On the night of October 31, inside the ancestral hall of Huaiyuan Hall on Yiyang Mountain...
The four elders—Mu En, Mu Lei, Mu An, and Mu Yu—sat cross-legged in the main hall.
"The Wheel-Turning Ceremony will be held in two days. Zhang Tie still hasn't returned at a time like this. Should we contact him?" Elder Mu An frowned slightly as he discussed the ceremony with the other three elders. Zhang Tie had left Huaiyuan Hall for over a month without a word. There were only three days left before the ceremony. If Zhang Tie had not already advanced to Knight and possessed formidable strength, making it unlikely for anything to happen to him, the elders might already have mobilized their connections to search for him.
"Zhang Tie said he would definitely return before November 1. There are still three hours until the early hours of November 1. If he hasn't returned by then, we can contact him," Elder Mu En said.
As family elders, their words carried the weight of mountains. Since Zhang Tie had said he would return before November 1, then unless he had encountered some accident, he would certainly return before then. Even if something delayed him, Zhang Tie should have contacted the family. Since he had not, it meant everything was proceeding as usual. Asking ahead of time would make it seem as though the elders did not trust Zhang Tie. If Zhang Tie were still merely the Zhang Tie of old, the elders could naturally ask after him, but Zhang Tie was now about to formally become a family elder of Huaiyuan Hall. As fellow family elders, they had to mind their measure in how they treated him. If such trivial matters left any resentment or conflict between the elders, that would be bad.