The Bird That Sticks Its Neck Out

The moment they saw Ji Ye plummet headfirst from the heavens, the surrounding crowd erupted in an uproar.

Those who had looked ashen-faced were suddenly stirred with excitement as well.

See? This fellow really was an ignorant, useless dandy. His spiritual power had clearly reached the threshold for a breakthrough long ago, yet something had gone wrong at the final step.

Sure enough, the gap in talent truly existed. Some people with poor talent simply did not deserve to enjoy those resources.

The discussions below continued without end, yet the Alliance members merely watched the crowd boil over in argument with calm expressions.

"Sir, was this something you arranged beforehand as well?"

In a small pavilion at the edge of the square, Qi He suddenly raised his head for no apparent reason and looked toward the empty seat by the window.

There, a cup of tea, less than half gone, was still sending wisps of steam curling upward.

Half an incense stick ago, the tea's owner had already departed.

The tea room was silent, while the clamor outside grew ever louder.

Qi He received no answer—or rather, he had known the answer long ago.

He rose to his feet and snapped his fingers toward the rear. Someone outside the door responded softly, and soon afterward, a figure could be seen moving against the tide of people toward the center of the square.

In the square.

Ji Ye seemed to have only just recovered from the dizziness of falling from such heights.

Listening to the noisy voices in his ears and feeling the countless differing gazes coming at him from every direction, an unfamiliar feeling inexplicably arose within him.

Before today, he had mostly kept a low profile and rarely revealed his whereabouts or habits in public. On the first day