Repairing the courtyard wall indeed took two days.

For the past two days, Qin Fang would wake up early and practice his Standing Pile in the main room... After he finished, he would leave the small courtyard and wander around...

He was indeed much freer here than in True Martial. No one cared if he went out as he pleased. He also didn’t have to worry about his refugee status being exposed and causing trouble, so he naturally wanted to check out the situation at the market.

...He had encountered an assassination attempt on his first day here; he had to get a clear grasp of his surroundings.

And so, he saw what the markets of this World were really like.

Not far from the small courtyard Xu Meng had arranged was a wharf. Near the wharf were fish stalls, where large numbers of fishermen came every day to set up shop and sell their catch.

There were two options for selling their catch. The first was to sell directly to the fish stalls... and behind the fish stalls was the Fish Dragon Gang.

But in return, the prices would be pushed down quite low.

Every day, the Fish Dragon Gang would arrange for people to ship the catch away... It wasn’t clear exactly where it was sent, but he figured it was probably to True Martial County or to middlemen.

Moreover, the fish stalls didn’t accept all fish. They only took large fish that met a certain weight.

They wouldn’t take smaller ones.

Even if they reluctantly took them... they would push the price down even further.

The other method was to sell it themselves.

They didn’t have to worry about a lack of buyers... Not everyone at the market was a fisherman. There were also many villagers who needed to buy supplies. They were the fish stalls’ main customers, too.

But in return, they had to pay a stall fee to the fish market.

The stalls were those drafty shacks that Qin Fang had seen the other day...

The stall fee wasn’t fixed. It was based on sales revenue, amounting to twenty percent of the total.

At first, Qin Fang was puzzled. What if someone tried to hide their earnings? After all, the Fish Dragon Gang had limited manpower. With so many stalls, could they really watch them all, all the time?

After observing carefully out of curiosity, Qin Fang understood...

He saw the Hometown Association that Monkey and the others had described as "even more vicious than them."

There were a great many of them. Since they were from the same hometown, they naturally knew each other. As soon as they spotted a fellow townsman setting up a stall, they would immediately go over to greet them, then hang around the stall and refuse to leave, laughing and joking without any regard for the ugly looks on their fellow villagers’ faces.

Moreover, it wasn’t one person watching one stall. They darted back and forth from time to time... It was obvious that one person was monitoring several stalls at once.

When the person’s catch was sold out and they were about to leave, they would go over and demand money.

And their opening demand was forty percent...

The exploited fishermen’s faces would often turn grim, but in the end, they would still choose to obediently hand over the money.

Qin Fang was initially a bit confused... The Fish Dragon Gang’s men were right there. Why wouldn’t they just bypass the Hometown Association and pay the Fish Dragon Gang directly?

Wouldn’t that save them twenty percent?

But after thinking about it carefully, Qin Fang fell silent.

...Bypassing them once wouldn’t be a problem. The people from the Hometown Association wouldn’t dare to oppose the Fish Dragon Gang.

’But what then?’

’These fishermen have to go home eventually, right?’

’Can the men from the Fish Dragon Gang follow them home?’

And these Hometown Association members, they looked like local ruffians from the villages, the kind who would probably do any disgusting thing imaginable.

It would be easy to cross them once, but what would follow would inevitably be their endless retaliation.

’...This is clearly their source of income.’

’They wouldn’t care that the money was yours to begin with. They would only think that you cut off their source of income. If they didn’t deal with a troublemaker like you, and others followed your example, how would they make money then?’

Having figured this out, Qin Fang could only sigh softly as he looked at the fishermen.

’...This world isn’t all that different from the life of a refugee.’

’It’s dog-eat-dog.’

Besides the fishermen, there were also large crowds of people who came to the market. For such a small fish market, the daily crowd of fishermen and market-goers could number in the hundreds, even reaching a thousand. It was quite a popular spot.

And this fish market was only a small part of Fisherman City. Beyond it, there were even larger areas in the distance.

That was the real marketplace.

Besides seafood and fish, there were also numerous traveling merchants who brought goods from the county town to sell to the villagers.

The villagers, in turn, brought their own things, such as cultivated grains, game from the mountains, and chopped firewood...

It was very lively.

After Qin Fang had spent two days exploring the whole area, the courtyard wall was finally reinforced.

Standing in the courtyard, Qin Fang nodded in satisfaction...

The courtyard wall was now a full three meters high. Of course, it couldn’t be called sturdy or exquisite; it was just yellow earth mixed with things like reeds, all piled up in a structure that was wide at the bottom and narrow at the top.

Over time, it would surely dry, crack, and collapse.

But it was more than enough to get by for the short term.

With the wall in place, Qin Fang returned to his normal cultivation routine.

Every morning, he practiced his Standing Pile, his Fist Technique, and his Darts...

In the afternoons, he would go out to buy some ingredients... After all, living right in the market, all sorts of ingredients were easy to find.

Time passed quietly like this.

The progress of his Wild Bull Qi Strength Pile improved daily, and Qin Fang could clearly feel the changes in his body.

The Skin Membrane Drum Sound was gradually growing louder, starting to sound more like an actual ’drum sound’.

Endurance, speed, power... The daily improvement wasn’t huge, but he was clearly getting better every day.

This feeling of constantly growing stronger gradually became addicting to Qin Fang.

As the saying goes, a strong body builds a strong spirit, and a strong spirit builds a brave heart!

When something as primitive and fundamental as the body grew stronger, a powerful confidence naturally welled up from the bottom of his heart.

Slowly, he began to grasp the meaning of the ’Mental Pile’.

His master had said that when practicing Standing Pile, one must not only hold the physical form but also the Mental Pile.

Before, he had only been holding the physical form, without much understanding of the Mental Pile.

But now, as his body grew stronger and stronger, he began to gradually realize the significance of the Mental Pile...

’Imagining yourself as a Wild Bull, bracing against heaven and earth... isn’t that just a way to fill your own heart with courage and confidence?’

’A brave heart makes for a firm will!’

Qin Fang felt his own willpower was pretty good... Otherwise, he would have died on the refugee trail last year.

After all, every second on that path was an agony.

But he had endured.

But that clearly didn’t mean he couldn’t continue to temper his will.

So, during his Standing Pile practice, he began to intentionally practice Contemplation of the Wild Bull...

He didn’t feel any major changes right away.

But he wasn’t in a hurry.

Time flowed by, day after day, in this state of peace.

In the blink of an eye, he had been here for over half a month.

Qin Fang had also become completely familiar with life in the market.

His Wild Bull Qi had reached 367 points.

Then, he discovered something...

"As my proficiency gets closer to 500 points, the effect of the Qi Blood Pills is also getting weaker and weaker..."

Qin Fang frowned.

Initially, one Qi Blood Pill could raise his Pile Skill proficiency by a maximum of 17 points, but that was at the limit, requiring him to perform two sessions of the Pile.

If he pushed for that extreme, his body would become exhausted, and the efficiency of his subsequent Fist Technique and Darts practice would be greatly reduced.

So, Qin Fang only practiced the Pile once a day, which generally increased his proficiency by 15 points.

This way, it didn’t affect his Fist Technique and Darts practice afterward.

Maximum efficiency.

But starting five days ago, one Qi Blood Pill only gave him 13 proficiency points.

And today, it only gave him 12 proficiency points...

This was a clear sign that the effect of the Qi Blood Pills was diminishing.

’It might not be that the Qi Blood Pill’s effect is diminishing... but rather, my physique is much stronger than before. So, for the same Qi Blood Pill, the effect is far less obvious than when my physique was weaker?’

Qin Fang guessed.

Naturally, there was no one who could give him a clear answer.

But the diminishing effect was a fact.

He looked at the bottle; there were still fifteen Qi Blood Pills left...

’Still, breaking through to the first layer of Mingjin shouldn’t be a problem...’ he thought, a glint in his eyes.

He was much stronger now than when he first arrived.

Not only had his Pile Skill been progressing, but the progress of his Ox Demon Mountain-Opening Fist was also gratifying... The Ox Demon Mountain-Opening Fist had already been improving by over ten points a day, and now it had successfully broken the 300-point mark, reaching 315 points.

After breaking through to Mingjin, the Ox Demon Mountain-Opening Fist should also be able to reach the Small Success Realm...

’But to be honest, I’ve never actually fought someone with my Fist Technique. I have no idea how effective it is...’

His eyes glinted.

Without real combat, there’s no way to know its practical effectiveness.

It was just... when he practiced the fist forms himself, the wind from his punches whistled, and it felt very powerful.

The Ox Demon Fist was a Cultivation Technique created based on the Wild Bull Stance. When he practiced it, he felt the force flow smoothly and transparently, as if his entire body’s strength could be mobilized and unleashed to its fullest potential.

His progress with the Darts, on the other hand, had become very slow.

After all these days, he had only gained forty-some points... When he looked again and saw that a breakthrough required 5000 Skill Points, Qin Fang felt it was best not to have overly high expectations.

This thing was now a matter of slow, patient work. He was afraid it would be difficult to break through without several years of practice.

’No matter what, I should focus on breaking through to Mingjin first and worry about the rest later.’

He couldn’t help but recall his master’s lament from that day...

Poverty for scholars, riches for warriors.

Once these fifteen Qi Blood Pills were used up and he entered Mingjin, he would have to find a way to make money again...

After all, once you’ve ridden an elevator... who would want to take the stairs again?

And so, several more days passed.

Qin Fang devoted himself body and soul to his cultivation, looking forward to his breakthrough to Mingjin...

On this particular day, however, Xu Meng appeared on a fishing boat with a very grim expression.

The night was dark. The fishing boat was battered and broken; the gunwales seemed to have been smashed in several places by something, and the hull had taken on a lot of water.

The water was the color of blood. Blood had even splattered onto the boat’s canopy.

Several mutilated corpses were floating in the pool of blood. Their state of death was extremely gruesome; many parts of their bodies were missing, and the wounds... looked like the bite marks of a wild beast.

Even for someone like Xu Meng, the sight made him involuntarily suck in a sharp breath of cold air.

Then, a thick, foul stench assaulted his nose and mouth.

This stench was far more rank than that of blood alone.

He subconsciously covered his mouth and nose and was silent for a good while before asking, "Where was it found?"

He looked at a man beside him.

The man’s face was deathly pale as he pointed toward the Chujiang River.

"It just... floated over from that direction..."

Xu Meng looked up at the dark Chujiang River. The waters surged, making a constant rushing sound.

But Xu Meng’s scalp was tingling with dread.