Master of Strange Dao

Emperor Kuihou of Kuihou Country felt as if he had obtained a treasure, both shocked and delighted.

In fact, he had wanted something similar for quite a long time.

He had even specifically donated a hefty sum to the Langya Institute, hoping they could develop something.

The Langya Institute did indeed come up with something similar, but it had significant range limitations, high consumption, particularly high costs, and most importantly, the sound and image distortion were severe, making it vastly different from the real scene.

The magical treasures that solely stored sounds, and those that imprinted images, had always existed, though they were quite expensive and had significant limitations.

Take the Imprint Stone, for instance, it lasted at most for the duration of half-an-incense burning.

And after increasing the duration, for every doubling of time, the cost skyrocketed exponentially.

Furthermore, the Imprint Stone had a limitation on the number of times the recorded imagery could be played, overall, the limitations were substantial.

Most cultivators did not have such excessive money to burn on these items.

Not to mention spending even more money for the content within an Imprint Stone plus another Imprint Stone.

In this world, the majority were still low-tier cultivators. It was not an exaggeration to say that cultivators below the fourth-tier constituted ninety-nine percent of all cultivators, and this might still be an understatement.

In comparison to the number of cultivators, the number of ordinary people far exceeded that of cultivators by several orders of magnitude.

This Jade Tablet had minimal consumption. After personally experimenting, Emperor Kuihou found that a typical, standard-sized Spirit Jade could continuously operate for three days, and yet less than ten percent of the Spirit Jade's power was consumed.

With such low consumption, even a first-tier cultivator, unless terribly poor and stingy, could probably afford it.

And the price of the Jade Tablet itself was merely thirty Spirit Jades.

Simply... shockingly insane.

This price definitely didn't even cover the cost.

Even if the Jade Pillar sold for thirty thousand, a frequency band's annual rent for the first ten years also demanded thirty thousand a year.

It was definitely a major loss.

Emperor Kuihou didn't know the term "market capturing," but he understood that once this item became popular, this type of Jade Tablet would be the only one available on the market.

The material of the Jade Tablet might be ordinary, but with such a cheap price, there was nothing else to discuss.

The technological content alone far surpassed thirty Spirit Jades.

He took this matter very seriously and personally arranged for people to conduct various tests.

From how long a Spirit Jade could last to how far it could still clearly receive sound, the testing was done with even more care than Yu Ziqing had shown.

After personal testing, it was basically confirmed that between the Jade Pillar and the Jade Tablet, even over tens of thousands of miles, there was no effect, identical to short distances.

The consumption was virtually the same as well.

He could not understand why such a powerful magical treasure was sold so cheaply, let alone why it was casually sold in the market—he was baffled.

But he knew it was far better than what he had envisioned; he felt like he already saw the day when the nine-floor brothel would be completed.

Rumors had always persisted outside that Kuihou Country was a brothel disguised as a small country.

Every single time, he wanted to personally dispel the rumor, but this was not a rumor—it was true.

He had no interest in managing a country, nor did his ancestors. Unintentionally, they had become Kuihou Country, and there was nothing they could do about it.

The most crucial reason was that both Dali and Daqian needed some small countries sandwiched between them as buffer zones.

Caught between these two Divine Dynasties, one could offend neither, and in the end, to hell with it, just lie flat and peacefully manage the brothel business.

Thus, they remained securely steady, generation after generation.

The small countries between Dali and Daqian have, for thousands of years, been the only ones standing untoppled, with neither coups nor usurpations by treacherous officials—only Kuihou Country.

It's said that Kuihou Country is a mess, housing all sorts of characters and ghosts.

However, the Emperor of Kuihou was very clear; he was solely focused on managing brothels aside from making money and maintaining industrial safety. Concerning everything else as long as it involved money, he barely intervened, which was the best way to stably maintain this strangely stable situation.

He bustled about testing the Jade Tablet, then perused the registries, finding various practitioners recorded within Kuihou Country.

The domestic registration policy in Kuihou Country was almost nonexistent, but the registry of brothel practitioners was always very complete.

On the register, every Oiran's name, strengths, characteristics were recorded, and someone even specially created their portraits.

Soon, he found many who might not have standout looks but had pleasant voices, were adept at handling affairs, and had exceptional talents.

In Kuihou Country, the competition among Oiran was extremely fierce. Those who stood out here, whether going to Dali or Daqian, would surely become the hottest Oiran in the local brothels.

Every year, the Oiran who couldn't rank at the top were numerous, many of whom turned to teaching or worked behind the scenes.

In terms of professional skills, publicly glamorous Oiran might not necessarily surpass these individuals.

Now, if the sales route for the Jade Tablet were to open up and become fashionable, it wasn't necessarily just those most famous Oiran who were needed.

Not looking at the person, but only listening to the voice to judge the good and the bad, indeed, there were those with better skills.

This was akin to suddenly having a large group of Oiran at their disposal.

Emperor Kuihou, busy with experiments day by day, became increasingly restless, his thoughts difficult to calm down.

"Yan."

With a soft mention by Emperor Kuihou, a streak of red flashed and landed before him.

A woman with her hair up, dressed in a red gown, with eyes like seductive silk and a trace of red blush on her face, slightly bowed.

"What orders do you have, Your Highness?"