A Reunion After the Storm

The worlds of people are not interconnected.

For Xu Ji, matters of great importance concerning people's livelihoods were nothing more than a group of insignificant agricultural officials.

This official position was similar to positions like filial piety, brotherly love, and diligent farming. It did not receive a salary from the imperial court and was more of an honorary title, not even qualifying one for the ninth rank.

However, in the lower classes, these agricultural officials wielded immense power.

When incompetent people gain the power to speak, they lead the ignorant and thus jeopardize the foundation of a nation.

Zhang Xuezhou nodded from time to time as he listened to Xu Yuan's supplement.

From the very beginning of promoting the policy advocated by Zhang Xuezhou, the new emperor was well aware of its drawbacks.

Zhang Xuezhou didn't know what the new emperor was thinking, but the new emperor was not a foolish ruler. He was even considering touring important areas in the north. Things were not as serious as Xu Ji thought.

"The affairs of the court are a grand strategy, and I can only have access to a small part of it. I will do my best to advise Your Majesty within my power!"

Xu Ji is gone.

He died peacefully in his sleep.

Everyone dies, Xu Ji's departure was extremely rare, even a happy one.

Even though Xu Yuan was heartbroken, he eventually accepted it. It really wasn't a sad thing. Anyone who can leave this world peacefully deserves to be sent off, not forced to stay by crying and making a scene. This didn't even affect Rong Tianding's wedding.

Zhang Xuezhou patted Xu Yuan on the shoulder, indicating that the Agricultural Sect concept was not unworkable and might be realized at some point.

"I thank you on behalf of my deceased grandfather!"

Xu Yuan pursed his lips, then nodded emphatically, and finally, he and others carried Xu Ji away to the city gates for a funeral.

"Xiao Xu's farming skills Chang'an City are obvious to all, but the qualification for agricultural official outside the city was actually obtained by a man named Xu Dafu. This is really inexplicable. Where did this Xu Dafu come from? We've never heard of him before!"

Zhang Zhong muttered something to himself, and while everyone was seeing Xu Ji, he was also trying to get information from Zhang Xuezhou.

But Zhang Xuezhou had no idea who Xu Dafu was.

Among the hundreds of people in Zhang Household Village who went around consulting fortune tellers, none of them knew Xu Dafu. Zhang Xuezhou, who was involved in high-level affairs, would obviously not pay attention to such a minor agricultural official. As for whether Xu Ji should become an agricultural official, it wasn't a big deal, since Zhang Xuezhou didn't think being an agricultural official was a good thing at the moment.

He comforted everyone, and it wasn't until he sent Xu Ji out of Chang'an City and returned to Old Tree Alley that Zhang Xuezhou saw the other protagonist of the marriage, a beautiful, fair-skinned, and slightly slow-witted foreign woman.

Without spending much time together and lacking the unique qualities of a cultivator, this woman named Wanqing could only be considered a nodding acquaintance, making it extremely difficult for her to integrate into their circle.

Zhang Xuezhou simply nodded politely in congratulations, and as for the gift, he gave it to Rong Tianding.

For Rong Tianding, whose cultivation methods are similar to Zhang Xuezhou's, the other party can also appropriately cultivate quick-learning Technique Method, and Rong Tianding's Nine Revolutions Qi Uniting Technique will be far less than Zhang Xuezhou's.

"This method consumes so much energy, what will my cousin do in the future?" Rong Tianding asked.

"We can just refine pills a few more times later!"

Zhang Xuezhou waved his hand, indicating that he wasn't worried about such a thing at all.

If it's a small goal, Zhang Xuezhou feels that he can get through it with a little effort. But if the goal is too big, he doesn't have any wild thoughts.

Zhang Xuezhou thought that only a fool would have such a delusional idea as expecting someone earning a monthly salary of three thousand to quickly accumulate one million in funds.

He's currently enjoying good food and drink and can support his family, so why would he be stingy and try to save every penny? He might not even be able to scrape together enough money even if he scrimped and saved until he died.

Having roughly calculated the amount of the Tenfold Complete Great Tonic Pill he needed to reach the seventh stage, Zhang Xuezhou gave Rong Tianding over a hundred pills, including even high-grade and top-grade ones.

"In case Chunyu Tiying and Lao Zheng become unable to move and are unable to save themselves, give them some medicine to keep them alive!"

He couldn't help but give them some instructions to prevent any accidents from happening to Zheng Wukong and the others due to the continuous preparation and testing of medicines.

Zhang Xuezhou realized that the optimal solution to the drawbacks of the Gourd Pill seemed to be the Life-Creating Fortune Pill. Zheng Wukong were also researching in this direction, and he was quite looking forward to the results of their research.

If he could study and replicate the Life-Creating Fortune Pill, his Nine Revolutions Qi Uniting Technique might have a chance to reach its peak in the future.

As for the present moment, Zhang Xuezhou should just focus on advancing to the seventh stage of the Divine Ability Realm, and then ignore all the distracting thoughts. After all, if he wants to enter the eighth stage, he needs to reach the Sole Self Realm first, and there is a certain order to cultivation.

"By the way, I went to Yunyi Daoist Temple these past two days. Li Shaojun scolded you half the night, and then scolded me half the night. After he finished scolding me, he kicked me out and told me to get lost. He didn't even come to congratulate me on my wedding these past few days. Did we mess with him?"

"He's just petty, ignore him!"

The two also discussed Li Shaojun, and ultimately both felt there were no problems.

After Rong Tianding figured things out, he realized he was wronged. He had only asked Li Shaojun to go to Shanglin Garden to see if there was anything good going on. Li Shaojun's decision to refine pills was his own, not something he had encouraged.

Zhang Xuezhou felt that he had also emptied his pockets and suffered huge losses. Why should Li Shaojun scold him for half the night just because he lost a little money? He hadn't scolded Li Shaojun at all these days.

"Li Shaojun is truly heartless! I put in the effort in refining the pills, and he just stood by and watched, but now that things have failed, he's blaming me!"

Zhang Xuezhou muttered a disgruntled complaint.

But this matter is indeed somewhat hurtful. Zhang Xuezhou has not yet successfully refined the Law Power Fortune Pill in batches, and it is unknown how much he will stumble in this regard in the future.

Of course, if he succeeds, Zhang Xuezhou believes that very few Alchemist can achieve the same effect as him in alchemy. After all, there is a high probability that he can produce top-grade pills before his Tai Sui is exhausted. This is something worth taking a gamble on.

"If you end up refining pills for Venerable Hongku in the future, you'd better be careful. I feel like he can't afford to lose out," Rong Tianding warned.

"That's just his personality. He comes from a humble background, and he gets easily agitated when he loses. He's not as magnanimous as Li Shaojun!"

As usual, Zhang Xuezhou complained for a while. He couldn't help but feel a headache when he thought about future cooperation. He felt that he would need a safe way to leverage Hongku's network of connections to avoid both of them becoming destitute.

"Among us, only Master Dong is not in a hurry!"

"That's right, Mr. Dong is a very trustworthy person!"

Listening to Zhang Xuezhou's complaints, he suddenly switched to talking about Dong Zhongshu, even speaking loudly. Rong Tianding was slightly taken aback, but he quickly joined in the conversation.

"Dongfang Shuo, it's not a good habit for you to gossip about people behind their backs!"

When joyful sounds drifted through the window from afar, Rong Tianding jumped up to greet them.

Zhang Xuezhou's expression, however, was somewhat strange.

Dong Zhongshu's visits were always perfectly timed; Zhang Xuezhou would only come after all the important matters he was involved in had been put aside, thus avoiding much entanglement and trouble.

This might be the trajectory of Dong Zhongshu, but Zhang Xuezhou realized that such a trajectory wasn't necessarily all good.

If Dong Zhongshu can truly follow the path of good fortune, and if the other party were to intervene in the secret area of Shanglin Garden, it would undoubtedly bring Dong Zhongshu irreplaceable benefits.

At least Zhang Xuezhou ate his fill in the secret place of Shanglin Garden, and was even able to take care of those around him.

Clearly, Dong Zhongshu's chosen path avoided both risks and benefits; his skill in Fortune Technique was not as perfect as one might imagine.

"Could it be that Master Dong has targeted me?"

If Zhang Xuezhou were to find the reason why Dong Zhongshu's trajectory predictions were accurate, this was the only possibility he could think of.

For example, Emperor Qin fixed Zhang Xuezhou's focus on his Fortune Technique, preventing Zhang Xuezhou from entering a state of Fortune Technique for a while.

Having had this experience, Zhang Xuezhou felt that he was very likely to have been subjected to similar methods by Dong Zhongshu, which would allow Dong Zhongshu to discern whether Zhang Xuezhou's fortune was calm or fluctuating violently, and also to judge the time it would take for them to get along peacefully.

Through this method of detection, Zhang Xuezhou, Fortune Technique level was even higher, discovered that he could also detect Dong Zhongshu's approach.