Chapter Seven The Thin Man

  Ling Qingyan followed beside Liu Yanran, nodding constantly as Liu Yanran pointed at the surrounding buildings with her hand.

  Tianjian Sect, indeed one of the top sects in the southern part of Chongwu Continent. The residence is built like a massive dragon coiling up the mountain road of Tianxian Peak, extremely vast. Even the inner sect buildings are not much smaller than those in the outer sect. Under Liu Yanran's lead, Ling Qingyan looked around at the diverse and unique buildings, feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of them.

  "Green shirted brother, just ahead is the residential complex of our inner sect disciples..."

  Under the leadership of Liu Yanran, a series of courtyard-style buildings stood in front, not far away. In front of these buildings, there were vast lawns with various rough and inferior equipment around them, which was obviously where the inner disciples practiced their moves.

  It's said to be outdated and inferior equipment, simply because the training equipment that Ling Qingyan saw in his previous life were all high-tech products of the new century, especially in the gym, where there were many advanced types of training equipment. At this time, seeing these rough wooden equipment, the visual contrast brought to Ling Qingyan was quite large for a while.

  Liu Yanran walked ahead with Ling Qingyan, and along the way, they also encountered several male and female disciples who called Liu Yanran "Shifu" as they passed by.

  "Your generation is still quite high, all the way here, almost everyone calls you 'Shifu',” Ling Qingyan directly discovered this problem, and his joking words were filled with some doubt. Logically speaking, among the inner door disciples, the master's generation of inner door elders should not be few, but why are there so many young men and women whose generations are lower than Liu Yanran's?

  Liu Yanran also knew about Ling Qingyan's doubts, and smiled as she explained, "Qingyan brother, you should know that my master's generation of seniors have been very selective in taking on disciples for decades, unless they are extremely talented. And those senior brothers and sisters who are of the same generation as me, are now almost all middle-aged, some are even over sixty years old..."

  "Over sixty years old?!"

  Ling Qing's expression changed, and then she thought about it and felt that it was indeed the case. After all, looking at the age of the sect master and the sword elder, except for their faces which were similar to those in their middle age, they were already old people who had lived through many years. Nowadays, disciples like Liu Yanran's age were generally one or even two generations lower than her. After all, she was the closed-door disciple of the current sect master of the Sword Sect.

  "And among those senior brothers and sisters, a large part of them have already left the sect, either serving in the Great Qin National Army or wandering around Chongwu Continent," said Liu Mengran. At this point, Ling Qingyan could clearly see a hint of envy in her eyes.

  Ling Qing nodded slightly, seeming to understand.

  Following behind Liu Yanran, they arrived at the front of the continuous courtyard buildings that had been seen before. However, Liu Yanran did not stop in her tracks and instead turned into a path outside the perimeter of the building, continuing to walk further in.

  "This outer part is where the third generation disciples live, while we second generation disciples are in the inner layer," said Liu Yanran, seemingly noticing Ling Qingyan's confusion.

  Ling Qingyan suddenly understood, previously he was still in doubt, thinking that these residences were not divided by generation... It turned out that behind this series of buildings, there were other residences. The three generations of disciples mentioned by Liu Yanran, Ling Qingyan also knew, should be counted from the first generation as the master of Tianjian Sect, after all, Tianjian Sect had been passed down for thousands of years, and it would be chaotic if one generation was not distinguished from another?

  After walking for nearly a hundred meters, Ling Qingyan finally saw the same series of courtyard-style buildings as before. At this moment, a loud and intense fighting sound came from far away, accompanied by a majestic roar.

  "Master Meng is looking for someone to spar with again!"

  Liu Yanran also heard the sound coming from afar and couldn't help but smile, then directly stepped forward. Ling Qingyan was taken aback at first, then tightly followed behind.

  Under the leadership of Liu Yanran, in no time, the two had already arrived at the location where the sound was emitted earlier. Only to see that on the lawn, there were two figures constantly intersecting and fighting each other, extremely fast, sometimes even pulling out several residual shadows... What surprised Ling Qingyan was that the two intersecting figures in this arena were all emitting blue true energy.

  Two blue-grade intermediate warriors.

  "Great!"

  As the loud voice rose, one of the figures in the field suddenly retreated, leaving a faint trail on the lush green lawn. As he withdrew, his figure slowly emerged, revealing an ordinary-looking middle-aged man with a sturdy build, whose whiskers almost covered his entire face.

  On the other hand, after the man retreated, another figure also stopped and gradually appeared. Ling Qingyan looked at the slightly thin and weak-looking back of the man, who seemed to be able to fall with the wind, and was shocked. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes before, Ling Qingyan wouldn't have believed that such a frail physique could fight evenly with that robust man in such an intense close combat.

  "Dead monkey, not bad, actually managed to hard carry with me."

  The middle-aged man looked at the thin and weak man in the distance, and couldn't help but burst out laughing. Apparently, their previous battle had been a complete victory for him.

  "Awesome!"

  The frail man seemed to speak little, and after uttering two words in a calm tone, he turned around directly. It was only then that Ling Qingyan got a clear look at the frail man's appearance, his skeletal frame wrapped in a long blue robe, making him appear so gaunt. What surprised Ling Qingyan the most, however, was the frail man's eyes, which were exceptionally sharp and piercing, like those of a wild beast lurking in wait, fierce and solitary, as if nothing around him could affect him.

  "Big Brother."

  Looking at the thin and weak man walking over, Liu Yanran called out somewhat awkwardly. Ling Qingyan could clearly feel Liu Yanran's solemnity at this moment, completely gone was her previous carefree and lively personality, obviously having some apprehension towards this "Hou Shixiong".

  At the sound, the thin man's gaze stayed on Liu Yanran for a moment, nodded slightly, and then fixed on Ling Qingyan beside Liu Yanran. Ling Qingyan felt the thin man's gaze shooting towards himself, and couldn't help but meet it head-on, staring at each other...

  Apathy, loneliness, bloodshed.

  This was the information that Ling Qingyan read from the eyes of the weak man, he couldn't imagine what this weak man had been through. Such eyesight, even among the players in the underground black boxing match in his previous life, were extremely rare.

  If it were an ordinary young man of Ling Qingyan's age, he would have already changed color and quickly looked away when facing such a gaze from the thin and weak man. However, Ling Qingyan had lived two lifetimes, and although this kind of gaze was rare in his previous life, he had seen it before, so he didn't feel even half a bit of fear.

  Looking at this unknown boy who still had a calm expression under his gaze, the thin man's face twitched slightly, and he slowly spat out three words, "You're not bad."

  Every word counts!

  The thin man walked away, as if everything around him was irrelevant. Ling Qingyan's gaze remained on the thin man, and from his gaunt back, he could clearly sense that this was a person with a story to tell.