Chapter 50: Promotion
Xu Meifen — Commander of the Western Reaches Second Garrison.
Lord Shen Yue — Lord of the Western Reaches.
Fei Liao — Xu Meifen's second in command.
Pei Liang — Founder of the River Fork Academy at Hekou Village.
Wei Suyin — Head of the clinic. Pei Liang's partner.
Xu Bing — Garrison soldier at Hekou. Xu Meifen's younger brother.
Xu Meifen had stood in this room more times than she could count.
Lord Shen Yue sat at the far end of the hall in the high chair that was not quite a throne. He was thinner than he had been at the autumn review. His robes sat differently on his shoulders now, the fabric fuller where his frame had receded, and his hands on the armrests had a stillness to them that she recognized from the months after his diagnosis.
She had finished her report. The River Fork Academy's first cohort: four students. Instructor Wei Bolin's session records were thorough, cultivation progress tracked week by week, with pre- and post-assessment comparisons documenting improved channel capacity, reduced restriction, and cleaner ambient draw across all four practitioners. One notation stood out: by the final week, the student Dian Lu had demonstrated the ability to drive a bare fist through a wooden post without sustaining damage to his own hand.