Xu Yang and Wu Yongfeng looked at each other's clothes and both felt that the other looked much sharper.
"Come over. I'll introduce you to the brothers."
Zhang Bo called them over and began introducing the people present.
Like them, the others had only recently been recruited from martial arts schools by the Liu Family. Almost all of them had successfully achieved Qi Gathering within the past ten days or half a month.
A thought surfaced in Xu Yang's mind: What about the people who were here before?
Attendants like them, who neither married into the family nor formed marriage alliances, were free to come and go. It was normal for people to leave at any time, and for there to be a shortage of hands.
But for so many people to leave all at once was unusual.
Either the Liu Family had done something to wrong these attendants, and they had all walked out in a fit of anger, or... the entire previous batch had died, and the Liu Family had recruited so many people at once.
Sun Tao hadn't mentioned this. Xu Yang didn't know whether he was deliberately hiding it, didn't know about it, or simply thought it wasn't worth mentioning.
Looks like I'll have to ask around in private. If there's any danger, I'll leave at once.
Xu Yang thought to himself.
He hadn't even had time to settle in, so naturally he felt no loyalty to the Liu Family. If danger really arose, he wouldn't risk his life for them.
The two didn't stay at the Liu Family for long, since another shift came to relieve them.
Though the Liu Family provided them with rooms, they were only for resting while on duty. They weren't allowed to live at the Liu Family residence.
The two left the Liu Family and returned to Wei Yuan Hall to continue training.
In the blink of an eye, seven days passed, and Xu Yang gradually settled back into this routine.
He went to the Liu Family in the morning and trained at Wei Yuan Hall in the afternoon.
In those seven days, he hadn't seen the Huang Family's head or gone out on guard duty. It was as though there was nothing to do in this job, except go to the Liu Family every day for a meal.
As for the matter he'd been asking about, he hadn't learned anything.
That day, Zhou Yang found the opening to break through, but failed at Qi Gathering. The backlash from his true qi left him pale, and he was carried out of Wei Yuan Hall.
Two days later, his cousin Zhou Yuan also failed his breakthrough. The brothers left in dejection.
The two brothers who had once bossed everyone around had become failures.
The next day, Xu Yang was sparring with Wu Yongfeng when he heard that Luo Dehu was attempting a breakthrough.
He told Wu Yongfeng and ran to the Outer Courtyard, but Luo Dehu was already sitting on the ground, his face deathly pale, looking as though he'd come down with a serious illness.
Zhang Hong, Zhang Yong, and Qian Jiaxing stood nearby, exchanging silent glances.
"I'm out!" Luo Dehu looked utterly lost, his whole body seeming drained of life.
Only when Lu Ren appeared did a spark of life return to his eyes.
Though he'd failed, as long as he followed Lu Ren, he could still earn a living in the future and wouldn't have to go back to the fields to scratch out a meal.
"Brother Lu Ren..."
He struggled to his feet, but couldn't manage it.
Qian Jiaxing didn't go to help him, and Lu Ren didn't move from where he stood.
"Go back and live as an ordinary person."
Lu Ren stared at him for a while, then turned and strode away.
What use was a man who'd failed his breakthrough? He couldn't fight or take a hit, and Lu Ren would have to spend money to keep him.
He wasn't some rich young master who could afford to keep lackeys.
"Looks like those two months of sucking up to him were all for nothing," Xu Yang said with a laugh.
He wasn't the sort to repay evil with kindness. Luo Dehu's fate just felt satisfying to him.
Luo Dehu's face grew even paler.
In the past, if Xu Yang had mocked him, he would have hit back on the spot. But now, he didn't even have the nerve to look at Xu Yang.
After resting for a while, he staggered to his feet and then vanished from Wei Yuan Hall for good.
Qian Jiaxing kept staring after him, his thoughts unclear. Perhaps he was wondering whether, if he failed his own breakthrough in a few days, Lu Ren would kick him aside too.
Zhang Hong and Zhang Yong rarely got to see Xu Yang, but they soon forgot about Luo Dehu and began chatting with him in a corner, asking for pointers on breaking through.
Xu Yang didn't hold back. He shared everything he knew and told them not to rush their breakthroughs. They were better off spending more time tempering their bodies with the Turtle-Snake Great Stance and building up their blood and qi.
"Xu Yang, I was wrong!"
Qian Jiaxing mustered his courage, walked up to Xu Yang, and bowed deeply.
Today, he had finally seen Lu Ren for what he was.
Xu Yang stopped talking with Zhang Hong and Zhang Yong and looked back with a smile. "No, you don't know that you were wrong. You've just realized that you're going to fail, and that you won't have a backer afterward. You're afraid, so you want to make friends with me again."
Luo Dehu had a Grade C Inferior Bone Structure and had still failed his breakthrough. Qian Jiaxing's Bone Root was even worse than Luo Dehu's, so his chances of failure were high.
Qian Jiaxing's face turned deathly pale in an instant.
He really did want to leave himself a way out. Even if he failed, he'd still have a martial artist friend, someone he could count on in the future.
"I'll be waiting for you in the Inner Courtyard."
After saying goodbye to Zhang Yong and Zhang Hong, Xu Yang returned to the Inner Courtyard to continue training.
[Technique: Turtle-Snake Great Stance · Minor Accomplishment (4/300), Mountain-Shaking Bear Fist · Minor Accomplishment (6/500)]
"So difficult!"
It had been nearly ten days since he'd successfully achieved Qi Gathering, but his true qi was growing at a snail's pace. Of course, the main reason was that he had no money for medicinal supplements and could only rely on hard training and nutrients from food.
Things like Body-Strengthening Soup were no longer useful to Qi-Gathering Martial Artists. They should be taking Blood-Qi Powder, or the even more effective Qi-Boosting Powder.
A dose of Blood-Qi Powder cost two taels of silver.
Qi-Boosting Powder was even more outrageous: five taels of silver per dose.
One dose could be worth seven days of hard training. If you had a good Bone Root and absorbed the medicine well, it could be worth more than ten days.
Sometimes, he wondered whether he should find someone to support him, so he wouldn't have to struggle so miserably.
"Comprehension, increase!"
After thinking it over, he added all the points he'd accumulated over the past few days to his Comprehension.
[Comprehension: 27]
"Ten more days, and my Comprehension will be able to reach the next level."
His true qi was growing slowly mainly because he couldn't keep up with food and medicinal supplements.
The slow progress of the Turtle-Snake Great Stance and Mountain-Shaking Bear Fist, on the other hand, was mainly due to his Comprehension.
His Comprehension was far behind Lu Ren's. He'd been able to keep up with Lu Ren before mainly because he'd used the Status Panel to improve. Now that he wasn't using the Status Panel to improve his techniques, his progress had slowed.
After practicing his punches for a while longer, a disciple from the Outer Courtyard came to tell him someone was waiting for him outside.
"Cousin!"
When Xu Yang reached the entrance of Wei Yuan Hall, he saw his cousin Zhou Xia.
He'd thought something had happened, but it turned out his maternal uncle Zhou Shunchang had invited him over for a meal.
Xu Yang saw that it was getting late and immediately left with Zhou Xia. When they arrived at Zhou Shunchang's home, Zhou Shunchang had already prepared the food.
"Yang, you're not young anymore. Now that you've made progress in martial arts, it's time you started a family."
After the meal, Zhou Shunchang explained why he'd invited Xu Yang over.
"Uncle, are you trying to introduce me to a girl?" Xu Yang asked with a smile.
He was at the age when men married, and it was only natural for Zhou Shunchang, as his maternal uncle, to worry about his marriage.
Zhou Shunchang nodded. "That's right. It's a young lady from the Huang Family. They asked me to find out what you think."
Xu Yang heard this and understood after a moment's thought. He raised an eyebrow. "The Huang Family certainly has a clever plan. They don't want to hire me as an Attendant, but they do want me under their thumb."
Zhou Shunchang glared at him. "What nonsense are you spouting? The Huang Family is willing to marry their daughter to you—that's because of your uncle's connections."
Xu Yang didn't take Zhou Shunchang's words to heart.
Though he worked as a bookkeeper for the Huang Family, he was only an ordinary person and knew little about the ways of martial artists.
He thought a young lady from a wealthy family taking a fancy to a poor fellow like him was a blessing earned over eight lifetimes. He didn't know about all the twists and turns behind it.
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