After Wang Hongchang, Hu Sihai, and the others left the hall, they all consciously went down to the lower level and found a place to deliberate. Yet for quite some time afterward, everyone wore troubled frowns, and the atmosphere was exceptionally oppressive.
If one had to pick the person with the ugliest expression among them, it would surely be Lu Qian. Setting everything else aside, merely the furtive glances cast his way gave him the urge to flip the table and kill someone.
Tianhai Sect was not some great sect. Even among medium-sized sects, it was not particularly powerful. As the sect's second-ranking figure, Lu Qian had only reached the upper Void-Stepping realm. Most of the time, the sect relied solely on Sect Master Guo Ziyang's True Person cultivation to hold up appearances.
A sect with a Longevity True Man had the capital to stand above its peers in the South, a land of countless households and gates. Yet Tianhai Sect's foundations were insufficient. Guo Ziyang's entry into the True Person realm had been no more than an exception, and because his foundation was unstable, hidden dangers had taken root long ago. This sect master was one with relatively far-reaching vision. Having realized the problem early, he had placed most of Tianhai Sect's strength into business.
Guo Ziyang first found a distant clansman with whom he was barely connected. That man served as a shopkeeper in Suixin Pavilion and had some connections, so Guo Ziyang deliberately cultivated ties with him. Through that man's efforts, he opened a relationship with Suixin Pavilion and earned the sect's first pot of gold in business.
But over twenty years ago, that "clansman" had been sent off to preside over a hall in the Northern Wastes. His performance there was poor, and he ultimately returned