Three days passed.
Lu Chenyang stayed unconscious for most of that ti while his body worked on repairing the spiritual damage that had been done to it. The healing formations had stabilized his condition, but recovery was going to be a slow process no matter what they did. Xiao Wen visited twice every day; to sit beside the pod and update his master on sect affairs even though Elder Lu couldn't hear a word of it.
On the morning of the fourth day, sothing changed at the main gate.
The Slumbering Scholars Sect kept a permanent guard presence at their entrance which was a practical necessity given their location and the value of the knowledge they held. Two Dream Architect disciples were on watch that morning, both experienced enough to handle situations but young enough that gate duty was still a part of their rotation.
Gate duty at the Slumbering Scholars Sect was boring and most visitors announced themselves in advance through official channels. Unexpected guests were rare, hostile ones were rarer, because the cultivation world respected the kind of neutrality that knowledge sects worked hard to maintain.
So, when a figure descended from the sky about a hundred ters from the gate, both guards straightened.
The figure landed softly and barely disturbed the dust at all.
From that distance, details were hard to make out but the guards could tell it was a young man, probably sowhere in his late teens or early twenties.
As he drew closer, they could see him more clearly.
He was wearing simple traveling robes in muted colors with nothing ostentatious about them, and no sect symbols anywhere on them. His hair was an unusual copper-brown shade that you didn't see often in these parts, his eyes were pale blue that was almost grey, and his face was pleasant but nothing noteworthy.
But his spiritual pressure was impossible to ignore.
Both guards felt it the mont he was close enough.
The undeniable weight of an Oneiric Sovereign's cultivation that was being controlled to avoid causing discomfort to cultivators weaker than him. The young man reached the gate and stopped at a respectful distance to wait to be addressed rather than demand entry, which was itself a notable choice.
One of the guards stepped forward and offered a polite bow, "greetings senior, welco to the Slumbering Scholars Sect, can I ask your na and your purpose here today?"
"My na is Hou Hongyun," the young man returned the bow, "I'm here to see Elder Lu Chenyang."
Both guards froze.
Hou.
The na that Elder Lu had forced out with what little strength he had left before losing consciousness, the person who it was rumoured had attacked him badly enough to almost destroy his spiritual foundation. And now here he was standing at their gate, requesting entry like he had every right to be there, as if he was casually stopping by to finish what he had started.
The guard who had spoken forced his expression to stay neutral and polite because years of training had given him the ability to do that even when his mind was racing, "Hou Hongyun, of course, Elder Lu is recovering from a recent expedition and I'm not certain if he's receiving visitors at the mont."
Keep him talking, stall for ti, don't let him realize they knew what he had done.
The guard's companion quietly activated a talisman hidden in his sleeve. The spiritual signal would reach the sect's elders within seconds and alert them to a situation that needed attention from soone with authority.
Hou Hongyun nodded and seed to accept the explanation without any suspicion, "I understand if he's not available, I can wait, the matter between us isn't urgent, but I did want to follow up on our last eting."
The guard's expression held but internally there was a surge of real anger at that.
The arrogance of coming here to the man's own sect to follow up on their last eting was truly sothing else.
"Of course," the guard forced a smile, "if you'd like to wait in our guest pavilion, I'm sure soone will…"
A powerful spiritual pressure ca down from above and cut the conversation off.
A woman appeared in the air above the gate, standing on nothing at all with black robes that marked her as a sect elder, and hair that was pure white despite her relatively youthful face.
Elder i Yunxiao had reached Oneiric Sovereign cultivation five hundred years ago which made her one of the sect's more senior mbers. She specialized in defensive dream techniques and headed the security division. If the sect needed soone to respond to a potential threat, she was the right person for it.
She descended to ground level and ignored the guards who bowed to her.
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Her attention was fixed on the young man standing at the gate.
"Hou Hongyun," she said and the coldness in her voice was clear, "what business do you have with Elder Lu Chenyang?"
Hou offered her a respectful bow that was noticeably deeper than the one he had given the guards, "honored Elder, the matter between Elder Lu and myself is private, but I can assure you my intentions are…"
"Private?" a new voice cut in.
Xiao Wen ca striding toward the gate with fury written all over his face.
He must have been alerted the mont the ergency talisman activated and dropped whatever he was doing to get here as fast as possible. His spiritual pressure was flaring hard as he walked despite the presence of two Oneiric Sovereigns in the area.
"You said you were here to finish what you started," Xiao Wen said and each word ca out dripping with contempt.
Hou Hongyun looked confused and glanced between Xiao Wen and Elder i, clearly trying to work out where all this hostility had co from, but seeing what Xiao Wen had said was technically accurate, he nodded.
"You're correct."
Xiao Wen's face went red, "how dare you, coming here to our sect thinking we wouldn't protect one of our own, that we'd let you walk in and…"
The confusion on Hou’s face deepened.
"There's been a misunderstanding," he said and raised both hands in a harmless gesture, "Elder Lu and I are friends, what happened in the Realm…"
But Xiao Wen was already channeling dream qi with silver energy spiraling around both his hands as he prepared to attack. The confidence of being on his ho territory with sect elders behind him had apparently overridden any rational thinking about the cultivation gap between himself and the person he was about to throw himself at.
Hou's eyes narrowed slightly at that, and his stance shifted, spiritual pressure started gathering around him as he prepared to defend himself against whatever was coming.
And then a palm of solidified dream qi appeared out of nowhere.
The construct was fifteen feet across and detailed enough that individual fingerprints were visible on its surface. It moved with speed and hit Xiao Wen squarely in the back before anyone in the area had ti to react to it.
The impact launched Xiao Wen forward. He tumbled through the air with blood spraying from his mouth and crashed into the ground a full thirty feet away, and his dream qi technique just disappeared like it had never been there.
Everyone turned to look for where the palm had co from.
Lu Chenyang was standing about fifty feet from the gate with one hand still raised from the technique he had just launched.
The old man looked terrible, his face pale and drawn with exhaustion, his robes hanging loosely and his breathing heavy from the effort of what he had just done, but his eyes were clear and focused for the first ti in four days.
"You disrespectful fool," Lu Chenyang said, and his voice was hoarse, "attacking a senior cultivator who ca in peace, refusing to listen to any explanation, acting like a hot-headed idiot who does nothing but bring sha to everything I've tried to teach you."
Xiao Wen pushed himself up to his knees and clutched his chest where the palm had connected. There were tears streaming down his face, and whether they were from pain or shock or sha wasn't clear.
"Master, I thought…"
"You don't think, and that has always been the problem," Lu Chenyang said, cutting him off, "you react, there is a significant difference between those two things."
The old man reached his disciple and looked down at him with an expression that held both disappointnt and concern in it. Then he sighed and gestured toward Hou Hongyun.
"Apologize, kowtow and beg forgiveness for your disrespect."
Xiao Wen's eyes went wide, "Master, but he…"
"Now," Lu Chenyang said, his tone left no room for argunt.
Xiao Wen looked at his master's face and found nothing there that suggested this was negotiable. So, slowly and painfully, he turned toward Hou Hongyun and lowered himself into a full kowtow.
"This junior apologizes for his disrespect," Xiao Wen said, his voice was breaking as he said it, "I acted without understanding the situation. I beg senior Hou's forgiveness for this offense."
Hou Hongyun looked at the young man kneeling on the ground in front of him.
Xiao Wen had been trying to protect his master. The loyalty behind that was admirable, even if everything about how he had gone about it had been terrible, forcing him to kowtow felt like more than was necessary.
"You don't need to…" Hou started to say.
"He does," Lu Chenyang said cutting him off, "actions have consequences. He needs to understand the severity of what he nearly did today, if you hadn't held back and if I hadn't intervened, he could have been injured or killed for attacking a superior cultivator. That is a lesson he needs to learn if he wants to survive to old age."
Xiao Wen perford two more kowtows, and his forehead hit the stone each ti with an audible impact. When he looked up, his face was streaked with tears, and his forehead was already bruised.
"I understand, Master," he said quietly, "this disciple accepts responsibility for his foolishness."
Lu Chenyang's expression softened a little and he reached down to help Xiao Wen back to his feet.
"Go get that forehead and your other injuries looked at," Lu Chenyang said, wiping the tears and dirt off his disciple's face, "and think carefully about everything that happened here today, loyalty to one's master is comndable, but charging blindly into situations you don't understand helps nobody."
Xiao Wen nodded without saying anything and walked away with his shoulders slumped. The other disciples who had gathered to watch the confrontation dispersed after that, none of them wanted to be the next person to draw Lu Chenyang's attention.
Elder i Yunxiao stayed and studied Hou Hongyun more carefully now with a different assessnt in her eyes than she had started with.
"Elder Lu," she said, "if you are vouching for this young man, then I will trust your judgnt, but perhaps you should explain to the rest of the sect leadership what happened, because the rumors that have been circulating have been concerning."
"I will," Lu Chenyang promised her, "but first, I would like to speak with him privately, we have matters to discuss."
Elder i considered that for a mont and then nodded, "very well. I'll inform the Sect Leader that the situation is resolved, but Elder Lu, you should be resting right now, your injuries…"
"I know my own condition," Lu Chenyang said, "I'll rest soon. I promise."
Elder i cast one more long assessing look at Hou Hongyun before she left.
The two guards at the gate had remained silent throughout it all, uncertain whether they were even supposed to still be standing there.
Lu Chenyang waved them off, "return to your posts, everything is fine here."
They bowed and retreated to their positions without any argunt.
Neither of them had any interest in being pulled into the business of senior cultivators.
And then it was just Lu Chenyang and Hou Hongyun standing alone near the gate. The old man's stern expression faded away and was replaced by a smile. Despite how pale and exhausted he looked, that smile lit up his face making him look years younger.
"Old friend," he said, "it's good to see you in person."
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