"Hey, hey, hey, Jia Wenhe, are you planning to break your promises and gain weight? You've gotten chubby lately!" Chen Xi looked at Jia Xu with his beard blowing and eyes glaring, and immediately commented disapprovingly.

"Me, breaking promises and gaining weight?" Jia Xu's face involuntarily elongated, his expression soured, and even after Chen Xi's teasing, he felt it was meaningless. After cursing silently, he sat down and continued working, finding it truly pointless.

Seeing Jia Xu starting to work again, Chen Xi felt much more satisfied. It's great that everyone is working so hard, overworked to the point of headaches, leaving no energy for scheming. You see, wasn't Cheng Yu butting heads with Chen Gong before? But now, they're so busy they don't even have the mood for sarcasm.

Moreover, Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong, who usually can't meet without throwing sarcastic remarks, have been working overtime for ten days straight. These two aren't quarreling anymore, and even if they were, they don't have the same energy as at the start. See, overtime really benefits social harmony.

Chen Xi continued to lounge sideways, starting to reach for food on the desk. As he ate, his left hand felt empty plates when probing both sides, so he sat up directly, assuming a ceremonious demeanor, lightly coughed twice, "How are today's progress, everyone?"

This group of people have gotten used to Chen Xi's style over this period, so when they heard him ask this, they all ignored him, kept working, and only raised their heads after reaching a node. Seeing the desk full of empty plates, they all knew it was time for lunch.

Xun Youi protractedly stretched, with several parts of his body cracking audibly, others did the same, highlighting the biggest problem with desk work.

"I can probably finish in about ten days." Xun Yu silently estimated and then spoke. He doesn't advocate overtime for administrative tasks but won't refuse it when necessary, making his progress relatively fast.

"I might need more time." Chen Qun smiled wryly, just like Xun Yu, he doesn't promote overtime but still has to work overtime when necessary, yet he can't finish his tasks.

"Six days, around six more days, and we can be done." Zhuge Liang said while sporting two dull panda eyes. Unfortunately, Zhuge Liang is an overtime fanatic, and Pang Tong just won't concede. Zhuge Liang works until the small hours, and Pang Tong is sure to follow, and with the leader working like this, others can only grit their teeth and keep up.

As a result, Zhuge Liang's group has been forced not to sleep much, working overtime crazily. Luckily, the civil officials Chen Xi arranged for this group are either not overly ambitious or possess considerable martial arts skills, so they're totally fine, albeit indeed it's quite tough.

Chen Xi nodded in satisfaction at Zhuge Liang and then turned towards Xun Yu and Chen Qun, both smiling bitterly. Their work inherently requires meticulousness and mental dexterity, and both are over thirty, unlike Zhuge Liang's group. Moreover, each of their groups had someone slacking and ruining the atmosphere, making Xun Yu and Chen Qun unable to work overtime as long, as even a single person's departure can shake the morale.

This led to Xun Yu and Chen Qun's limited overtime capability. As for Fa Zheng in Zhuge Liang's group, he did want to run but hadn't stooped to Jia Xu and Guo Jia's levels yet.

"Alright, these things aren't significant. I wonder what we're having for lunch. Always staying here feels like we're eating through our reserves or something," Chen Xi said unhappily.

Even if Liu Bei is wealthy, supplying meat daily to a two-hundred-thousand army isn't feasible. They can afford to be generous before the war but can't spend like this post-war. And it's true, Liu Bei hasn't stored enough meat even if he has some left, it would be painful to use it all up. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

When Liu Bei secretly told Chen Xi about this, Chen Xi remained unmoved, even feeling a bit amused. Previously, when telling Liu Bei about building large-scale fishing boats to catch sea fish, Liu Bei didn't listen and instead fortified the Navy with the boats. Navy doesn't lack ships but manpower!

As a result, the Navy had few soldiers, and what's the point in having over thirty sixth-generation warships? Previously, they thought warships were easy to sell, but after building thirty extra ships, Gan Ning couldn't even outfit them, nor could they be sold to others, leaving them in Lul Family's hands.

Afterwards, with Gan Ning not returning for a while, Lul Jun could only mortgage the ships to Chen Xi's Money Exchange and get a big amount of money to focus on his seventh-generation ship, after Liu Bei assured Lul Jun the money wasn't an issue if the ship was good, and he'd back him up.

Believing those words, Lul Jun naturally started developing his Seventh Generation Ship, and with no interest in producing merchant or fishing ships—building ships, large ones especially, was purely a hobby for him.

It's said that only those well-fed, well-clothed, with nothing to do like nobles in ancient times had the time and energy to study things of no practical value then.

If he continued building sixth generation ships, people would be available to construct large fishing boats. However, Lul Jun invested money to build the seventh generation ship, claiming to refine it meticulously and achieve perfection, requiring skilled workers in both research and construction, making it impossible to build large fishing boats.