Gu Shenwei had visited the Four Truths Blue Lotus once many years ago, but it had left little impression on him.
At the time, he had still been an inconspicuous Brown Belt Assassin, standing in the dim main hall and telling a large group of strangers what he had seen and heard. Before he had even memorized their faces, he had been asked to leave.
He was more familiar with the thatched hut on the hillside outside the temple. It had once been the retreat of Tiger Monk Master.
Returning to the old place as the Dragon King, with ten thousand troops on either side of Jade City flying his banner, he naturally received very different treatment. Nearly a hundred monks in ceremonial robes stood in neat rows at the entrance, greeting the honored guests from afar with folded hands.
But the honored guest was not only the Dragon King. There were also Western Regions Protectorate Official Wei Song, the Crown Prince of Shule serving as regent, and the Unrivaled King Shangguan Fa, who had not appeared publicly for many years.
This was Gu Shenwei's first formal meeting with Shangguan Fa.
Under the sunlight, Shangguan Fa was not as tall as Gu Shenwei remembered. His expression was as gloomy and rigid as ever. His deeply sunken eye sockets seemed like a layer of armor, concealing two sharp gazes and shielding others from the murderous aura that weighed upon the heart.
Shangguan Fa leaped down from his horse, his movements slightly clumsy and lacking the bearing of a martial arts master. The hundred guards behind him, however, all held their heads high and chests out, their armor gleaming brightly and making their master's ordinariness stand out even more.
The Crown Prince of Shule and the Dragon King had come from the