Harvest Beyond Measure!

Inside the room, the thick stench of blood rapidly spread.

Jiang Ye slowly withdrew his fist.

A little warm, viscous fluid clung to his knuckles. He lowered his eyes and glanced at it, his gaze calm and unruffled, as though he had merely gotten some ordinary grime on himself while working—not just blown apart a living man's head.

Perhaps because he had seen too much bloodshed in these troubled times, Jiang Ye, killing for the first time, found his heart incomparably calm.

He flicked his hand. Several drops of still-warm blood were shaken loose by the force, splashing soundlessly onto the floor and blooming into tiny blood plums.

His gaze then swept across the room, calmly searching for the objective of this trip: money!

He first bent down and searched the burly corpse that had already lost its head.

Jiang Ye's movements were practiced and precise. Avoiding the blood, he quickly pulled a heavy gray cloth money pouch and a palm-sized celadon medicine bottle from the man's leather waist pouch and hidden inner pocket.

The money pouch felt rather heavy in his hand and clinked as it moved. It contained broken silver.

Jiang Ye casually set it aside, his attention immediately drawn to the porcelain bottle.

The bottle felt warm and smooth in his hand. Three small characters had been carved onto it in simple strokes—

Blood Replenishing Pill!

Jiang Ye's brows twitched slightly, and a glint flashed through his eyes.

Though he had never used this medicine, he had heard of it at the Martial Academy.

The valued disciples of the Inner Courtyard, especially those like Zhang Xu and Su Yan who came from wealthy families, used this sort of pill in their daily cultivation to quickly replenish depleted blood and qi.

Its efficacy was far beyond the bowl of "Blood Strengthening Soup" he received each day after its portion had been skimmed.

He pulled out the cork sealing the bottle.

At once, a medicinal fragrance several times richer than Blood Strengthening Soup wafted out, carrying a faint sweet-bitter scent. Merely inhaling a trace made the blood and qi in his chest and abdomen stir slightly, refreshing his spirit.

"As expected, it's the real good stuff."

Jiang Ye's eyes lit up.

For someone like him, urgently in need of nourishment for his vital energy, these pills were no less than charcoal in snowy weather.

He tilted the bottle and examined it in the dim lamplight. Inside lay four pills the size of longans, dark red in color with a faint sheen on their surfaces.

"What a pity. Only four left."

Jiang Ye muttered under his breath, quickly corking the bottle and carefully tucking it close against his body.

Then he picked up the gray cloth money pouch, untied its drawstring, and looked inside. It held several dozen taels of broken silver.

Jiang Ye frowned slightly.

The gambling house on Changxing Street raked in money daily. How could Xu Tao, the hall master stationed here, possibly have only this much on him?

He must have hidden most of his wealth elsewhere.

He cast a cold glance at the headless corpse on the floor, then turned and began searching the room.

Jiang Ye's gaze was like that of a hawk, sweeping over every seam in the walls, floor tiles, and furniture. From time to time, his fingers lightly tapped and pressed suspicious spots.

As an old man who had lived seventy years, he knew all too well where people who could not see the light liked to hide their valuables.

A short while later.

His fingers found an exceedingly subtle irregularity at a certain spot along the edge of the thick bedboard against the wall—a section of wood sounded slightly hollow, and the dust along its seams was unevenly distributed.

"Hmm? There's a hidden compartment here."

Jiang Ye exerted a little force with his five fingers.

Crack.

With a soft sound, the hidden compartment broke open.

Jiang Ye reached inside. His fingertips touched cool, smooth paper, and he pulled all of it out, spreading it in his hand.

They were five sturdy, finely printed banknotes. By the flickering lamplight, he could clearly see the vermilion official seals and the black words "One Thousand Taels" on them.

"Five thousand taels!"

Even Jiang Ye, with a heart as steady as a mountain, could not help revealing a trace of wild delight on his aged face as he held this stack of light yet crushingly weighty banknotes.

One had to know that a single tael of silver was enough to cover an ordinary person's monthly food and clothing expenses.

These five thousand taels were enough for him to purchase large quantities of cultivation resources like Blood Replenishing Pills—or even better ones—supporting him as he broke through into Dark Strength and laying a solid foundation of resources for his future assault on the even more profound realm of Transformation Strength.

The resource bottleneck that had troubled him for days had, on this bloody night, been forcibly pried open by such a direct and violent method.

Truly, murder and arson earned golden belts.

Jiang Ye took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the surging emotions in his heart.

This was no place to linger.

He carefully folded the banknotes and hid them close to his body together with the four Blood Replenishing Pills.

Before leaving, Jiang Ye quickly surveyed the room once more, confirming that he had overlooked no other valuables and left behind no traces that might expose his identity.

Just as when he had come, he silently melted into the deep night beyond the door, as though he had never appeared at all.

The night wind howled, carrying away the last faint trace of his presence.

Jiang Ye returned to the Martial Academy gatehouse, but did not sleep.

He took out a Blood Replenishing Pill and slowly swallowed it.

Boom!

The instant the pill entered his stomach, a scorching warm current dissolved within Jiang Ye's abdomen. Its medicinal power was faster and fiercer than Blood Strengthening Soup.

As the medicinal power circulated through his body, Jiang Ye unfolded his stance.

This time, he first assumed the Ape Form Stance.

When he had fought Xu Tao tonight, he had used the ape form's agility to easily evade Xu Tao's fatal strike.

This deepened his understanding of the ape form within the Five Animal Fist by another layer.

As his thoughts turned, he seemed to no longer be inside the cramped gatehouse. In a daze, he stepped into a deep, damp forest of ancient trees.

Vines hung like curtains, and the canopy blotted out the sky and sun, leaving the light murky and dim.

Deep within this forest of consciousness, he "saw" a troop of apes.

They were not playing or frolicking, but engaging in a nearly mysterious form of communication and imitation.

An old ape crouched on a high branch, its body sometimes stretching out like an elder sitting in repose, sometimes curling up like a stubborn stone.

The muscles and bones of its face could actually squirm and adjust minutely with its emotions and surroundings, causing its expression to shift between majesty, kindness, innocence, and vigilance, impossible to fathom.

The younger apes beside it strove to imitate these changes. They twisted their necks, contracted their cheekbones, and stretched their jaws, as though their flesh and bones were dough that could be kneaded at will.

An ancient saying went: the ape connects a hundred apertures; its form turns with its thoughts!

An insight seemingly born from ancient, savage wilderness slithered into his sea of consciousness like a Spirit Snake:

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