SBCEJM -Chapter 274 The “Village Emperor Dowager” and His “Phoenix Attraction Plan”!

【The paradise created by the Emperor Dowager naturally couldn’t be a monastery full of monks.】

The system’s tone carried a strange hint of approval.

【Even though he turned his sons into farmers, when it came to continuing the family line, the old man still had a bit of humanity left in him.】

【At the beginning, everything was difficult.】

【A group of imperial princes, deep in the mountains, living like wild men—clearing land, building houses, channeling water streams…】

【Once the village finally started to look halfway decent, the Emperor Dowager summoned his seventeen sun-darkened “good sons” for a family expansion meeting.】

【The core agenda was only one thing—】

【How to solve the marriage problem of these overage single princes.】

On the Golden Luan Hall, all civil and military officials were shaken.

Was this kind of private royal meeting really something they were allowed to hear for free?

Several ministers secretly glanced toward the dragon throne.

They saw Emperor Xiao Juechen wearing a strange expression, as if imagining his once-untouchable brothers squatting in the fields holding a meeting.

【The Emperor Dowager first asked about the princes who had already been married before their “disappearance.”】

【Should their legitimate wives be brought over to build a beautiful shared homeland?】

【The idea sounded quite tempting.】

【By then, those princes had already lost all their former arrogance.】

【Their hands—once disgusted by the smell of ink when holding a brush—were now covered in calluses, their muscles nearly bursting through coarse cloth robes.】

【Life in the mountains was dull beyond measure. Their greatest joy was gathering every few days to compare who raised the fattest pig, or whose pumpkin was the largest…】

On the court, many officials’ mouths twitched.

Princes… gathering together… discussing pigs?

Discussing pumpkins?

The mental image was too beautiful—they couldn’t bear to look directly at it!

【When the princes heard they could bring their wives over, they were so excited their eyes filled with tears.】

【Especially the Seventh Prince, once the apple of the Empress Dowager’s eye.】

【He waved his arm—now thick enough to carry a 300-jin live pig—and boomed:】

【“Father! If we’re bringing people over, can we also bring all eighteen of my concubines? We’re short on labor for land reclamation!”】

Many officials with multiple wives and concubines silently nodded.

The Seventh Prince had vision—truly enlightened!

More people meant more strength. No problem with that logic.

【But the Emperor Dowager didn’t even lift his eyelids.】

【He immediately shut him down.】

【“What nonsense are you thinking? We are now a humble farming class!”】

【“We’re already villagers and you still want three wives and four concubines? Our village doesn’t support idlers! Each household quota is one person only!”】

【“And let me be clear—if the other party is unwilling to come suffer, we will not force them.”】

In her mind, Feng Zexuan applauded wildly.

【So clear-headed!】

【The Emperor Dowager has truly awakened!】

【This is like that classic modern death-question: I’m bankrupt and drowning in debt—are you willing to give up your BMW and go beg with me?】

【Any woman with even a slightly normal brain would run away overnight with a standing train ticket.】

The officials agreed deeply.

Give up their current positions and wealth to farm in the mountains?

Not a chance.

Feng Zekai’s thoughts, however, drifted away.

If one day he could live with his family and sister in a peaceful place, working at sunrise and resting at sunset…

It didn’t seem… completely unacceptable.

【The princes had no choice but to painfully write down the names of the women they most wanted to bring back.】

【To prevent “failed recruitment,” the Emperor Dowager even made them write secondary and tertiary backup choices.】

【Once the lists were collected, the secret guards were dispatched back to the capital as persuaders.】

【And the result?】

Feng Zexuan’s curiosity was about to explode.

The system let out a merciless laugh.

【Heh heh—total failure.】

【The secret guards practically wore out their tongues trying to sell the poor mountain village as a heavenly paradise.】

【But the pampered princesses and noble ladies in the capital looked at them like they were fools.】

【One princess even agreed on the spot.】

【But as soon as the guards left, she packed her valuables overnight and ran back to her parents’ home, leaving a message:】

【“Don’t come again. I’m going to pursue my second spring. Since your dead husband is still alive, let him farm properly!”】

【Hahahaha, too tragic! What a human disaster!】

Feng Zexuan burst into laughter.

The civil and military officials were red-faced, struggling to hold back their laughter.

【In the end, this grand “recruitment special forces team” only brought back two women.】

【These two were low-born concubines who had been bullied in their original estates.】

【They figured: staying in the capital meant suffering anyway, so they might as well take a gamble in the mountains—at least they could become legitimate wives in charge.】

【Out of a hundred-plus men, only two successfully got partners.】

【A drop in the ocean—barely even enough to cover the shortage.】

【The Emperor Dowager looked at his village full of single sons and didn’t sleep well for three days straight.】

【In the end, this former ruler of the realm gritted his teeth and slammed the table.】

【He formulated a century-defining grand strategy for the village—“The Phoenix Attraction Plan”!】

【Phoenix attraction?】

A giant question mark popped up in Feng Zexuan’s mind.

The system’s tone suddenly became enthusiastic, as if announcing a grand business proposal.

【This was a high-end talent recruitment strategy targeting the common people!】

【This time, the Emperor Dowager had learned his lesson.】

【He no longer wanted delicate, sentimental noble ladies who couldn’t lift a finger and only knew how to sigh over spring and sorrow over autumn.】

【He wanted craftsmen! Heroic women! Real doers who could hold up half the sky!】

Princess Sima Mingyue suddenly raised her head, eyes shining.

This selection criteria—this was exactly her dream village!

【The Emperor Dowager sent out dozens of elite secret guards.】

【They disguised themselves as merchant caravans and wandering warriors, infiltrating all corners of the empire.】

【They didn’t kidnap people—they specialized in “painting a future” and “headhunting.”】

【They even had detailed KPI performance evaluations!】

【Over the past fifteen years, the results were brilliant!】

【They successfully “persuaded”… ahem, recruited more than thirty top-tier female experts.】

【A female blacksmith capable of forging divine weapons with an 80-jin hammer.】

【A female physician who could stitch the dead back to life.】

【A beast tamer who could command wolves with a whistle.】

【And even a genius explosives engineer wanted by the authorities after blowing up her own house while researching gunpowder!】

In the Golden Luan Hall, officials looked at each other in disbelief.

This wasn’t matchmaking.

This was assembling an elite superhero squad.

Minister of Revenue, Chu Heng, silently did some calculations in his head.

These people—if placed in the Ministry of Works or Imperial Medical Bureau—would be national treasures.

And yet they were all recruited to a mountain village as daughters-in-law?

【But even that wasn’t enough.】

【To expand the population base, the Emperor Dowager went completely wild.】

【He encouraged secret agents to bring over eligible female relatives from their hometowns.】

【Thus, the situation took a bizarre turn.】

【The once high-and-mighty princes had to lower themselves completely for marriage.】

【They began desperately pleasing the secret guards they once wouldn’t even glance at.】

【Want a wife? Fine—first pass the brother-in-law test!】

Feng Zekai lowered his head, hiding the corners of his mouth that kept twitching upward.

The imagery was just too strong.

Crown Prince Xiao Mingxuan already imagined proud royal uncles carrying two old hens, smiling obsequiously while massaging a guard captain’s legs.

Too funny!

【But then—here came the problem.】

Feng Zexuan immediately caught the flaw.

【With thirty-plus capable women recruited, plus some relatives of the guards, there were only about fifty or sixty women in total.】

【But the village had over a hundred men, including the seventeen princes and the secret guards!】

【This imbalance of supply and demand was even worse than before!】

【Those talented women had extremely high standards.】

【There was no way the princes could compete fairly with the secret guards.】

【If it came down to fighting for spouses…】

Feng Zexuan imagined the princes drained by farm work, then looked at the battle-hardened secret guards.

【Those princes were basically doomed to stay single!】

【Could the Emperor Dowager, such a shrewd man, really not foresee this?】

The system chuckled darkly.

【This is where the most exciting part begins!】

【To ensure fairness and maintain harmony in the village…】

【The Emperor Dowager came up with a jaw-dropping system—】

【The “Blind Match Competitive Hiring System”!】