The meditation chamber fell silent for a moment.
Ji Mie Arhat leaned against the headboard, motionless.
He looked down at the scroll on the low table, then up at the young novice's face, as though checking whether he had misread a line.
Then he suddenly sat bolt upright. The movement tugged at the hidden injury in his chest, and the pain turned his face stark white.
Yet Ji Mie Arhat seemed utterly unaware of it. He merely widened his eyes, his voice rising to more than twice its previous volume:
"What? Grand General Xiao Jin is dead?"
That roar rang out with such force that dust came showering down from the chamber's rafters.
The white porcelain teacup beside the bed rattled in the shock wave and nearly toppled over.
Ji Mie Arhat braced both hands against the edge of the bed. A faint flush spread over his ashen face, his eyes wide open.
His eyes bulged as though they might leap from their sockets. Not a trace remained of his earlier weary, burdened look.
The teapot in Yuan Kong's hand stopped in midair, its stream of tea suspended over the cup halfway through pouring.
The genial expression on his round, doughy face finally cracked.
He slowly set down the teapot, turned toward Ji Mie Arhat, then looked at the young novice. Profound shock surfaced on his plump, pale face.
"Say that again."
Yuan Kong spoke, his voice a shade deeper than usual.
"Xiao Jin is dead? How did he die? Who killed him?"
"Did another power intervene?"
Startled by the two masters' reactions, the young novice stammered through the report again. "The report says... at the Chiyan Valley pass, the Three-Sect Allied Army held their ground."
"A young man named Wang Yuan, the Kaoshan Sect's Mysterious Abyss Daoist Heir, donned