Once I enter the pass, great Confucian scholars will surely debate the classics for me.

"Mr. Jiang, please follow me." The officer at the outpost respectfully handed back the handwritten letter, then waved for the sentry to let him through.

Zhou Qingfeng smiled as he accepted the handwritten letter and put it away. He followed the officer into the camp. Every three steps there was a wounded soldier, and every five steps there was a roadside stall. The camp roads were lined with small vendors selling their goods.

The entire camp had a peaceful atmosphere, without any sense of impending doom.

The officer led the way, laughing as he walked, saying, "Mr. Jiang, is this strange? Why doesn't this look like a war at all?"

Zhou Qingfeng hummed in agreement, genuinely curious, as this differed somewhat from his imagined frontline battlefield.

Upon seeing this, the officer smiled and offered an explanation.

It turns out that there hadn't been a major battle for a long time; the two armies hadn't fought a single battle, let alone a major one.

Most of the time, it was small-scale fighting between small groups of troops, with the battle zone between them and the enemy just a hundred miles ahead.

Every morning, noon, and evening, a group of cultivators who study war magic gather to conduct a fixed-time cleansing of the area within a hundred miles ahead.

After years of clearing the area, the front line has long been reduced to ruins and a no-man's land.

After the ground is cleaned up, small combat teams are usually dispatched in batches to launch surprise attacks in different areas.

After years of fighting, the war has long since become a procedural and procedural local conflict.

After each battle, the soldiers always needed to relax and spend their money. As a result, the camp was filled with vendors selling weapons, medicine, books, food, tea, and more. Although the outpost only had a hundred soldiers, their spending power was astonishing. After all, these people risked their lives to save others, and who knew if they would even be alive tomorrow?

The vast majority of them lived for the moment, squandering their pay as soon as it was issued, never keeping it overnight.

Some of the military pay was sent to family members to support them in Ravenburg.

Those small vendors may seem ordinary and foolish, earning this dangerous money on the front lines, but they are not stupid. In fact, they all have backgrounds and connections, and are either relatives or friends with the centurions in the camp. Outsiders have no chance to earn this money.

For example, after each battle, do the soldiers need to eat, drink tea, repair their equipment, buy a few erotic books, exchange their loot for money and treasures, buy better spell and physical techniques to improve their combat power, or buy pills to enhance their cultivation?

Moreover, a batch of new recruits would be sent in every now and then to replenish the losses.

New recruits have to go through a process first. What process? Of course, it's to take care of the businesses of their superiors' relatives and friends. They have to put in a lot of money before they even get their paycheck. If they don't want to go through the process, they'll definitely be the first to charge in the next wave.

In fact, all of this is money, and often just operating one thing is enough to make a fortune.

To put it bluntly, cats have their ways, and mice have theirs; everyone has their own methods. Officers also want to use their power to make money, so how do they do it? They can only try to bleed their soldiers dry. Once the soldiers have been bleeded, what else can they do? They try to plunder spoils from the enemy. If they really have no money, they take off their uniforms and become bandits to rob merchants and civilians in the rear. After robbing, they put their uniforms back on and continue to be soldiers.

Upon hearing what the officer said, Zhou Qingfeng's heart stirred slightly. The officer's lengthy speech seemed to imply something more, a hidden meaning.

He paused for a moment, then got straight to the point: "What is the purpose of telling me all this?"

The officer smiled slightly: "It's just casual conversation. Mr. Jiang, just enjoy it and don't take it to heart."

Zhou Qingfeng asked, "What's your name?"

The officer smiled and said, "Just another passerby."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Qingfeng's lips twitched. What a ridiculous passerby! Couldn't he come up with an even more fake name?

At this moment, the sky had already darkened, and then a terrifying scene unfolded. One after another, earth-shattering spells soared into the sky, blasting towards a range of a hundred miles ahead. Stars fell, seas of fire filled the sky, and storms, acid rain, and frost took turns to wash over the area.

Round after round, they washed the floor for a full half hour.

Just when everyone thought it was over, the enemy started unleashing a barrage of war spells to wipe out the land.

Both sides gathered cultivators of various levels who were studying war magic at their strategic fortresses, and they swept the hundred-mile-long battle zone twice. Such terrifying firepower output lasted for a full hour. Such terrifying power was earth-shattering, creating a scene of apocalypse.

“Mr. Jiang, I have combat missions tonight and cannot stay any longer. Please allow me to take my leave.”

Upon hearing this, Zhou Qingfeng clasped his hands in a salute and watched the officer leave.

Ning Cha frowned slightly and said, "This person is suspicious. There's something hidden in his words, and his name sounds fake."

Jin Wei calmly said, "I figured it out a long time ago. They deliberately leaked the information to us."

"This 'passerby' learned that we were friends with Cai Guozhong, so he pretended to casually reveal these things. It seemed like a casual chat, but he wanted to use us to tell Cai Guozhong the truth about the current situation on the front lines."

"But he was afraid that revealing our real names would cause trouble, so he used some fake name like 'Passerby A'. Besides, in this chaotic battlefield, we might not see each other again after tonight's farewell. It's a way of leaving himself a way out."

Ning Cha said, "This person seems to be very calculating in his words and actions, but for some reason, I have a feeling that I can't figure him out."

Jin Wei glanced sideways, remained silent, and simply took out paper and pen to record what he had seen and heard.

[The Hell Legion's frontline combat troops are lax in discipline. Mid- and lower-ranking officers are suspected of lacking ambition, arranging for relatives and friends to run businesses on the battlefield where blood was spilled, and engaging in exploitative practices such as leeching off soldiers and killing innocent civilians to claim credit. This intelligence is questionable and requires further verification.]

Seeing this, Zhou Qingfeng reached out and patted Jin Wei on the back: "Let's go."

The group quickly passed through the outpost camp and traveled another ten miles before suddenly turning right and heading rapidly toward the direction of Lanruo Temple in the Burial Immortal Valley. Since they were not going to cross the north-south war zone, there was no danger of dying.

Burial Valley is located on the edge of the war zone. Its Fiend-level mountain body is exceptionally hard and contains Fiend-level minerals. With just a little modification at the entrance and exit of the valley, the army can turn it into a natural strategic fortress that is easy to defend and difficult to attack. It is like a nail firmly driven into the front line.

Lanruo Temple is located outside Zangxian Valley, so you will inevitably pass by Lanruo Temple if you want to go to Zangxian Valley.

Zhou Qingfeng and his group moved quickly, and arrived at their destination half an hour later.

"Wait, don't go in yet, there seem to be people inside." Zhou Qingfeng stood outside the temple. The temple door was open, and he could see lights coming from inside. He immediately waved to stop everyone from going in and said cautiously, "Scatter and check if there is any danger around us first."