Gao Huan invited Li Fuchan inside, offered him a seat, and served tea.
Lamplight flickered across that face he had not seen in so long.
Li Fuchan was now utterly different from the man he had been in the Demon Cave. His bearing was steady and composed, every movement carrying an ease that defied description.
Only those gray-black eyes remained unforgettable at first sight.
After sitting down, Li Fuchan dispensed with pleasantries. He merely glanced at him and nodded slightly. "Your defensive qi is stirring. You are only one step away from the Jade Capital."
Before reaching full mastery of aperture opening, cultivators could not conceal the stirrings of their three qi. Gao Huan was not surprised that Li Fuchan could see it, but he did not answer immediately, thoughts whirling through his mind.
Why has he suddenly appeared? And why at precisely this moment?
Gao Huan did not believe there was anything he could do for Li Fuchan, anything about him that Li Fuchan would value.
In terms of cultivation, he had opened only three apertures and had yet to gather dharma power. As for status, despite commanding troops on the frontier and appearing full of vigor, his background left him hamstrung at every turn. He had no foundation within the Gao Household.
Without the support of the household head and Gao Gongjin, the troops he had brought today probably would not even have made it through White Forest Town's palisade gates.
Gao Changtong was a calculating man, a smiling tiger. He had shown it even as a child, and the methods he had employed to rescue his uncle back then had laid bare the depths of his scheming.
Gao Shuying had long since told him all about that affair.
By his original reckoning, without Gao Gongjin exerting influence