"Poor guy."
Zheng Qing was suddenly overcome with sympathy. Had he been too harsh on an orphan? But then he realized something was off. "Wait... his family used to be rich?"
Xiao Xiao shook his head. "Go back three hundred years, and the entire Qingcheng Lin Clan hasn't produced a single Registered Wizard."
"Then his mother came from a great family and brought a huge dowry?" Zheng Qing asked, still frowning.
"No."
The Doctor seemed to know what he was getting at and answered bluntly. "His mother's family was in much the same position as his father's. Old-school wizards care a great deal about matching family backgrounds. Unless someone has extraordinary talent, great families rarely marry into small ones... As far as I know, his mother's side was even worse off. I think the family line has died out. His grandfather wasn't much good at managing things, either. All he could do was grow herbs on the few acres of Spirit Land his ancestors left him, trading them for Talisman Paper and Cinnabar for Lin Yan. They barely got by."
"Then he—"
Xiao Xiao cut Zheng Qing off as soon as he opened his mouth. "He didn't fall off a cliff, dig up some archmage's treasure hidden in a ravine, find a lump of gold the size of a watermelon, or get taken on as a disciple by a Legendary Wizard... The seventy Jade Coins he offered you? He earned every one himself."
"He earned them himself?!" Zheng Qing nearly fell apart. He came close to crushing the Paper Crane he was holding for Zhang Jixin back into a ball.
Fortunately, Xiao Xiao reacted fast, rapping the young scholarship student's wrist with his pen and saving the Paper Crane from that fate. The poor little thing crawled out of Zheng