The principle was the same as modern society's nouveau riche and moneyed playboys flashing gold and using a barrage of cash to conquer gold-digging women: whatever you liked, I displayed. Simple, yet damn effective.
After going through all that, Ding Yuqin no longer harbored the slightest doubt about Meng Zhao's strength.
Setting everything else aside, what she had just seen atop that hill was merely one battalion of troops—a training display of five thousand men. Yet the army Meng Zhao now commanded numbered fifty thousand. No, fifty thousand was only the number in the open; in secret, it far exceeded that figure.
After all, there were another ten thousand auxiliary troops scarcely inferior to regular soldiers, as well as numerous Meng Family Warriors and martial artists under the command of forces that had bowed their heads to Meng Zhao.
By comparison, aside from possessing formidable martial arts, Dragon City simply was not a figure on the same level as Meng Zhao.
Ding Yuqin hesitated no longer and said decisively,
"Fine. Since you put it that way, I'll follow you to the end. But you must resolve the problem with my reputation."
This was also Ding Yuqin's sole concern. A reputation could save someone or kill someone; it could forge a great cause, or cast someone into eternal damnation.
Her reputation was already far from good. The emotional entanglement between Zhuo Mufeng and Dragon City alone had left stains on her name that were difficult to wash away. In many people's eyes, she was a shameless woman, vain and greedy for wealth, one who despised the poor and favored the rich.
Though this was a high-martial world, though women here enjoyed a certain degree of tolerance, that did not mean it was truly like the modern society of Meng Zhao's previous