At first light, Mei Chengyu walked around the stairwell landing and came beneath the eaves on the first floor. He glanced over and saw that Yan Xiaochuan was still lying on the long bench beneath the courtyard.
He couldn't say he knew Yan Xiaochuan well, but they weren't strangers, either.
Mu Yong'an had come to Taiyi six years ago as a master instructor. He had taught for two years, spent three recovering from illness, and still hadn't resumed teaching.
Mei Chengyu had met Mu Yong'an while attending the masters' External Cultivation Class. But thinking back carefully, he seemed to have encountered Yan Xiaochuanl first.
Back then, Yan Xiaochuan hadn't even reached his chest. He was a skinny little thing, and a bit shy around strangers. At eleven, he'd gotten lost after arriving at Taiyi and wandered through a maze of turns until he reached the Ghost Dao School. Staring at the unfamiliar surroundings, he'd scratched his head in a panic.
In his haste, Yan Xiaochuan forgot all about being shy. He grabbed a passerby and stammered, "I, I, I—"
The tall youth he'd grabbed had been looking down at his Listening Wind Ruler. Caught off guard, he'd been stopped in his tracks. He turned his head and arched an eyebrow at the boy.
Yan Xiaochuan stumbled through the rest of what he wanted to say. It took Mei Chengyu a while to piece together that the little guy was lost and wanted to find the School of Scholars, but had ended up at the Ghost Dao School. He'd even gotten the name of his destination wrong.
Looking at the Yan Xiaochuan of that time, Mei Chengyu seemed to glimpse himself when he'd first arrived at Taiyi.
He, too, had been wary of the unfamiliar surroundings, anxious and ill at ease.