"I greet the venerable ancestor."
Outside the tent, the young man was congratulating himself on borrowing flowers to offer to the Buddha. He had won over a military officer without spending a single coin. But before his smile could reach his brows, the officer opposite him suddenly clasped his fists and bowed toward someone behind him, as though he had seen something terrifying.
The young man reacted at once.
He quickly wiped away every trace of his smug expression and bowed deeply to the herb-gatherer, his posture respectful and humble. When he looked up again, only filial admiration remained in his eyes. As a fallen scion, he knew that everything before him now had been brought by this convenient ancestor of his. How could he dare slight him?
The herb-gatherer raised a hand, signaling that there was no need for such courtesy.
"What were you talking about just now? You sounded quite cheerful."
The young man had some cunning, but he was far from a master of it. He couldn't tell what the herb-gatherer really meant, and anxiously wondered whether the man truly hadn't heard them or was merely asking despite knowing. The officer beside him, however, reacted quickly and answered at once: "The young master was just asking this subordinate for advice."
The herb-gatherer's gaze swept lightly over him.
"Oh? What was he asking you about?"
The unspoken meaning was clear: what problem was so difficult that he couldn't ask his own venerable ancestor, and had to lower himself to ask some half-baked outsider instead?
That single glance made every hair on the officer's body stand on end. His scalp prickled and itched, as though hundreds or thousands of ants were crawling over it. He swallowed nervously several times, resisting the urge to circulate his martial energy against the