"You see those crooked melons and cracked dates? I feel like I've got a chance again."
Half an hour later, people began trickling toward the city gate. Before long, the entrance to the Prefectural Yamen was packed. Young Master Lin eyed a scholar with sallow skin and a gaunt frame, as if years of overindulgence had hollowed him out.
A burly brute with a waist as thick as a barrel, a face full of cruel-looking flesh, and a pair of glaring, bell-like eyes wore a fur coat and had a massive cleaver hanging at his waist. Was he a butcher, by any chance?
All in all, looking at this crowd brought Young Master Lin's confidence back.
So what if they were cultivators from a sect? Didn't they care about appearances? Just imagine this bunch in white robes—or elegant cultivator's robes—flying on swords. The image was far too jarring.
The qilin still looked listless. In Lin Fei's Sea of Consciousness, it couldn't help rolling its eyes. Its host's blind optimism seemed carved into his bones; he was always doing things that left it laughing and crying at once.
With a sigh, it corrected him. "Lin Fei, cultivators are judged by their strength, not their looks."
Whether Young Master Lin had taken that to heart was another matter.
Zhu Yu looked up at the sky. It was already well past midmorning, and his brows knitted together. Judging by the quotas recommended by the various prefectures, they were short by a full forty percent.
The crowd outside the yamen was bustling, with roughly a hundred people present, but the list Zhu Lingyun had brought contained nearly two hundred names.
"They shouldn't be playing these kinds of tricks, should they?"
Zhu Yu murmured to himself, stroking his chin.
The Northern Border was unlike the