In the blink of an eye, ten years had passed.
Perhaps it was because they lived close to the source, or perhaps they had benefited from the Flame God Cult's thoughtful care and all the perks that reached them first. Whatever the reason, Shengyu Village had become the best-off and most prosperous village within hundreds of miles of Yuhang County—and there was no contest!
Every household here lived in a spacious mansion with green tiles and gray bricks. They had oxen, donkeys, and wooden boats; they drank wine with every meal and ate meat with every stew. Their lives couldn't have been more comfortable.
As a result, the young men of Shengyu Village had become the most sought-after husbands in all the neighboring villages.
Even the Zhang family's fourth son, once a burly, straightforward, honest, and hardworking fellow who could only fish to make a living, and whom everyone had assumed would amount to the least, had moved into a three-courtyard mansion years ago. He'd taken three wives and fathered a full dozen children in ten years. His family had grown quite prosperous!
As for the Flame God Cult, its fortunes were even more remarkable.
Ten years ago, Lin Yueru, Wang Xiaohu, and the others had dug their way out of the lowest level of the Demon Locking Tower. They'd brought Su Mei and Jiang Wan'er, a human-demon hybrid, out in a Qiankun Bag, and made Jiang Wan'er the Flame God Cult's ninth disciple—its final disciple. After that, their master, the Flame Immortal, had stopped taking on new disciples.
From that time onward, the Flame Immortal had gone into seclusion at the sect's headquarters and had never appeared in public again.
In the mere ten years since then, the Flame God Cult had produced talent after talent and had already