After Yang Qing's statent, all the youths kept staring at each other almost as if they were imploring one another.
"You do it!"
"No, you do it!"
"I don't want to do it. You seem braver!"
"I am a coward just like you. How could I be the one to do it? You do it, your legs are not even shaking that bad, surely you can do it?"
"My legs aren't shaking because I'm frozen solid. I've lost control of every part of my body.."
"Why are your eyes moving? I can see you blinking. Why do your pupils look funny almost like a wormhole? You bastard, are you trying to mind control ?!"
"Soone, please step up. Junior brother Kai has lost his mind again. Please step up before he does sothing crazy and then we will all be in trouble.."
Yang Qing couldn't tell what was running in their minds, but he could sense the agitation flowing through them. He was almost about to say forget about it, when four people weakly raised their hands halfway, doubt and trepidation evident in their body language. It almost looked like they would have pulled them down had Yang Qing not been looking at them as they raised them.
"Thank you all for your bravery.." Yang Qing said with a gratified smile as Xu Yuan, and i Xiling smiled along with him in a bid to encourage and comfort the four who had stepped up.
Of the four who had stepped up, were three boys and one girl. It ca as no surprise to Yang Qing on one of the boys who had stepped up. He was the oldest of the group and the records showed he was just about the sa age as Yang Qing, being a year younger. He was twenty years old and the oldest of the group and was also one of the twenty-three human cauldrons.
Closer to him in age was the young girl who was nineteen years old, and a pill slave, while the remaining two boys, both were sixteen years old, one a pill slave and the other a human cauldron.
The smiles from Yang Qing, Xu Yuan, and i Xiling and the comforting back pats and looks from the other children, worked well enough to embolden the four of them as they stepped out from the crowd. They could still be seen shaking, but they seed less rattled than they had been a few seconds earlier.
"Once again thank you for stepping up, and I will try to keep this as simple and short as I can for you. As the oldest, I would like to start with you. I hope it's okay with you?" Yang Qing said as he addressed the oldest of the group.
"Yyyyes, iTtTt ISss.." the oldest youth clumsily said as he lowered his head slightly before finally gathering the courage to look up.
"What's your na?" asked Yang Qing infusing more soul-soothing qi into his words to help settle the nerves.
The qi seed to work as the youth felt like the vine of fear and anxiety that had been constricting him, leaving him with no room to breathe, think, let alone talk, suddenly ease up, giving him enough relief to string a few words together without feeling like he was about to vomit his heart out of his chest.
"My na is Xie Rong..." Xie Rong suddenly paused with a sense of nervousness which Yang Qing easily guessed as to the reason why.
"My na is Yang Qing, you can just address as Judge Yang Qing.."
The youth nodded, relief clearly showing on his face.
"Okay, Xie Rong, you're doing good. Now for the next question, do you rember where you are from?"
"I do.." answered Xie Rong, a mixture of lancholy, hope, and regret flashing in his eyes as he did so.
"Where are you from?"
"I am ... I was from a little village, called the Glitter Clam Village in Crystal Vale Kingdom.."
Xie Rong tried to reign in his flood of emotions before he answered. While he wasn't completely successful at it, it was not a complete failure either, as he managed to answer with so clarity, though his voice and body showed he was slightly agitated as he did so.
"I am not sure that village remains though, or its people.." Xie Rong said with a sad smile that openly showed his guess on the matter.
Yang Qing did well to hide the touch of sadness and sympathy in his eyes. Xie Rong was right on the mark. His village had long been looted and destroyed by bandits. At least that was what it was made to look like.
"When we found you, you were at one of the spiritual herb farms in Blacktear County. How did you end up there?"
Xie Rong hesitated, almost as if he had an internal struggle like he did not want to revisit those mories. After a short but fierce struggle, his willpower eventually won.
"I was eleven. Life in the village was always slow. Other than harvesting clams and cleaning them, nothing much ever happened there. Back then all I had in my head was what a great cultivator I would be if I just had the chance.
We had a few cultivators who were in the qi refinent stage, but most were in the body refinent realm. After an entire day of harvesting clams, my friends and I would go to the nearby woods and pretend we were powerful cultivators sailing the skies with nothing but our swords like all the legends of all the stories we hear about.
Slowly those daydreaming monts changed into frustration. Sothing that used to give joy now produced anger and resentnt. I resented the Glowing Clam Village, as I felt it was stealing my future away every second I was there and it wasn't long before it finally reached its breaking point and exploded..."
Xie Rong paused as he rubbed his eyes trying to hide and control the tears that were threatening to trickle down.
"I don't even rember what the argunt was about back then.. We had so many argunts, my petulant anger being the creator and driving force all the ti. I argued with my parents and it got heated and.....
I struck my father.."
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