Outer Gu Skin

"It's Li Qiulan of the Alchemy Lineage!"

Someone in the crowd recognized the woman's face and could not help lowering their voice in a startled cry, their tone brimming with incredulous shock.

The alchemy lineage of Nine Void Mountain was itself a core pillar of the technical faction, controlling the sect's scarcest alchemical resources. Its status was exceptional, and its voice carried immense weight. Even an ordinary outer apprentice of the alchemy lineage was treated with great respect outside.

Li Qiulan, moreover, was a genuine direct disciple and junior sister of the alchemy lineage. Her talent eclipsed all others of her generation, and her alchemical arts far surpassed cultivators her age. Carefully nurtured by the alchemy lineage's elders, she was a future core figure upon whom the entire technical faction had poured its efforts.

Such a heaven-favored prodigy of the arts, with boundless prospects ahead of her, should have been quietly cultivating the alchemical Dao in an alchemy chamber, or transferred to train in one of the sect's core offices. Even if she had been parachuted into a position, she would surely have held high office and wielded great authority.

No one had expected her to be directly sent down to take over all affairs at such a grassroots office as the East City branch of the Tax Gu Division.

Many people secretly felt puzzled and began speculating.

Logically speaking, given Li Qiulan's status, position, talent, and foundation, there had been no need for her to wade into the muddy waters of a grassroots branch at the very forefront of factional clashes.

But when everyone reconsidered the sect's current situation, they realized that Li Qiulan naturally would not have needed to do this back when things were stable.

Yet Nine Void Mountain was now in troubled times. Beyond the factional