News traveled faster than the autumn wind.
Just after noon that day, the details of the confrontation in the front hall spread through every street and alley of Qinghe Prefecture City as though they had grown wings.
There were many versions. Some said the Kaoshan Sect's Dao Child had smashed Tie Hengshan's head apart with a single slap.
Some said the youth had killed the Early-stage Organ Refining Iron Banner Gate master with just one finger.
Others claimed he had not even moved a finger. He had merely glanced at Tie Hengshan, and that brute had fallen over dead on his own.
In the teahouses, storytellers slammed their blocks and embroidered the tale of "the Dao Child emerging from seclusion, slaying an Organ Refining cultivator with one finger." The audience was more than three times larger than usual.
Some listeners were animated with excitement, while others held their teacups for so long that they forgot to drink.
Several idle men who had long frequented the western part of the city even threw down their tea money and rushed for Qi Yun Manor's shops.
They remembered that those shops had withheld Kaoshan Sect grain a few days ago. Now, they had to hurry over and watch the excitement.
Qi Yun Manor's three grain shops in the East Market reopened that very afternoon.
The shopkeepers personally stood at the entrances, putting the grain they had hoarded over the past few days back on sale at the original price. They even added another ten percent as an "apology," waiting respectfully at the doors.
Whenever they spotted a Kaoshan Sect disciple passing from afar, they would immediately bow and scrape their way over to ask, "Is the Dao Child well today?"
The Green Willow Society was even more straightforward.
After Liu Sanbian returned to