Before Zheng could say anything, a bright white light engulfed the whole room and the next second, Zheng was sitting there all alone, his eyes filled with tear and his heart heavy with emotion.
When Zheng was feeling low, Yang Yue knocked on the door and slowly walked in, upon seeing Zheng all alone with gloomy face, Yang Yue approached Zheng.
"What happened to you?"
He didn't answer her and when Yang Yue didn't get a reply, the odd behavior of his, made her worry.
"Where is the old man?" said Yang Yue, her voice sharp and cold. "Did you know him?"
"Yeah," His is head bend slightly toward the floor, still kneeling down and his hand touching the place his master sat a moment ago, replied Zheng, his voice so low that a person can barely hear. "He was old acquaintance of mine."
"What did he say?"
Zheng bend his head lower than before- maybe he was hiding his tear but after a brief moment, he replied in his normal voice. "He said we won't be meeting for a very long-long time."
Midst of their conversation, a loud call with familiar voice came from the door.
"ZHENG! … ZHENG!" a man shouted from the door. "look who I brought?"
When Zheng and Yang Yue turned toward the voice, they saw Li along with a group of women- each carrying a sword, spear and a whip. Among them, a woman with distinguished feature stood out from the rest.
"Li… where have you been?" asked Yang Yue.
"I was scared looking at that old man's face, so I went out to the market." Li admitted, despite there was crowd inside the room. "And look who I ran into, they were looking for you, Zheng."
"Why were you looking for me?" Zheng directly asked the group, his eyes wide and fixated on them as he stood up from the floor as if he was ready to throw a punch.
"Our apologies, we didn't come here to fight," one of the disciples replied, her voice soft and respectful. "Lately we have been hearing about this healing hall and today we came in as customer."
"I'm sorry." Zheng said in calm and apologetic voice. "I'm having a bad day so far, so I'm little bit on edge today."
"It's our mistake that we came in with our weapon," said the woman with distinguish feature. "But it is an order from our sect that these three women has to accompany me all the time, everywhere I go."
"Your Sect?" asked Li as he had hard time recognizing them. "I feel like I know you but I can't remember at all."
"We are from Glorious Flying Tiger Sect," said one of the disciples from the group. "Here, she is Elder Haiyan from our sect, we need your help."
"Elder Haiyan from glorious flying tiger sect…" Yang Yue's eyes was wide open when she heard that the woman with distinguish feature was Elder Haiyan. "I saw one of your matches in last tournament but it's an honor to meet you personally, madam. Ever since I saw your fight, I've been pushing myself to train hard."
"You are from Soaring Sea Sect, right?" said Elder Haiyan with a warm smile. "What's your name?"
"Yang Yue, it's called Yang Yue, Madam." She said, pride in her eyes. "I never believe someone like madam knows me."
"I was hoping we can face in last tournament." Said Elder Haiyan. "But it was unfortunate that we couldn't face each other. So, promise me that we will fight each other his tournament."
"It will be an honor to face you, madam."
"Excuse me," said Zheng as he was clueless about their conversation. "who is she again? And what's the tournament you are talking about?"
"Elder Haiyan is from glorious flying tiger sect." Li finally recognized them.
"Huh??? Glorious Flying Tiger Sect?" said Zheng.
"Glorious Flying Tiger Sect is rank first in Lone State and sixteenth in whole nation." Explained Yang Yue. "And Elder Haiyan is one of the pillars of Glorious Flying Tiger Sect and the one of the most respected women in whole nation."
"What's with this ranking."
"Every after two year, there's tournament held by National Cultivation Council and the tournament is divided into two stage- state level tournament and national level tournament." Said Yang Yue.
"State Level Tournament is sub divided into qualification and knockout matches. A disciple can participate in the tournament if their sect is registered under National Cultivation Council and each sect needs minimum of ten disciples in order to register under National Cultivation Council."
"Every sect who wants to participate in the tournament has to register two months prior to every tournament and next tournament will be held after six months." Yang Yue continued to explain.
"In qualification match, an individual gets three matches and they have to win two matches to advance to knockout round. The number of disciples that has advanced into knockout round determines the ranking of the sect and the further a disciple advances into the tournament the more point their sect will get."
"The sect with most point will be ranked first and will advanced to national level tournament and after a sect advanced to national level, every disciple of that sect can again participate in national level qualification even if they didn't get much success in state level tournament but in national level tournament the participant has to win four matches out of five to advance to knockout stage." Said Yang Yue.
"and there were eight sects in Lone State who participated in last tournament."
"What was our sect's ranking last tournament." Asked Zheng.
"In last tournament, glorious flying tiger sect was ranked first with three disciples fighting in two semi-final and Elder Haiyan was one of those three." Said Yang Yue. "Heavenly Sword Sect ranked second with their Elder Sun being runner up and having most disciple advancing into knockout round."
"And what about our sect?" Zheng said curiously.
"Unfortunately, our sect was ranked seven out of eight, with senior brother Feng and senior brother Qian reaching third round in knockout rough and me getting knocked out in second round." Said Yang Yue with her eye filled with determination.
"We are lucky that we weren't ranked last… Haha." Zheng said jokingly.
"It's same as ranking last because the sect who ranked eight was newly founded and barely even had enough disciple." Said Yang Yue.
"Ahem… Can we focus treating me." Said Elder Haiyan with domineering voice.
"Oh... yes." Said Zheng. "How can I help you."
"Elder Haiyan has been feeling a dull but constant pain all over her body." Said one of woman accompanying elder Haiyan.
"Since when did you start feeling the pain." Asked Zheng.
"Since the tournament is coming up, I've been cultivating and practicing more. Since then, I've been feeling this pain all over my body." Said Elder Haiyan.
Zheng approached Elder Haiyan, examined her whole body and realized the cause of her pain.
"it's not that you've been exerting a lot or practicing more but your Qi is over flowing your meridian." Said Zheng. "That is what have been causing you the pain and it is interfering with your cultivation."
"Interfering with my cultivation?"
"I can feel a foreign Qi resident in your body, the amount of Qi flowing through your meridian is normal but the Qi resident has slightly shrunken your meridian thus your Qi has been over flowing through your meridian," said Zheng. "If your meridian wasn't shrunken, the amount of Qi I can feel in body is more than enough for to ascend into next stage of cultivation."
"So, can you treat me?"
"I can but..."
"But?"
"But the treatment is full body massage with meridian-nourishing oil."
Right after Zheng finished speaking, the three women who was acting as bodyguard for Elder Haiyan was fumed with rage and drew their weapon on Zheng and suddenly he found himself at the mercy of the glorious flying tiger sect.