Surviving in the chaos of war begins in the wilderness.

The more they talked, the more astonished Senior Sister Weiwei became. Zhou Ye's foundation in internal energy cultivation was simply too solid. In some aspects, it even offered inspiration to Senior Sister Weiwei, a master of external energy cultivation.

To be honest, there's nothing strange about it.

Without a doubt, Senior Sister Weiwei is definitely a little genius. What difficulty would breaking through to the next level be for her? Isn't it just like eating and sleeping? She can easily achieve that with a little practice?

But Zhou Ye truly took it one step at a time. Even if one certificate is permanent, it still requires hard work, right? Coupled with the constant corrections on the control panel, he has almost reached perfection in both theory and practice.

At this moment, Senior Sister Weiwei looked at him with newfound respect. She exclaimed, "Ah Ye, no wonder Master Du recommended you. I'll leave it to you then, as for the expenses..."

"Senior Sister Weiwei, you're putting me in a bad light," Zhou Ye quickly said with a smile. "I can't guarantee I can help your brother either. Besides, we're from the same sect, so we should help each other out. Let's not talk about money, let's talk about our friendship!"

Senior Sister Weiwei covered her mouth and laughed. She wasn't one to mince words: "Little brat, trying to learn bad habits? All you do is talk nonsense? Ah Ye, are you free lately? How about tomorrow?"

"Sure. Senior, just give me an address. I'll definitely be there on time."

Anyway, Zhou Ye hadn't had much to do these past few months besides practicing martial arts. Since he was free anyway, he figured he might as well go check it out.

As they spoke, the engagement ceremony began on time. Seeing Song Zhongqi and Du Juan take the stage together to pay their respects drew thunderous applause. The two looked like a perfect couple, a truly beautiful pair…

Today's banquet was equally lavish. Aside from the absence of demon beast meat, almost all the other precious dishes were served. Zhou Ye even noticed that each table had a large sea fish?

It's important to understand that Fufeng County isn't located by the sea. Transporting seafood here would be incredibly costly. In fact, the price is almost the same as that of monster meat.

Zhou Ye suddenly remembered hearing that several counties in the prefecture had been hit by locust plagues again this year, causing grain prices to skyrocket to around 25 wen per jin. That's almost four times the price when he first arrived in the prefecture.

But here, the singing and dancing continue, and people are indulging in revelry, seemingly unaffected at all.

Forget about being so pessimistic. To be honest, I've also benefited quite a bit from this wave of grain price increases.

Take those salted fish and meat, for example. By breaking them down into smaller portions, Zhou Ye sold over 10,000 jin (5,000 kg) at the mountain market these past few days. Unexpectedly, he earned over 2400 liang (1000 grams) this time, with the price increasing several times over.

This left Zhou Ye somewhat dumbfounded. If things continued like this, wouldn't he soon have ten thousand taels of silver? In other words, a vast fortune?

Who would have thought that practicing martial arts in the world of martial arts would lead to becoming a millionaire?

Of course, this money was kept on hand for emergencies.

Right now, a mid-grade Qi and Blood Pill plus a piece of your beloved meat would cost around a hundred taels of silver per month. Tell me, can an ordinary family afford that? Even the very wealthy would find it extremely difficult.

Once one reaches the Mingjin stage, the resources required will increase exponentially. Even with a vast fortune, it won't last many years.

So, if you consider it that way, this amount of money isn't actually that much.

No wonder practicing martial arts is so difficult. There's a saying: "The poor study literature, the rich study martial arts!"

And so, Zhou Ye chatted and laughed with Senior Sister Weiwei while drinking and eating meat, thoroughly enjoying himself.

To be honest, Zhou Ye didn't know many of the guests here. Apart from the senior brothers and sisters from the inner courtyard, the outer courtyard disciples had basically changed several times over.

Including Zhou Ye's group, most of them... failed to enter the realm of internal energy and left the martial arts school. Even those who succeeded in entering the realm of internal energy mostly went out to take up temporary positions.

Thinking back to Xu Feng, Cheng Jianghe's little group feels like it was just yesterday. Now, those immature teenagers are starting to get a taste of reality... right?

But just then, a burly young man suddenly jumped out from the table of outer courtyard disciples. He seemed to be quite drunk, and shouted in grief and indignation, "Junior Sister! Don't you know my feelings? My heart is truly with you—!"

(⊙ˍ⊙)(⊙ˍ⊙)(⊙ˍ⊙)……

Everyone's spirits lifted! Could someone else be coming to cause trouble today?

Actually, no outer court disciples were invited today. Someone like Zhou Ye is a special case; he's slated to be Du Juan's lackey! *cough cough*

Therefore, the disciples from the outer academy who were invited to participate in the engagement ceremony must have come from relatively good family backgrounds.

Under Zhou Ye's questioning gaze, Senior Sister Weiwei, with a gossipy and excited expression, whispered enthusiastically, "His name is Zhang Hu, and his father is a thousand-man general in the Crimson Profound Army. He's been quite interested in Junior Sister ever since he joined the martial arts school!"

Zhou Ye nodded. In the army of the prefecture city, the highest-ranking officer was the garrison general, under whom were two guerrilla generals and dozens of commanders of a thousand men. They were considered mid-to-high-ranking officers, belonging to the category of relatively large military leaders.

Zhou Ye was puzzled: "A general of a thousand men? Why would Zhang Hu come to our Fenglei Martial Arts School? With his father's influence, he could probably choose any martial arts school in the inner city, right?"

"I heard he fell in love with his junior sister at first sight. He kept pestering his father to let him come to our martial arts school."

Well! The teenagers here are terrifying. They've already learned to be jealous and competitive at such a young age.

Of course, while everyone else was just watching the drama unfold, the main character of today was rather embarrassed.

Du Juan's pretty face was already filled with embarrassment. Song Zhongqi's expression, however, was as cold as ice: "Zhang Hu, what do you mean?"

"Song Zhongqi, you're just relying on your dad, aren't you? You call yourself one of the Ten Talents of Fufeng? I challenge you."

"Huh? Aren't you childish? You've just entered the Jin stage, while I've already reached the Ming Jin stage. I have no interest in bullying the weak."

"You think your fancy moves are enough? I could knock you down with one punch..."

"..."

Seeing that the scene was becoming increasingly chaotic, Du Keyuan quickly gave Han Guang and his disciples a meaningful look: "Zhang Hu, you're drunk. Take him out and sober him up!"

Han Guang and the others also grabbed Zhang Hu and quickly persuaded him to leave the martial arts school.

Holding Zhang Hu hostage by several Ming Jin masters, he was utterly unable to offer any resistance. Yet he continued to struggle, shouting, "Junior Sister! You must wait for me! You must wait for me! Don't underestimate a young man's potential! I will definitely return—!"

Zhou Ye was utterly speechless. Where did this awful dialogue come from? Did they get the wrong script? The beginning involves a broken engagement, so is this Junior Brother Zhang Hu the real protagonist?

However, with Zhang Hu's departure, the engagement ceremony quickly returned to normal...