Yi Yang pushed open the courtyard gate.
At the corner by the alley entrance, a figure stepped out of the shadows.
Qin Ju.
He had come from the Azure Cloud Martial Arts Hall and was now a Deputy Commander of the Heaven Patrol Office. Barely thirty-five or thirty-six, he already held the fifth-highest seat of power in Yunlin County.
Seeing who it was, Yi Yang's lips twitched slightly. They had briefly touched on the matter outside the Heaven Patrol Office headquarters earlier, but he had not expected the man to actually come.
Yi Yang had sensed Qin Ju arriving around the same time as Mu Fenghai, a little later than his younger brother Yi Xun. But the moment Mu Fenghai appeared, the presence at the alley entrance had stopped advancing.
For the time it took to drink an entire cup of tea, he had remained planted at the foot of the wall around the corner.
Only after the footsteps of Mu Fenghai, Yi Xun, and Liu Fu faded into the distance did he move.
It made sense.
Qin Ju had come from the Azure Cloud Martial Arts Hall and had previously served as its deputy hall master. Now that Zhang Songqing's involvement had left the hall teetering on the brink of collapse, everyone inside and outside the Heaven Patrol Office was watching his ties to his former school.
At a time like this, how could he appear at Yi Yang's gate alongside the Thundercloud Martial Arts Hall's master, with whom he had a grudge?
The two might well clash and part on bitter terms.
"Commander Yi."
Qin Ju approached, his right hand holding his spear upright at his side, and raised his left fist in the formal salute of a Heaven Patrol Office subordinate.
He adopted a very humble manner.