Wen Yan, who had walked away and came back, stood stiffly at the door of the hospital room, and finally understood why Zhang Xuewen was so terrified of his wife, to such a pitiful degree.

Even his own back felt cold, he could feel fear creeping up, and he started to break out in a cold sweat.

At that moment, he made up his mind: when he looks for a wife in the future, not in a million years would he find someone who trained martial arts—way too scary. One move and she knows everything you've done. Just thinking about it made him shiver and his butt clench tight.

Lu Lu looked up and saw Wen Yan standing at the door, giving a somewhat awkward smile.

Wen Yan hurriedly said,

"I just suddenly remembered, Auntie Zou from the orphanage was asking me about you. I said you were hospitalized here. You should give Auntie Zou a call back. I have something to do, so I'll get going..."

Wen Yan spun around and left at full speed.

Way too scary. He was never going to make fun of Zhang Xuewen again.

Getting hit twenty times a month is nothing. As a martial artist, getting hit during practice is normal—if Zhang Xuewen was afraid of his wife just because of this, Wen Yan would still joke about him.

But now, even if Lu Lu wasn't a martial artist, Wen Yan felt that Zhang Xuewen had good reason to be afraid of his wife.

He didn't even have a girlfriend yet and he was already breaking out in cold sweat just as an outsider...

He quickly made his way to another department, took a breather at Gauss's place, and had some tea.

When Gauss came back after tending to a patient, he saw Wen Yan's expression and was a bit curious.

"You look like you've been scared stiff?"

"You don't get it. Every man would be scared, especially married men."

Wen Yan didn't explain further and instead asked Gauss how he was adapting recently.

Gauss said he was adapting really well. The coworkers were all very friendly, and so were the patients' families. He often got invited out for drinks, and each day he met different terminal patients. Every person's pain seemed similar, yet each was wonderfully unique—he felt this was a great place.

"As long as you're settling in, that's good."

Anyway, as long as nobody messes with his savings, anything else was fine.

This guy had been working less than a month and already spent ten months' salary, and not because he was scammed.

"But lately, I feel like I've sensed people from the Sect of Suffering arriving in Virtue City."

"Oh? You've already contacted them?"

"Nope, I can't be bothered with those guys. Hanging around with them brings down my class."

"Alright, you just leave this alone."

Wen Yan picked up his phone and shot Feng Yao a message about it, then stopped worrying.

These days, anyone coming into Nanwu County had to go through official channels. Finding someone would be too easy.

If anyone from the Church came in, they were beaten up first thing—let alone the smaller sects.

The next morning, at exactly 8:03, he was woken up by a text message alert.

Wen Yan immediately opened his eyes and grabbed his phone for a look.

It was the fifth already—bonus day again.

"Your debit card account 0457, on October 5 received (large online bank cross-bank) RMB 3,000,251.00, post-transaction balance: 3,023,156.19."

Wen Yan counted carefully. Seven digits, starting with a three.

Now he understood why the Scorching Sun Department's bonuses were always after-tax—definitely a perk.

If he had to pay tax on this sum himself, that would be a ton of money gone again.

Thinking over last month's work—from the Soul Devouring Beast, to King Guilong, to He Changfeng, then Gauss, and finally Hu Yuan on the very last day of the month.

His individual achievements were probably highest on the Soul Devouring Beast, He Changfeng, and King Guilong incidents. For the Gauss case, he was basically just a tool. As for Hu Yuan, the biggest credit should go to Tuoba Martial God for saving the day.

Guessing from last month, all the internal and external staffers at the Nanwu County Scorching Sun Department would get a nice fat bonus this month.

There were a lot of big operations last month, all of which needed lots of hands. Especially the cleanup and aftermath—stuff that's tedious and complicated, and not everyone's good at it, and with people coordinating from behind the scenes, it isn't easy doing a good job.

Wen Yan ordered some breakfast—he loved bonus day most of all.

Even though he was training in martial arts, and needed to buy higher-quality Warm Jade for his practice, which would be another big expense coming up.

This money… probably still wouldn't be quite enough. And there were things money couldn't even buy.

Like the warehouse at the Nanwu County Scorching Sun Department—some stuff inside could only be exchanged with merit points.

And all the good stuff in the Scorching Sun Department, even what you could buy, you needed enough merit points just to qualify.

After thinking it over, at least for the usual stuff, for now he had enough to spend.

His major expenses, aside from paying off his apartment, were all for martial arts training.

And even for that, all he needed to buy himself was the Warm Jade. For the supplements for the Tiger Subduing Three Styles, he just needed to provide the tiger bone, and Medicine King Mountain would handle the rest.

The money in his account had hit seven digits for the first time, giving Wen Yan a huge sense of security.

After a long while, he sighed. Sure enough, a person needs to earn more money to have real peace of mind—even if you risk your life to make it, as long as you have it, it just feels different.

He thought it over, calculated his expenses—after paying everything off, he'd probably still have a few hundred thousand left. After thinking again, he opened his mobile banking app, selected an account, and transferred five hundred thousand right up to his daily personal limit.

His first twenty years hadn't been great. To make money, he'd done every dirty and exhausting job imaginable.

Back then, if he could make money shoveling crap, he'd do it. As for sneaking out in the middle of the night for burial jobs, carrying coffins or digging graves—it was nothing.

When he was a kid in that big family, life was mediocre and not so happy, and he even got bullied. He was super withdrawn then, always thinking about making money to get out and move far away for studies.

But growing up, he realized, just being able to eat and have shelter was already pretty good.

When he was in Yu State, the orphanage Auntie Zou ran was one of the best. There were always rebellious or naughty kids, though.

Yu State's economy was one of the best already, and it was still like this—let alone Guanzhong County. With limited resources, just being able to provide food and raise a kid was really not easy.

Wen Yan sighed again. Just as well, he had to go to Guanzhong County this month for Lord Zhu's birthday. He might as well go back and visit then.

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