He wanted to remind his disciple to make plans early, but he did not want to bring up his innate aptitude and deal him another blow, so he swallowed his words halfway through.
"Besides, Master, don't we still need to consider Junior Brother Chu? You know he's always felt that way about Senior Sister Huo... wouldn't this affect him?" Zhao Feng left the rest unsaid.
Chu Fan had screwed him over before, so he felt perfectly justified dragging the fellow out to serve as a shield.
At Zhao Feng's mention of Chu Fan, Huo Shan's eyes dimmed again. A rift had already opened between him and Chu Fan. There was no going back.
Before the Martial Examination, he had put all his efforts into grooming Chu Fan as the Martial Arts School's successor. Naturally, he had long since noticed the young man's interest in Huo Yao. If Chu Fan married into the Huo household, it would kill two birds with one stone. But Chu Fan was too impetuous, so he had never made up his mind, intending to discuss it once the young man had matured a little. He had never expected their relationship to grow increasingly distant after the Martial Examination.
Although Chu Fan was still nominally his final disciple, things could never return to how they had been.
Still, part of him felt relieved. Luckily, he had never pierced that thin paper window between them and spoken openly about it. Otherwise, trying to match her with someone else now would make him look as though he were kicking Chu Fan while he was down.
But Zhao Feng was right. Bringing this up at such a critical moment would have unfortunate repercussions. There was also another important matter he had not mentioned: the situation in the county town was