Chapter 365
Lin Hui dismissed the Blood Seal, rose, and sheathed the Ruyi sword at his waist.
As he stepped out of the inner room, he found the sky had already dimmed, a thin mist settling over the air. Several crows perched along the drill ground wall, preening their glossy black feathers as they watched the students practice their sword forms below. Recently, Lin Hui had commissioned a row of small wooden cabins along the edge of the drill grounds—shelter from the wind and rain, and a place for the students to rest at midday after grueling practice. He was modeling the hall after the old Clear Wind Temple.
The hall now housed over thirty disciples. Ten were rough martial arts disciples; the rest had all taken up the refined track. The annual tuition from the refined tier formed the main cash flow keeping the hall afloat.
Lin Hui had no desire to attract unwanted attention, which made balancing the books a necessity.
Gazing out at the distant evening glow, he often felt the urge to cut loose—to soar into the sky on his true strength and see whether the view up there matched the world he had left behind. But at the thought of those purple tentacles, he suppressed the impulse every time.
The longer he remained here, the more an inexplicable sense of wrongness gnawed at him.
"Why isn't Tieniu here today?" He retracted his gaze and swept the crowd, immediately noting the absence of Xie Tieniu—normally the most tireless of the rough martial arts disciples.
Since joining the hall, Tieniu was always first to rise and last to sleep, every single day of the year. He volunteered for the dirtiest and most exhausting chores without complaint. Of all the disciples, he was without question the most honest and the most devoted.
He also practically worshipped Lin Hui.