Ning Yao patted her shoulder: "How could your young lady possibly be in danger? It's you who's slacking off again. Have you finished copying the palace rules? Have you practiced your kung fu today?"

Zhilan pouted: "They've already copied all the palace rules, but I don't know who made them. They're like an old lady's foot binding cloth, long and smelly!"

"I've already reviewed the kung fu once. Miss, didn't you say you were going to teach me something else? When shall we begin?"

Ning Yao looked at Zhi Lan with satisfaction. What a studious child! She's teachable!

"Right now!"

Ning Yao has already mastered the advanced level of the light-foot technique contained in the scroll.

After reaching the advanced level, she discovered a new cultivation technique.

There is one set of whip techniques and one set of sword techniques, both divided into three levels.

With the blessing of the Thousand Illusions Secret Realm, she has already mastered the two beginner levels, and now it is the most appropriate time for her to enlighten Zhilan.

Since entering the palace, Ning Yao has been constantly visiting the private treasuries of various palaces, causing endless complaints from the harem.

Without money, one cannot eat good food. All the expenses for food and clothing in the palaces were reduced, but the Empress's provisions for Ning Qiong were not reduced at all.

Because this method worked!

Empress Zhang's problems, such as hair loss, baldness, weight gain, and foul odor, have all been improved.

My head is too big to fall off, but it doesn't seem to grow much more.

My weight has stopped increasing, but I haven't lost much weight either.

She didn't smell as bad anymore, but she didn't smell particularly pleasant either; at least the Empress's "vomiting" sounds could no longer be heard.

Empress Zhang gritted her teeth and insisted that Ning Qiong "eat" even if she herself didn't eat, to the point that she fainted once, and the imperial physician said she was malnourished.

Weighing 180 pounds, he was malnourished and was ridiculed by the harem for quite some time.

The offerings made to Ning Qiong were all taken into Ning Yao's secret realm to improve the meals at Qionghua Palace.

He spent the rest of his time in the palace practicing martial arts, and also used diluted spiritual spring water to temper his maid Zhilan's body and help her practice martial arts until she reached a level that could save her life.

Ning Yao remembered a line from the original novel: "In the eighth year of the Yan Kingdom, a drought that occurred once in a century occurred."

The drought began in July and lasted for three years.

The people suffered a complete crop failure, and starvation was rampant.

This is also the fundamental reason why Ning Yao asked Ning Wenyi to stockpile grain.

Tens of thousands of taels of silver notes and ten chests of gold were of no use after the drought began.

At that time, the only things that could be circulated were edible items.

Even now, stockpiling grain is no longer meeting Ning Yao's expectations.

This year's new grain hasn't been harvested yet, so we can only store last year's old grain.

How much grain could there be left? The State of Yan was not a major agricultural country.

Therefore, the gold that Ning Yao gave to Ning Wenyi was destined not to be used to stockpile much grain.

At the same time, the cultivation techniques that Ning Yao acquired were also practiced by the Ning family members.

The Ning family of five needed to be able to protect themselves while fleeing famine and not hold their family back.

...

Time flies, and soon it was September of the eighth year of the Yan Kingdom.

There are still three months until the scheduled date.

Starting in July, various places suffered different disasters, and many disaster victims flocked to the capital. To show her benevolence, Empress Zhang opened the granaries and distributed grain.

Other prominent families followed suit and offered their assistance.

The Ning family was no exception; they set up soup kitchens outside the city.

The daily consumption is enormous, but the number of disaster victims is not decreasing at all.

When God doesn't cooperate, there's nothing anyone can do about it.

If Ning Yao hadn't been so decisive and had Ning Wenyi harvest a year's worth of grain, they probably wouldn't have been able to sustain such a drain on resources.

Of the soup kitchens outside the city, only the Zhenguo Duke's Mansion is still struggling to stay afloat.

Ning Wenyi didn't dare to take out too much food, and the porridge became thinner and thinner, almost like water.

The lack of food was not the most troublesome issue; the biggest problem was the lack of water.

Even in the capital, this water will eventually dry up.

Ning Yao burned the letter and then urged Zhi Lan to continue practicing her skills.

"The weather is about to change..."

That night, Ning Yao left Qionghua Palace dressed in black, as usual, and did not return until the rooster crowed.

As soon as dawn breaks, certain prominent families in the capital will once again be wailing in despair.

Upon entering the palace, she immediately plunged into the secret realm to cultivate.

On the surface, she was a lazy Consort Rong for more than a year, either being punished with confinement or forced to copy palace rules. In reality, she did a lot of big things.

Visiting those aristocratic families was one thing, but more importantly, she had already grasped almost everything in the secret scroll.

The scroll contains three layers of information: the first layer is about lightness skills, the second layer is about weapon techniques, and the third layer is about concealment techniques.

Ning Yao spent more than a year teaching herself to be proficient.

Even Ning Wenyi and Ning Jin figured out some tricks of the trade.

As for Ning Qiong's situation, Ning Wenyi didn't mention it, and Ning Yao didn't ask either.

Ning's mother and Zhilan were the only ones who were lagging behind in their studies, but they were enough to protect themselves.

The Thousand Illusions Secret Realm has undergone many changes in the past year or so.

The spiritual spring is no longer the size of a single springhead, but has expanded to the size of an artificial pond, and contains a much richer concentration of spiritual energy from heaven and earth.

Even the legendary spirit lotus revealed its true form, which was still just an unopened golden bud.

The sacred land expanded from two acres to four acres, and more rare and precious medicinal herbs appeared.

And a new building appeared, the Spirit Artifact Pavilion.

The Spirit Weapon Pavilion contains various weapons left behind by Ning Que Linyu.

By comparing the techniques learned by Ning Yao and others, one can find the corresponding weapons within them.

However, Ning Yao's current goal is not to choose a weapon, but rather a pile of ordinary stones in the Spirit Weapon Pavilion.

At first, Ning Yao thought it was just a piece of raw jade.

She stumbled upon an ancient book in the Spirit Artifact Pavilion, which opened the door to a new world for her.

What she thought were raw jade stones turned out to be spatial spirit stones.

In other words, once the space spirit stone is activated, it can store items just like the Thousand Illusions Secret Realm. However, since the space lacks spiritual springs and spiritual lands, it cannot generate spiritual energy and can only be used as an ordinary storage space to hold inanimate objects.

This discovery delighted Ning Yao.

Only her father, Ning Wenyi, knew the reason why she possessed the secret of the Thousand Illusions Realm.

The fewer people who know about this rare treasure, the safer it is.

Therefore, how to get food and drink on the open road during the subsequent escape from famine became a major problem.

I can take it from the secret realm myself, but I can't explain it to everyone.

If we had space spirit stones, it would be more reasonable to create a bunch of storage spaces and have my father take them out in the name of the reclusive Ning family.

Ning Yao had inquired and found that the rumors about the reclusive Ning family still existed in this era, and were no different from those in her previous life.

However, almost no one knew that Ning Wenyi of the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion was the heir of the reclusive Ning family.

Including Madam Ning.

In addition, the Spirit Weapon Pavilion not only has ready-made weapons, but also allows Ning Yao to try to forge weapons herself once she reaches a certain level.

The simplest thing is the storage space.

It is not only based on spatial spirit stones, but also because it is not an offensive weapon, it is a beginner-level weapon crafting tool.

It's very simple.