363: Chapter 363 A Gold Ingot Falls from the Sky

"Manager Cheng, let's get in the car." Mayor Hou Zhongxiang made a "please" gesture.

Cheng Jin and Mayor Hou Zhongxiang sat in the back of one car, with a bodyguard in the front seat as an escort. The other three bodyguards got into another car.

In just over ten minutes, the group arrived at the Settlement Command HQ.

Inside the Mayor's office.

"Manager Cheng, is there something specific the Huatong Chamber of Commerce sent you here for?" Mayor Hou Zhongxiang asked.

"It's like this, our Chamber of Commerce plans to establish a branch in Longnan City. I wonder if Mayor Hou Zhongxiang would agree?" Cheng Jin said.

"Really?" Mayor Hou Zhongxiang was overjoyed.

When he had just seen her outside the city, he had wondered if the Chamber of Commerce was here to establish a branch.

But that thought was fleeting and he quickly dismissed it.

He had known about the second batch of open slots for the Chamber of Commerce early on, but knowing it or not made no difference. Longnan City was far from reaching the level of a third-tier city and simply did not meet the conditions.

"Yes!" Cheng Jin smiled, nodding affirmatively.

"May I ask why you chose us?" Mayor Hou Zhongxiang still found it incredible.

"Because Longnan City's geographical location is quite special. The Chamber of Commerce needs to establish a logistics transit base here, so they sent me to discuss it." Cheng Jin explained.

"Oh, I see! Is it just for a logistics base or..." Mayor Hou Zhongxiang asked tactfully.

"Of course not. We will build a full-function Chamber of Commerce branch and a Mercenary Guild branch here," Cheng Jin explained.

"Good, good, good, I understand. This is good news, I have no problem with it." Mayor Hou Zhongxiang immediately expressed his stance after understanding.

A golden ingot fell from the sky, and he had to pick it up quickly.

"That's great, Mayor Hou Zhongxiang, this is the contract, please take a look." Cheng Jin said, taking a contract from her bag and handing it over.

"Okay!" Mayor Hou Zhongxiang took the contract and looked at it.

Other Settlements had already set a precedent, so he didn't have too many questions. He quickly flipped through it, then took out a pen, signed his name, and then took out the official seal and stamped it.

"Mayor Hou Zhongxiang, don't you need to hold a meeting to discuss it?" Cheng Jin reminded him when she saw him sign it directly.

"Manager Cheng is joking. The people below have been looking forward to this day so much they're almost crazy, only regretting that they didn't have the conditions to attract a golden phoenix. Now that the phoenix has come, how can we let it fly away? Don't you agree?" Mayor Hou Zhongxiang said, blowing on the contract.

"Mayor Hou Zhongxiang is truly humorous." Cheng Jin laughed.

"This is true!" Mayor Hou Zhongxiang handed the contract back.

Cheng Jin took the contract.

"So what do we need to do next?" Mayor Hou Zhongxiang asked.

"After the contract is signed, the Chamber of Commerce will soon send people to inspect the site. You can plan ahead and see where it would be suitable to build the Chamber of Commerce. Other people will follow up on the subsequent matters, so you don't need to worry." Cheng Jin smiled.

...

Without any surprises, the other four negotiation teams also signed the contracts smoothly, without expending any effort.

13:00 PM.

The Binhai Huatong Chamber of Commerce headquarters was already overflowing with people.

As for how the heads of these Settlements arrived so quickly, one can only say that each of the Eight Immortals crossed the sea, showcasing their unique abilities.

The Chamber of Commerce's front desk had prepared registration forms early, and those who came to register had all filled them out in succession.

The receptionists led the people to the waiting area and reassured everyone to wait patiently.

At the same time, staff began to sort through the information.

Logically, with such stringent conditions, there shouldn't have been so many Settlements applying. From the sorted information, it was finally revealed that most cities had multiple Settlements applying simultaneously, and a considerable portion did not meet the conditions.

Many people applied with a 'just in case' attitude, hoping to be selected.

The staff entered the client data into the system, and the screening results quickly appeared, confirming a list of 25 Settlements.

So how were these 25 Settlements selected?

After the data was entered into the system, it was first pre-screened based on the city. Settlements from non-third-tier cities and above would be directly excluded.

Next, a second screening was performed based on the city. If a city already had a cooperative Settlement, then all other Settlements from that city were excluded.

The third step was to exclude Settlements with a population of less than 500,000.

After three steps of screening, those remaining were all qualified.

However, among these qualified Settlements, there was still one situation: each city had multiple applying Settlements. How were they to choose?

The Chamber of Commerce's system was actually controlled by Xiao Lin behind the scenes, so it certainly wouldn't be a random selection.

To improve efficiency, the system first ranked cities based on their distribution area and importance level, selecting the 25 cities with the highest comprehensive index. Once the cities were determined, the Settlement managed by the Mayor was prioritized. If there was no Settlement managed by the Mayor, then the selection was made based on population size.

In this way, the 25 slots were determined in less than a minute.

Aside from data entry, no manual intervention was required throughout the process.