If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

After dinner, Zhou Ming called two handymen from the kitchen to come with him back to his residence to move his things.

Having been promoted to steward, his living quarters naturally needed to be changed.

The room where Manager Zhang used to live was closer to the kitchen and much more spacious than his old cubicle that could only fit a bed and a table.

The two servants were quick and efficient; one carried the bedding roll, and the other carried a wooden box containing personal belongings. Zhou Ming himself, with about a hundred taels of silver left by his predecessor, followed behind with his two legs pretending to be lame.

The new house is indeed much better than the old one. At least it can fit a proper bed, a square table, two chairs, and there's an extra cabinet in the corner.

The ground was compacted loess, which was much smoother than the broken brick floor of the previous room.

The things that Manager Zhang had originally kept had already been cleared away by the kitchen staff.

A "Fu" character, written by an unknown person, that used to hang on the wall has been removed, leaving a rectangular mark that is much lighter in color than the surrounding area.

The room had been fumigated with mugwort, and a faint bitter smell lingered in the air.

Even so, Zhou Ming still felt a little uneasy standing in this room.

Not long after Manager Zhang died, his massive body, weighing over two hundred pounds, was punched through by a pillar in an alley not far from the kitchen.

The body is currently lying in some mass grave.

He forced himself not to think about these things and focused his attention on directing the servants to arrange things.

The bedding was placed on the bed, the wooden box was placed in the corner, and the teacups and teapot were placed on the table.

After the servants finished their work and left, the door closed, and the room became quiet. Zhou Ming lay on his back on the bed, staring at the roof beam above his head, which was twice as thick as the original beam, and let out a long sigh.

With nothing to do, Zhou Ming focused his mind on the space between his eyebrows.

The web of cause and effect still hangs there quietly, the causal chains in the square are as thick as ever, the pillars have dimmed a bit but are still shining, and the other familiar threads are still there.

But right next to these familiar chains of cause and effect, he saw more.

No.

It was a vast, densely packed area.

He suddenly sat up in bed, focusing all his attention on the space between his eyebrows, counting each hair one by one.

What was originally just a few dozen causal chains has now become a small, dense spider web.

The newly formed silk threads spread out in layers, some already solidified and weighty, while others were still very faint, like willow catkins just blown up by the wind.

Zhou Mingzai counted them carefully twice, and there were a hundred or so extra ones.

Zhou Ming took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down and analyze the situation.

In just one day, so many causal chains have emerged; there are only two possibilities.

Firstly, the Marquis's mansion had already pried the complete contents of the "Scripture of Crossing the World" out of Zhu Zi's mouth.

And following the instructions given by the pillar, "Read the book a hundred times and your divine skill will appear," they have already begun to find people to test their skills.

More than a hundred people reciting at the same time—this scale is neither large nor small.

If it were a secret operation within the Marquis's residence, it would be entirely possible.

Especially Madam Zhao, after receiving the scriptures from Zhu Zi yesterday, it's not impossible that she would make arrangements overnight, given her decisiveness.

Secondly, the "Scriptures of Salvation" that he had previously thrown into the walls of various mansions were eventually discovered by one or more families, who then began to have people recite them.

Zhou Ming pondered the web of cause and effect for a long time, but still couldn't come to a definite conclusion.

He currently has too little information.

He was unaware of the progress of the Hou family's interrogation of Zhu Zi, nor did he know what specific arrangements Madam Zhao had made after obtaining the scriptures.

It's unclear whether the few scriptures he threw out were swept into the slop bucket as waste paper or locked away in a secret room by some noble patriarch.

But after thinking about it for a long time, he stopped thinking about it.

Either way, it's a good thing for him.

Whether it spreads to the Marquis's mansion or to a prominent family, as long as the scriptures are circulated and everyone reads them, his karmic network will become increasingly dense.

Once this net has covered the entire city of Yuyang, it will then extend to Youzhou and to every corner of the Great Xia Dynasty.

At that time, even if he does nothing and just lies there sleeping all day, his cultivation will still flow into his dantian from the broken causal chain.

Silent all night.

Zhou Ming woke up before dawn the next day.

As usual, he pressed the magical power in his dantian to its deepest point and looked at his reflection in the water in the copper basin.

He confirmed that he still looked like that skinny, emaciated, and pathetic guy with a pointed face.

Then he pushed open the door, straightened his legs, and moved step by step toward the kitchen.

As I walked through the alley, I ran into the same servants and guards from yesterday.

As usual, Zhou Ming glared at them fiercely a few times, and as usual, they either lowered their heads or turned away, none of them daring to laugh out loud openly.

Once in the kitchen, as usual, Liu Sandao was asked to go to the storeroom to get today's ingredients.

As always, Liu Sandao was efficient. Before long, he and his servants brought back everything that was needed for the day.

The booklet clearly stated the details. Zhou Ming took the booklet, flipped through it, nodded to Liu Sandao, and that was it.

Then he sat on the stool in the corner of the kitchen, holding a bowl of hot noodle soup, slowly slurping it while watching the cooks busy chopping vegetables and meat.

After breakfast, Zhou Ming started dawdling again.

He would flip through the ingredient list for a while, then go to the water tank to check the water level, and then chat with the woodcutter about the dryness of the firewood.

It wasn't until Liu Sandao passed by him with a bowl of freshly brewed rock sugar pear soup that he looked at him with the eyes of an elder looking at a junior.

He coughed lightly, stood up, and shuffled towards the training ground.

While walking down the street, he had already mentally prepared the story he was going to tell that day.

He wasn't going to tell Dongmei a story about a strong female lead today.

Although the young lady's words "outrageous" yesterday weren't harsh, he understood their weight.

The plot of a female protagonist becoming empress may sound appealing, but in this world with its strict hierarchy, if it gets out, it will become a handle against her.

Just because the young lady can remind him once doesn't mean she will remind him a second time.

He decided to change his approach and tell traditional martial arts stories, about wandering the world with a sword, seeking justice and revenge, and the principle of good and evil being rewarded accordingly.

It's all the same old tropes of good versus evil and good deeds being rewarded. It doesn't involve politics or imperial power, so even if the young lady comes to listen in again, she won't find anything wrong with it.

In his previous life, he had read quite a few martial arts novels on Tomato, and there were also many TV series based on them.

Just randomly picking a book from her mind would be enough for Dongmei to listen to for days.

As soon as Zhou Ming entered the training ground, he saw Dongmei already sitting on that small stool, holding that crumpled book, "The False Crown Orders."

However, today she didn't look down at the storybook, but instead stared up at the direction of the bamboo forest, as if she was waiting for him.

When Zhou Ming came in, she slammed the storybook down on her lap and waved to him.

"I don't think yesterday's story was revised well," Dongmei said bluntly.

Zhou Ming was taken aback: "What's changed?"

"That story about the female protagonist becoming empress. I thought about it all night yesterday, and I think what you said is wrong."

Zhou Ming asked, somewhat puzzled, "What's wrong?"

"She shouldn't have ascended the throne," Dongmei said with absolute certainty.

"She should continue being a female general, galloping across the battlefield, free and unrestrained. What's the point of becoming an empress?"

"Sitting in that chair all day, unable to go anywhere, and having to watch the moods of those ministers."

"Didn't you tell me yesterday how that old prime minister made things difficult for her? If she were a female general, she could have just slashed him with her sword."

Zhou Ming opened his mouth, but for a moment he didn't know where to begin his rebuttal.

He was silent for a moment, then sat down on the muddy ground opposite the small stool and cleared his throat.

"Sister Dongmei, I'm not going to talk about that today, let's talk about something new."

"Today I'll tell you a story about the vast desert, a broken sword, and a swordsman who refuses to admit defeat."