When Xiao Yun pushed open the stone door of the Cultivation Room, sunlight outside fell right across the threshold.
He narrowed his eyes and stood where he was for a moment, adjusting to the change in light.
He had not stepped through that door for a month. Even the air seemed more humid than before his seclusion.
He had only just returned beneath the corridor of the Main Courtyard when someone spotted him.
No one knew who shouted first, but soon, the sound of footsteps in the courtyard grew as people converged from every direction.
Spirit Flame Maiden arrived first. She happened to be practicing beneath the corridor and was visibly stunned when she saw Xiao Yun. Then she hurried over. "senior Xiao, you've come out of seclusion!"
She instinctively wanted to say, "You've lost weight," but swallowed the words before they left her mouth, merely smiling as she stepped aside.
Soon after, Xivia and Shenghua arrived as well.
They were still holding things they had not had time to put down. Xivia held a stack of papers, while Shenghua carried a cup of tea.
They stood behind Spirit Flame Maiden and nodded at Xiao Yun. Then they sat opposite him, took out the documents in their hands, and passed them to him, informing him that all the procedures he had asked them to handle had been completed.
Liu Erlong arrived even faster. She had been handling Blue Tyrant Academy affairs in the Front Courtyard, but when a maid told her Xiao Yun had emerged from seclusion, she put down her brush and hurried through the corridor.
She looked him over from head to toe before asking, "How is it?"
Xiao Yun said, "More or less done."
Liu Erlong did not ask further. She simply hummed, turned to have someone