Chapter 192 — The Seat at Artificer Hall

CHAPTER 192

The Seat at Artificer Hall

The high-backed chair at the head of the reception dais stood empty.

Shi Feng stopped two paces inside the threshold. Six inner-court elders waited along the pillars, with Nascent Soul Elder Tian Luo standing nearest the steps, a closed register beneath one hand.

Gongsun Ce adjusted the puppet case under his arm. Sima Lan checked the outer-court token at her waist, then lowered her hand. Both had expected the journey to end with a formal greeting.

He Zhen entered behind them and closed his brush case.

Li Changyuan didn't stop with the recruits.

The old man crossed the polished floor in his patched brown robe. His shabby bundle bumped against his leg, carrying cracked furnace lids, bent pins, and the same broken puppet joints he'd bought in Qingyun City.

Shi Feng watched him pass the first pillar.

Then the second.

The elders turned toward him, but nobody challenged the old man's place in the hall. He Zhen looked down at the papers he already knew by heart.

Gongsun Ce shifted the puppet case to his other arm. The movement brought him closer to Shi Feng.

“That's the central dais,” Gongsun Ce said quietly.

“I can see it,” Shi Feng replied.

Li Changyuan climbed the three stone steps.

A bent wooden wheel slipped from a fold of his bundle. He caught it, placed it on the side table, and settled the shabby bundle beside it. Only then did he turn toward the high-backed chair.

Shi Feng remembered the market well. The old man had asked him to inspect an ordinary crack. Later, he'd complained about cold buns and chosen the least damaged bench on He Zhen's patched boat.

His cultivation had remained unreadable through every conversation.

Now he sat down squarely in the sect master's chair.

Gongsun Ce's breath caught. Sima Lan went completely still.

Along both sides of the hall, Tian Luo, He Zhen, and the other five inner-court elders placed their fists together and bowed.

“Sect Master!” Tian Luo and He Zhen greeted him together.

Li Changyuan glanced at the wooden case holding Shi Feng's broken sword.

“Don't call cheap steel humility on my mountain,” Li Changyuan said.