The story of how Lü Yan had come to be here was rather convoluted and bitter.
After Lü Yan had been ambushed and knocked out in Yanjing, he had been placed straight into confinement because the Divination Sect was suspected of colluding with the Demon Path. At first, he had thought he would die in that coffin.
But a few days later, a white-haired patriarch had let him out again, saying something about how everything had been investigated, and he had not betrayed the Righteous Path.
But the Divination Sect had colluded with the Demon Path to throw the court and country into chaos, so he had to redeem himself through meritorious service, blah, blah, blah...
Lü Yan had wondered what crime he had committed. All he had done was seek an opportunity, only to be beaten from south to north by Xie Jinhuan-oh, being weak was the original sin!
The speaker had been Qixia Old Devil, whose standing in the Daoist Sect was even higher than Yellow Qilin True Person's, so Lü Yan had earnestly accepted the criticism.
Then Qixia Old Devil had said that the Divination Sect had attempted a coup, Yang Huaxian had resurfaced, undercurrents were surging throughout the world, the Southern Dynasty was probably unstable too, and so on. He had told Lü Yan to reflect on his mistakes here facing the wall and kill whoever came. If he won, he could return as Sect Master; if he suffered martyrdom, that would count as atonement for the Divination Sect.
Perhaps afraid he would starve, Qixia Old Devil had even tossed him a bag of Grain-Avoidance Pills. One look at the quantity, and Lü Yan had estimated they would last him over a decade. He had gone numb on the spot!
A straight sentence of over a