Just as I was engrossed in mind. I suddenly heard someone that was standing in the front row calling for Clerk Lu, asking about whether they will be having a new instructor and whether will the morning practice will be called off for today, or for days to come .
Well, the family had no longer someone as carefree as instructor Lu, so answering your question, your training from now on will depend on your own efforts and the willingness of those guards to teach you a trick or two, that will be the case from now on, as for your morning practice for today's, it will be called of, but from tomorrow you can continue with your routine as before, understood ? .
Everyone : understood .
For some reason, I felt a bit of discomfort coming from all around me and saw that all the guards were smiling at us, but that wasn't a welcoming smile, no it was a wolf looking at a flock of sheeps kind of smile, due to having a bit more experience than the other guys around me, I was able to see that the riches in the hands of those guards will skyrocket in the next few days .
After all as the Clerk mentioned, it was all up to the whims of the guards whether they were willing to teach you or not, so to make the chance of them guiding you a bit bigger, you will need to dissuade him using all kinds of methods, that was why they were looking at us like we were some fat sheeps waiting to be slaughtered .
One of them was giving me an eerily look, it was Old Han, seeing me looking at him, his grin widened and he made a gesture of slitting his neck with his hand while nodding at all the other guards and them nodded at him back, I couldn't say to be that surprised, I had already accepted the fact that things like companionship and comradeship were all based on mutual benefit in this world and already came in terms with that .
Looking around me and not caring to even respond to the blatant provocation, I was able to see that other guys seemed to understand their situation as well and were all having ugly faces, I couldn't help but sympathize with them and I had the idea of starting my own branch of a Dojo here, but I will need to check that idea with my senior brother first .
The Clerk Lu suddenly got up and motioned for us to follow him in order, just as we reached the Inner gates, he turned to us and with a stern expression, he began telling us what we have to do, what we can do, what we shouldn't do and finally what we were forbidden from doing .
How to greet the elder, how to burn incense stick for the deceased and on and on, he informed us about everything that we might need to be careful with inside, I was able to tell that we missing up might end up affecting him as well, or else, he might not have wasted his breath telling us all that .
Then he knocked a few knocks on the gate and after a second or so it directly opened, the first thing that came from it was the freshing scented air, we hadn't even seen what the interior look, but me and the other around, already smelled quite the nice smelling air to let our imagination run wild .
The Clerk sternly told us to follow him, then went in and for some reason, the entrance to the inner courtyard seemed to be mysterious and quite obscure, the guards were surrounding us from both sides and were waiting for the last batch to go in, which just happened to be mine, just as I was about to get inside, I suddenly heard Old Han say to the guys in the last batch :
If any of you were to beat that guy Tian Long to pulp, not only we will guide you in practicing Martial Arts, but I will also give you a big reward .
He kept squinting his eyes at the guys in my group, but after a little while and seeing that no one seemed to even have the intention to accept, he spat on the floor and cursed them angrily for being a useless bunch, but if where to have witnessed what I did before, he might have thought that their reactions were actually quite justifiable .
Just as I passed by him, he didn't even looked at me and said :
You better count your days, with instructor Lu now gone, I will take revenge on you for the lashes I had to endure, also senior Lu Sun from the stables told me to tell you that he said hi .
He said this and he finally looked at me with a gloating expression and even though I already had decided to just ignore him, but I just couldn't keep my composure after seeing his gloating expression and him mentioning meeting that old Sun, he too was probably waiting for his own turn in getting lashed, so they end up in meeting one another .
Just as I passed by him and squinted my eyes at him and imagined that filled with nonsense head of his flying off his body after I use Life-Severing Sword to do it and as if he was already sensing what I was visualizing, his body began to shudder and he touched his neck, seeing that his head was still there, his face became ugly to look at, but not waiting for him to say anything, I directly entered the Inner Courtyard .
The moment I stepped into the gate, I felt the obscuring veil that was there before disappearing and my vision was cleared up and I was able to see everything inside in details, the moment I appeard, I was met with the stern look from the Clerk, probably angry at me for being late or something like that .
The moment I appeard at the end of the row, I was still getting weird looks from all the other servants, there were a few people gossiping about me refusing the family's invitation, but the gossips then spread like a wildfire among all of the other servants, alone with a ton amount of curses and guesses, like being hit in the head by a donkey and some even guessed that I was refusing because either I was unambitious or afraid from joining the family after what I did, previously .
Discarding of these useless gossips of them, I still cupped my fist and bowed my head slightly at the Clerk, he just snorted at me, it seem that I had burned any bridges that could have been built between the two of us with my blatant refusal earlier .
Thinking this, I decided that it wasn't good to try and risk the interaction and it wasn't of any benefit to me, so I paid him no mind and start looking around me, the scented air was something intoxicating, but I then saw how big was the corridor we were in and felt even more excited to see what else was there, the floor under us with made of polished wood, unlike the rogue floor of the outer courtyard .
Seeing the expressions on the other servant's faces and noticing where they were looking, I finally understood why some of those guys were looking so expectant earlier as they looked at the inner gate .
Due to the Inner Courtyard being without obscuring walls for the most part, the guys around me were currently staring at the garden in front of us, no, it was more accurate to say that they were looking at the girls in the garden and each one of them suddenly pulled out what seemed to be a letters, a love letter that they had already prepared and sneakily they came close to the line separating the garden and the corridor and directly dropped it .
It seems that the clerk was aware of this, but didn't care about it much, the female servants began to swarm the place where those letters were dropped and some after reading theirs held it to their heart and some cut it in half, making those who sent them have an aching pain, so it was an opportunity that happened every now and then and those guys were already planning in making the best use of it .
I saw a girl who had a fair face and had her hair in a twin tail, looking at me eagerly as if she recognized me, but I wasn't able to recall who she was at all, so I just simply nodded at her and after a few more seconds in waiting in front of the small garden, the guards have arrived behind us and the Clerk once again asked us to follow him .
Some were having a delightful expressions on their faces and others were having paind ones, I couldn't help but find the scene a bit funny, we passed by a few rooms in unison, every once in a while, you would be smelling a different thing, sometimes it was the making of food, sometimes it would be the souring smell of herps being mixed together, then we finally reached in front of one of these rooms and stopped, that room had a heavy scent of incense .
The clerk then asked us to change our clothes to the ones inside that room, one after another entered and instead of changing, we just put on a robe on the clothes we already wore, it was a black robe, after we put the robe, we were asked to return it back to this exact room after the ceremony, or else severe punishment will indue, some of the guys gulped while others just nodded absent-mindedly .
I still hadn't seen anything that made the Inner courtyard of the Lu Family that special, even though the spacious corridor and the refreshing air were something I hadn't seen outside, I still didn't label them as being that unique, at least I still hadn't seen a considerable change between the outer courtyard and the inner one other than the existence of those female servants .
But that didn't matter to me much, so even after I put on the robe and continued to walk forward for some time, I still didn't see anything that was worth of noting, maybe a few status that seemed to be made of gold, the trees in the garden from before were quite nice as well, but they weren't having any wow factor to them .
But all that changed when we reached the courtyard where the ceremony would be held, the moment I took a step in the courtyard, I felt that my mind was suddenly clearer than ever, if the scent that I was smelling in the corridor was refreshing, then the scent I was smelling now was soul nurturing, I felt at peace and even the Blood Qi inside my body seemed to flare up for a second there then it returned to normal .
This courtyard could be said to be a heaven for those who practice Martial Arts, I saw that in the courtyard there were a huge amount of people present, I couldn't help but wonder whether were all these guys here to really pay respect to Deacon Lu, or were they just here due to that Lu Chiang's face, either way it shouldn't have anything to do with me .
The Hall at the end of my sight should be where the body of Deacon Lu was, I know since I saw people weeping beside it and most of the eyes were glued to it, as I was engrossed in noticing the scene around me, my eyes fell on a tree that for some reason, my heart and mind shuddered the second my eyes fell on it .
The weird part was the fact that I actually felt that it was staring at me back, for only a fraction of a second, that was what made my whole body shudder, but just as I wanted to understand what was going on, I hurriedly cupped my fist and bowed down after I heard the others say :
Greetings to the elders .
In my lack of focus, we actually had already arrived in front of the elders who were sitting in their respectful chairs on a stage that seemed to be built for them, the elders shared same facial features with one another, they all seemed to be on their 40s, two of them had white old hair and beards, the others were all of a younger age, the stage had exactly 14 chairs on it .
The first and second chairs were put forward than the rest, currently the two elders were sitting in the said chairs, but something was off about the air surrounding those two chairs, as if they weren't accustomed to be sitting there or something, the expressions on the other 11 people sitting right behind them varied greatly .
But not wanting to create a headache for myself, I only took one look at the whole scene and then went to stay in my position until, I was called together with the other servants to go and burn an incense stick for the deceased .
But just as I did so, I saw that the clerk gave us one last stern look and then skipped away, I couldn't help but follow him with the corner of my eyes while paying attention to the tree from before, it was a tree similar to an apricot tree, but it was much bigger in size, enough to leave half of the courtyard in its shade, it had blood red like flowers .
Looking at those flowers, I felt that my breath being taken away, so I couldn't help but shift my gaze away after I felt the alarms bells ringing in my mind, what helped me to do so was the fact that I felt someone's else stare suddenly fell at me, feeling that stare, I couldn't help but look at where it originated from, it came from the direction where the clerk Lu was heading .
I looked up to see who was staring at me and found that it was a young man who was staring at me while the clerk was whispering something in his ear, I saw him frowning, then I saw his frowning expression ease up and seeing that I was looking at him, he suddenly waved his hands at me and gave me a faint smile, then he resumed his frowning .
If not for the fact that Clerk Lu was whispering in his ears while he was looking in my direction, I might have suspected that he was smiling warmly like that at someone else, but turning around, I also didn't see a single person looking back at him, meaning that he was indeed smiling at me .
And just my luck that young man happened to be the only young man sitting on the same stage as the Elders, linking the dots, I would be stupid not to recognize that the guy looking at me with none other than the young master Lu Jian that I should have caught his attention .
But at least I was certain that the reason he was currently frowning didn't have anything to do with me, his frown was there before Clerk Lu told him about me and continued even after he was told about me, so I shouldn't have offended him, as for the reason to why he was frowning, I had no clue neither did I intended to ask about this .
But me not caring about finding out, didn't mean that I won't accidentally find out, after all there seemed to be rumors going around, that might be news and not a rumor, some of them could explain why was he frowning every time he looked at the entrance of that hall and back at the elders sitting in front of him .
The rumors I heard were quite shocking, slowly but surely, I was beginning to understand more and more that Young Master Lu Jian had every right to be upset, not only him but me as well .
Internal Strife, quite a big one as well, the rumors were talking about making Lu Chiang the next successor to the position of the family head over the legitimate successor, who was none other than young master Lu Jian, just hearing about this made my head buzz with questions, but from those words, I'm beginning to reach a shocking conclusion .
IT SEEM THAT THE EVIL TIGERS WERE PULLING SOME STRINGS HERE .