As it happened, the Gathering of Heroes was being held right next door to Pine Wind Martial Hall.
People came and went in an endless stream, and cheers rang out without pause.
It was quite a clamor of drums and gongs.
Even Pine Wind Martial Hall, usually quiet all day, had grown lively.
That day, Li Chuan walked out of the Inner Courtyard.
"Senior Brother Li!" Whenever a disciple passed him, they stopped to greet him.
Li Chuan nodded in response, then walked out the gate of Pine Wind Martial Hall.
As soon as he stepped outside, he saw the Gathering of Heroes venue.
The nearby shopkeepers and vendors had all been cleared away, leaving behind a vast open space.
Five large arenas had been set up across it.
Rows of seats surrounded each arena.
In the center, a clerk had set up a betting stall where people could wager on who would win.
The odds were clearly written on a board behind him.
Li Chuan gave a quiet laugh.
"An ordinary person does it, and it's gambling, something people despise. But when the authorities organize it..."
For a moment, he remembered the painful time he'd spent six hundred yuan on scratch-off tickets, only to lose four hundred...
"Three-to-one odds! I won! I won!" A burly man sprang up from his stool and shouted excitedly.
"Who would've thought Sun Xing, who failed the Martial Exam this time, would defeat a Martial Scholar ranked forty-ninth?!"
"Seems those old hands in Dark Force aren't necessarily inferior to Martial Scholars!"
Following their gaze, Li Chuan looked toward the arena.
The man called Sun Xing held both arms high, his face smug.
The Martial Scholar he'd defeated lay on the ground like a dead dog.
Beating someone above your station brought honor; being beaten