Chapter 64: The Saintess Innovates, and the Miners Are Dumbfounded!
Murong Xue felt as if she were being roasted over a fire.
Chu Feng’s words were simply too venomous.
Not only did he casually dissolve all the accusations she had thrown at him, but he even turned around and crowned her with the glorious titles of “Partner” and “Pragmatist.” Then, without missing a beat, he tossed the burning hot potato right back into her hands.
What kind of solution could I possibly come up with?
Murong Xue’s mind was a complete blank.
In her world, things were simple—right was right, wrong was wrong.
If there was danger, work should stop; if workers were being exploited, that was wrong. Since when did “balance” and “compromise” become acceptable excuses?
Yet reality told her that her black-and-white philosophy simply didn’t work in the mining zone.
If she halted operations, the miners would lose their bonuses. Even if they said nothing, resentment would inevitably fester in their hearts.
If she ignored it, however, then she would be treating human lives as playthings—and her own Dao heart would never let her pass that test.
Only now did she truly understand the torment that unlucky Director Zhao Wuji had to face every day.
“What’s wrong? Our Chief Risk Control Officer has been stumped?”
Chu Feng’s voice drifted through the air, calm yet laced with just the right hint of provocation.
“I thought that a top student from the Heavenheart Holy Land was omnipotent. It seems solving real problems isn’t quite the same as reciting scriptures in the Holy Land.”
“Who said I’m stumped?!”
Murong Xue bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her fury ignited in an instant.
The one thing she couldn’t stand was having her ability questioned—especially by him, the “demonic schemer” in her eyes!
“You—”
She regretted speaking the moment the word left her lips.
Hadn’t she just fallen right into his trap again?
Chu Feng’s smile deepened.
“Oh? Then let’s hear it. I’m quite eager to see what kind of revolutionary innovation Chairwoman Murong can bring to our Group’s management system.”
“I... I need time!”
Murong Xue gritted her teeth, forcing herself to find a step down from the stage.
“This is a serious issue! How could it be solved in a few sentences? I need to return, thoroughly study the mining area’s production processes and existing regulations, and then develop a complete plan!”
“Excellent!”
Chu Feng clapped his hands, his expression magnanimous.
“No problem! I’ll give you three days! In those three days, you may freely access all records in the mining zone and speak to anyone you wish. Every department of the Group will fully cooperate with you!”
He paused briefly before adding, as though sprinkling salt onto her wound:
“Of course, during these three days, all the losses from the shutdown of Mine No.3—as well as the miners’ lost bonuses—will be included in your project cost. I hope our Chief Risk Control Officer can produce a plan with a sufficiently high cost-performance ratio.”
Murong Xue’s silver teeth nearly cracked under the pressure of her bite.
She felt like the Monkey King trapped under the Buddha’s Five Fingers—no matter how she struggled, she could never escape Chu Feng’s grasp.
“You just wait!”
She spat out the three words through clenched teeth, then turned into a streak of sword light and flew off.
This time, however, her departing aura was no longer filled with the righteous fury of someone “coming to demand justice.” Instead, it carried a heavy mix of indignation and stubborn resolve—a refusal to admit defeat.
——
For the next two days, Murong Xue locked herself in the temporary “Chief Risk Control Officer’s Office” that the mining zone had prepared for her.
She worked like a student preparing for the biggest exam of her life—sleepless, tireless, and wholly absorbed.
She read the “Employee Handbook,” the very document she had once despised, more than twenty times, pondering each line carefully.
She called for the last three months’ production reports, accident records, material consumption logs, and financial ledgers of the mine...
At first, all these documents seemed unbearably dull and reeking of coppery greed.
But gradually—she became immersed.
Her “Dao heart of clarity,” the seven-aperture exquisite heart, began to reveal its brilliance among those cold numbers and regulations.
She discovered that although Chu Feng’s system was riddled with traps and manipulative calculations of human nature, its inner logic was like that of a perfectly calibrated machine—each part tightly interlocked and impeccably precise.
Bonuses were tied to KPIs, KPIs to output, and output was connected to tools, safety, and morale.
Pull one thread, and the entire web would shift.
She realized that trying to forcibly reform this “machine” using her idealistic “Righteous Path philosophy” would only jam or even destroy it.
The only way forward—was to master its rules, and then use those same rules to defeat it. Or rather... to improve it!
——
On the morning of the third day,
Murong Xue walked out of the office with faint dark circles beneath her eyes. The confusion and anger that had once clouded her gaze were gone, replaced by a focus and clarity sharper than ever before.
She went straight to Chu Feng and placed a jade slip inscribed with spiritual energy onto his desk. The title carved upon it read:
“Innovative Proposal on Establishing a Safety Production Incentive and Risk Hedging Mechanism.”
Chu Feng picked it up, his divine sense delving into it. The more he read, the wider his smile grew.
This proposal was nothing short of a masterpiece.
Murong Xue’s core idea was not to deny the existing KPI system but to add a new, quantifiable “Safety KPI” alongside the “Production KPI”!
Her proposal centered on three key points:
First: Establish a “Safety Patrol Team.”
Select experienced and responsible miners from within, provide them with extra stipends, and assign them to handle daily inspections—delegating “supervisory” responsibility back to the employees themselves.
Second: Implement a “Safety Innovation Reward.”
Any worker who discovered potential hazards and proposed constructive, cost-effective solutions would receive generous Contribution Points once their idea was adopted. Thus, every miner would effectively become a “Safety Officer.”
Third—and most crucially: Reform the bonus calculation model!
Bonuses would no longer be tied solely to “Production KPI,” but to a weighted average of both “Production KPI” and “Safety KPI” (measured by “duration of continuous accident-free production”).
This meant that without safety, even high output would yield drastically reduced bonuses.
Conversely, if safety was well maintained, slight fluctuations in output would not harm the bonus pool.
This combination directly transformed “safety” and “profit” from opposites into complementary forces—two sides of the same coin!
“Genius! You’re an absolute management genius!”
Chu Feng finished reading and showered her with open praise.
He knew that this sharpest spear, in her attempt to pierce his shield, had unknowingly become part of it—indeed, the strongest part of it.
“Enough nonsense.”
Murong Xue’s tone was cool. “I only ask one thing—will you approve this proposal or not?”
“Approve? Of course, approve!”
Chu Feng laughed heartily. “Not only that, I’ll issue an ‘Outstanding Innovation Contribution Award’ to you in the name of the Group!”
That very afternoon, a new red-headed official document was distributed throughout the mining zone.
When Zhao Wuji and all the miners saw the new “regulations” personally formulated by their Saintess supervisor—rules even more intricate and precise than Chu Feng’s original system—
Everyone was dumbfounded.
They looked at one another in utter bewilderment, the same thought flashing through every mind:
This Saintess Her Highness... could she be President Chu’s long-lost junior sister?
Their methods are exactly the same!