Lu Yang's sudden arrival caught Ye Lingling's attention. When she looked up and saw him, she involuntarily shrank back.
Ye Lingling was not yet ten. Having been forced to lose her family when she awakened her martial soul, she had never attended a soul master academy and had developed a somewhat withdrawn personality.
The stranger who had suddenly entered frightened Ye Lingling a little. But when she saw that Lu Yang did nothing else after entering the backyard and was carrying a Medical Canon in his arms, she realized who he was.
"Nice to meet you. I just arrived at the Ye Family today to study. My name is Lu Yang. Could you tell me yours?"
Faced with a quiet girl whose face showed traces of fear and resistance, Lu Yang did not approach rashly. He remained at the courtyard entrance and addressed the girl sitting beside the stone table.
"My name is Ye Lingling."
Ye Lingling's voice was so soft that, had Lu Yang not already been a Soul Grandmaster, he might not have heard her.
Once he learned Ye Lingling's name, Lu Yang understood why she had looked so frightened. In the original story, Ye Lingling had apparently been somewhat withdrawn for certain special reasons. Now it seemed that her personality issues were even more pronounced at this age.
But her refusal to engage, along with the expression that had yet to fade from her face, left Lu Yang unsure how to interact with her.
His gaze swept across the little courtyard before settling on the ornamental rockery to one side. Apart from the stone table where Ye Lingling sat, it was the sunniest spot. Lu Yang walked around the table to the rockery, jumped onto its top, and sat down to leaf through the Medical Canon in his arms.
Ye Lingling's eyes followed Lu Yang the entire time. Seeing that he had not come over to her, she finally breathed a sigh of relief. Yet at the same time, a faint sense of disappointment rose from the bottom of her heart.
Although Ye Lingling was shy around strangers and did not know how to get along with others, deep down, she still longed for friends. But she did not dare go out, and little by little, she had buried that longing in her heart.
As the continent's foremost healing martial soul, the nine heart begonia had no shortage of supporters. Some soul masters who had been healed by it were even willing to serve the Ye Family. Add to that people like Lu Yang who came to study, and overall, there were quite a few people Ye Lingling could interact with.
But once these people learned the conditions for passing down the nine heart begonia martial soul, most looked at Ye Lingling with pity. Those who came to study were even more afraid of displeasing her and being driven away. Over time, they naturally stopped daring to approach a girl who already radiated resistance.
Lu Yang, however, noticed none of the fluctuations in Ye Lingling's emotions. He was already immersed in the Medical Canon, ravenously absorbing its knowledge.
Much of the Ye Family's Medical Canon was almost identical to the pharmacological knowledge Lu Yang had studied before, but there was plenty of different material as well. The accounts of rare medicinal herbs, in particular, utterly captivated him.
Upon learning that he would be studying with the Ye Family, Lu Yang had even hoped to gain knowledge of immortal herbs there. Unfortunately, the Ye Family's Medical Canon contained no mention of them whatsoever.
Of course, that was hardly surprising. Even if the Ye Family really knew anything about immortal herbs, they would not record it in a Medical Canon that could be shared with outsiders. Most likely, they would treat it as a closely guarded family legacy, passed down only through the direct line.
Time always flew when he was studying. Only when the sun was setting did Lu Yang close the Medical Canon in his hands, rise, and leave the backyard of the Ye Family's Medical Clinic.
Ye Lingling had packed up her belongings and left at noon. Throughout the afternoon, apart from the Ye Family physician on duty coming to check on Lu Yang a few times, he had been alone in the backyard.
The physician was quite pleased that Lu Yang could read quietly. After telling him to come to the front hall and ask if there was anything he did not understand, he left him to his own devices.
Back in the little courtyard where he lived, Lu Yang enjoyed a hearty meal before returning to his room to rest.
Meanwhile, at the Crown Prince's Residence.
Qian Renxue also received the report from her subordinates.
"Tsk, I thought letting him go out might change something. Instead, he spent the whole day reading in the clinic's backyard, and he actually didn't say a single word to that Ye Lingling?"
After hearing She Long's report, Qian Renxue felt as though her entire understanding of things was starting to unravel.
"Young mistress, could you be overthinking this? Little Yang is only seven. He's still a child-what does he know? Even a girl might genuinely be less appealing to him than the knowledge he wants," She Long reminded her.
"Is that so?" Qian Renxue asked.
It was just as well that Lu Yang could not hear their conversation. Otherwise, he would certainly have told them that he could not even protect himself yet-how could he spare any thought for what they had in mind?
Two flowers bloomed; let us tell the tale of the other branch.
Far away at Nuoding Academy in Fanos Province, something major had happened that day as well.
What Yu Xiaogang and Tang San had done earlier had made Tang San's situation at the academy increasingly difficult.
Tang Hao had therefore confronted Yu Xiaogang and ordered him to resolve the matter.
But what sort of man was Yu Xiaogang? Conceited and arrogant! He intended to rely on his title of Grandmaster to order the students to stop isolating and ostracizing Tang San.
At first, Yu Xiaogang only issued orders to the students who shared Tang San's dormitory.
Although Wang Sheng and the others also looked down on Yu Xiaogang, how could they, as work-study students, dare defy him?
Seeing Wang Sheng and the others submit, Yu Xiaogang's confidence soared. He turned his attention to the noble students in the other grades, intending to tame them by the same method.
Those students, however, were nowhere near as obedient as Wang Sheng's group. They thought nothing of a useless fool like Yu Xiaogang. Humiliated and enraged, Yu Xiaogang actually attacked them.
Useless though Yu Xiaogang was, having failed to break through rank thirty even at fifty years old, he was still a rank twenty-nine soul master. Earth-Shattering Luo Sanpao could not blast a hundred-year soul beast to death, but it did kill a third-year student whose soul power was at rank nine, just short of reaching rank ten and obtaining a soul ring.
Now Yu Xiaogang was in serious trouble.
Yet, hoping to curry favor with the connections behind Yu Xiaogang, Nuoding Academy's dean actually tried to suppress the matter. The family whose child had died would have none of it. They joined forces with the parents of other students to pressure Nuoding Academy, and by now, the uproar had reached the point where everyone in the city knew about it.
The matter also reached the Spirit Hall Branch at Nuoding Academy.
Under Spirit Hall's regulations, killing a soul master was a grave crime in itself! By those rules, Yu Xiaogang would be branded a fallen soul master and escorted to Slaughter City. But after a deacon of the Nuoding City Spirit Hall Branch submitted the case file, no reply came for a long time, leaving Ma Xiunuo and the others unsure whether they should arrest Yu Xiaogang.
Before you continue