the first year, and asked Shumei Sophia to recompile a set of chronicles.

It is now the middle of April of the first year of the new calendar.

Without the Longlegs Family, Coldwind City has become a city of utter chaos, with the lords of each family autonomous.

It sounds like living an unrelated life, and no one is in the way. But without the real ruler, the contradictions among the elites soon became extremely acute.

None of the families are good at stubble, and they have been fighting among themselves several times, with more dead people and more money lost than the Longlegs family in order to drive them out.

Old Arad realized that the situation was getting worse and that he had to come up with a ruling body to manage the city and deal with the contradictions. Thereupon......

The Coldwind Council has appeared.

It is also divided into the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Old Arad was elected Speaker by the crowd, and every day he knocked on the stage in the Winter Hall with a small hammer and shouted 'Silence'. Today his hammer is gone, and he has found a riding boot instead.

But even if he shouted loudly, none of the nobles in the council listened to him.

The city is governed by taxes, but no one in the council is willing to pay for it. Everyone unanimously decided to collect taxes from the common people in the city, but not only was the money collected not much, but it was corrupted before it entered the treasury.

Collecting taxes is a trivial matter, and the distribution of power is even more troublesome. Everyone wants to be a member of the parliament, and they are desperately forming gangs. As a result, there are meetings every day to discuss the topic, but there is no resolution.

Even if there is a resolution, it is not implemented, everyone wants to take advantage, and there is nothing to satisfy everyone.

Zhou Qingfeng had expected that these powerful people would mess things up, and he didn't come at all during the parliamentary election.

When other powerful people tried their best to fight for a seat in the House of Commons, the elder Arad directly stuffed him with the position of deputy speaker.

"Your Excellency Hugo, you must attend the council."

"I just want to do business, and the 'Harmony Chamber of Commerce' is willing to serve everyone. Parliament, forget it. ”

"No, no, you have to come."

"I'm not good at politics."

"Don't talk nonsense, you have a bad stomach, and you're better at this than anyone else."

Old Arad personally ran three trips to the 'rich and strong leader', so he said that he dragged Zhou Qingfeng out of the mountain.

Now he is the only one who can unite the families of Coldwind City, after all, everyone has to do business with the 'Harmony Chamber of Commerce'.

Zhou Qingfeng came to the Winter Hall today, and only then did he know that there were eight deputy speakers, and this position was not worth anything at all. And he, the deputy speaker, is responsible for the most troublesome work.

"Your Excellency Hugo, your talent in business is recognized by all. So you're in charge of collecting taxes. "The first task that Old Arad gave to Zhou Qingfeng was so difficult.

After all, you can't do anything without money, and no one pays for the tea in the council.

More than 100 magnates used to receive annual income from the Longleg family. But now, whether it is a wizard group or a nobleman, they can only make their own money to support themselves.

If you don't know the price of firewood and rice, some people begin to regret that they shouldn't get rid of the original 'boss'.

As for the matter of collecting taxes, others feel that it is a hot potato, and no one is willing to take over. After all, it's too troublesome to collect money, and it's easy to offend people.

So Zhou Qingfeng reluctantly made it difficult, and took the financial power of Cold Wind City in his hands - this power was still shoehorned in.

After Vice Speaker Zhou came to power, he directly announced that the poll tax would be waived and that the commercial tax would be charged according to the price of goods, with a basic tax rate of 10 percent.

This tax is all collected by the 'Harmony Chamber of Commerce', and anyone who does business with the Chamber of Commerce must pay the tax.

As expected, this resolution was a direct frying pan in the parliament.

Zhou Qingfeng took Todd and the elder Borg to admire the paintings in the Winter Hall, where lawmakers were discussing whether the tax rate was appropriate.

As a result, everyone discussed and discussed, but found that the 'Harmony Chamber of Commerce' had penetrated into all the business activities of Coldwind City.

Financial clamps have been formed. No one wants to withdraw from a convenient and cheap trading system, because the losses are even greater.

As a result, the upper and lower legislators have launched bills to demand tax exemption for the aristocracy. Zhou Qingfeng directly refused - the official gentry paid the grain in one piece, and no one wanted to run.

On the contrary, the poor in the city can get relief, and they have no money anyway.

When they found out that they had to pay taxes on every transaction, the parliamentarians died of pain.

On the same day, more than half of the parliamentarians collectively demanded the removal of Victor. Hugo's position as deputy speaker of parliament - the recall was very successful, and Zhou Qingfeng patted his ass and left.

It's just that after arguing for another three days, the old Arad with a bag on his head went to the 'rich and strong leader' to invite Zhou Qingfeng, Your Excellency Hugo, it seems that you can only do the tax collection.

It's really not good to have no money!