"So, what you youngsters mean is that I should give way on every count?" Late that night, Cao Lin quietly listened to the young men finish their account, feeling rather surprised for a moment and setting the bells in the tower ringing.
In fact, anyone else present would probably have found it strange too.
For everyone standing before Cao Lin, whether his adopted sons or Qian, Li, Qin, Lü, and the others, should have been typical young bloods. They were young, their official careers had only just begun, so they should have craved conflict, craved the chance to win distinction through it... unless they had encountered setbacks and trials too early, or seen more people and events.
After asking his question, Cao Lin looked at these men, then at his adopted sons, and in a moment of abstraction, naturally thought of those two young people.
A man of humble birth had refused his offer right here, unwilling to become a son of Imperial Uncle Cao; a woman who had only just begun visualization had also stood here, holding a Crouching Dragon Seal of uncertain remaining potency, and publicly threatened him, a Great Grandmaster.
Whether or not he was willing to admit it aloud, the fact was that Zhang Sanlang, who had become a threat lodged in his very heart, and Bai Sanniang, who very likely had already been such a threat before, had grown out of the very heart of his own establishment.
That the people before him should suffer setbacks and suppression at those two's hands, feel constrained, or even regard them with some awe and imitate them, did not seem so difficult to understand.
At this thought, Cao Lin finally gave Qian Tang, who had remained silent throughout, a particular look.
This young man, born and bred in