The three people who emerged looked exceedingly strange.
They wore heavy robes and large masks. Both robes and masks were painted in garish, clashing colors that drew the eye so completely it was impossible to spare any attention for their age, gender, or identities.
Worse, staring at those colors for even a little too long made one dizzy. The stomach churned as though someone had planted a Gu worm inside it, bringing on an almost irresistible urge to vomit.
The experts of the Hundred Schools of Thought had spent enough time with the three to know what to expect, so they were unaffected. Pan Long knew nothing about them. He stared at their strange appearance a moment too long, and dizziness struck as his stomach roiled. Had he not promptly steadied himself and forced down the discomfort, he might have made a fool of himself before everyone.
To cover it up, he asked, "How should I address the three of you?"
None of them answered. Instead, Bi Lingkong's divine sense reached him and introduced them.
The three were experts of the Yin-Yang School. Even Bi Lingkong did not know their real names, only their titles: "Mountain Ghost," "Shang Yang," and "Siming." The arts they practiced were Prophecy and Taboo Art, Five Virtues Cycle, and Heaven and Earth Reversal, respectively.
Prophecy and Taboo Art dealt in predictions, but it was not the divination Pan Long knew fairly well and had dabbled in. It was more like a "curse": whatever this art "predicted" was bound to happen. From the fall of a dynasty to petty theft, every prediction had only two possible outcomes. Either it succeeded and the event occurred, or it failed and the backlash killed its caster.
Five Virtues Cycle was the Yin-Yang School's own term for what most people