Unconvinced

Heaven Dou City, Moonlight Pavilion.

It was just after evening classes ended, and young men and women streamed out of the main gate in twos and threes.

After all, it was an academy for noble cultivation. Watching the people coming and going, if one had to sum up the feeling in a word, it would be...

Pretentious!

True nobility did not need to be taught. It was an image engraved into their bones, instilled through family upbringing from childhood.

Learning it after reaching adulthood was nothing more than a matter of so-called family honor.

Tang San stood on the terrace at the top floor of Moonlight Pavilion. He had been back for two days. After descending from the Clear Sky Sect, he had endured another two years of hellish training, and the scars on his body all testified to the hardships of those years.

Yet the most noticeable change was his eyes.

Even when he smiled, that icy calm had not entirely faded.

Over the past two years, he had gone through too much and killed too many people.

"Xiao San?" Tang Yuehua walked to Tang San's side and stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

"Aunt." Tang San turned his head, the corner of his lips lifting into a gentle curve, exactly like the smile he had given his teachers at Shrek Academy when he was sixteen or seventeen. "I was just thinking about a few things. I've been gone for two years. Heaven Dou City seems unchanged, yet it also feels as though everything has changed."

Tang Yuehua reached out to straighten his collar. Seeing his injuries still made her heart ache.

"Tai Tan came by today." Tang Yuehua's expression also grew serious, though there was none of the respect for an elder in her tone when she mentioned