Chapter 269: The True Cause of Great Trepidation
Zou Tian was curious about why Master had asked him to stay behind, but he wasn’t concerned. As a street rat working as a lookout for gangs back in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, a meeting with the boss was more likely than not a bad thing. It usually meant that the boss thought Zou Tian had done something wrong, be it missing something he should have observed or being lazy or stealing something or whatever other paranoic suspicion happened to pass through the guy’s miniscule brain.
The sect operated much differently. Zou Tian had literally heard of only one case of a member being punished, and that penalty was absolutely earned. Instead, as far as he’d observed, a summons from Master tended to result in either a mission or a gift. Though he was greatly looking forward to hitting Foundation Establishment to become the recipient of all the interesting rewards that came with hitting that mark, he was at least six months from advancing and couldn’t think of any other reason for him to be rewarded.
Thus, he was very interested in what mission the sect leader had in mind. The inclusion of a Nascent Soul in the meeting definitely provided a clue that the task must be important. Whatever it was would definitely be noteworthy. And possibly dangerous.
Regardless, it was Zou Tian’s honor to serve the sect and his master.
After everyone except him, the new Nascent Soul disciple, and Master had left the room, Sun Hua re-entered with tea, and the three of them sat to drink it once she’d left.
“Yuan Yaozu, you’ve met my disciple, Zou Tian, right?” Master said.
“I have. He was one of the juniors who assisted me prior to my trial. Their advice was quite helpful.”
“He’s a good kid,” Master said. “He’s also one of the sect’s resources that I have been severely underutilizing.”
Zou Tian’s ears perked up at that. As he’d suspected, a mission was surely forthcoming. He resolved to keep his mouth shut, though, as the two high realmed cultivators spoke.
Master smiled. “When I first saw him, I knew he was something special. Though he was a mortal through and through, his aspect was already manifesting.”
“A mortal manifesting Shadow? That is special indeed,” Yuan Yaozu said. “The sects snatch up any mortals with aspects that strong, but I guess Shadow would have made it difficult unless you had cause to focus specifically on him.”
“That’s exactly what happened. I was expecting a lookout from the local gangs, and my eyes just slid right past him.”